Unlike the slums of larger and older cities, Bucktown was largely peopled by men and women who, like its houses, had come from happier and more elegant surroundings. Few of its older inhabitants were born in the slums, and among its people were to be found many whose careers in life were begun under really favorable circumstances; but, like driftwood, they had been crowded out of the busy stream of human effort into this pool of stagnant humanity. In this way the neighborhood had become the dumping ground for everything that was undesirable in a population of more than one hundred thousand souls. Stall saloons and houses of ill-fame were numerous, and sin and wickedness stalked forth in open daylight with a boldness that knew no hindrance. One-third of the population was colored, and the whites were made up of almost every known nationality. No effort was made to draw the color line. Negroes and whites lived in the same or adjoining houses, and in some families the husband was of one color and the wife of another. The second house from the Moore home was the celebrated "Dolly" resort, known everywhere as the most dangerous place of the kind in the city. It was luxuriously furnished and was famous for its pretty girls and its dances. In an old shanty back of Moore's home lived "Yellow Liz," or "Big Liz," a monstrously hideous woman who had once been the wife of Abe Tobey, now doing a long term in State's Prison for murderous assault. "Big Liz" had a wart as large as an acorn in the middle of her forehead and wooly red and black whiskers on her chin and lower jaw. She was recognized as one of the features of the neighborhood, and slumming parties from "uptown" never failed to visit her domicile. Another house close by had been the home of Tom Beet, who murdered his wife by saturating her clothing with kerosene oil and setting fire to her body while she lay in a drunken stupor on the bedroom floor. There was no high-toned moral element in the slums. Nobody made any pretense of being good. Every man, woman and child in the community knew that he was a sinner and recognized the fact that other people knew it too. "Oily Ike" Palmer, whose junk shop was the resort of thieves, and who acted in the capacity of a "fence" for all of them, together with Dave Beach, the horse trader and political boss of the ward, were the heroes of the community. "Oily Ike" was known to the police as a criminal, but although many offenses had been traced to his door, the evidence necessary to place him behind the bars was always lacking and he had never been convicted of a crime. He was also an opium eater and a drunkard, while it was said he had once held an honorable position in society. His vices had been the cause of his downfall, and at the time Superintendent Morton of the City Rescue Mission made his acquaintance he was a crafty, unscrupulous rascal, with the qualities of a beast of prey rather than those of a man.