The Secrets of the Great City: A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York CityMcCabe, James Dabney
History
The Secrets of the Great City: A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York City
McCabe, James Dabney
New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel; New York (N.Y.) -- History
"Let us follow one of these poor girls," says the writer we have
quoted, "as she comes out of the den of this beast of prey, and moves
off, wringing her hands in an agony of distress. Day and night, with
wearying industry, she had been working upon the dozen shirts he had
given her to make. She had been looking forward--with what eagerness
you can hardly realize--to the hour when she could carry him her work
and get her pay, and recover her deposit money or receive more shirts
to do. Now she is turned into the street with nothing! She dares not
return to her miserable boarding-place in Delancey street, for her
Irish landlady is clamorous for the two weeks' board now due. Six
dollars! The sum is enormous to her. She had expected that to-night she
could hand the Irish woman the money she had earned, and that it, with
a promise of more soon, might appease her. But now she has nothing for
her--nothing. Despair settles down upon her. Hunger is its companion,
for she has had no supper. Where shall she go?"
Night has come down since she left Delancey street, carrying the heavy
bundle of new-made shirts. The streets are lighted up, and are alive
with bustle. Heedless what course she takes, unnoticed, uncared-for by
any in the great ocean of humanity whose waves surge about her, she
wanders on, and by-and-by turns into Broadway. Broadway, ever
brilliant--with shop windows where wealth gleams in a thousand rare
and beautiful shapes; Broadway, with its crowding omnibuses and
on-pouring current of life, its Niagara roar, its dazzle--is utter
loneliness to her. The fiery letters over the theatre entrances are
glowing in all the colors of the rainbow. Gayly-attired ladies, girls
of her own age, blest with lovers or brothers, are streaming in at the
portal, beyond which she imagines every delight--music, and beauty, and
perfume of flowers, and _warmth_. She looks in longingly, hugging her
shivering shoulders under her sleazy shawl, till a policeman bids her
'move on.' Out of the restaurants there float delicious odors of
cooking meats, making her hungrier still. Her eyes rest, with a look
half wild and desperate, on the painted women who pass, in rustling
silks, and wearing the _semblance_ of happiness. At least they are
fed--they are clothed--they can sit in bright parlors, though they sit
with sin. It is easy to yield to temptation. So many do! You little
know how many. In Paris, she might perhaps go and throw herself into
the Seine. In New York, such suicides are not common; but there is a
moral suicide, which is common. Thousands on thousands of poor girls
have thrown themselves into this stream, in the last agony of
desperation; sinking down in the dark current of sin, to be heard of no
more.
But this poor wanderer has memories of a home, and a mother, under
whose protection she had been taught to shudder at sin. She cannot
plunge into this ghastly river with wide-open eyes--at least, not yet.
She walks on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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