Show 1 1 j o c ABOUT LITTLE ITALY I MULBERRY BEND AS SEEN BY DAYLIGHT DAY-LIGHT AND GASLIGHT I How the Lowest Italians Manage to Eke Out n Microscopic Livelihood Places Where the Stiletto la Often Used Filth and Squalor on Every Hand ISpecial Correspondence NEW YORK July 6 Mulberry Bend or Little Italy as it is oftentimes called is not a pleasant neighborhood neighbor-hood by day The street swing in 1 dirty I curve southwest from Park row change at 1 every foot from its original direction and finally Inn parallel with Broadway directly i toward the north Tenement houses of all st Ice I and sizes and all eekiug with filth wall I it in upon both sides six storied dumb jells alive with vermin both human and i insect three story man traps ready to fall I and crush their numberless inmates ancient II one storied stables that have been converted into cheap stores on the ground floor and hideous dives in the cellar A swarming i population Swarthy low browed Italians I whose coats mil trousers always bulge out over where a knife or revolver i usually carried car-ried black eyed buxom full breasted women who sit on doorsteps and curbstones unconcernedly nursing their babes and earning earn-ing a microscopic livelihood by retailing stale bread at two and tlnee cents a loaf jew peddlers i ped-dlers icions and vociferous who sell spoiled fish tainted meats and decaying vegetables from rickety wagons drawn by skeleton horses multitudes of children that seem to priig up from the ground without warning and diapx > ar in the same way as suddenly drunkards thieves and lost women of every nationality and here and there blue coated policemen who with club firmly grasptd and revolver ever ready for use await tho stiletto or tho slung shot that is invariiibr bound to come The sunlight and fresh 1 have a hard job in reaching the pavements The high walls and narrow thoroughfate keep enough darkness in custody to last through the day Dead animals and garbage pave the street and filth frescoes the waiU Every door window and alleyway is a huue sewer from which pour invisible rivers of foul gases pestilential vapors and the germs of every disease j At uuihut Mulberry Bend is an inferno more terrible than Dantes The crowds are there as by day but now more drunken noisy and profane I i tm1Jfl Uff ff tjflfjJtLl 11kiliu1 LIH1 j1fittt r1 I I MULBERRY lED From every window twinkles a little I light Gas i a luxury there and is everywhere every-where replaced by the candle and the kerosene II kero-sene lamp The plate glass fronts and doors of the rum bops ale a blaze of liillinnrv while the cellar ways and alleys leading to the dives are strange compounds of light and daikness Here and there are tl S1H41t tf f fhufiie of < H tninnv uanc tiuoic ile the tHH waltzing feet shrieks of agony drunken imprecation im-precation calls of police murder tue clinking of goblets and tumbler the crashing of window panes and the noise of SOle fierce fight So loud at times is the uproar that it become difficult to hear jour own voice a you talk Half diessed men and half miked women stagger by carrying broken pitcher and tin cans full of ale or beer or more fiery fluids Summon up your courage and enter one of these human bee l iiivcs No i5or Pasquales as it i known to fame and the police i a fair typo of alL It is a huge four story and basement brick uncment with a narrow winding stair to aach the first floor and narrow precipitous tone steps to enter the basement A group of drunken men and women block both stairs and stole steps Button your coat closely It will prevent your clothes touclrng the wall nud disturbing the predatory let life that swarm through the entire b lilding It will also conceal your watch chain and scarf pin In these dives are outcast ambler fugitive I thieves and thirsty tipplers who would assault a man for 3 dime and cut his throat for a dollar You break through the crowd plunge down the steps and enter tho dark narrow hal It is 1 scant two feet in width but on the floor lie human bodies in the last stages of intoxication They are almost al-most invisible iu the darkness but are audible audi-ble through snorts and snores if asleep or by grunt ali disjointed oaths i awake In to front and rear part of the hall two doors open on either side into a small apartment cf two rooms The larger i about fifteen ft long and ten wide the smaller about hut by si The furniture is very simple In the center a small castiron stove that is red hot I small lamp on the wall and a board bench around the room make up tho entire equip inent In this room are forty human oeings chiefly women They fill up the bench leon le-on the floor lean against the wall and each other Some a deep in drunken sleep others a undergoing the pang of delirium trcmens and others again are gloating over stories of iniquity or planning new crimps for the morrow A woman strips herself to her last garment before all present rolls her clothes up into 3 ball and sends them by a trusted pal to the pawnbrokers across tho I street In 3 few minutes the pal ha rs turned with a half dollar The money u rapidly converted into liquor and ere another half hour has passed the twain arc sodden ia alcohol and slumber while 3 thirsty roommate room-mate searches the pal for change or steals her shawl and boots to use as collateral in turn Of the forty present twentylive are women Their ages run from 16 to 0 One i a negress one a inulattresSj two German one Hungarian tw English eleven Irish anJ seven Italian Three a almost nude five a half naked and the rest are covered wij 3 variegated robe of rags filth and vermLj The inner rom Well the less said of it tho better A for the men they are a trifle better than the women Wrecks of disease and rum recent discharges from hospitals workhouses and jails tramps from all over the world professional beggars unlucky thieves lazzarom assassins and men wanted by the police make up the motley herd i 55 > The moment a well dressed person enters i shiver runs tlinwh the crowd t lt it l a letective or the bed policeman of 3 md Satisfied of the contrary all who a sober big and entreat for beer whisky or for ClOne to buy beer and whisky Woo to the foolish sentimentalist who yields to their prayers and gives them money The nickel or dime acts upon then as the bandillero upon the bull The moment it has been seized by some itching palm the begging b comes a tumult of yells oaths threats and obscenity A strong arm 3 heavy cane or 3 club are immediately in order There i 0 Iopulation I of 6000 in Mulberry Bend of which 4000 a tho habitues of tho dives In December 18S5 Police Captain McCul lough one of the best of tho New York ofI I = HENRY PAGE Chairman 33 J THOMAS Secretary 133 tT > k J < L T I das ha o repeated raids upou tho Iknd f I and captured 2000 inmates of whom most I were sent to the institutions on Blackwelld I Island Yet their places were filled the next j day just as if nothing had ever happened I Were these wrecks of humanity capable of organization Mulberry Bend and its sister purlieus of the Fourth and Sixth words could ri any hour of the day or night send out cu army of 30000 lost souls sir times rj uany a the famous tatterdemalions who danced the dance of death in the early dc of the French Terror How do enry they live Very well from their standpoint A loaf cf moldy bread costs two cut in the Bend end i enough for four A plate of leavins from the waste barrel of some hoLd or restaurant costs three cents and ii enough for three At times the Rer Mr Kimball and other well meni ing but foolish ministers send baskets of sound wholesome food the basement r taurants sell a quart of coffee and two roll for three cents and meat with vegetables thrown in for five Lodging fuel washing light and clothing cost nothing Five cent keeps one of them in ease ten cents in luxury lux-ury and they can live comfortably on three All over and above these figures goes for to I i bacco and especially for mm Tho drinks of Mulberry Bend are few simple and cheap I Ordinary beer i a luxury to it human ver I I min They prefer the drainings of beer kecs and ale barrels sour beer and stale spoiled do and flat Vhiske Whiskey gin and fnt rum are I equally popular These aio not the substances t sub-stances known under those names but are merely raw spirits flavored with strong essences I es-sences and fusel oil and colored with burned sugar They cost 110 a gallon or twenty five cents a bottle They are retailed at two three and five cents a drink according to the I size of the glass A tramp in average luck collects fifty cents a day This gives him two meals a paper of chewing tobacco a I pipe and 3 smoke and ten good drinks What more could a tramp desire I he gets drunk before his money i all spent his friend and I roommates relieve him of all his surplus and sometimes of his hat coat vest and shoes bo t The proprietor fares well He leases 3 basement for 30 a month from some Murray hill magnate His coal and light cost 8 a month more He pays for no repairs or taxes and has no servants He receives fifty cents a day for the use of each of the four little rooms mentioned or 00 a month in all and clears about 200 a month upon the liquors he retails to his pauper guests His living expenses seldom exceed 3 t week Nearly every boss in Mulberry Bend ha c neat bank account and a few may be accounted ac-counted well t do Some it i whispered profit by the robberies assaults attempts nt murder and assassinations that occur in their premise But this however is a cruel slur upou industrious and enterprising businessmen business-men No 35 is merely one of the many dens that make up Mulberry Bend Its four apartments apart-ments of two rooms each appear and encl appar reappear reap-pear else where Behind it a behind all lie rest is a second row of buildings r > + tAn with lP ne < 1ect nnd filth These ir likewise owned by the wealthy lasses and likewise leased at high pi ices with no questions asked Between the two rows of buildings ale court yards and alleys which are filled with decaying garbage and offal crowded by day with women and romping children and crowded by night with sleeping humanity As the visitor becomes accustomed to the smoky light of these rooms and houses be is startled at their condition The floors have ben hero and there worn through or have been attacked by dry rot and wet rot until they are perforated like a sieve The rain on the roof drops from floor t floor and forms pools in wet weather in every room around the bodies of the sleepers Mildew mold and strange fungoid growth are on every hand The walls and ceilings are cracked and full of apertures Here a yard of plaster has fallen off baring the laths and joists there a long cavity allows the eyo t see every inch of some adjoinUujfjjl ij j Vermin are everywhere in lecrionsJi 1 un < millions upon the walls And thentmbsphere of these dives The carbonic acids and oxide from the redhot stoves the snioko nnd smell of the lamps the breaths and physical emanations emana-tions of the inmates the awful odor of the ton stale beer and fiery liquors the stench of decaying de-caying animal and vegetable matter the reek of mold and rot the armies of bacterial life It is no exaggeration to say that you can sea this vaporous horror It is a bluish gray mist a corpse colored cloud through which the lamps glimmer and wink surrounded ly colored aureoles and through which the faces end forms of the wretches gloom and quiver more like lost ghosts than physical realities Yet here these hordes live Even more They breed are born and grow up Though ho frightful mortality sneeps them olE by hundreds though the police drive and scatter them into other quarters and though epidemics epi-demics at times break out and rage like r fume yet they increase faster than the gen population What shall b done with them And the children born under such auspices hoe moral and intellectual surrouudingi with their what will are on a par wih physical wi they mae when they grow up Nearly everyone every-one is a criminal by fate nearly every ono the actor in a crime to b committed years hence With each child of the Bend is born a theft a highway robbery and a murder What shall b done with them WILLIAM E S FALES |