The New York herald., 1922-10-15

taking one shrewd, amused, infuriating,
perspicacious look at him, would have
analyzed him ON the spot. They
would have noted all these things and
published in some obscure journal an
article written to prove that Mr.. Dickens
was suffering from an exhibition complex.
This would have maddened him. He
would have dictated sixteen furious let
ters demanding retraction, growing red
der in the face as he paced the floor, be-
cause he would have known that it was
all quite true"
LNNTER Main Street: exit Sinister
IL Street. With the highly significant
thoroughfare, blatant with sound and
glaring with light, conspicuous in the
scene of present day fiction, passing is
the furtive street which played so i'm
portant part in the fiction of yesterday
Sinister Street. with it's squalor, its dark
ling aspect and its suggestion of ugly
mystery in the back wash of life, in the
past exercised peculiar sway over the
imagination of the novelist Dickens, for
the course of his daily walks, and if he
had been unable to find it would GER
tainly have invented it. Take Sinister
Street from Dickens's books and what re-
mains is hardly Dickens at all; for Sim
lister Street is simply another name for
the Field Lane of Fagin's den, Tom-all
Alone's, Bleeding Heart Yard and score
,,,1sl 1rl. 81 ,ot,, ollo
TWENTY years or so ago the American
L novelist was assiduously cultivating
Sinister Street. He called it seeking local
color. In New York Norman Duncan was
studying the Syrian quarter in Washing
ton street; Edward w. Townsend was
delving into Mott and Doyers streets for
his tales of Chinese life and turning to
the old Mulberry Bend for pictures of
Little Italy: Abraham Cahan and Rudolph
Block and James Oppenheim were draw
ing upon the sour smelling streets of the
swarming Ghetto for fiction; Stephen
French Whitman was finding and describ-
ing in "Predestined" French quarter in
the West Twenties just as years before Fl.
c. Bunner had found French quarter
to the south of Washington Square. Nor
was it matter of New York alone. When
Frank Norris wrote his much quoted
words to the effect that there were but
three novel cities in the United States,
and that they were New York, New Or
leans and San Francisco, the San Fran
cisco he had in mind was the city of the
Barbary Coast and the underground
Chinatown.
T n fact as in fiction the Sinister Streets
of the world seem to be passing
Squalor and misery remain but the color,
the picturesque aspect, is gone. The New
Yorker no more boasts the evil glory of
the Five Points or Hell's Kitchen Lon
don. What has become of the Gunnison
Street of Mr.. Kipling's 1.-The Record of
Badalia Herodsfoot," or the mean streets
of Arthur Morrisons stories, or the Upper
Swandam Lane of Conan Doyle's "The
Man With the Twisted Lip? In the last
few years Mr.. Thomas Burke has been
picturing a lurid London Chinatown in
such books as "Limehouse Nights" but
to visit Limehouse Causeway and Penny
fields by day is to take away the impress
sion that Mr.. Burke has drawn largely
upon his imagination. That also holds
for Sax Rohmers Tales of Chinatown"
which comes to mind as the only Sinister
Street book of the present autumn Ii is
perhaps very good thing that the Sinis-
ter Street of fact is only a memory In