Occasional interludes of this sort certainly brightened the sordid daily routine, but they were rare. A big fire was a thrilling experience, a metal badge pinned to the coat allowing the reporter to go as near as he liked and to run what risks he pleased. Such work became, with time, mechanical in a sense, it occurred so often, arson, too, being very frequent, especially among the Jews of the East side. Even in those days the story of the two Jews was a “chestnut”: “I’m thorry your blace of business got burnt down last Tuesday,” says Ikey. To which Moses replies: “Hush! It’s next Tuesday!” The rôle of the reporter in New York, of course, was an accepted one; publicity and advertisement were admittedly desirable; the reporter as a rule was welcomed; privacy was very rare; a reporter could, and was expected to, intrude into personal family affairs where, in England, he would be flung into the street.... Other interviews were of a pleasanter kind; I remember Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in their special train, Sarah Bernhardt, at the Hoffman House hotel, and many a distinguished foreigner I was sent to interview because I could speak their languages. The trip to meet the Atlantic steamer at Quarantine I regarded as a day off: it could be made to last for hours. I saw the coast, moreover, and smelt the sea.... Most of my work on the _Evening Sun_, at any rate, took me among the criminal and outcast sections of the underworld. In those days the police, as a whole, were corrupt, brutal, heartless; I saw innocent men against whom they had a grudge, or whom they wanted out of the way for some reason, “railroaded to gaol” on cooked-up evidence; sickening and dreadful scenes I witnessed.... The valueless character of human evidence I learned daily in the trials I reported, so that even a man who was trying to tell the truth seemed unable to achieve it. Tammany had its slimy tentacles everywhere and graft was the essence of success in every branch of public life. A police captain had his town and country house, perhaps his yacht as well.... The story of Tammany has been told again and again. It is too well known for repetition. I watched its vile methods from the inside with a vengeance; its loathsome soul I saw face to face. The city, too, I soon knew inside out, especially its darker, unclean quarters. Chinatown, Little Africa, where, after dark, it was best to walk in the middle of the street, “Italy,” the tenement life of the overcrowded, reeking East side.... I made friends with strange people, feeling myself even in touch with them, something of an outcast like themselves. My former life became more and more remote, it seemed unreal; the world I now lived in seemed the only world; these evil, depraved, tempted, unhappy devils were not only the majority, but the real, ordinary humanity that stocked the world. More and more the under-dog appealed to me. The rich, the luxurious, the easily-placed, the untempted and inexperienced, these