“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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