IN WHICH IS PRESENTED ANOTHER PICTURE OF THE HOUSE OF THE NINE NATIONS.
Pale and hesitating, Brother Spyke says: "I have no passion for delving
into such places; and having seen enough for one night, am content to
leave the search for this vile old man to you." The valiant missionary
addresses Mr. Fitzgerald, who stands with one foot upon the rickety old
steps that lead to the second story of the House of the Nine Nations.
This morning, Brother Spyke was ready to do battle with the whole
heathen world, to drag it up into light, to evangelize it. Now he quails
before this heathen world, so terribly dark, at his own door.
"You have, sir," says the detective, "seen nuthin' as yet. The sights
are in these 'ere upper dens; but, I may say it, a body wants nerve.
Some of our Aldermen say ye can't see such sights nowhere else."
The missionary replies, holding tenaciously to his umbrella, "That may
be true; but I fear they will be waiting me at home." Again he scans
inquiringly into the drenched area of the Points; then bidding the
officer good-night, is soon out of sight, on his way into Centre Street.
Reaching the old stoop, the detective touches a spring, and the
shattered door opens into a narrow, gloomy passage, along which he
gropes his way, over a floor cobbled with filth, and against an
atmosphere thick of disease. Now a faint light flashes through a crevice
in the left wall, plays fantastically upon the black surface of the
opposite, then dies away. The detective lights his lantern, stands a
moment with his ear turned, as if listening to the revelry in the
bottomless pit. A door opens to his touch, he enters a cave-like
room--it is the one from out which the light stole so curiously, and in
which all is misery and sadness. A few embers still burn in a great
brick fireplace, shedding a lurid glow over the damp, filthy walls, the
discolored ceiling, and the grotesque group upon the floor. "You needn't
come at this time of night--we are all honest people;" speaks a massive
negro, of savage visage, who (he is clothed in rags) sits at the left
side of the fireplace. He coaxes the remnant of his fire to cook some
coarse food he has placed in a small, black stew-pan, he watches with
steady gaze. Three white females (we blush to say it), their bare,
brawny arms resting on their knees, and their disfigured faces drooped
into their hands, form an half circle on the opposite side.
"The world don't think nothin' of us down here--we haven't had a bite to
eat to-night," gruffly resumes the negro.
"May them that have riches enjoy them, for to be supperless is no
uncommon thing wid us," interrupts one of the women, gathering about her
the shreds of her tattered garment, parting the matted hair over her
face, and revealing her ghastly features. The detective turns his light
full upon her. "If we live we live, if we die we die--nobody cares! Look
you yonder, Mr. Fitzgerald," continues the negro, with a sarcastic leer.
Turning his light to where the negro points, the detective casts a
glance into the shadow, and there discovers the rags move. A dozen pair
of glassy eyes are seen peering from out the filthy coverings, over
which lean arms and blanched hands keep up an incessant motion. Here an
emaciated and heart-sick Welsh girl, of thirteen (enciente) lays
shivering on the broken floor; there an half-famished Scotch woman, two
moaning children nestling at her heart, suffers uncovered upon a pallet
of straw. The busy world without would seem not to have a care for her;
the clergy have got the heathen world upon their shoulders. Hunger, like
a grim tyrant, has driven her to seek shelter in this wretched abode.
Despair has made her but too anxious that the grave or prison walls
should close the record of her sorrows. How tightly she with her right
hand presses her babe to her bosom; how appealingly with her left she
asks a pittance of the detective! Will he not save from death her
starving child? He has nothing to give her, turns his head, answers only
with a look of pity, and moves slowly towards the door.
"You have not been long off the Island, Washington?" inquires the
detective, with an air of familiarity.
"I wish," replies the negro, sullenly, "I was back. An honest man as I
is, can't get on in this world. Necessity makes rascals of better men
than me, Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Krone (he's a white man, though) makes all
the politicians for the district, and charges me eight dollars a month
for this hole. Just measure them two things together, Mr. Fitzgerald;
then see if takin' in sixpenny, lodgers pays." Mr. Fitzgerald commences
counting them. "You needn't count," pursues the negro, uncovering his
stew-pan, "there's only eighteen in to-night. Have twenty, sometimes!
Don't get nothin' for that poor Scotch woman an' her children. Can't
get it when they hain't got it--you know that, Mr. Fitzgerald."
The detective inquires if any of them have seen Mr. Toddleworth to-day.
Washington has not seen him, and makes no scruple of saying he thinks
very little of him.
"Faith an' it's hard times with poor Tom," speaks up one of the women,
in a deep brogue. "It was only last night--the same I'm tellin' is true,
God knows--Mrs. McCarty took him to the Rookery--the divil a mouthful
he'd ate durin' the day--and says, bein' a ginerous sort of body, come,
take a drop, an' a bite to ate. Mister Toddleworth did that same, and
thin lay the night on the floor. To-night--it's the truth, God
knows--Tom Downey took him above. An' it's Tom who woundn't be the frind
of the man who hadn't a shillin' in his pocket."
The detective shrugs his shoulders, and having thanked the woman,
withdraws into the passage, to the end of which he cautiously picks his
way, and knocks at a distained door that fronts him. A voice deep and
husky bids him enter, which he does, as the lurid glare of his lantern
reveals a room some twelve by sixteen feet, the plaster hanging in
festoons from the black walls, and so low of ceiling that he scarce can
stand upright. Four bunk-beds, a little bureau, a broken chair or two,
and a few cheap pictures, hung here and there on the sombre walls, give
it an air of comfort in grateful contrast with the room just left. "Who
lives here?" inquires the detective, turning his light full upon each
object that attracts his attention. "Shure it's only me--Mrs. Terence
Murphy--and my three sisters (the youngest is scarce fourteen), and the
two English sisters: all honest people, God knows," replies Mrs. Murphy,
with a rapid tongue.
"It's not right of you to live this way," returns the detective,
continuing to survey the prostrate forms of Mrs. Murphy, her three
sisters, and the two fair-haired English girls, and the besotted beings
they claim as husbands. Alarm is pictured in every countenance. A
browned face withdraws under a dingy coverlid, an anxious face peers
from out a pallet on the floor, a prostrate figure in the corner
inquires the object of Mr. Detective Fitzgerald's visit--and Mrs.
Murphy, holding it more becoming of respectable society, leaves the bed
in which she had accommodated five others, and gets into one she calls
her own. A second thought, and she makes up her mind not to get into
bed, but to ask Mr. Fitzgerald if he will be good enough, when next he
meets his Onher, the Mayor, just to say to him how Mr. Krone is bringing
disgrace upon the house and every one in it, by letting rooms to
negroes. Here she commences pouring out her pent-up wrath upon the head
of Mr. Krone, and the colored gentleman, whom she declares has a dozen
white females in his room every night. The detective encourages her by
saying it is not right of Mr. Krone, who looks more at the color of his
money than the skin of his tenants. "To come of a dacint family--and be
brought to this!" says Mrs. Murphy, allowing her passion to rise, and
swearing to have revenge of the negro in the next room.
"You drink this gin, yet--I have warned you against it," interposes the
detective, pointing to some bottles on the bureau. "Faith, an' it's the
gin gets a many of us," returns the woman, curtly, as she gathers about
her the skirts of her garments. "Onyhow, yerself wouldn't deprive us of
a drop now and then, jist to keep up the spirits." The detective shakes
his head, then discloses to them the object of his search, adding, in
parenthesis, that he does not think Mr. Toddleworth is the thief. A
dozen tongues are ready to confirm the detective's belief. "Not a
shillin' of it did the poor crature take--indeed he didn't, now, Mr.
Fitzgerald. 'Onor's 'onor, all over the wurld!" says Mrs. Murphy,
grasping the detective by the hand. "Stay till I tell ye all about it.
Mary Maguire--indeed an' ye knows her, Mr. Fitzgerald--this same
afternoon looked in to say--'how do ye do, Mrs. Murphy. See this! Mrs.
Murphy,' says she, 'an' the divil a sich a pocket of money I'd see
before, as she held in her right hand, jist. 'Long life to ye, Mary,'
says I. 'We'll have a pint, Mrs. Murphy,' says she. 'May ye niver want
the worth of it,' says I. And the pint was not long in, when Mary got a
little the worse of it, and let all out about the money. 'You won't
whisper it, Mrs. Murphy,' says she, 'if I'd tell ye in confidence by
what manes I got the lift?'"
"'Not in the wide world, Mary,' says I; 'ye may trust me for that same.'
'Shure didn't I raise it from the pocket of an auld woman in spectacles,
that watched the fool beyant dig up the corporation.' 'An' it'll not do
yerself much good,' says I, liftin' the same, and cuttin' away to the
house. 'You won't whisper it?' says she."
"I can confirm the truth of that same," rejoins a brusque-figured man,
rising from his pallet, and speaking with regained confidence. "Mary
looked in at the Blazers, and being the worse of liquor, showed a dale
of ready money, and trated everybody, and gave the money to everybody,
and was wilcome wid everybody. Then Mrs. McCarty got aboard of her
ginerosity, and got her into the Rookery, where the Miss McCartys
thought it would not be amiss to have a quart. The same was brought in,
and Mary hersel' was soon like a dead woman on the floor, jist--"
"And they got the money all away?" interrupts the detective.
"Faith, an' she'll not have a blessed dollar come daylight," continues
the man, resuming his pallet.
The detective bids Mrs. Murphy good night, and is soon groping his way
over a rickety old floor, along a dark, narrow passage, scarce high
enough to admit him, and running at right angles with the first. A door
on the left opens into a grotto-like place, the sickly atmosphere of
which seems hurling its poison into the very blood. "Who's here?"
inquires the detective, and a voice, feeble and hollow, responds:
"Lodgers!"
The damp, greasy walls; the broken ceilings; the sooty fireplace, with
its shattered bricks; the decayed wainscoating--its dark, forlorn
aspect, all bespeak it the fit abode of rats. And yet Mr. Krone thinks
it comfortable enough (the authorities think Mr. Krone the best judge)
for the accommodation of thirteen remnants of human misery, all of whom
are here huddled together on the wet, broken floor, borrowing warmth of
one another. The detective's light falls curiously upon the dread
picture, which he stands contemplating. A pale, sickly girl, of some
eleven summers, her hair falling wildly over her wan features, lays upon
some rags near the fireplace, clinging to an inebriated mother. Here a
father, heart-sick and prostrate with disease, seeks to keep warm his
three ragged children, nestling about him. An homeless outcast,
necessity forces him to send them out to prey upon the community by day,
and to seek in this wretched hovel a shelter at night. Yonder the rags
are thrown back, a moving mass is disclosed, and there protrudes a
disfigured face, made ghostly by the shadow of the detective's lantern.
At the detective's feet a prostrate girl, insensible of gin, is seized
with convulsions, clutches with wasted hands at the few rags about her
poor, flabby body, then with fingers grasping, and teeth firmly set, her
whole frame writhes in agony. Your missionary never whispered a kind,
encouraging word in her ear; his hand never pressed that blanched bone
with which she now saddens your heart! Different might it have been with
her had some gentle-tongued Brother Spyke sought her out, bore patiently
with her waywardness, snatched her from this life of shame, and placed
her high in an atmosphere of light and love.
It is here, gentle shepherds, the benighted stand most in need of your
labors. Seek not to evangelize the Mahomedan world until you have worked
a reform here; and when you have done it, a monument in heaven will be
your reward.
"Mr. Toddleworth is not here," says the detective, withdrawing into the
passage, then ascending a broken and steep stairs that lead into the
third story. Nine shivering forms crouched in one dismal room; four
squabbish women, and three besotted men in another; and in a third, nine
ragged boys and two small girls--such are the scenes of squalid misery
presented here. In a little front room, Mr. Tom Downey, his wife, and
eight children, lay together upon the floor, half covered with rags. Mr.
Downey startles at the appearance of the detective, rises nervously from
his pallet, and after the pause of a moment, says: "Indeed, yer welcome,
Mr. Fitzgerald. Indeed, I have not--an' God knows it's the truth I
tell--seen Mr. Toddleworth the week;" he replies, in answer to a
question from the detective.
"You took a drop with him this afternoon?" continues the detective,
observing his nervousness.
"God knows it's a mistake, Mr. Fitzgerald." Mr. Downey changes the
subject, by saying the foreigners in the garret are a great nuisance,
and disturb him of his rest at night.
A small, crooked stair leads into "Organ-grinders' Roost," in the
garret. To "Organ-grinders' Roost" the detective ascends. If, reader,
you have ever pictured in your mind the cave of despair, peopled by
beings human only in shape, you may form a faint idea of the
wretchedness presented in "Organ-grinders' Roost," at the top of the
house of the Nine Nations. Seven stalworth men shoot out from among a
mass of rags on the floor, and with dark, wandering eyes, and massive,
uncombed beards, commence in their native Italian a series of
interrogatories, not one of which the detective can understand. They
would inquire for whom he seeks at this strange hour. He (the detective)
stands unmoved, as with savage gesture--he has discovered his star--they
tell him they are famishing of hunger. A pretty black-eyed girl, to
whose pale, but beautifully oval face an expression of sorrow lends a
touching softness, lays on the bare floor, beside a mother of
patriarchal aspect. Now she is seized with a sharp cough that brings
blood at every paroxysm. As if forgetting herself, she lays her hand
gently upon the cheek of her mother, anxious to comfort her. Ah! the
hard hand of poverty has been upon her through life, and stubbornly
refuses to relax its grip, even in her old age. An organ forms here and
there a division between the sleepers; two grave-visaged monkeys sit
chattering in the fireplace, then crouch down on the few charred sticks.
A picture of the crucifix is seen conspicuous over the dingy fireplace,
while from the slanting roof hang several leathern girdles. Oh, what a
struggle for life is their's! Mothers, fathers, daughters, and little
children, thus promiscuously grouped, and coming up in neglect and
shame. There an old man, whom remorseless death is just calling into
eternity, with dull, glassy eyes, white, flowing beard, bald head,
sunken mouth, begrimed and deeply-wrinkled face, rises, spectre-like,
from his pallet. Now he draws from his breast a small crucifix, and
commences muttering to it in a guttural voice. "Peace, peace, good old
man--the holy father will come soon--the holy virgin will come soon: he
will receive the good spirit to his bosom," says a black-eyed daughter,
patting him gently upon the head, then looking in his face solicitously,
as he turns his eyes upward, and for a few moments seems invoking the
mercy of the Allwise. "Yes, father," she resumes, lightening up the mat
of straw upon which he lays, "the world has been unkind to you, but you
are passing from it to a better--you will be at peace soon."
"Soon, soon, soon," mumbles the old man, in a whisper; and having
carefully returned the crucifix to his bosom, grasps fervently the hand
of the girl and kisses it, as her eyes swim in tears.
Such, to the shame of those who live in princely palaces, and revel in
luxury, are but faintly-drawn pictures of what may be seen in the house
of the Nine Nations.
The detective is about to give up the search, and turns to descend the
stairs, when suddenly he discerns a passage leading to the north end of
the garret. Here, in a little closet-like room, on the right, the rats
his only companions, lies the prostrate form of poor Toddleworth.
"Well, I persevered till I found you," says the detective, turning his
light full upon the body. Another minute, and his features become as
marble; he stands aghast, and his whole frame seems struggling under the
effect of some violent shock. "What, what, what!" he shouts, in nervous
accents, "Murder! murder! murder! some one has murdered him." Motionless
the form lies, the shadow of the light revealing the ghastly spectacle.
The head lies in a pool of blood, the bedimmed eyes, having taken their
last look, remain fixedly set on the black roof. "He has died of a
blow--of a broken skull!" says the frightened official, feeling, and
feeling, and pressing the arms and hands that are fast becoming rigid.
Life is gone out; a pauper's grave will soon close over what remains of
this wretched outcast. The detective hastens down stairs, spreads the
alarm over the neighborhood, and soon the House of the Nine Nations is
the scene of great excitement.