Evening star., 1902-08-09

In hand occasionally saying a kind word to
| each other. Once the crowd is satisfied
that the boy really has defied nature by re-
iuslng to come up a second or even a first
time, and that he surely is drowned there
IS struggle in every breast between tha
| desire to stay and watch the absorbing oper-
ation OF graphing for the body and the
equally great desire to carry the news to
the relatives of the victim
| Mlthln few seconds the latter emotion
wins enough persons to insure a regulation
tenement house procession OF bearers of
eVll udlngs. There is a race from the Dier
to be the leader. As soon as the street IS
reacneG me foremost set up their cry, Pat
sey Mulligan is drownded! Down by the "a
| motherr' ~
The street takes it up WITH a thousand
| tongues The news roars ahead of the
| eager bearers Of II. Long before they reach
the block Of tenement houses where the
parents live the mother and father fright
| ened vaguely by the cries that link their
poy s name with something, are on the
! street with a new line of fear set I'm the
| faces already so careworn.
Ihere Is no breaking OF news on the
street" The Street is bawIinp jt 81
| them in a dozen dialects. on they SET
hurrying as fast as their trembling limbs
will carry them, toward the river and he
mind and beside and in front of them presses
the eager street" shouting and yelling the
news. Half way down the block their other
| children come running toward them crv-
ing aloud in a blending of grief and fear.
Mhnout stopping, the parents take them by
the hands and hurry on, dumb tragic fig
ures leading tawdry procession
III the boy has been found when they ar
rive at the pier and there are no police or
other officlals there the chances are that
they will see his body floating in the water
face down, tied to the pier with a rome
For tenement house folk still hold the
haunting conviction that 1t is Illegal to
touch a BODY TIL the coroner sees it. Stand
Ing on the string piece, with staring crowd
around them, the parents then will wait
humbly and submissvely for the polica or
| the coroner. When the police arrive and
eager ones point them out they answer
questions quietly. If the woman sobs a
little when replying the chances are that
sne will apologize to the policeman for H.
Even after their child has been laid on
the pier they may not have the BODY IL
generally is carried first to the station
house, whittier the parents follow il on
foot. There, again, they answer questions
quietly, uncomplainingly. When at last
they get their dead it is brought to the
house as the center Of a vast coucourse a
concourse of running, pushing struggling,
clamorous people that fill the street from
stoop line to stoop line, so that often the
body must be lifted high over their heads
to be brought into the dwelling
And before they have composed HIS hands
and begun to realize their loss the great
tenement house world is a-roar outside with
something else. On the roofs the banios
and the accordions are sending out the
strains Of the latest comic song; the voices
Of the children that the boy played with
only a few hours ago float into his little
room, gay with London Bridge Is Tum-
bling Down." two of his best chums are
lgn,ing on the sidewalk just below, cheered
on by happy beholders.
AS the night goes on the room becomes
choking hot. From all directions come the
sounds Of heavy, troubled slumber. The
fire escapes in the rear tenement opposite,
mounting up and up from the gloom of a
mephitic rear yard to the roof seven stories
above. are filled with men and women and
children-a very chasm of sleep. The
dreamers mutter and groan and toss Even
in their temporary oblivion they are tor
tured by life; the hand of the heat presses
heavily on them, the fetid air poisons their
lungs, the iron girders of their resting
places goad them. And they must awaken
men and women and little children
awaken again in the morning for another
day of heat and pain.
lone of them sleeps so well or so peace
fully as the boy. WALTER SLOANE.