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Show TAN BARK. By Rev. Eliot White, A. M. In a ramshackle, Nre trap tenement or New York's East Side I visited a llttlo boy ill with typhoid. Grouping through the halls dark and grimy as coal-pockets, I passed a sinister door where "policy" gaming was reported to riouHsh. Lurking jr tho pennies or the poor at their - ry thresholds, like a tarantula under green rrult stinging the rirst hand thrust into its den. I round tho child upstairs crimson as a peony with the rever, but uncomplaining uncomplain-ing except to speak or its throbbing headache. Ho had pinned to the sora above his head somo celluloid buttons that ho wore when well, bearing trivial mottoes that here somehow took on a pathetic dignity. Outside, the rattle or wagonB ovor the broken pavement, and the raucous atreet-crles, made the patient wince as though cut, But ah, theao wcro more like balm compared com-pared to tho sudden lnrerno or clamor that now burst rorth Tor his torturol A woman's strident voice rrom tho stairs near tho door vented such prorane scurrility on somo ono who hadmockod her, Tho very glass In tho crippled transom seemed to chatter, and tho sick boy stared with tho amazement or tho drowning. Hastening out I conrrontod a tipsy harridan harri-dan with dishonored gray locks straggling strag-gling over her race, who clashed a beer-can against tho bannisters, Like somo horrible monadic accompaniment accompani-ment or cymbals to the witch-chant or her shrill blasphemy. My appeals to her to have pity on the sufTcrlng boy but added ruel to tho flamo or her wrath, as I might have rorcseen. Were you thinking that tho Russian revolutionists rev-olutionists have causo to bo rebels against social conditions and those who prop them, but Americans havo no causo? Would your resentment at tho needless woo or such a sick child, and or ten thousand others like him, havo been appeased simply by his going to tho liavon or a hospital tho noxt day? Or would you havo relt It shamo to tako tho contrast as a matter or course, when in tho elegant residence-district uptown you round tan-bark spread thick over tho street, And you know that this meant that someone some-one another child perhaps was ill in ono or theso houses, and must have the vory pavemont murned Tor his comrort? In Imagination you could seo tho quiet, skllirul nurses ministering to overy whispered wish, and losing no oppo-tunlty oppo-tunlty to roduco tho rcvor and rortiry tho cherished body with dollcato and costly nourishment. "You do not grudo ono bonont, or device Tor case and hoallng, to the child or wealth, but you mightily vowod you would die on somo Invisible barricade orVoyolt, Sooner than accopt tho smug plea that social Inequalities such as involved what you saw the tonomont child on-duro, on-duro, aro grounded in tho constitution or God's world. As I thought again and again or tho reddish-brown, pungont smolllng quilt laid ovor tho rough granite bod or the streot, and with such consideration Tor sensitive norvos, 3 round it assuming tho aspect or a symbol sym-bol suggostlng all tho oxponslve and clever contrivances that cushion tho impact or distress on refined ears, And hush tho rasp or din and anguish T5E r-p ! ; 1 H RYAN & LEE, Next Wednesday at the Empress H that cries rrom a hundred city slums Tor no more oxorbltant boon than Justice. Yet cvon now llko a now Herakles or Iphlgcnla, a man or woman horo and there, rjsos rrom tho couch or social in-Crying, in-Crying, "I. will hoar and sec tho truth!" and to the chagrin or companions to whom such quixotic venture sooms sheer treason, Ho girds himself to twolvo modern labors for his. kin who had boon boyond his pale, and she to a sacrifice or sorvlco, undotorred by the kniro or ridlculo, as dauntfessly as hor Orook sister long ago. |