An Outcast; Or, Virtue and FaithAdams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
General
An Outcast; Or, Virtue and Faith
Adams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
Conduct of life -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Vice -- Fiction
"We have got through the muck of the mucky Bowery. Let us turn to the
left as we ascend the hill from Chatham street, and into a narrow,
winding way, called Doyer's street. Dutch Sophy, then, as now, sits in
all the good nature of her short, fat figure, serving her customers with
ices, at three cents. Her cunning black eyes and cheerful, ruddy face,
enhance the air of pertness that has made her a favorite with her
customers. We will pass the little wooden shop, where Mr. Saunders makes
boots of the latest style, and where old lapstone, with curious framed
spectacles tied over his bleared eyes, has for the last forty years been
seen at the window trimming welts, and mending every one's sole but his
own; we will pass the four story wooden house that the landlord never
paints--that has the little square windows, and the little square door,
and the two little iron hand rails that curl so crabbedly at the ends,
and guard four crabbeder steps that give ingress and egress to its swarm
of poor but honest tenants; we will pass the shop where a short, stylish
sign tells us Mr. Robertson makes bedsteads; and the little, slanting
house a line of yellow letters on a square of black tin tells us is a
select school for young ladies, and the bright, dainty looking house
with the green shutters, where lives Mr. Vredenburg the carpenter, who,
the neighbors say, has got up in the world, and paints his house to show
that he feels above poor folks--and find we have reached the sooty and
gin-reeking grocery of Mr. Korner, who sells the _devil's elixir_ to the
sootier devils that swarm the cellars of his neighbors. The faded blue
letters, on a strip of wood nailed to the bricks over his door, tell us
he is a dealer in 'Imported and other liquors.' Next door to Mr.
Korner's tipsy looking grocery lives Mr. Muffin, the coffin-maker, who
has a large business with the disciples who look in at Korner's. Mrs.
Downey, a decent sort of body, who lives up the alley, and takes
sixpenny lodgers by the dozen, may be seen in great tribulation with her
pet pig, who, every day, much to the annoyance of Mr. Korner, manages to
get out, and into the pool of decaying matter opposite his door, where
he is sure to get stuck, and with his natural propensity, squeals
lustily for assistance. Mrs. Downey, as is her habit, gets distracted;
and having well abused Mr. Korner for his interference in a matter that
can only concern herself and the animal, ventures to her knees in the
mire, and having seized her darling pig by the two ears, does, with the
assistance of a policeman, who kindly takes him by the tail, extricate
his porkship, to the great joy of herself. The animal scampers,
grunting, up the alley, as Mr. Korner, in his shirt sleeves, throws his
broom after him, and the policeman surlily says he wishes it was the
street commissioner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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