The Washington herald., 1919-09-09
NEW YORK CITY
Day-By-Day
By O. o. McINTYRE

New York. Sept. s.-The new
preyins power Of drugs is sweep
Ing over the city-drugs which
in their insidious destructSyensss
make alcohol seem harmless-ac-
cordfng to DR.. Copeland. New York's
health commissioner. He declares
that only per cent of New York's
drug victims have registered and
that the East Side doctors are reap
ing huge fortunes.
Since prohibition, DIR. Copeland
says, more dope doctors are in the
city than ever before. Quantities
OF stun are being smuggled across
the border from Canada. He tells
of one socially prominent and rich
New York woman who has tust
been made the victim of the prof.
teering drug peddlers. She paid
$1,000 for one-eighth of an ounce
of morphine.
Two druggists have been arrest
ed. Their trade was almost totally
confined to drugs and their sales
ran into thousands day. There is
strange wireless system among
the world of drug users. II a doc
tor gives one dope within u day he
is bosieged by the great gray army.
Around Columbus Circle and
Times Square at night the increas-
ing number of furtlve-<yed, slippery
shadows, shrinking from the reful-
gent glare of the White Way, Is
strikingly noticeable. The gray
shadows seem to regard them
selves as social outcasts and they
dart from doorway to doorway-al-
hnnfnp for oh 80
money.
Money is the golden key that
opens the door to their strange
world OF fantastic dreams and only
with money is the drug addict well
come to those lairs where they may
buy magic carpets. to transport
them from the hells OF themselves
to the heavens of xanadu.
Only about 20 per cent of the ad-
diets really want to be cured. A
careful analysis of the occupationai
grouping drawn from 2,776 Of the
cases registered in Nef York is int
teresting. There were more drivers
of automobiles. street cars and
wagons than any other class. In
the entire list was one newspaper
reporter.
The purchase OF a new hat Is an
epochal event in the life OF an East
Side girl. Its worriiS and anguish
are only eclipsed wh,a she buys
her trousseau. Millinery Row is on
Clinton street and extends from
Houston to Grand street. The mil
linery shops here are as thick as
berries on bush.
There are as many as sixteen
stores on a block and SO close to
each other that it seems like a
continuous show window. The
saleswomen are of a very shrewd
and talky type. They fiatter the
looks OF the customer. At first
they charge about three times the
price of the hat and finally come
down to what it is worth and the
buyer goes home bubbling with Joy
over the rare bargain.
Every evening the East Side girl.
her breast throbbing with untitled
wishes in hats and dresses and her
eyes glowing with an unrequited
desire for spangles and gauds,
promenades with the throngs up and
down Millinery Row, indulging in
an orgy of window shopping.
Charley Lee is a special watch
man in the great entrance Of the
New York Tribune building. His
charity is of the most unusual sort
in the city. He gives about Is
cents a night to various hoboes,
honestly unemployed, and to others
who either lost their car fare or
didn't have any.
Charley has been on the job in
his gray uniform for twenty-five
years. About fifteen years ago a little
girl came out of the storm into the
marble entrance and stood close TO
the hot air register. She staid on
and after midnight Charley learned
that she needed 5 cents for car fare.
He gave it to her.
sob sister IN passing saw him
passing out the money and gave him
six pennies to reimburse him. Then
whenever she passed she gave him
all her spare pennies. Others saw.
asked why. and gave. Men who were
broke and hungry came to rely on
Charley's pennies and the fame Of the
pennies spread through the hungry
world. Charley only accepts pennies
from working people.