Dave Ranney: Or, Thirty Years on the Bowery; An AutobiographyRanney, Dave
Religion
Dave Ranney: Or, Thirty Years on the Bowery; An Autobiography
Ranney, Dave
American Tract Society
The meeting was over and the people were all out, when I noticed Anna
still in the same position. I went over and called her, and receiving no
answer shook her a little, but she never moved. I bent over and raised
her head; a pair of sightless eyes seemed to look at me, and I knew she
was dead. I never had such a start in my life. Two hours before
alive--now dead! I learned that she was from a town in Connecticut, of
good parents, who took her to her last resting-place in the family
plot--a wayward girl who ran away from home. Her "God bless you, Dan!"
still rings in my ears and her dead face I'll never forget.
Here was a case that, so far as I knew, did not come under the influence
of God's Spirit, and I could only say, "God have mercy on her poor
soul!" but there have been scores of other women whom I have been able
to reach and help by the grace of God. I shall never forget the "white
slave."
RESCUED FROM A DIVE
When I had charge of the Chinatown Mission a party of three came down to
see the sights and do a little slumming in the district, and they asked
me to show them around. Now there wasn't a hole or joint in Chinatown
or on the Bowery that I didn't know, but I didn't as a rule take women
to such places. I don't like the idea of their looking at other people's
misery, and there's nothing but woe and want to be seen when you go
slumming. Lots of it is brought on by the people themselves, but still
they are human and do not like to be looked at.
However, this night was an exception, and away we went to see the
sights. I took them to the Joss House--the temple where the Chinese pray
to Confucius--and other places down on Cherry Hill. But they wanted to
see something hard, so I took them to a place that I thought was hard
enough. If you were a stranger and went into this place and displayed a
roll of "the green" you would be done up.
We went into one of the worst places on the Bowery, the women being as
anxious to go as the rest. The waiter piloted us to a small round table,
and we sat down and called for some soda. I'd been there before to
bring out a man or a woman or a girl as the case might be, and was
pretty well known as "Sky-Pilot Dan."
The party with me were astonished and wondered how such things as they
saw could exist in a city like New York. There were all classes in the
place, sailors, men, women, and girls, who had lost all self-respect and
thought of nothing but the drink and the dance.
While sitting there the lady's attention was drawn to a girl at the next
table who sat there looking at the lady, with the tears streaming down
her cheeks. The lady said, "Mr. Ranney, what is the matter with that
girl? Ask her to join us." I got another chair and asked the girl to
come over and sit beside the lady, who asked her how she came to be
there, and why she was crying.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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