New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-07-31

ing dosun its ancient name and shame.
Sun and air are great renovators
Ia YEW YORK isn't what it used to be.
IA Everybody is agreed that the town
/ "a has changed good deal since Nina
Harrington wore tights, but there are
diverse shades of opinion as to where the
change lies. On the one hand we have that
school of thought which holds that the city has
become kennel, housing nothing but gay dogs,
whereas in the old days (the school maintains)
the town was possessed of fearful inno-
cence," so that girls walked with downcast
eyes and men with upcast eyes and everybody
good and happy
But there always heretics-people who
will cling to disillusioning things in prefer
ence to things gaining their glory from the en-
HANGED pathos of past times. And these here
tics will tell you that there is no district in
New York to-day that can compare in sin and
general cussedness to the old Five Points dis
trict of New York. They will tell you that the
embattled Five Points fired shots heard round
the world of crime, and they will add that all
in all New York is cleaner and better to-day
-morally-than any time in its history.
Mrs. Gertrude Anterior hasn't said Just that.
but she has drawn picture of the Five Points
which leaves no doubt that she thinks the Man
haitian of Walt Whitman's younger days wasn't
devoid of crime, and there are plenty of old
records and prints to bear out the picture she
presents in her photoplay, Don't Neglect Your
Wife" In her story Mrs. Atherton shows the
degradation of man who, falling in love with
married woman, bows to convention and then
to the bow-wows of the Five Points until cir
cumstances intervene to rescue him.
One of the best pictures of the Five Points
was drawn by young English novelist named
Charles Dickens, when he came here on his
first and celebrated visit in the days when
Broadway was pasture and Forty-second
Street was but lane, and when Edgar Allan
Poe was getting ready to write "The Raven
and other portentous events We're happening.
Mr.. Dickens, after his visit, wrote some Gamer
lean Notes" and novel called Martin Chuzzle-
wit" which were scarcely flattering to Amer
lea, and which caused him to be excoriated
here for good many years.
People didn't pay much attention to the fact
that Mr.. Dickens had said just as many un-
fattering things about some conditions in
Merrie England
To-day it is generally recognized even BY
Americans that there was probably a good
basis of truth in what the author of "David
Copperfieid" recorded about the States at that
time, and certainly the description of 'The
Five Points" given in the american Notes"
has the eloquent ring of truth.
Let us go on again" he wrote, viewing the
city, "and plunge into the Five Points. But
It is important, first, that we take as our es-
cort two heads of the police whom you would
know for sharp and we'll trained officers if
You met them in the great desert. These two
might have been born in Bow Street, thew
know it SO WE'LL
This is the place; these narrow ways d.
verging to the right and left and reeking
everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives
as are led here bear the same fruit here as
elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at
the doors have counterparts at home and all
tnp VIDE world over Debauchery has made
the very house prematurely old. See how the
rotten beams are tumbling down; see how the
broken windows seem to scow dimly. like ewes
that have been hit in drunken trays. MANY of
these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder
why their masters walk upright in lieu of
going ON all fours and why they talk instead
OF gfuntlng!
30 far now every house is low tavern.
ana on the barroom walls are colored prints of
Washington and Queen Victoria and the Ameri-
can Eagle. Among the pigeonholes that hold
the bottles are pieces of plate glass and colored
paper. There is some sort of taste for decora
ton even here. And the seamen FREQUENT
rEese haunts there are maritime pictures bv
the dozen of partings between sailors and THAR
lady loves, portraits of William of the Ballad
and his hlack-eyed Susan, Of Will Watch the
bold smuggler of Paul Jones the pirate. and
the like, on which the eyes of Queen Victoria
and of Washington to boot rest in as STRANGE
surroundings as are most of the scenes that
are enacted IN their wondering presence
What place is this to which the soualid