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 Civilization's Inferno; 
 
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 STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR, 
 
 BY 
 
 B. O. Flower, 
 
 Author of " Lessons Learned from Other Uves, ' elo. 
 
 " Man's inhumanity to man 
 Makes countless millions mourn." 
 
 BOSTON : 
 ARENA PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 Copley Square,
 
 Copyrighted, 1893 
 By B. O. Flower
 
 ^045 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I N sending out tliis little work I am actuated solely by a desire 
 * to arouse earnest men and women to action by presenting 
 deplorable conditions existing at our very door which are a 
 crjing reproach to the Republic. 
 
 I appreciate my inability to adequately picture the horrors 
 of the social cellar or to portray the inlinite misery which is 
 the lot of tens of thousands of struggling souls in the full blaze 
 of our boasted cliristian civilization. 
 
 It would require a i)en far more powerful than my own to 
 properly describe the depths of want, wretchedness and degi-a- 
 dation to be seen in the populous slums of cultured, palace- 
 dtcked, church-jewelled Boston. 
 
 My original puri^ooe was to strike out all suggestive hints 
 from the earlier pages and incorporate them in two chapters, 
 one dealing with palliative measures ; the other presenting 
 fundamental social reforms. On mature deliberation, however, 
 I have decided that this treatment, though more artistic, 
 would be far less effective. The suggestive hints thrown out 
 in a few words, while striking object lessons are before the 
 mental vision of the reader, will be more impressive than 
 a longer discussion removed from the suggestive scenes. 
 Again, I believe it is important to reiterate these truths in the 
 presence of each of the various manifestations of misery and 
 social inequality iiresent to-day, as only in this way can we 
 arouse from its lethargy a sleeping conscience which renders 
 such conditions possible. It lias not been my purpose to enter 
 into any elaborate exposition of the iirinciples involved in 
 
 3 
 
 1500251
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 what I am persuaded are fundamental reformative measures 
 or to descuibe at length the many noble palliative works of 
 which I hint from time to time, as this work is rather a series 
 of informal essays on life in the social cellar, written to arrest 
 the attention and, if possible, to turn the mind of the reader to 
 the many noble and exhaustive works dealing with social prob- 
 lems which have appeared in recent years. 
 
 In arranging and enlarging these chapters I have found it 
 impossible to bestow the time I desired to spend upon them, 
 owing to duties which demanded almost every moment at my 
 command, therefore they are not as finished as I could wish. 
 If, however, they touch the heart and kindle a love-tire suffi- 
 cienily intense to burn up selfishness and awaken the divine 
 spark in other hearts, if they lead even a few persons to 
 consecrate more fully life and love to their fellow-men, I 
 shall be content. B. O. Flower. 
 
 Boston, Mass., 
 Feb. 1st., 181)3.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Introduction. 
 
 The Dead Sea of nineteenth-century civilization — 
 
 Appalling facts illustrating the extent of poverty in 
 
 New York — Poverty in Boston — The present; its 
 
 demands on all who are spiritually awakened. 
 
 Page 7 
 
 II. Society's Exiles. 
 
 The Social cellar, the hot-bed of moral and physical 
 contagion — Spme reasons why the slums are over- 
 flowing with human life ^ Uninvited poverty — Typ- 
 ical cases illustrating the wretchedness of our worthy 
 poor — Some palliative measures — The Liverpool 
 model apartments — The noble work of Geo. Pea- 
 body in London — A word in regard to fundamental 
 reformative measures. 21-60 
 
 III. Two Hours In The Social Cellar. 
 
 Further journeyings through the slums — Scenes of mis- 
 ery in the domain of vxninvited poverty — Illustrations 
 showing how present conditions foster wealth and 
 increase poverty — The evils of our system of taxa- 
 tion — Immigration — Speculation in land — Monop- 
 oly in transportation — Suggestive hints. 61-96 
 
 IV. The Democracy Of Darkness. 
 
 The darkest zone in social life — Pseudo pleasures of the 
 under world — Bestial gratifications which end in 
 death — Typical cases — Crime in our great cities — 
 Some figures from recent statistics — Modern Fagans 
 
 — Trafficking in virtue — A typical case. 97-123 
 
 V. Why The Ishmaelites Multiply. 
 
 Ethical significance of loose morals in the speculative 
 world — A further word on taxation — Emigration 
 
 — Cheap lodging-houses — The saloon the supreme 
 curse of nineteenth-century civilization — The influ- 
 
 5
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ence of drink on the living — Its influence on pos- 
 terity — A serious question — "What the church 
 might accomplisli. 125-154 
 
 VI. The Fkoth And The Dregs. 
 
 Social contrasts as illustrated in recent literature — The 
 froth — Life in the gay frivolous world of society — 
 Typical scenes — Tendency of such life — Immor- 
 ality treading on the heels of luxury, idleness and 
 selfishness — The other world, or a glance at the 
 dregs — Crime, poverty and misery in the slums of 
 London — Facts which stagger tlie imagination — 
 Typical cases. 155-190 
 
 VII. A Pilgrimage And A Vision. 
 
 Social contrasts in Boston- The Back Bay— Life as it 
 appears on Commonwealth avenue and Beacon 
 street— The slums in the West end— A pathetic 
 story of a little shun child — The slums of the North 
 End — Typical cases illustrating involuntary poverty 
 — "My Country 'tis of thee" sung hy children in 
 the slums — A vision. 191-221 
 
 VIII. "What Of The Morrow? 
 
 Are radical changes for the betterment of the industrial 
 millions pending? — The unmistakable drift of tlio 
 tinu's toward Iiuman brotherhood — A persistent 
 ideal once rooted in the popular mind never departs 
 without a struggle for supremacy — Encouraging 
 signs— The Slogan cry of the new day— The jiro- 
 phetic vision of William Morris. 223-237
 
 INTRODUCTION
 
 The poor, the poor, the poor ! they stand 
 
 Wedged by the pressing of. Trade's hand, 
 
 Against an inward-opening door. 
 
 That pressure tiglitens evermore ; 
 
 They sigh a monstrous, foul-air sigh 
 
 For the outside leagues of liberty, 
 
 Where art, sweet lark, translates the sky 
 
 Into a heavenly melody. 
 
 " Each day, all day " (these poor folks say) 
 
 " In the same old year-long, drear-long way, 
 
 We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns. 
 
 We sieve miiie-moshcs under the hills, 
 
 To relieve, O, God, what manner of ills ? — 
 
 The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die ; 
 
 And so do wo, and the world's a sty." 
 
 " Silence fellow-swine ; why nuzzle and cry ? 
 
 Swinehood Iiatli no remedy-" 
 
 Say many men, and hasten by. 
 
 But wlio said once, in a lordly tone, 
 
 " Man shall not live by bread alone, 
 
 But all that Cometh from the Throne ?" 
 
 llath God said so ? 
 
 But Trade saith "No"; 
 And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say " Go : 
 There's plenty that can, if you can't, we know ; 
 Move out, if you think you're underpaid. 
 The poor are prolific ; we're not afraid ; 
 
 Trade is trade." 
 
 Sidney Lanier.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Dead Sea of nineteenth-century civilization — Appalling 
 facts, illustrating the extent of poverty in New York — 
 Poverty in Boston — The present — its demands on all 
 who are spiritually awakened. 
 
 THE Dead Sea of want is enlarging its 
 borders in every populous centre. 
 The mutterings of angry discontent grow 
 more ominous with each succeeding year. 
 Justice denied the weak through the power of 
 avarice, has brought us face to face with 
 a formidable crisis which may yet be 
 averted if we have fhe wisdom to be 
 just and humane; but the problem cannot 
 longer be sneered at as inconsequential. 
 It is no longer local; it affects and threat- 
 ens the entire body politic. A few years 
 ago one of the most eminent divines in 
 America declared that there was no pov- 
 erty to speak of in this Republic. To-day
 
 10 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 no tlionghtful person denies that this prob- 
 lem is one of grave magnitude. A short 
 time since I employed a gentleman in New 
 York to personally investigate the court 
 records of the city that he might ascertain 
 the exact number of warrants for evictions 
 issued in twelve months. What was the 
 result ? The records showed the appalling 
 fact that during the twelve months ending 
 Sept. 1st., 1892, twenty-nine thousand seven 
 hundred and twenty warrants for eviction 
 were issued in the city of New York. In a 
 recent paper* by Mr. Jacob Riis on the spe- 
 cial needs of the poor in New York, he 
 says — "For many years it has been true 
 of New York that one tenth of all who die 
 in this great and wealthy city are buried 
 in the Potter's field. Of the 382,530 inter- 
 ments recorded in the past decade, 37,996 
 were in the Potter's field," and Mr. Riis 
 proceeds to hint at the fact known to all 
 students of social conditions who personally 
 investigate poverty in the great cities that 
 this Potter field guage, terribly significant 
 though it be, is no adequate measure by 
 
 • Forum, Dec. 18<J2.
 
 INTRODUCTION. H 
 
 which to estimate the poverty problem of 
 a great city. On this point he continues : 
 
 "Those who have had any personal ex- 
 perience with the poor, and know with 
 what agony of fear they struggle against 
 this crowning misery, how they plan and 
 plot and pinch for the poor privilege of 
 being laid at rest in a grave that is theirs 
 to keep, though in life they never owned a 
 shred to call their own, will agree with me 
 that it is putting it low to assume that 
 where one falls, in spite of it all, into this 
 dreaded trench, at least two or three must 
 be ahvays hovering on the edge of it. 
 And with this estimate of from twenty to 
 thirty per cent of our population always 
 struggling to keep the wolf from the door, 
 with the issue in grievous doubt, all the 
 known, if scattered, facts of charity 
 management in New York agree well 
 enough." 
 
 In 1890 there were two hundred and 
 thirty-nine suicides officially reported in 
 New York City. The court records are 
 burdened as never before with cases of 
 attempted self-slaughter. "You," said Re-
 
 12 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 corcler Smyth, addressing ca poor crea- 
 ture who had sought death by leaping 
 into the East River, "are the second case 
 of attempted suicide that has been up in 
 this court this morning; and," he contin- 
 ued, "I have never known so many 
 attempted suicides as during the past few 
 months." 
 
 The details of a census of tenement 
 houses published by the New York Board of 
 Health some time ago furnished a melan- 
 choly confirmation of oft-repeated state- 
 ments by thoughtful persons who have 
 personally investigated this problem; in 
 brief they show in round numbers 35,000 
 front tenements,- 2,300 rear tenements, 
 270,000 families, 1,225,000 inhabitants 
 (an increase of 141,000). There were 850 
 stables and 4,3G0 horses in the district to 
 pollute the air. 
 
 The night is slowly but surely settling 
 around hundreds of thousands of our peo- 
 ple, the night of poverty and despair. 
 They are conscious of its' approach but feel 
 powerless to check its advance. "Rents 
 get higher and work cheaper every year,
 
 INTRODUCTION. - 13 
 
 and what can we do about it?" said a lab- 
 orer recently while talking about the out- 
 look. " I do not see any way out of it," 
 he added bitterly, and it must be confessed 
 that the outlook is dark if no radical econ- 
 omic changes are at hand, for the supply is 
 yearly increasing far more rapidly than 
 the demand for labor. "Ten women for 
 every place no matter how poor," is 
 the dispassionate statement of an official 
 who has recently made the question of 
 female labor a special study. "Hundreds 
 of girls," continues this writer, "wreck 
 their future every year and destroy their 
 health in the stuffy, ill-ventilated stores and 
 shops, and yet scores of recruits arrive 
 from the country and small towns every 
 week to fill the places vacated by the 
 victims of greed." And let us not imagine 
 that these social hells are peculiar to New 
 York. What is true of the metropolis is to 
 a certain extent true of every great city in 
 America. Most of the studies found on the 
 following pages have been made in Boston 
 within less than an hour's walk of palatial 
 homes on Commonwealth Ayenue, Within
 
 14 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 cannon-shot of Beacon Plill, where proudly 
 rises the golden dome of the Capitol, are 
 hundreds of families slowly starving and 
 stilling; families who are bravely bat- 
 tling for life's barest necessities, while year 
 by year the conditions are becoming more 
 hopeless, the struggle for bread fiercer, 
 the outlook more dismal. In conver- 
 sation with one of these toilers, he said, 
 with a certain pathos and dejection, which 
 indicated hopelessness or perhaps a dead- 
 ened perception which prevented his fully 
 grasping the grim import of his words, "I 
 once heard of a man who was put in an 
 iron cage by a tyrant, and every day he 
 found the walls had come closer and closer 
 to him. At last the w^alls came so close 
 together that every day they squeezed out 
 a part of his life, and somehow," he said, 
 "it seems to me that we are just like that 
 man, and when I see the little boxes carried 
 out every day, I sometimes say to my wife, 
 * There's a little more life squeezed out; 
 some day we will go too'." 
 
 I recently visited more than a score of 
 tenement houses where life was battling
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 with death; where, with a patient heroism 
 far grander than deeds of daring won 'mid 
 the exulting shouts of the battle-field, 
 mothers and daughters were ceaselessly ply- 
 ing the needle. In several homes I noticed 
 bedridden invalids whose sunken eyes and 
 emaciated faces told too plainly the story 
 of months, and perhaps years, of slow 
 starvation amid the squalor, the sickening 
 odor, and almost universal filth of the 
 social cellar. Here one becomes painfully 
 conscious of more inmates than are visible 
 to the physical senses. Spectres of hunger 
 and fear are ever present. A lifelong 
 dread presses upon the hearts of these 
 exiles with crushing weight. The land- 
 lord, standing with a writ of dispossession, 
 is continually before their mind's eye. 
 Dread of sickness haunts every waking 
 moment, for to them sickness means ina- 
 bility to provide the scant nourishment 
 which life demands. The despair of the 
 probable future not infrequently torments 
 their rest. Such is the common lot of the 
 patient toiler in the slums of our great cit- 
 ies to-day. On jnost of their faces one
 
 16 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 notes an expression of gloomy sadness, or 
 dumb resignation. Sometimes a fitful 
 light flashes from cavernous sockets, a bale- 
 ful gleam suggesting smouldering fires fed 
 by an ever-present consciousness of wrongs 
 endured. They feel in a dumb way that 
 the lot of the beast of the field is happier 
 far than their fate. Even though they 
 struggle from dawn far into the night for 
 bread and a wretched room, they know 
 that the window of hope is closing for 
 them in the great throbbing centres of civ- 
 ilized Christendom. Sad, indeed, is the 
 thought that, at the present time, when our 
 land is decked as never before with stately 
 temples dedicated to the great Nazarene, 
 who devoted His life to a ministry among 
 the poor, degraded and outcast, we find the 
 tide of misery rising; we find uninvited 
 poverty becoming the inevitable fate of 
 added thousands of lives every year. 
 Never was the altruistic sentiment more 
 generally upon the lips of man. Never 
 lias the human heart yearned as now for a 
 truer manifestation of human brotherhood. 
 Never has the whole civilized world been
 
 IN TliOI) UCTION. 1 7 
 
 SO profoundly moved by the persistent 
 dream of the ages — the fatherhood of God 
 and the brotherhood of man. And yet, 
 strange anomaly! The cry of innocence 
 — of outraged justice — the cry of the mil- 
 lions under the wheel rises to-day from 
 every civilized land as never before. The 
 voice of Russia mingles with the cry of 
 Ireland. Outcast London joins with the 
 exiles of all great continental and Ameri- 
 can cities in one mighty, earth-thrilling 
 demand for justice. He who takes the 
 trouble to look beneath the surface will see 
 the explanation of this apparent contradic- 
 tion. The noblest souls in every walk of 
 life have entered a protest against time- 
 honored wrongs and conditions, and this 
 has given hope to the sinking millions of 
 civilization's exiles, and like a man over- 
 board who sees the coming life-boat, they 
 cry, where a few years ago, seeing no 
 gleam of hope, they were dumb. Increased 
 intelligence also is rapidly changing the 
 slave and vassal into a man who reasons 
 and prepares to act. While on the other 
 side, intrenched raonopoly and heartless
 
 18 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 greed, beholding the rising tide of discon- 
 tent and understanding its significance, in 
 many instances grow more arrogant as 
 well as more vigilant and subtle in their 
 persistent efforts to prevent anything 
 which looks tow^ard radical reforms. The 
 present is a transition period. The new is 
 battling with the old. Humanity's face is 
 toward a brighter day. The impulses of 
 the race favor another step in the slow 
 ascent of the ages, but ancient thought lies 
 across the pathway; while monopoly, in- 
 trenched behind unjust laws, clings to the 
 garments of progress in the vain hope of 
 checking the inevitable. 
 
 The first thing to be done is to make 
 men think, to carry home the horrors of 
 life in the social cellars to every heart not 
 already paralyzed by conventionalism. The 
 conscience of civilization must be aroused. 
 The next thing is the two-fold task of sav- 
 ing the sinking of our day, while radical 
 economic reforms are introduced which 
 look toward abolisl'ing injustice and un- 
 invited poverty. To this end ?vll true men 
 and women must lend their energies.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 There must be no relaxation. No falter- 
 ing by the wayside. No halting or waver- 
 ing. The bugle has sounded, the battle 
 has opened. The issue is clear. Age-long 
 injustice is being assaulted by the forces 
 of the dawn. The ideal of human brother- 
 hood to be realized in the supremacy of 
 justice, liberty and love, is the inspiration 
 of all who are battling for the millions in 
 darkness and chains.
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES, 
 
 21
 
 Before us dies our brother, of starvation ; 
 
 Around are cries of famine and despair I 
 Wiiere is hope for us, or comfort or salvation — 
 
 "Where — oh ! where ? 
 If the angels ever hearken, downward bending, 
 
 They are weeping, we are sure. 
 At the Litanies of human groans ascending 
 
 From the crushed hearts of the poor. 
 
 We never know a childhood's mirth and gladness, 
 
 Nor tlie proud heart of youth free and brave ; 
 Oh, a death-like dream of wretchedness and sadness, 
 
 Is life's weary journey to the grave! 
 Day by day wo lower sink, and lower. 
 
 Till the God-like soul within 
 Falls crushed beneath the fearful demon-power 
 
 Of poverty and sin. 
 So we toil on, on with fever burning 
 
 In heart and brain ; 
 So we toil on, on through bitter scorning. 
 
 Want, woe, and pain. 
 "We dare not raise our eyes to the blue heavens 
 
 Or the toil must cease — 
 "We dare not breathe the fresh air God has given 
 
 One hour in peace. 
 
 Lachj Wilde. 
 
 22
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 23 
 
 II. 
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 
 
 The Social cellars, the hot-beds of moral and physical conta- ^ 
 giou — Some reasons why the slums are overflowing 
 with human life — Uninvited poverty — Typical cases 
 illustrating the wretchedness of our worthy poor — 
 Some palliative measures — The Liverpool model apart- 
 ments — Tlie noble work of Geo. Peabody in London — 
 A word in regard to fundamental reformative measures. 
 
 IT is difficult to over-estimate the gravity 
 of the problem presented by those 
 compelled to exist in the slums of our 
 populous cities, even when considered from 
 a purely economic point of view. From 
 the midst of this commonwealth of degra- 
 dation there goes forth a moral contagion, 
 scourging society in all its ramifications, 
 coupled with an atmosphere of physical 
 decay — an atmosphere reeking with filth, 
 heavy with foul odors, laden with disease. 
 In time of any contagion the social cellar 
 becomes the hot-bed of death, sending forth
 
 24 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 myriads of fatal germs which permeate the 
 air for miles around, causing thousands to 
 die because society is too short-sighted to 
 understand that the interest of its hum- 
 blest member is the interest of all. The 
 slums of our cities are the reservoirs of 
 physical and moral death, an enormous 
 expense to the state, a constant menace to 
 society, a reality whose shadow is at once 
 colossal and portentous. In time of social 
 upheavals they will prove magazines of 
 destruction; for, while revolution will not 
 originate in them, once let a popular 
 uprising take form and the cellars Avill 
 re-inforce it in a manner more terrible than 
 words can portray. Considered ethically, 
 the problem is even more embarrassing 
 and deplorable; here, as nowhere else in 
 civilized society, thousands of our fellow- 
 men are exiled from the enjoyments of 
 civilization, forced into life's lowest stratum 
 of existence, branded with that fatal word, 
 " scum." If they seek to rise, society shrinks 
 from them ; they seem of another world ; 
 they are driven into the darkness of a 
 hopeless existence and viewed much as
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 25 
 
 were lepers in olden times. Over their 
 heads perpetually rests the dread of 
 eviction, of sickness and of failure to obtain 
 employment, making existence a perpet- 
 ual nightmare, from which death alone 
 brings release. Say not that they do not 
 feel this ; I have talked with them ; I have 
 seen the agony born of a fear which rests 
 heavy on their souls, a fear stamped in 
 their wrinkled faces and peering forth from 
 great pathetic eyes. For them winter has 
 real terror, for they possess neither clothes 
 to keep comfortable the body, nor means 
 with which to properly warm tlieir miser- 
 able tenements. Summer is scarcely less 
 frightful, with its stifling heat acting on 
 myriad germs of disease and producing 
 fever, which frequently ends in death, 
 or, what is still more dreaded, chronic 
 invalidism. Starvation, misery and vice, 
 trinity of despair, haunt their every 
 step. The Golden Rule — the foundation 
 of true civilization, the keynote of human 
 happiness — reaches not their wretched 
 quarters. Placed by society under the 
 ban, life is one long and terrible night.
 
 26 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 But tragic as is the fate of the present gen- 
 eration, still more appalling is the picture 
 when we contemplate the thousands of lit- 
 tle waves of life yearly washed into the 
 cellar of being; fragile, helpless innocents, 
 responsible in no way for their presence or 
 environment, yet condemned to a fate more 
 frightful than the beasts of the field ; human 
 beings wandering in the dark, existing in 
 the sewer, ever feeling the crushing weight 
 of the gay world above, which thinks little 
 and cares less for them. Infinitely pa- 
 thetic is their lot. 
 
 The causes which have operated to pro- 
 duce these conditions are numerous and 
 complex, the most apparent being the 
 immense influx of immigration from the 
 crowded centres of the Old World; the 
 glamor of city life, which has allured 
 thousands from the country, fascinating 
 them from afar much as the gaudy colors 
 and tinsel before the footlights dazzle the 
 vision of a child ; the rapid growth of the 
 saloon, rendered well-nigh impregnable by 
 the wealth of the liquor power; the won- 
 derful labor-saving inventions, which in the
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 27 
 
 hands of greed and avarice, instead of 
 mitigating the burdens of the people, 
 have greatly augmented them, by glutting 
 the market with labor; the opportunities 
 given by the government through grants, 
 special privileges and protective measures 
 for rapid accumulation of wealth by the 
 few; the power which this wealth has 
 given its possessors over the less fortunate ; 
 the spread of that fevered mental condition 
 which subjects all finer feelings and holier 
 aspirations to the acquisition of gold and 
 the gratification of carnal appetites, and 
 wdiich is manifest in such a startling degree 
 in the gambler's world, which to dignify 
 we call the realm of speculation ; the desire 
 for vulgar ostentation and luxurious indul- 
 gence — in a word the fever for gold which 
 has permeated the social atmosphere, fatally 
 infecting hundreds of thousands of our 
 people, chilling their hearts, benumbing 
 their consciences, choking all divine im- 
 pulses and refined sensibilities ; the coward- 
 ice and lethargy of the Church, which has 
 grown rich in gold and poor in the posses- 
 sion of moral energy, which no longer dares
 
 28 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 to denounce the money changers, or alarm 
 those who clay by day are anaesthetizing 
 their own souls, while adding to the mis- 
 ery of the world. The Church has become, 
 to a great extent, subsidized by gold, say- 
 ing in effect, " I am rich and increased in 
 goods and have need of nothing," appar- 
 ently ignorant of the fact that she "is 
 wretched, poor, blind and naked," that she 
 has signally failed in her true mission — 
 that of establishing on earth an ideal 
 brotherhood. Instead of lifting her chil- 
 dren into that lofty spiritual realm where 
 each feels the misery of his brother, she 
 has so far surrendered to the mammon of 
 unrighteousness that, without the slightest 
 fear of having their consciences disturbed, 
 men, in their soft-cushioned pews, find 
 comfort while wringing from ten to twenty 
 per cent, profit from their fellowmen in the 
 wretched tenement districts. I refer not 
 to the many noble exceptions, but I indict 
 the great body of wealthy and fashionable 
 churches, whose ministers do not know and 
 take no steps to find out the misery 
 that results from the avarice of their
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 29 
 
 parishioners. Then again back of all this 
 is the defective education which has devel- 
 oped all save character in man; education 
 which has trained the brain but shriveled 
 the soul. Last, but by no means least, is 
 land speculation, which has resulted in 
 keeping large tracts of land idle which 
 otherwise would have blossomed with 
 happy homes. To these influences we 
 must add the general ignorance of the 
 people regarding the nature, extent and 
 growing proportions of the misery and 
 want in the New World which is spreading 
 like an Eastern plague in the filth of an 
 Oriental city. 
 
 It is not my present purpose to dwell 
 further on the causes which have produced 
 these conditions. I wish to bring home to 
 the mind and heart of the reader a true 
 conception of life in the slums, by citing 
 typical cases, illustrating a condition prev- 
 alent in every great city of the Union 
 and increasing in its extent every year. I 
 shall confine myself to uninvited poverty 
 as found in cultured Boston, because I am 
 personally acc^uainted with the condition
 
 30 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 of affairs here, and because Boston has 
 long clamied the proud distinction of being 
 practically free from poverty. 
 
 I shall, in this chapter, briefly describe 
 scenes which fell under my personal obser- 
 vation during an afternoon tour through 
 the slums of the North End, confining 
 myself to a few typical cases which fairly 
 represent the actual condition of numbers 
 of families in the slums of our prosperous 
 city. I purposely omit, for the present, 
 describing any members of that terrible 
 commonwealth where misery, vice, degra- 
 dation and crime, are inseparably inter- 
 woven. As they belong to a lower stratum; 
 they have graduated downward. Feeling 
 the hand of society is against them, Ish- 
 mael-like they raise their hand against soci- 
 ety. They complement the ill-starred, but 
 worthy poor; both are largely a product of 
 unjust and inequitable social conditions. 
 
 The scenes I am about to describe were 
 witnessed on a sunless, dreary afternoon, 
 the day being strangely in keeping with 
 the environment of the exiles of society 
 wJio dwell in the slums. The sobbing rain,
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 31 
 
 the sad, low murmur of the wind under 
 the eaves and through the narrow alleys, 
 the cheerless, frowning sky above, were in 
 perfect harmony with the pathetic drama 
 of life I was witnessing. Everything 
 seemed pitched in a minor key, save now 
 and then there swelled forth splendid notes 
 of manly heroism and womanly courage, 
 as boldly contrasting with the dead level 
 of life as do the full, rich notes of Wagner's 
 noblest creation with the plaintive melody 
 of a simple ballad sung by a shepherd lad. 
 My companion was a hero, old in the serv- 
 ice of saving the children of the slums, a 
 noble-minded Christian who imitates the 
 great Galilean by mingling with earth's 
 outcasts to save them. 
 
 The first building we entered faced a 
 narrow street. , The hallway was as dark 
 as the air was foul or the walls filthy. 
 Not a ray or shimmer of light fell through 
 transoms or sky-light. The stairs were 
 narrow and worn. By the aid of matches 
 we were able to grope our way along, and 
 also to observe more than was pleasant to 
 behold. It was apparent that the hall^
 
 32 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 ways or stairs were seldom surprised by 
 water, while pure; fresh air was evidently 
 as much a stranger as fresh paint. After 
 ascending several flights, we entered a 
 room of undreamed-of wretchedness. On 
 the floor lay a sick man. He was rather 
 fine looking, with an intelligent face, bright 
 eyes, and a countenance indicative of force 
 of character. No sign of dissipation, but 
 an expression of sadness, or rather a look of 
 dumb resignation peered from his expres- 
 sive eyes. For more than two years he 
 had been paralyzed in his lower limbs, 
 and also affected with dropsy. The spec- 
 tacle of a strong man with the organs of 
 locomotion dead, is always pathetic; but 
 when the victim of such misfortune is in 
 the depths of abject poverty, his case 
 assumes a tragic hue. There, for two 
 years, he had lain on a wretched pallet of 
 rags, seeing his faithful wife tirelessly sew- 
 ing, hour by hour and day by day, and 
 knowing full well that health, life and 
 hope were hourly slipping from her. This 
 poor woman supports the invalid husband, 
 her two children and herself, by naaking
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 33 
 
 pants for leading Boston clothiers. No rest_, 
 no surcease, a perpetual grind from early 
 dawn often till far into the night; and, 
 what is more appalling, outraged nature 
 has rebelled; the long months of semi- 
 starvation and lack of sleep have brought 
 on rheumatism, which has settled in the 
 joints of her fingers, so that every stitch 
 means a throb of pain. Thus wdth one of 
 the most painful diseases enthroned in 
 that part of the body "which must move 
 incessantly from dawn till midnight, with 
 two small dependent children and a hus- 
 band who is utterly powerless to help her, 
 this poor woman struggles bravely and 
 uncomplainingly, confronted ever by a 
 nameless dread of pending misfortune. 
 Eviction, sickness, starvation, — such are 
 the ever-present spectres, while every year 
 marks the steady encroachment of disease, 
 and the lowering of the register of Adtality. 
 Moreover, from the window of her soul 
 falls the light of no star athwart the path- 
 way of life. 
 
 The next place visited was in the attic 
 of a tenement building even moi^e wretched
 
 34 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 than the one just described. The general 
 aspects of these houses, however, are all 
 much the same, the chief difference being 
 in the degrees of filth and squalor present. 
 Here in an attic lives a poor widow with 
 three children, a little boy and two little 
 girls. They live by making pants at starv- 
 ation wages. Since the youngest child 
 was two and a half years old she has 
 been daily engaged in overcasting the long 
 seams of the garments made by her mother. 
 When we first called she had just passed 
 her fourth birthday, and now overcasts 
 from three to four pairs of pants every day. 
 There, on a little stool, she sat, her fingers 
 moving as rapidly and in as unerring a 
 manner as an old experienced needle-woman. 
 These three children are fine looking, as are 
 most of the little Portuguese I visited. 
 Their large heads and brilliant eyes seem to 
 indicate capacity to enjoy in an unusual 
 degree the matchless delight springing 
 from intellectual and spiritual development. 
 Yet the wretched walls of their little apart- 
 ment practically mark the limit of their 
 world j the needle their inseparable com-
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 35 
 
 panion; their moral and mental natnres 
 hopelessly dwarfed; a world of wonderful 
 possibilities denied them by an inexorable 
 fate over which they have no control and 
 for which they are in no w^ay responsible. 
 We often hear it said that these children 
 of the slums are perfectly happy ; that, not 
 knowing what they miss, life is as enjoy- 
 able to them as it is to the young in more 
 favorable quarters. I am satisfied how- 
 ever, that this is true only in a limited 
 sense. The little cliildren I have just 
 described are already practically machines ; 
 day by day they engage in the same work, 
 with much of the monotony characteristic 
 of an automatic instrument propelled by 
 blind force. When given oranges and 
 cakes, a momentary smile illumined their 
 countenances, a liquid light beamed from 
 their eyes, only to be replaced by the sol- 
 emn, almost stolid expression, which has 
 become habitual even on faces so young. 
 This conclusion was still more impres- 
 sively emphasized by the following touching 
 remark of a child of twelve- years in 
 another apartment, who Avas with her
 
 36 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 mother busily sewing. " I am forty-three 
 years old to-day," remarked the mother, 
 and said the good Samaritan present, "I 
 shall be forty-two uext Aveek." " Oh dear,'' 
 broke in the child, ''/ should think jyeoiile 
 icoidd grow so tieed of living so maxy 
 YEARS." Was utterance ever more pa- 
 thetic ? She spoke in tones of mingled sad- 
 ness and weariness, revealing in one breath 
 all the pent-up bitterness of a young life 
 condemned to a slavery intolerable to any 
 refined or sensitive nature. Is it strange 
 that peojole here take to drink? To me it 
 is far more surprising that so many are 
 sober. I am convinced that, in the slums, 
 far more drunkenness is caused by abject 
 poverty and inability to obtain woi^k, than 
 want is produced by drink. Here the phys- 
 ical system, half starved and often chilled, 
 calls for stimulants. Here the horrors of 
 nightmare, which we sometimes suffer dur- 
 ing our sleep, are present during every 
 waking hour. An oppressive fear weighs 
 forever on the mind. Drink offers a tem- 
 porary relief and satisfies the craving of 
 the system; besides the environment invites
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 37 
 
 dissipation and human nature at best is 
 frail. I marvel that there is not more 
 drunkenness exhibited in the poverty spots 
 of our cities. 
 
 Among the places we visited were a num- 
 ber of cellars or burrows. We descended 
 several steps into dark, narrow passage- 
 ways, leading to cold, damp rooms, in 
 many of which no direct ray of sunshine 
 ever creeps. We entered one room con- 
 taining a bed, cooking-stove, rack of dirty 
 clothes and some broken chairs. On the 
 bed lay a man who has been ill for three 
 months with rheumatism. This family 
 consists of father, mother, and a daughter 
 in her teens, all of tvhom are co7n2}eUed to 
 occupy one bed. They eat, cook, live, and 
 sleep in this wretched cellar and pay over 
 fifty dollars a year rent. This is a typical 
 illustration of life in this underground 
 world. 
 
 In another similar cellar or burrow, we 
 found a mother and seven boys and girls, 
 some of them quite large, all sleeping in 
 tivo medium-sized beds in one room; this 
 apartment is also their kitchen. The
 
 38 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 other room is a storehouse for kindling 
 wood the children gather and sell, a little 
 store and living-room combined. Their 
 rent is two dollars a week. The cellar 
 was damp and cold ; the air stifling. Noth- 
 ing can he imagined more favorable to con- 
 tagion both physical and moral than such 
 dens as these. Ethical exaltation or spir- 
 itual growth is impossible with such envi- 
 ronment. It is not strange that the slums 
 breed criminals, which require vast sums 
 yearly to punish after evil has been perpe- 
 trated ; but to me it is an ever-increasing 
 source of wonder that society should be so 
 short-sighted and neglectful of the condi- 
 tion of its exiles, when an outlay of a much 
 smaller sum would ensure a prevention of 
 a large proportion of the crime that eman- 
 ates from the slums; while, at the same 
 time, it would mean a new world of life, 
 happiness and measureless possibilities for 
 the thousands who now exist in hopeless 
 gloom. 
 
 In a small room fronting an interior 
 court we found a man whose face bore the 
 stamp of that "hope long deferred which
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 39 
 
 inaketh the heart sick." He is, I am 
 informed, a strictly temperate, honest and 
 industrious workman. Up to the time of 
 his wife's illness and death, which occurred 
 last summer, the family lived in a reason- 
 ably comfortable manner, as the husband 
 found no difficulty in securing work on the 
 sea. When the wife died, however, cir- 
 cumstances changed. She left six little 
 children, one almost an infant. The father 
 could not go to sea, leaving his little flock 
 without a protector, to fall the victims of 
 starvation, and since then he has worked 
 whenever he could obtain employment of 
 any kind. For the past six weeks he has 
 been practically without work, and the nu- 
 merous family of little ones have suffered 
 for life's necessities. His rent is two dol- 
 lars and a quarter a week. 
 
 In an attic in another tenement we 
 found a widow weeping and working by 
 the side of a little cradle wliere lay a sick 
 child, whose large, luminous eyes shone 
 with almost phosphorescent brilliancy from 
 great cavernous sockets, as they wandered 
 from one to another, with a wistful, soul-
 
 40 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 querying gaze. Its forehead was large and 
 prominent, so much so that, looking at the 
 upper part of the head, one would little 
 imagine how terrible the emaciation of the 
 body, which was little more than skin and 
 bones, speaking more eloquently than 
 words of the ravages of slow starvation 
 and wasting disease. The immediate 
 cause of the poor woman's tears was 
 explained to us in broken English, substan- 
 tially as follows: She had just returned 
 from the dispensary where she had been 
 unsuccessful in her effort to have a physi- 
 cian visit her child, owing to her inability 
 to pay the quarter of a dollar demanded 
 for the visit. After describing as best she 
 could the condition of the invalid, the doc- 
 tor had given her two bottles of medicine 
 and a prescription blank on which he had 
 written directions for her to get a truss 
 that would cost her two dollars and a half 
 at the drug store. She had explained to 
 the physician that owing to the illness of 
 her child she had fallen a week and a half 
 in arrears in rent; that the agent for the 
 tenement had notified her that if one
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 41 
 
 week's rent was not paid on Saturday she 
 would be evicted, which meant death to 
 her chikl, so she could not buy the truss. 
 To which the doctor replied, "You must 
 get the truss and put it on before giving 
 anything from either bottle, or the medi- 
 cine will kill your child." "If I give the 
 medicine," she repeated, showing us the 
 bottles, " Ijefore I put the truss on, he says 
 it will kill my child," and the tears ran 
 swiftly down her grief-furrowed face. The 
 child was so emaciated that the support 
 would inevitably have produced terrible 
 sores in a short time. I am satisfied that 
 had the physician seen its condition, he 
 would not have had a heart to order it. 
 
 I thought, as I studied the anxious and 
 sorrowful countenance of that mother, how 
 hard, indeed, is the lot of the very poor. 
 They have to buy coal by the basketful 
 and pay almost double price, likewise for 
 food and all life's necessities. They are 
 compelled to live in frightful disease-fos- 
 tering cjuarters, and pay exorbitant rents 
 for the accomodations they receive. When 
 sick they are not always free from impo-
 
 42 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 sition, even when they receive aid in 
 the name of charity, and sometimes theol- 
 ogy, nnder the cloak of religion, oppresses 
 them. This last thought had been sug- 
 gested by seeing in our rounds some half- 
 starved women dropping pennies into the 
 hands of Sisters of Charity, who were even 
 here, in the midst of terrible want, exacting 
 from the starving, money for a church 
 whose coffers groan with wealth. 0, relig- 
 ion, ineffably radiant and exalting in thy 
 pure influence, how thou art often debased 
 by thy professed followers! How much 
 injustice is meted out to the very poor, and 
 how many crimes are still committed under 
 thy cloak and in thy hol}^ name! Even 
 this poor widow had bitterly suffered 
 through priests who belong to a great 
 communion, claiming to follow Him who 
 cried, "Come unto me all ye who are 
 weary and heavy laden and 1 will give 
 you rest," as Avill be seen by the following, 
 statements given me by my companion, who 
 w^as personally cognizant of the facts. The 
 husband of this widow was out of work 
 for a time, and being too ill to engage in
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 43 
 
 steady work, lie found it impossible to pay 
 the required ten cents for seats in the church 
 to which he belonged, and was consequently 
 excluded from his sitting. Shortly after 
 he fell sick, his wife sought the priest, 
 imploring him to administer the sacrament, 
 and later extreme unction, which he posi- 
 tively refused, leaving the poor man to die 
 without the consolation of the Church he 
 had from infancy been taught to love and 
 revere. 
 
 It is not strange that many in this 
 world of misery become embittered against 
 society; that they sometimes learn to hate 
 all who live in comfort, and who represent 
 the established order of things, and from 
 the rank of the patient, uncomplaining 
 struggler descend to a lower zone, where 
 the moral nature is eclipsed by degradation 
 and crime, and life takes on a deeper shade 
 of horror. This class of people exist on 
 the brink of a precipice. Socially they 
 may be likened to the physical condition 
 of Victor Hugo's Claude Frollo after 
 Quasimodo had hurled him from the tower 
 of Notre Dame. I remember the sickening
 
 44 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 sensation produced by that wonderful piece 
 of descriptive work, depicting the false 
 priest hanging to the eaves, vainly strivinpr 
 to ascend, feeling the leaden gutter to 
 which he was holding slowly giving away. 
 His hands send momentary messages to 
 the brain, warning it that endurance is 
 almost exhausted. Below he sees the 
 sharp formidable spires of Saint-Jean-de- 
 Ronde, and immediately under him, two 
 hundred feet from where he hano-s is the 
 hard pavement, where men appear like 
 pigmies. Above stands the avenging 
 hunchback, ready to hurl him back if he 
 succeeds in climbing over the eaves. So 
 these poor people have ever below them 
 starvation, eviction and sickness. Above 
 stands Quasimodo in the form of a three- 
 headed monster: a soulless landlord; the 
 slave master who pays only starvation 
 wages ; and disease, the natural complement 
 of the wretched squalor permitted by the 
 one, and the slow starvation necessarily 
 incident to the prices paid by the other. 
 Their lot is even more terrible when it is 
 remembered that their fall carries with it
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 45 
 
 the fate of their loved ones. In addition 
 to the multitude who are condemned to 
 suffer through uninvited poverty, with no 
 hopeful outlook before them, there is 
 another class constantly on the brink of 
 real distress, and liable, at any time, 
 to suffer bitterly because they are proud- 
 spirited and will almost starve before 
 they ask for aid. Space prevents me 
 from citing more than one illustration 
 of this character. In an apartment house 
 we found an American woman with a 
 babe two weeks old and a little girl. 
 The place was scrupulously clean, some- 
 thing very rare in this zone of life. The 
 woman, of course, was weak from ill- 
 ness, and, as yet, unable to take in any 
 work to speak of. Her husband had been 
 out of employment for a few weeks, but 
 had just shipped on board a sailing vessel 
 for a cruise of several months. The 
 woman did not intimate that they were in 
 great need, as she hoped to soon be enabled 
 to make some money, and the portion of 
 her husband's wages she was allowed to 
 drP^w, paid the rent, A week ago, how
 
 46 CIVILIZATION'S INFEBNO. 
 
 ever, the little girl came to the Bethel 
 Mission asking for a loaf of bread. "We 
 have had nothing to eat since Monday 
 morning," she said, "and the little baby 
 cries all the time because mamma can give 
 it no milk." It was Wednesday evening 
 when the child visited the Mission. An 
 investigation substantiated the truth of the 
 child's words. The mother, too proud to 
 beg, struggled with fate, hoping and pray- 
 ing to be able to succeed without asking 
 for aid, but seeing her babe starving to 
 death, she yielded. This case finds many 
 counterparts where a little aid bridges over 
 a period of frightful want, after which the 
 unfortunates are able, in a measure, to take 
 care of themselves. 
 
 I find it impossible in this chapter to touch 
 upon other cases I desired to describe. The 
 above illustrations however, typical of the 
 life and environment of hundreds of fami- 
 lies, are sufficient to emphasize a condition 
 which exists in our midst and which is 
 yearly growing, both in extent and in 
 intensity of bitterness ; a condition which is 
 Jittle understood by those who are not act-
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 47 
 
 ually brouglit in contact with the circum- 
 stances as they exist ; a condition at once 
 revolting and appalling to every sense of 
 humanity and justice. We cannot afford 
 to remain ignorant of the real status of 
 life in oar midst, any more than we can 
 afford to sacrifice truth to optimism. It 
 has become a habit with some to make 
 light of these grim and terrible facts, to 
 minify the suffering experienced, or to try 
 and impute the terrible condition to drink. 
 This may be pleasant but it will never 
 alter conditions or aid the cause of reform. 
 It is our duty honestly to face the deplor- 
 oble conditions and to endeavor while 
 ameliorating the suffering, to bring about 
 radical reformatory measures calculated to 
 invest life with a new and joyous signifi- 
 cance for this multitude so long exiled 
 from joy, gladness, and comfort. 
 
 We now come to the practical question, 
 What is to be done ? But before viewing 
 the problem in its broader asjDCcts, I 
 wish to say a word in regard to the 
 direct measures for immediate relief, which 
 it is fashionable among many reformers
 
 48 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 to dismiss as unworthy of consideration. 
 It is very necessary in a discussion of 
 this character to view the problem in 
 all its bearings, and adjust the mental 
 vision so as to recognize the utility 
 of the various plans advanced by sincere 
 reformers. I have frequently heard it 
 urged that these palliative measures tend 
 to retard the great radical reformative 
 movements, which are now taking hold of 
 the public mind. This view, however com- 
 fortable to those who prefer theorizing and 
 agitating to putting their shoulder to the 
 wheel in a practical way, is nevertheless, 
 erroneous. There is no way in which people 
 can be so thoroughly aroused to the urg- 
 ent necessity of radical economic changes, 
 as by bringing them into such intimate 
 relations with the submerged millions that 
 they hear the throbbing of misery's heart. 
 The moral lethargy of our people is 
 unquestionably due to lack of knowledge 
 more than anything else. The people do 
 not begin to realize the true condition of 
 life in the ever-widening field of abject 
 want. When they know and are suffi-
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 49 
 
 ciently interested to investigate the prob- 
 lem personally and aid the suffering, then 
 they will appreciate as never before, the 
 absolute necessity for radical economic 
 changes, which contemplate a greater need 
 of justice and happiness, than any measurec 
 yet devised. But, aside from this, we must 
 not forget the fact that we have a duty to 
 perform to the living, no less than to the 
 generations yet unborn. The common- 
 wealth of to-day, as well as tliat of to-mor- 
 row, demands our aid. Millions are in the 
 cpiicksands; yearly, monthly, daily, hourly 
 they are sinking deeper and deeper. We 
 can save them while the bridges are being 
 built. To withhold the planks upon which 
 life and happiness depend, is no less crim- 
 inal than to refuse to face the question in 
 its broader aspects, and labor for funda- 
 mental economic changes. A great work 
 of real, practical, and enduring value, how- 
 ever, is being wrought each year by those 
 in charge of local mission work in the 
 slums, and by individuals who mingle with 
 and study the actual condition of the 
 very poor. The good accomplished by
 
 50 CIVILIZATION' 8 INFERNO. 
 
 those persons who are giving their lives to 
 uplifting society's exiles is little understood 
 because it is quiet and unostentatious ; yet 
 through the instrumentality of the silent 
 workers, thousands of persons are annually 
 kept from starvation and crime, while for 
 many of them new, broad, and hopeful hor- 
 izons are constantly coming in view.* 
 
 * The extent iiiul character of this ■work will be more rcafl- 
 ily understood Ly noting the labor accomplislied by the Bethei 
 Mission in the North End, which is doing more than any other 
 single organization in that section of the city for the dwellers 
 of the slums. Hero, under the efficient management of Rev. 
 Walter J. Swaffield, work is intelligently pushed with untir- 
 ing zeal and in a perfectly systematic manner. From a social 
 and humanitarian point of view, this work may be briefly 
 summed up as follows : [i.] looking after the teaipo- 
 
 RAL AND IMMEDIATE WANTS OF THOSE WHO ARE REALLY 
 
 SUFFERING. Here cases are quietly and syuiiJatheiically 
 investigated. Food is often purchased ; the rents are some- 
 times paid ; old clothes are distributed where they are 
 most needed, and in many ways the temporal wants are 
 looked after, while kind, friendly visitation to between one 
 and two hundred very needy families, comprises a portion of 
 each month's work. [2.] The sailors' boarding-house. 
 A large, clean, homelike building is fitted up for sailors. 
 Every American vessel that comes into port is visited by a 
 member of the JNIission who invites the sailors to remain at 
 this model homo for seamen. In this way hundreds yearly 
 escape the vicious contagion of the wretched sailors' board- 
 ing-houses of this part of the city, or what is still more import- 
 ant, avoid undreamed-of vice, degradation, and disease by 
 going with companions to dens of infamy. [3.] Secur- 
 ing COMFORTABLE HOMES AND GOOD POSITIONS FOR THE 
 YOUNG WHO ARE THUS ENABLED TO RISE OUT OF THE NIGHT
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 51 
 
 Let us now examine a broader aspect of 
 this problem. So long as the wretched, 
 filthy dens of dirt,, vermin, and disease stand 
 as the only shelter for the children of the 
 slums, so long will moral and physical con- 
 tagion flourish and send forth death-dealing 
 germs; so long wdll crime and degradation 
 
 AND OPPRESSION OF THIS TERRIBLE EXISTENCE. Tllis, it is 
 
 needless to add, is a very difficult task, owinj? to the fact that 
 Bociety shrinks from its exiles ; few persons will give any one 
 a cliance who is known to have belonged to the slums. 
 Nevertlieless good positions are yeai'ly secured for a number of 
 these children of adversity. [4.] The children's free 
 
 INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL IN "WHICH THE YOUNG ARE TAUGHT USE- 
 FUL TRADES, OCCUPATIONS, AND MEANS OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 In this training-school the little girls are taught to make them- 
 selves garments. The material is furnished them free and 
 when they have completed the garment it is given them. 
 [5.] Summer vacations in the country are provided 
 FOR several HUNDRED CHILDREN ; some for a few days, 
 some a week, some two weeks, as the exigencies of the 
 case require and the limited funds permit. These little oases 
 in the children's dreary routine life are looked forward to 
 with even greater anticipations of joy than is Christmas in the 
 homes of the rich. I have cited the work of this Mission 
 because I have personally investigated its work, and have 
 seen the immense good that is being done with the very lim- 
 ited funds at the command of Mr. Swaffield and his assist- 
 ants, and also to show by an illustration how much may be 
 accomplished for the immediate relief of the sufferers. A 
 grand palliative work requires labor and money. It is not 
 enough for those who live in our great cities to contribute to 
 such work, they should visit these quarters and see for 
 themselves. This would change many into active mission- 
 aries who are indifferent to-day.
 
 52 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 increase, demanding more policemen, more 
 numerous judiciary, and larger prisons. No 
 great, permanent or far-reaching reforma- 
 tion can be brought about until the habita- 
 tions of the people are radically improved. 
 The recognition of this fact has already led 
 to a practical, palliative measure for relief 
 which must challenge the admiration of all 
 thoughtful persons interested in the wel- 
 fare of society's exiles. It is a step in the 
 direction of justice. It is not merely a 
 work of charity; it is, I think, the most 
 feasible immediate measure that can be 
 employed, Avhich wdll change the whole 
 aspect of life for tens of thousands, making 
 existence mean something, and giving a 
 wonderful significance to the now mean- 
 ingless- word "home." I refer to the erec- 
 tion of model tenement apartments in our 
 over-crowded sections, such, for example, as 
 the Victoria Square dwelling of Liverpool. 
 Here, on the former site of miserable 
 tenement houses, sheltering more than a 
 thousand people, stands to-day a palatial 
 structure built around a hollow square, the 
 major part of which is utilized as a large
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 53 
 
 slirub-encircled playground for the children. 
 The halls and stairways of the building are 
 broad, light, and airy ; the ventilation and 
 sanitary arrangements perfect. The apart- 
 ments are divided into one, two, and three 
 rooms each. No room is smaller than 13 x 
 8 feet 6 inches; most of them are 12 x lo 
 feet 4 inches. All the ceilings are 9 feet 
 high. A superintendent looks after the 
 building. The tenants are expected to be 
 orderly, and to keep their apartments clean. 
 The roomy character of halls and chambers 
 may be inferred from the fact that there 
 are only two hundred and seventy-five 
 apartments in the entire building. The 
 returns on the total expenditure of the 
 building, which was $338,800.00, it is esti- 
 mated will be at least 4 1-2 per cent, while 
 the rents are as follows : $1.44 per week for 
 the three-room tenements, $1.08 per week 
 for those containing two large rooms, and 
 54 cents for the one-room quarters. In 
 Boston, the rents for tlie dreadful one- 
 room cellars are $1.00 a week; for the 
 two-room tenements above the cellars, 
 the rent, ranged from $1.50 to $2.50;
 
 54 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 three rooms were, of course, mucli higher. 
 The rooms also are far smaller here 
 than those in the beautiful, healthful, 
 and inviting Victoria Square apartments. 
 Yet it will be observed that our land- 
 lords receive onore than double the rental 
 paid in this building for dens which 
 would be a disgrace to barbarism. A sim- 
 ilar experiment, in many respects even 
 more remarkable than that recently in- 
 augurated in Liverpool, is found in the 
 Peabody dwellings in London. These 
 apartments have been in successful opera- 
 tion for many years, while the results 
 attending them have been so marked and 
 salutary, that no discussion of this subject 
 would be complete which failed to give some 
 of the most important facts relating to 
 them. I know of no single act of philan- 
 thropy that towers so nobly above the sordid 
 greed of the struggling multitude of mil- 
 lionaires as does this splendid work of 
 George Peabody, by which to-day, twenty 
 thousand people, who, but for him, would 
 be in the depths of the slums, are fronting a 
 bright future, and with souls full of hope
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 65 
 
 are struggling into a higher civilization. It 
 will be remembered that Mr. Peabody 
 donated at intervals extending over a 
 period of eleven years, or from 1862 to 
 1873, £500,000 or $2,500,000 to this pro- 
 ject of relieving the poor. He specified 
 that his purpose was to ameliorate the 
 condition of the poor and needy of Lon- 
 don and promote their comfort and happi- 
 ness, making only the following condi- 
 tions : — 
 
 ''First and foremost amongst them is the limit- 
 ation of its uses, absolutely and exclusively, to 
 such purposes as may be calculated directly to 
 ameliorate the condition and augment the com- 
 forts of the poor, who, either by birth or establish- 
 lished residence, form a recognized portion of the 
 population of London. 
 
 " Secondli/, it is my intention that now, and for 
 all time, there shall bo a rigid exclusion from the 
 management of this fund, of any influences calcii- 
 lated to impart to it a cliaracter either sectarian 
 as regards religion, or exclusive in relation to 
 party politics. 
 
 " Thirdly, it is my wish that the sole qualifica- 
 tion for a participation in the benefits of the fund 
 shall be an ascertained and continued condition of 
 life, such as brings the individual within the 
 description (in the ordinary sense of the word) of 
 the poor of London: combined Avith moral char- 
 acter, and good conduct as a member of society."
 
 56 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 Realizing that little could be hoped for 
 from individuals or their offspring, who 
 were condemned to a life in vile dens, 
 where the squalor and wretchedness was 
 only equalled by the poisonous, disease- 
 breeding atmosphere and the general filth 
 which characterized the tenement districts, 
 the trustees Mr. Peabody selected to carry 
 forward his work, engaged in the erection 
 of a large building accommodating over two 
 hundred persons at a cost of $136,500. This 
 apartment house, which is substantially uni- 
 form with the seventeen additional build- 
 ings since constructed from the Peabody 
 fund, is five stories high, built around a 
 hollow square, thus giving plenty of fresh 
 air and sunshine to the rear as well as the 
 front of the entire building. The square 
 affords a large playground for the children, 
 where they are in no danger of being run 
 over by vehicles, and where they are under 
 the immediate eye of many of the parents. 
 The building is divided into tenements of 
 one, two, and three room apartments, 
 according to the requirements of the occu- 
 pant. There are also nine stores on the
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 57 
 
 ground floor, which bring a rental of some- 
 thing over ^1,500 a jea,Y for each of the 
 buildings. By careful, honest, and consci- 
 entious business management, the original 
 sum of $2,500,000 has been almost doubled, 
 while comfortable, healthful homes have 
 been procured for an army of over 20,000 
 persons. Some of the apartments contain 
 four rooms, many three, some two, others 
 one. The average rent is about $1.15 for 
 au apartment. The average price for 
 three-room apartments in the wretched 
 tenements of London, is $1.45 a week. 
 In the Peabody dwellings, the death 
 rate is .96 per one thousand below the 
 average in London. Thus it will be seen 
 that wdiile large, healthful, airy, and cheer- 
 ful homes have been provided for over 
 20,000 human beings at a lower figure 
 than the wretched disease-fostering and 
 crime-breeding tenements of our soulless 
 landlords, the Peabody fund has, since 
 1862, grown to nearly $5,000,000, or 
 almost twice the sum given for the work 
 by the great philanthropist. No words 
 can adequately describe the magnitude of
 
 CI VIL IZA TION ' S INFERNO. 
 
 this splendid work, any more than we can 
 measure the good it has accomplished, the 
 crime prevented, or the lives that through 
 it have become useful members of soci- 
 ety. In the Liverpool experiment, the 
 work has been prosecuted by the munici- 
 pal government. In the Peabody dwell- 
 ings, it has, of course, been the w^ork of an 
 individual, carried on by a board of high- 
 minded, honorable, and philanthropic gen- 
 tlemen. To my mind it seems far more 
 practicable for philanthropic, monied men 
 to prosecute this work as a business invest- 
 ment, specifying in their wills that rents 
 shall not rise above a figure necessary to 
 insure a fair interest on the money, rather 
 than leave it for city governments, as in 
 the latter case it would be in great danger 
 of becoming an additional stronghold for 
 unscrupulous city officials to use for polit- 
 ical purposes. Here is a noble field for 
 men Avith millions to bless the race by fol- 
 lowing Mr. Peabody's example. If, instead 
 of willing every year princely sums to old, 
 rich, and conservative educational insti- 
 tutions, which already possess far more
 
 SOCIETY'S EXILES. 59 
 
 money than they require, — wealthy per- 
 sons would bequeath sums for the erection 
 of buildings after the manner of the Victo- 
 ria Square or the Peabody Dwellings, a won- 
 derful transformation would soon appear 
 in our cities. Crime would diminish; life 
 would rise to a higher level ; and from the 
 hearts and brains of tens of thousands, a 
 great and terrible load would be lifted. 
 Yet noble and praiseworthy as is this work, 
 we must not lose sight of the fact, that, at 
 best, it is only a palliative measure: a 
 grand, noble, beneficent work which chal- 
 lenges our admiration, and should receive 
 our cordial support; still it is only a 
 palliative. 
 
 There are fundamental principles in- 
 volved in this question which make for 
 justice, and open up the broader aspect of 
 this social problem about which I will have 
 more to say in other chapters. I, there- 
 fore, for the present, dismiss it with a word. 
 As long as speculation continues in that 
 great gift of God to man, land, the prob- 
 lem will be unsettled. So long as the 
 landlords find that the more wretched,
 
 60 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 filthy, rickety and loathsome a building is, 
 the lower will be the taxes, he will con- 
 tinue to make some of the ever-increasing 
 army of bread-winners dwell in his foul, 
 disease-impregnated dens. 
 
 The present economic system is being 
 rapidly outgrown. Man's increasing intel- 
 ligence, sense of justice, and the humani- 
 tarian spirit of the age, demand radical 
 changes, which will come immeasurably 
 nearer securing equal opportunities for all 
 persons than the past ages have dreamed 
 possible. No sudden or rash measure, cal- 
 culated to convulse business and work great 
 suffering, should be entertained, but our 
 future action should rest on a broad, sett- 
 led policy founded upon justice, tempered by 
 moderation, keeping in view the great 
 work of banishing uninvited poverty, and 
 elevating the great struggling millions to 
 a higher level, without sacrificing that 
 individualism which is essential to growth.
 
 TWO HOURS 
 IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 
 
 61
 
 Slow fades the pageant, and the phantom stage 
 As slowly filled with squalid, ghastly forms; 
 Here, over fireless hearths, cowered shivering Age 
 And blew with feeble breath dead embers; storms 
 Hung in the icy welkin, and the bare 
 Earth lay forlorn in Winter's charnel air. 
 
 No careless childhood laughed disportingly, 
 
 But dwarfed, pale mandrakes, with a century's gloom 
 
 On infant brows, beneath a poison tree, 
 
 "With skeleton fingers plied a ghastly loom; 
 
 Mocking in cynic jests life's gravest things, 
 
 They wove gay king-robes, muttering, "What are kings ? " 
 
 Aiul thro' that dreary Hades to and fro, 
 Stalked all vmheeded, the Tatarean guests : 
 Grim Discontent, tliat loathes the Gods, and Woe, 
 Clasping dead infants to her milkless breasts; 
 And madding Hate, and Force, with iron heel. 
 And voiceless Vengeance, sharpening secret steel. 
 
 " Can such things be below and God above ? " 
 Faltered the king. Replied the genius, " Nay, 
 This is the state that sages most approve; 
 This is man civilized, the jierfect sway 
 Of merchant kings, the ripeness of the art 
 Which cheapens men — the Elysium of the Mart." 
 
 — Bulwer Lytt07i in King A rthur. 
 
 62
 
 TWO IIOUES IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 63 
 
 III. 
 
 TWO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL 
 CELLAR. 
 
 Further journcyings through the slums — Scenes of misery in 
 the domain of uninvited poverty in Boston — Recent 
 scenes in the social cellars of New York — Illustrations, 
 showing how present conditions foster wealth, and 
 increase iioverty — The evils of our system of taxation — 
 Immigration — Speculation in laud — Monopoly in trans- 
 portation — Significant hints. 
 
 IT is my purpose, in this chapter, to con- 
 tinue our examination of that part of 
 the social cellar where uninvited poverty 
 holds sway. Later we will descend into a 
 lower zone of life. It must be evident to every 
 thoughtful student of sociology that radical 
 economic changes must be brought about 
 before the rising tide of poverty and misery 
 can receive a substantial check. Few peo- 
 ple have any adequate idea of the nature 
 or extent of the sufferings among the very
 
 64 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 poor in our great cities ; and, until the facts 
 are generally known, no measures can be 
 brought about which w^ill strike effective 
 blows at the grave injustice which fathers 
 so much misery. 
 
 The principal scenes I am about to 
 describe met my view on a bitter winter's 
 afternoon in January* The wind pene- 
 trated to the very bone. The atmos- 
 phere was charged with moisture, which 
 seemed to herald a heavy snow when the 
 air should become a little warmer. We 
 first stopped at a place I had on other occa- 
 sions visited, but this time I found a great 
 change for the better. True, the halls were 
 as dark as before, and the omnipresent 
 odor of garbage was as stifling as on former 
 visits, but within this tenement a great 
 change was noticeable; the walls and ceiling 
 were newly whitewashed and papered, and 
 the place was, in comparison with its former 
 appearance, positively cheery and inviting. 
 I was amazed, knowing the greed}^ pro- 
 pensities of the Croesuses who own these 
 wretched dens. Had the owner actually 
 
 « 18^2.
 
 TWO nouns IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 65 
 
 visited these quarters ? Had his heart soft- 
 ened? Had he determined to make one 
 home happy and inviting, by the voluntary 
 outlay of a few dollars of his extortionate 
 rent? By no means. My companion * who 
 accompanied me, explained the mystery. 
 It was disease which had brought about the 
 change. A terrible disease — diphtheria — 
 not often considered a blessino; in disg-uise, 
 in this case proved such, as the Board of 
 Health had compelled the landlord to thor- 
 oughly renovate, whitewash, and newly 
 paper the rooms. This apartment is occu- 
 pied by a woman whose husband is an inva- 
 lid in the Western Islands. She supports 
 herself and two children by working on pants, 
 at what may be regarded starvation wages ; 
 but her lot is less pitiable than that of hun- 
 dreds of others in this section of Boston. 
 
 We next stepped up an alley-way lead- 
 ing from one of the principal streets, 
 and found ourselves facing a large rook- 
 ery, dark, dirty, and uninviting with- 
 out, but the exterior was far more inviting 
 
 *Rev. W. J. Swaflield has accompanied me in all my jour- 
 neyiiigs through the slums of the North End,
 
 60 CIVTL JZ. 1 770 .V ' S INFERNO. 
 
 than the interior — halls dark as midnight 
 in a dungeon; air heavy with foul odors^, 
 and seemingly devoid of oxygen ; the banis- 
 ters greasy and the stairs much worn, as 
 we could feel rather than see. 
 
 Here a succession of never-to-be-forgot- 
 ten pictures met our eyes, depicting at once 
 the startling inhumanity of wealth and the 
 infinite misery of poverty in the modern 
 Athens. In one room a young woman, 
 with a remarkably bright and attractive 
 face, was busy at her washing. She has 
 six children and a mother to support, dur- 
 ing the absence of her husband, who is 
 at sea. She washes and scrubs for a 
 livelihood. 
 
 " We do very well," she said, with a half- 
 uttered sigh and a shadow flitting over her 
 cheerful face, "when we can get work." 
 "This week," she continued, "I have been 
 very fortunate, and have been kept quite 
 busy." 
 
 " What rent do you pay for these two 
 rooms : 
 
 "Two dollars and a half a week." 
 
 I was startled. Two dollars and a half
 
 TWO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 67 
 
 for these wretched dens in the heart of the 
 shims! One hundred and thirty dollars a 
 year for rent ! Surely Shylock ought soon 
 to be able to buy a high place in public 
 esteem on such a rich harvest of blood 
 money. Surely he ought to be able to 
 enjoy steam launches and private cars. 
 Ilis children might summer in Europe, 
 and winter in Florida; and how munificent 
 might be his gifts to churches, colleges, 
 and libraries ; while, if he owns several such 
 buildings, he would still be able to live in 
 sumptuous luxury. 
 
 We visited several tenements in this 
 same building, which told practically the 
 same story, so far as biting poverty and 
 general all-around wretchedness were con- 
 cerned. At last we reached the attic. 
 Here one small dormer window afforded all 
 the light for the main room. On one side 
 of this window the roof slanted to the floor. 
 In the corner, under this low-bending ceil- 
 ing, was a pile of rags, upon which lay two 
 half-naked little waifs, suffering with an 
 acute attack of influenza, induced by inabil- 
 ity, on the parents' part, to obtain any fuel
 
 68 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 when the cold spell set in. The father, 
 being a chronic invalid, the mother has to 
 support the family. In a crib was a seven- 
 year-old child, whose large and expressive 
 eyes wandered from the ceiling to the 
 equally dismal wall, from thence to us, and 
 then to its mother, at sight of whom a 
 visible smile spoke of love and a sense of 
 security. AYhen we entered the room, the 
 mother looked up hastily, and a smile flit- 
 ted across her sad face as she saw my com- 
 panion, who is looked upon much as a 
 father by numbers of families in this w^orld 
 of wretchedness. She did not, however, 
 relax her.w^ork. After the first salutation, 
 steadily, almost ferociously, she plied her 
 ^leedle, glancing apprehensively once or 
 twice at the slowly increasing gloom with- 
 out. She seemed greedy for the light. Each 
 moment must be utilized. A dark day at 
 best, night; would soon come, and that meant 
 oessation of work or the employment of lights, 
 and lights cost money. To a person who has 
 Ijut a few cents with which to supply life's 
 111, my demands, even a light means much. 
 Yes, sLe iiiust improve every moment;
 
 TWO HOURS IjV the SOCIAL CELLAR. 69 
 
 there was a dollar and a half a week rent 
 to pay; there was food to buy. Was it 
 not for lack of money to buy fuel that her 
 children now suffered? And that suffer- 
 ing alone brought more than anxious care; 
 it called for medical advice and remedies. 
 When we laid some oranges on the table, 
 saying we thought the children would enjoy 
 them, again a smile, or rather the phantom 
 of a smile, crept across her face as she 
 thanked us; but in a moment it was gone, 
 and the leathery skin assumed the old 
 expression of profound melancholy. As I 
 studied that face, bronzed and furrowed in 
 the most wearing and terrible battle known 
 to modern times; as my eye fell on that 
 little human register of hojDC and fear, love 
 and anguish, I could not escape the thought 
 that here, in the compass of a single brain, 
 lay a record of the misery common to mil- 
 lions to-day in the very noon-tide of Chris- 
 tian civilization. T felt that a thrill of 
 unutterable horror would pulsate through 
 the being of every man and woman in soci- 
 ety, from the wealthy landlord, to the 
 humble artisan, who yet earns a respect-
 
 70 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 able living, if by some marvellous power, 
 that wonderful plioto-plionograpli, called 
 the brain, could unroll the history of this 
 life, from the time when, an infant, with 
 bright, wonder-lit eyes, she nestled on a 
 mother's breast, until now — a wreck, bent, 
 haggard, old before the time for age to 
 stamp its impress. This poor woman, in 
 the eventide of day and life, typifies the 
 condition of millions of God's children who 
 are the legitimate products of our nine- 
 teenth century civilization. 
 
 From this attic, after visiting many 
 other quarters scarcely less terrible, and 
 all pi'esenting substantially the same pic- 
 ture of chronic wretchedness, we descended 
 several steps, and found ourselves in a 
 cellar apartment, about half underground. 
 The ceiling was only seven and one half 
 feet from the floor. If these rooms ever 
 contained any salable articles of furniture, 
 they had disappeared; and the woman 
 related to us, with quivering lip and tears 
 starting from her eyes, the terrible fact that 
 for three days they had had no fire. On 
 one of these days the thermometer at the
 
 TWO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 71 
 
 Blue Hill Observatory had registered two 
 degrees below zero. The husband, who had 
 lost his work on account of sickness, had just 
 succeeded in securing some broken-up wood, 
 in pay for a day's work. Neither the man 
 nor woman had any appearance of being 
 addicted to drink. The man said, with 
 feeling, "All I w^ant is work." The poor 
 woman, in consequence of being thus 
 exposed in this damp and freezing cellar, 
 without a spark of fire, w\as in agony from 
 rheumatism; her lungs also were affected. 
 Seldom have I witnessed a scene so abso- 
 lutely hopeless, so dreary, so well calculated 
 to bring a feeling of overpowering heart- 
 sickness to any sensitive soul, as" this. 
 Here was a family of seven, apparently 
 sober and reasonably intelligent, only ask- 
 ing for work. The rent paid is one dollar 
 and a half a week, for a den not fit for 
 dumb animals to live in. The atmos- 
 phere, owing to the proximity of out- 
 buildings, was horrible beyond description. 
 After relieving the present needs ot these 
 sufferers w^e left the apartment, knowing 
 that the cloud had, for the moment, been
 
 72 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 lifted; yet the relief was only temporary. 
 The next month, through sickness or in- 
 ability to obtain work, they were liable to 
 be in as deplorable a condition as we had 
 found them; and this is a single typical 
 case taken from hundreds who are prac- 
 tically in the same condition. No charity 
 work, however wisely carried on, can 
 take the place oi justice; and though char- 
 ity, at the present time, is very necessary, 
 it is radical social and economic chanires 
 that are urgently demanded. This common- 
 wealth of misery and despair is largely the 
 legitimate product of unjust social con- 
 ditions. Its inhabitants are victims of 
 human selfishness and greed — prisoners 
 of poverty — driven toward starvation by 
 the merciless lash of law, in the hands of 
 injustice. This is a fact which cannot be 
 too often stated. 
 
 Another scene I will touch upon, only 
 to show how extreme poverty crushes the 
 more refined and delicate sensibilities of 
 the human soul, as well as blunts, in a 
 more general way, the moral nature. We 
 found an attic inhabited by a brother and
 
 TWO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAIi. 73 
 
 a sister. The latter had just stepped out; 
 the brother was at home. He seemed 
 about forty years of age and rather below 
 the average in intelligence, even in this 
 district. The apartments gave every evi- 
 dence of the most abject poverty, contain- 
 ing a single bed for its occupants, a deplor- 
 able fact which my friend had mentioned 
 as we were wending our way up the dark 
 stairs. Terrible, indeed, is such a spectacle ; 
 but when poverty touches the borders of 
 starvation, we have no right to judge 
 harshly. They may have maintained their 
 virtue even thus; it is not our place to 
 judge individaals, especially in such desper- 
 ate straits. But this we do say, social 
 conditions which crush people into these 
 extremities are being judged, and the trial 
 will not be over until justice, in a broader 
 acceptation than society has ever recog- 
 nized it, has been established. 
 
 In one cellar, seven and one-half feet 
 from floor to ceiling, we found an American 
 lady who had been accustomed to far differ- 
 ent circumstances. She was a person of 
 education and refinement. Her apartments.
 
 74 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 though surrounded by filth and squalor, 
 were as clean as if the environment wooed 
 cleanliness and fanned hope. I have never 
 heard purer English spoken than she used. 
 Every word and movement indicated refine- 
 ment. Her husband died three years before, 
 leaving her with two little girls. For one 
 she had secured a home in New Hampshire. 
 The other, a beautiful though delicate little 
 tot of about five years, remained with her. 
 This child was a veritable rose among 
 thorns, polite and refined in manner. On 
 receiving some oranges, she bowed with 
 easy grace, saying, "Oh, I thank you, sir!" 
 while her dancing eyes expressed the joy 
 that had entered her heart. The mother 
 showed photographs of her dead husband 
 and her elder daughter, who, through the ex- 
 igencies of want had been compelled to find 
 a home more than a hundred miles away. 
 The little girl brought out a scrap-book, 
 given her by her father, before he died; 
 it was clean and well preserved. I note 
 these facts to show that even here in the 
 slums, in the dh^est poverty, in a cellar 
 without a sign of fire and with scarcely
 
 T}VO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 75 
 
 any furniture, a mother and her child 
 preserved, against all the crushing influence 
 of environment, their refinement, cleanli- 
 ness and that sweet spirit which so often 
 dies when hope vanishes. 
 
 Such are a few typical pictures of life 
 today in Boston, and the wide area of want 
 and misery is year by year extending its 
 borders. 
 
 That my readers may appreciate the 
 fact that these conditions are not confined 
 to any one great city or any single season, 
 I will give a momentary glimpse of scenes 
 in the social cellar of New York, as por- 
 trayed by a recent writer in one of the 
 leading metropolitan dailies.* 
 
 The reporter thus prefaced his narration : 
 
 Such biting cold and such pitiless misery and 
 such sullen, hopeless, shivering poverty has not 
 been felt in the byways of the poor in a score of 
 years. For every joy the snow and ice and 
 clear, cold weather bring to the rich, the poor 
 suffer a pang. To them the coals in the foot- 
 warmers in the sleighs in the park would mean an 
 unknown, luxurious warmth. The east side is 
 
 * New York World, Jan. 18, 1893.
 
 76 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 suffering. The story of liardsliips would be a 
 story like that of the famine districts of Eussia. 
 The people suffer, but they live. 
 
 Here is an extract from his description 
 of life in the tenement region : — 
 
 Willett street is not an inviting thoroughfare, 
 but it is typical of east-side tenement streets. It 
 runs from Houston to Grand, and just below 
 the former street was the tenement to wliich Supt. 
 Blake had referred. It was not originally built 
 as a tenement-house ; that was evident. It had the 
 appearance of decayed respectability — as though 
 it had been the mansion of some old merchant 
 who was contemporary with the first John Jacob 
 Astor. It is four stories high — or low — as tlie 
 floors are not more than eight feet apart. The 
 frontage is not more than thirty feet and the depth 
 not more than sixty feet. And still eighty fami- 
 lies live within those four walls ! Live ? No, 
 exist. 
 
 Push open the grimy door. Faugh ! The air 
 is fetid. There is a confused murmur of voices, 
 the shrill cries of children, the shouts of quarrelling 
 women, the guttural oaths of drunken men, the 
 jargon of many languages. The narrow stairway 
 is crowded with children ; some clothed and some 
 almost naked. 
 
 " Does Mrs. Dougherty live here ? " was asked. 
 The children became quiet and stared at thQ
 
 TWO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 77 
 
 intruder. ''I guess so;" said a little chap, "most 
 everybody lives here, but j^ou better ask up-stairs." 
 
 There was a dull roar of voices from everywhere. 
 No one answered the knock on the first door the 
 reporter stumbled against. Oi:)ening the door, he 
 entered. A woman, who might have been thirty, 
 but who looked fifty years old, sat by a window 
 sewing. There were hard lines in her face, and 
 her eyes were like those of a beaten dumb beast. 
 She showed no surprise at the intrusion. 
 
 The floor, that had no covering save dirt, was 
 crowded with children. One toddler was entirely 
 naked and the others were almost so. The furni- 
 ture of the room consisted of a dilapidated chair, 
 which Avas occupied by the wouum, a wretched 
 kitchen stove, in which there was no fire, and a pile 
 of blankets and rags in a corner that constituted the 
 family bed. On the table was half a loaf of black 
 bread and half a link of liver sausage. Back of the 
 stove was a small pile of laths and fragments of 
 building wood. A small boy was trying to break 
 up the latter with a piece of iron. 
 
 The woman said her name Avas Kehoe. Her 
 husband had left her a year ago. He had also 
 left her six children. Coal ? She hadn't seen a 
 lump of coal since last fall. All the fire they had 
 was from wood that Jimmy (the boy Ayith the 
 piece of iron) had picked up in the street. How 
 did she live ? She didn't know ; she sewed for 
 a '^ greater" firm on Houston street, 3ullenj hope-
 
 78 CIVTLIZA TION ' S INFERNO. 
 
 less, she simply waited for death without seeking 
 it. 
 
 In the next room was a Polish woman with a 
 numerous brood of half-clad children. She could 
 not speak much English. She was also sewing. 
 
 These two rooms Averc typical of all the other 
 holes in the building. 
 
 In another tenement on Attorney street, below 
 Delancey, there are several cases of absolute desti- 
 tution. A woman by the name of Wilpoff, who 
 has seven fatherless children, has been confined 
 to her bed of rags on the floor for three weeks, and 
 has been kept from starvation through the mercy 
 and charity of her almost equally poor neighbors. 
 The room was as cold as a tomb yesterday, but 
 she smiled and said her neighbors Avould give her 
 a fire in the evening. There was nothing to eat 
 in the house. 
 
 In a tenement on Pitt street, above Delancey, 
 are a score of semi-starving families. In one gar- 
 ret-room is an old man who has been caring for 
 his dead daughter's three children. He was a 
 street fakir until Christmas, when the rheum- 
 atism got into his legs, and now he is helpless. 
 As in the other cases, his neiglibors, quite as poor 
 as himself, but not so helpless, are caring for him. 
 
 Tenements that were visited on Stanton, Delan- 
 cey, Norfolk and several other streets, all had 
 their tales of woeful suffering. 
 
 Such was the condition of thousands
 
 TWO nouns ijsr the social cellar. 79 
 
 of poor people in the opulous city of New 
 York, in the month of January, 1893, and 
 such is the condition each winter of an 
 ever-increasing army in every great city of 
 America. 
 
 Where a few years since there were prol3- 
 ably a few hundred lives thus languishing, 
 starving and suffering, now there are 
 thousands; and unless we have radical 
 social and economic changes at an early 
 day, tlie army will be numbered by the 
 tens of thousands in every great city. 
 A])out the truth of this statement, there 
 can be no question, because our present 
 economic conditions drive the poor into 
 lower depths of poverty as eifectively as 
 Constantine's cavalry drove Maxentius and 
 his cohorts into the Tiber. Upon the pros- 
 trate forms of the poor, the privileged 
 classes are rising to greater opulence, and 
 are being enabled to indulge in the grati- 
 fication of passion, appetite and vanity to 
 a greater degree of prodigality than was 
 ever before witnessed in a government, 
 which retained the form or shell of a 
 republic. All charitable measures, though
 
 80 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 liumane and noble, are only palliative, only 
 temporary. They relieve in a measure the 
 pain of the moment, but they do not touch 
 the disease. They are at best only loaves 
 of bread thrown to the imprisoned thous- 
 ands, or single lines by which one in a 
 hundred may escape from confinement. 
 They do not throw open the doors. 
 
 The statement that " the poor are grow- 
 ing poorer, and the rich richer," has been 
 so often repeated and so frequently thought- 
 lessly uttered, that it carries little of its 
 really terrible significance to the average 
 mind, while many dismiss it as an exagger- 
 ated utterance of social malcontents. And 
 yet it is a simple statement of a truth 
 which is demonstrable. Everything in our 
 present social condition favors the man who 
 has an abundance of money ; everything 
 works ao;ainst the man who has little. Let 
 us take, for example, life's necessities — 
 those things which all must purchase to a 
 greater or less extent. And to be still 
 more specific, let us notice a single item, 
 fuel, for instance. The wealthy and those 
 in comfortable circumstances, are able.
 
 TWO nOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 81 
 
 without inconvenience, to lay in tlieir win- 
 ter's supply of coal in summer, when it is 
 very low. Thus each householder saves 
 enough money by this single transaction to 
 support the poor man's family comfortably, 
 for several weeks, during the most trying 
 season of the year. These benefits thus 
 derived are denied the verypoor. They can- 
 not command sufficient money to purchase, 
 even if they had a storehouse in which to 
 place the supply. Nevertheless, their con- 
 dition would be less pitiable if, when win- 
 ter came, they could buy coal by the ton 
 and wood by the cord. But this again is 
 impossible, at least so far as thousands in 
 our great cities are concerned, owing to the 
 fact that their meagre earnings for one 
 week have disappeared before their next 
 pay day arrives; and, moreover, they have 
 no room to store a ton of coal. Thus they 
 are compelled to purchase by the basket- 
 ful, which in effect is the same as though 
 they suffered a double robbery; as though 
 they had fallen into the hands of two bands 
 of brigands, each levying a tribute. Do not 
 understand me as charging the dealers with
 
 82 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 either robbery or brigandage. I merely 
 wish to emphasize the important fact that 
 to the poor man the effect is exactly the 
 same as if he were the victim of individuals 
 instead of social conditions. 
 
 Now, in order to bring this thought still 
 more clearly before the reader, I requested 
 the Rev. Walter J. Swafheld, whose church 
 is in the heart of the slums of the North 
 End, to ascertain how much the poor people, 
 who are forced to purchase by the basket- 
 ful, were paying for their coal. He informs 
 me that, by the basket, coal is selling at 
 twenty-five cents, there being thirty-four 
 baskets to the ton, making eight dollars 
 and a half per ton ; while he is buying in 
 twelve-ton lots, to be delivered as per his 
 order, in one-fourth ton lots, at five dollars 
 and a half per ton, a difference of three 
 dollars per ton. Thus Mr. Swaffield, who, 
 when he wrote, had just paid a bill of sixty- 
 six dollars for twelve tons, saved thirty-six 
 dollars. Had he bought as these poor 
 people are forced to do, by the basketful, he 
 would have had to pay one hundred and 
 two dollars. Hence we find the very
 
 TWO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 83 
 
 people, who can least afford to pay high 
 prices, compelled to pay over one-third 
 more than the rich. On every five thou- 
 sand dollars' worth at the price these poor 
 people are paying, those able to buy by the 
 ton would save over one thousand six hun- 
 dred dollars; while those who buy by the 
 wholesale in summer save much more. 
 Here, then, we have a striking illustration 
 of how social conditions to-day favor the 
 privileged classes and crush the poor; but 
 this is only one of many illustrations which 
 might be cited. 
 
 Our present laws regulating taxes favor 
 the maintenance of miserable old buildings, 
 for we fine industry and discourage improve- 
 ments by taxing them. Hence the land- 
 lord, who understands well that if he 
 builds a clean, wholesome, airy tenement, 
 he will have his taxes doubled or tripled 
 for his pains, allows the old building, with 
 its filth, its disease germs, its death-dealing 
 atmosphere, to remain, knowing that so 
 long as it stands, taxes will be low; while 
 the necessity of the very poor will compel 
 them to pay rent, which will enable him to
 
 84 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 realize an enormous per cent on his invest- 
 ment. Of the general effect of this system 
 of taxation 1 speak at length below. The 
 Boston Record made a partial investigation 
 of this subject some time since, and pub- 
 lished figures showing that the landlords 
 received twelve, fifteen, and in many 
 instances a higher per cent on their invest- 
 ments. Here, again, we see unjust social 
 conditions favoring the rich and crushing 
 the poor. The reporter found that the 
 rental per year for one of these tenements 
 was One thousand eight Imndred and sev- 
 enty-five dollars, while the building was 
 assessed for only eight thousand dollars. 
 
 Another powerful factor working to 
 widen the breach between opulence and 
 poverty is* the enormous immigration 
 which is monthly brought to our shores 
 from the slums of the Old World. 
 
 A large class of the immigrants which 
 came to America in early days left their 
 native lands because of their convictions. 
 They were people of great moral worth 
 and intellectual independence, and were 
 therefore a distinct gain to the young
 
 TWO HOURS IX TEE SOCIAL CELLAR. 85 
 
 republic. They were allured to our shores 
 because of the greater liberty and freedom 
 accorded to unconventional and heretical 
 ideas. America, as an asylum for such as 
 they, had nothing to lose and everything 
 to gain; and the tide of ignorance and 
 pauperism which came in with this class 
 of more sterling worth, was no distinct 
 menace, for many reasons. In the first 
 place, the men of conviction neutralized 
 the influence of a class who had no hio-her 
 ambition than getting along comfortably. 
 In the second place, we had no populous 
 cities, thronged by masses of strugglers 
 for bread. Land was plentiful and free. 
 And, again, no great monopolies controlled 
 transportation at will ; no vast associations 
 of gamblers had it in tlieir power to depress 
 the price of the farmer's products for 
 months, or until he had been compelled 
 to sell, and then raise the price until his 
 poor compatriots in the towns and cities 
 paid princely tributes to those who toiled 
 not. At that time trusts and combines 
 did not control mines and manufactories, 
 nor had legislation produced a well-nigh
 
 86 CIVILIZATION' Fi INFERNO. 
 
 invincible plutocracy to fatten year by year, 
 at the expense of the poor, on the special 
 privileges granted by class legislation. 
 Then the ideal of liberty and justice was 
 approximated as it has never been since, 
 because the people came much nearer enjoy- 
 ing equal opportunities. 
 
 Now conditions have radically changed. 
 No longer do we even aj^proach '• equality 
 of opportunity." Indeed, as we have se^n, 
 our present conditions represent the extreme 
 of inequality. Therefore, however wise it 
 might be to continue the policy of opening 
 our gates to the oppressed, if conditions 
 were more just, the case assumes a differ- 
 ent aspect under present inequitable social 
 arrangements, for now every ship laden 
 with immigrants must necessarily feed the 
 fire which threatens the destruction of free 
 government ; every incoming army from 
 the slums of Europe places the bread-win- 
 ners of America in a more hopeless condition, 
 while it necessarily and distinctly aids the 
 plutocratic power which is to-day accumu- 
 lating fortunes so colossal as to amaze the 
 world, and rising to unequalled opulence
 
 TWO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 87 
 
 over the prostrate forms of the bread-win" 
 ners, and at the expense of justice, which 
 alone forms a stable fomidation for national 
 life. 
 
 Let us glance at these facts somewhat 
 more closely; for while, to my mind, if the 
 people enjoyed equal opportunities, there 
 could be but one answer to the immigration 
 question, viz. : Let the gates remain open, 
 nevertheless we are now forced to argue 
 from another hypothesis. What would be 
 eminently proper in the presence of condi- 
 tions resting on the everlasting granite of 
 justice, may be unwise and vicious when 
 conditions rest upon the sands of avarice 
 and injustice. 
 
 Now, going back some decades in our 
 history let us suppose we are in the midst 
 of a flourishing little city. Here are 
 scores of widows and others who make a 
 decent living by laboring for the " sweater." 
 True, strict economy is required, but the 
 mothers find it possible to live in clean, 
 though modest apartments, and send their 
 children to school. At length a ship 
 arrives, crowded with the very poorest of
 
 88 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 European lands. These people are thor- 
 oughly ignorant, and know nothing of the 
 value of education. They have been used 
 to miserable, dark, filthy dens, and the 
 plainest food. The "sweater" hunts them 
 out, for here is an opportunity to increase 
 his already large profits. These people are 
 glad to work for a much lower sum. Our 
 own poor people at once feel the effect in 
 reduced prices and less work. Now the 
 children have to wear threadbare clothes, 
 and the mothers no longer feel that their 
 clothes are fit to wear to temples where 
 men and women assemble to worship the 
 great Galilean. Besides, if their children 
 remain at school and have enough to eat, 
 the parents must work on Sundays. By 
 and by other shiploads come, bearing fresh 
 armies of the very poor, who have been 
 accustomed to sleeping under any kind of 
 shelter, and even without shelter, and to 
 whom dirt, filth, and indecent surround- 
 ings are not specially objectionable. They 
 find cheaper quarters; they have been used 
 to half starving; they care nothing for 
 education, and have numerous children
 
 TWO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 89 
 
 whom they press into the labor mill. 
 Again prices fall and work becomes still 
 scarcer. The poor American women can 
 no longer compete with the foreign cheap 
 labor, which thrives in dirt, and fattens in 
 the slums o£ the city, and whose children 
 ply the needle as w^ell as the mothers. 
 The Americans must sink to the frightful 
 social environment of this class or starve. 
 
 The American w^dow described in this 
 chapter is a fair representative of this class. 
 Moreover, with this physical suffering comes 
 moral decline, and lowering of average 
 intelligence. As fresh relays arrive, the 
 condition grows more desperate ; all chance 
 for proper education for the young disap- 
 pears ; the environment is morally infected, 
 invitintc vice and crime. Furthermore, 
 there is practically no hope for the blossom- 
 ing of developed manhood and womanhood 
 in the generations who come up within the 
 borders of this vast social cellar. The lit-, 
 tie ones are robbed of the heritage which 
 should fall to every child of this opulent 
 republic. 
 
 If we go to our great mines, we find in
 
 90 CIVILIZATION' 8 INFERNO. 
 
 many instances a substantial repetition of 
 these experiences; the intelligent Ameri- 
 can and foreign-born citizens are crowded 
 out by those who have never known any- 
 thing but ignorance and the most pitiable 
 industrial slavery. The same influences 
 are being felt in the manufacturing world, 
 and, in short, in almost all departments of 
 manual labor. Every shipload of immi- 
 grants which arrives under the present 
 social condition, necessarily increases the 
 misery of the struggling millions, render- 
 ing their lot still more hopeless. Thus, 
 here we find another important factor 
 favoring the wealthy and forcing the needy 
 into more hopeless depths of serfdom. 
 
 Immigration, however, it should be clearly 
 understood, is not a j^TWie cause or elemen- 
 tary factor in the discreditable social con- 
 dition of the present day; neither would 
 it be a grave menace to our institutions, if 
 law rested upon justice, and sanctioned 
 only those things which were for the good 
 of the whole people. At the present time, 
 however, we find the condition aptly 
 described by Shakespeare, when lie observes:
 
 IIVO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 91 
 
 That ill the corrupted, current of this world 
 Offence's gilded hand oft shoves by justice, 
 And oft it's seen the wicked prize itself 
 Buys off the law. 
 
 This is strikingly illustrated in the in- 
 fluence exerted by various gigantic monop- 
 olies, trusts and combines, which through 
 special 2^Tivileges and class legislation have 
 become anacondas, threatening the very life 
 of free institutions by persistently baffling 
 the wishes of the people in the caucuses, in 
 the legislatures, or through their influence 
 at the national Capitol. One significant 
 illustration emphasizes this thought. The 
 anti-option bill, calcula-ted to check the 
 most iniquitous species of gambling of the 
 present day, was up in Congress the second 
 week in February, 1892. The fair prospect 
 for its passing afforded an opportunity for 
 the bears of Chicago to depress the market, 
 exactly as information that the gamblers 
 had baffled the people would have enabled 
 the bulls to inflate stocks. What was the 
 result? I quote from a despatch published 
 in the great Eastern dailies of February 
 10th:
 
 92 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 The banks hurried a memorial to Le sent to 
 Congress protesting against the bilh Besides the 
 protest sent by eighteen of the city banks, the 
 Board of Directors appointed an additional com- 
 mittee to go to Washington and make pLain the 
 dangers. 
 
 What do we find here ? The aristocracy 
 of the bankers, which has grown to formid- 
 able power through special jDrivileges, rush- 
 ing to the aid of the aristocracy of gam- 
 blers, and seeking, by the most dangerous 
 methods, to destroy legislation interested 
 in the morality and the welfare of the whole 
 peoj^le. This is significant, but is by no 
 means an exceptional instance of monopo- 
 lies and aristocracies, which are the leii:iti- 
 mate outgrowth of special privileges, 
 seeking to circumvent all measures directed 
 in the interests of the people, or those 
 Avliich are even suspected of being aimed at 
 checking the march of monopoly toward 
 absolute power. Hence against all sjjccial 
 privileges, the legislation of the future 
 should be directed. Abolish class legisla- 
 tion, and we have wrested from the hand 
 of plutocracy one of the great chains witli
 
 TWO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 93 
 
 which it has manacled the industrial 
 masses. 
 
 Another evil, which has contributed far 
 more to tlie present distressing social con- 
 ditions, than most people imagine, arises 
 from speculation in land. To me it seems 
 clear that the assumption that individuals 
 have a right to hold idle vast tracts of 
 land from year to year, without giving to 
 society adequate value in return for what 
 society gives them in enhanced valuation, 
 is manifestly unjust. Or to put the matter 
 in another way, it is difficult to understand 
 why an individual should be entitled to 
 w^ealth in no way produced by himself; 
 wealth which has been created by society, 
 in enhancing the value of nature's benefi- 
 cent gift to humanity, the land; wealth 
 which is created often in despite of the 
 individual, by the comnumity, and yet 
 from which the producer of the wealth 
 receives no adequate return, as in the case 
 of the vacant lots which disfigure the sub- 
 urbs of every city, lying idle for decades, 
 and sometimes generations, that the holder 
 may reap princely returns, after society has
 
 94 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 made the land valuable. Here, it seems to 
 me, is something fundamentally unjust; 
 and in its operation we see deplorable 
 results, which sooner or later bloom on the 
 stem of injustice. 
 
 Vast tracts of . land which should blos- 
 som with little homes are, through the 
 greed of rich s^^ndicates and individuals, 
 held idle ; the poor are forced to be tenants 
 in apartments, instead of householders ; the 
 money they would 3^early be able to expend 
 on their homes is swallowed up in rents ; 
 they grow old without enjoying any of the 
 benefits accruing from enhanced values, 
 because monopoly in land, encouraged by our 
 present system of taxation, has closed the 
 door of opportunity against them. What is 
 true of idle land which walls in the poor of 
 our cities, in order that land speculators 
 may grow rich, is equally true of land in 
 the country, where may be found vast tracts 
 held in the same way, often by alien land- 
 lords. This again prevents millions of hon- 
 est, hard-working men from obtaining 
 homes, in order that a few hundred individ- 
 uals may grow immensely rich, not through
 
 TWO HOURS IN THE SOCIAL CELLAR. 95 
 
 any labor of their own, l^ut through the 
 enhancing of vakies created solely by soci- 
 ety. This wrong will continue to grow 
 more and more offensive until wise methods 
 of taxation make speculation in lands 
 unprofitable. 
 
 Again, it will doubtless be necessary for 
 the government to abolish monoply in 
 transportation, or bring forward such meas- 
 ure, as shall prevent the nation's great 
 highways from becoming a veritable mint 
 for the most despicable class of usurers, by 
 whose extortion the producer is deprived 
 of fair profit, on the one side, while the con- 
 sumer is compelled to pay more than a fair 
 price on the other; that the manipulators 
 of stocks and owners of the bonds of these 
 great arteries of trade may live in princely 
 palaces without labor. Abolish sjyecial 
 privileges, monop)oly in transportation and 
 speculation in land, and plutocracy will be 
 shorn of its Samsonian locks. Of course, 
 there are other reforms needed, but these 
 seem to me basic and of prime importance; 
 and in compassing these, greater liberty 
 and more healthful freedom will be
 
 96 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 enjoyed by the people, while justice 
 to all will be approached as never before. 
 Many less fundamental reforms will come 
 first, owing to tlie urgency of popular need, 
 which demands temporary relief afforded 
 by palliative measures, and also because 
 before great fundamental measures, which 
 rest on justice and are calculated to sup- 
 plant age-long wrongs, can be brought 
 about, it will be necessary to educate the 
 masses to think broadly and independently. 
 Meanwhile, let us not forget the millions 
 who are now stifling, starving, and dying 
 as the legitimate results of the injustice of 
 our present social conditions. Let us give 
 and give liberally, while, with eyes riveted 
 upon justice, and with the good of all the 
 people ever in view, we labor unceasingly 
 for such radical reforms as will relieve our 
 Christian civilization of the burning stigma 
 of shame arising from upholding conditions 
 so essentially unjust that they are directly 
 responsible for a large per cent of the pov- 
 erty, ignorance and crime present in the 
 republic to-day.
 
 DEMOCRACY of DARKNESS 
 
 97
 
 Our Fathers are praying for Pauper-pay, 
 Our Mothers with Deatli's kiss are white ; 
 
 Our Sous are the ricli man's Slaves hy day, 
 And Our Daughters his Slaves by niglit. 
 
 Gerald Massey. 
 
 08
 
 DEMOCRACY OF DARKNESS. 99 
 
 III. 
 
 DEMOCRACY OF DARKNESS. 
 
 The darkest zone in social life — Pseudo pleasures of the under* 
 world — Bestial gratifications which end in death — 
 Typical cases — Crime in our great cities — Some figures 
 from recent statistics — A modern Fagan — Trafficking 
 in virtue — A typical case. 
 
 THERE is to-day in all populous centres 
 of civilization a world of misery, 
 where uninvited poverty abounds: a com- 
 monwealth of victims whose wretchedness 
 fills the heart with mingled sorrow and 
 indignation. No more pathetic scene can 
 be imagined than the daily battle waged 
 by this bcittalion in retreat, which yet strug- 
 gles for a foothold on the granite of hon- 
 esty and virtue. There is, however, 
 another spectacle still more soul-sickening, 
 because of its added blackness. Below the 
 social cellar, where uninvited poverty holds j 
 sway, is a darker zone : a subterranean, ray-
 
 100 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 less vault — the commonwealth of the 
 double night. In the upper stratum we 
 find gloom ; here perpetual darkness. 
 Above, the closing door of opportunity to 
 live, the frightful pangs of hunger and 
 the ever-present dread of sickness shut out 
 the sunshine of external enjoyments; still, 
 so long as virtue and integrity remain, the 
 inner temple is illuminated. In the sub- 
 cellar, however, even the soul's torch goes 
 out; hence there is twofold darkness. So 
 long as the fires burn on the altar of moral- 
 ity, the soul knows an exalted pleasure, 
 even in the bitterest want; for the mystic 
 power of the Divine, im pearled in every 
 mind, holds supremacy, and the spirit stands 
 erect. When, however, this light disap- 
 pears, the soul grovels in the mire, and the y 
 incentive to walk is less strong than that 
 to crawl and wallow in animality. In this 
 under-world vice and crime mingle with 
 poverty; bestial passion is the goddess of 
 its denizens; here the acme of pleasure is 
 reached in sensual gratification; here men 
 do not look you in the eye, the glance, even, 
 is furtive when not defiant. 7'his is the .
 
 DEMOCRACY OF DARKNESS. 101 
 
 real inferno. No need to wander into other 
 worlds for hells of God's creatmg. Man 
 has made an under-world, before which the 
 most daring imagination of poet or seer 
 staggers. Over its portals might well be 
 blazoned the soul-freezing inscription which 
 Dante beheld as he entered the under-world. 
 
 If its inhabitants came hither voluntar- 
 ily, their conditions might merit less con- 
 cern, even though they would in no less 
 degree be a menace to society. But the 
 truth is, the large proportion are driven 
 hither by relentless influences, over which 
 they have no control ; sucli, for example, as 
 the cupidity and avarice of powerful indiv- 
 iduals, the selfishness of a short-sighted and 
 indifferent civilization, reinforced by the 
 intangible but potent infiuence of heredity 
 on the one hand, and the still more iresis- 
 tible power of environment on the other. 
 
 And in this subterranean world, as in 
 the world of hope, we find men, women 
 and children plying their trades and eking 
 out an existence as fate or inclination dic- 
 tates. Here, however, schools, universities 
 and libraries contribute little to the satis-
 
 102 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 faction of man's appetites and aspirations; 
 but in their stead we find tlie omnipresent 
 saloon, catering to all that is worst in frail 
 humanity. 
 
 Yet it must not be understood that all 
 pleasure is exiled; a certain kind of enjoy- 
 ment remains. It is a counterfeit coin, 
 which, however, in the absence of that 
 which is real, passes current. It possesses 
 none of the pure essence which endures 
 and is refining and elevating. Moreover, 
 the pleasures known here consume the life 
 of their votaries, and are mingled with bit- 
 terness which increases with each hour of 
 indulgence. They end also in death, pre- 
 faced by an existence loathsome to even 
 the depraved souls who reap their certain 
 fruitage. 
 
 Would you glance at the pseudo-pleas- 
 ures current in this lower zone of life? 
 Come with us as we skirt this realm, and 
 see what it has to offer to those who have 
 recently crossed its threshold. We are in 
 Boston, within rifle-shot of the gilded dome 
 of the State House and the palaces of Bea- 
 con Hill, and vet we are enterinei: this
 
 DEMOCRACY OF DARKNESS. 103 
 
 under-world. It is Monday night. At 
 the stcition-hoiise we are politely received 
 by the officer in charge, who observes that 
 we have chosen the worst night in the 
 week. Saturday and Sunday he explains, 
 are always a kind of Saturnalia for num- 
 bers of people in this part of the city; but 
 Monday night there is little to be seen; 
 These people are "resting" or "broke." 
 While he is speaking, a drunken man is 
 brought in — a searcher for pleasure and 
 gratification, who losing reason, has been 
 overtaken by the law. " Do you make 
 many arrests daily?" we asked. "Oh, yes, 
 here is the record : For Saturday, fifty-six 
 cases, yesterday thirty-five, mostly drunk- 
 enness. Ah, here is the officer who will 
 go with you." We set off, threading our 
 way through a commonwealth of poverty 
 and vice. Here are thousands of people 
 herding in crowded quarters where dwelt, 
 a few decades ago, the very elite of the 
 "Hub." 
 
 We have now reached a nest of old build- 
 ings with an unsavory record. Here we 
 find negroes and whites mingling together.
 
 104 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 The creaking stairways are worn and car- 
 peted with filth ; tlie walls and ceilings 
 blistered with the foul accretions of months 
 and perhaps years. It is a noisy spot; 
 snatches of low songs, oaths, coarse jests, 
 and the savage voices of poor wretches 
 whose brains are inflamed and tongues 
 made thick wdth rum, meet our ears on 
 every side. The air is heavy with odors of 
 spoiled fish, decayed vegetables, smoke 
 from old pipes, and stale beer. From one 
 room loud and angry voices proceed, a note 
 of fear mingled with a threatening tone; 
 the room seems perfectly dark. With a 
 quick movement the officer lifts the smok- 
 ing lamp from a stool in the hall, and 
 opens the door. The scene is sickening in 
 the extreme, one of the most disgusting 
 spectacles in the under-world, none the 
 less terrible because it is common. A 
 filthy den, occupied by a young girl whose 
 career has not yet brouglit upon her unmis- 
 takable signs of debauchery, save in a cer- 
 tain expression of the eyes and a brazen 
 smile, which speak volumes against the 
 probability of restoration. She is probably
 
 DE^[OCEACY OF DARKNESS. 105 
 
 a Creole. A wealth of black hair falls in 
 great waves over her head ; she has a deep 
 olive complexion ; neither her hair nor her 
 features indicate negro blood ; a large head, 
 arching brow, and eyes which once must 
 have been extremely beautiful, for even 
 yet, though slightly dimmed by dissipation, 
 they are very expressive. On her counte- 
 nance one detects something inexpressibly 
 sad; the sunshine of girlishness blending 
 with the shadow of vice. A few years 
 before she must have been a remarkably 
 beautiful child, richly endowed by nature 
 with those physical charms so dear to 
 womankind, and which to-day are a for- 
 tune to a maiden in easy circumstances. 
 This girl, surrounded in early life by healthy 
 influences, schooled in virtue and given 
 a fair chance would probably have graced 
 society and added to the dignity of woman- 
 hood. But the accident of .an unkind fate 
 willed otherwise, and now we find her in a 
 filthy den, the air of which is heavy with 
 fumes of liquor and other nauseous odors — 
 her companion a low-browed, thick-necked y^ 
 negro. Heartsick we turn from this spec-
 
 106 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 tacle, too common to the officer to even 
 call to his face a momentary shadow of 
 disgust. In this child of a dark fate we 
 see a type of thousands of poor girls 
 who seem doomed to wed despair. They 
 may have entered life in the social cellar, 
 where they have never seen, with any- 
 thing like clear-cut vision, the line of 
 demarkation between right and wrong. 
 They may have drifted to the city for 
 the purpose of making an honest living, 
 but have been driven into vice and crime, 
 in order that soulless greed might flourish 
 and they still live. Or they may belong to 
 the commonwealth of betrayed maidens, 
 who, being betrayed, have found all 
 society's doors barred against them, lest, 
 perchance, they contaminate innocence, 
 brush too closely against undiscovered sin, 
 or annoy the lepers who have accomplished 
 their ruin, and who still move unabashed 
 in the upper world. In any case, to them 
 birth was a calamity, life a bitter curse, 
 death their sweetest heritage. 
 
 We leave this rookery, having caught a 
 glimpse of life's sad quest for pleasure in
 
 DEMOCEACY OF DARKNESS. 107 
 
 the modern inferno, and traverse a street 
 with brilliantly lighted saloons. The coun- 
 ters are thronged with scores of men, seek- 
 ing pleasure by imbibing beer. At the 
 corner of the street a striking picture is 
 presented. In the front window of a large 
 saloon sits a company of young men and 
 girls, laughing hilariously over their liquor. 
 The men are boyish in appearance. One 
 of the three women present is not a novice. 
 Her face is typical, and carries a significant 
 history; brazen eyes, steeled and slightly 
 dimmed; countenance stamped with the 
 unmistakable history of reckless indulgence, 
 doomed to grow more terrible as she is 
 pushed, with ever accelerating speed, toward 
 her frightful end. The features of the 
 other girls show small traces of dissipation. 
 They are well dressed ; a rosy flush suffuses 
 their brows, born of excitement rather than 
 rouge; their voices also possess a silvery 
 ring. They seem happy, as, with rapid 
 words, jests pass from lip to lip over the 
 clinking glasses. 
 
 Behind this partitioned compartment, 
 the bar, thronged with men, is the scene of
 
 108 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 that coarse merriment which is ever found 
 in saloons in low parts of great cities. We 
 turn the corner, and, passing the rear 
 of the same establishment, catch another 
 kaleidoscopic view of the pleasures of this 
 dismal life. Here, in a rudely partitioned 
 box, which partly shuts it from the bar, 
 but which opens on the street, are a half- 
 dozen withered Avomen, some aged before 
 their time ; others, though still young, hag- 
 gard and corpse-like ; their faces, like their 
 ragged gowns, are faded, their voices harsh 
 and rasping, their laugh barren of all merri- 
 ment and carrying notes of defiance and 
 despair. In the front of this saloon is 
 laughing girlhood; in the rear besotted 
 womanhood. The difference is that these 
 poor creatures have pursued the ignis-fatuus 
 a little longer than their younger neighbors 
 — they are several rungs lower in the 
 ladder — that is all. As we momentarily 
 pause before this pathetic picture, one poor 
 woman whose dull eyes are sunken far into 
 their sockets, and whose face is of an ashen 
 hue, rises, and, extending her long bony 
 finger, beckons to our company. The grin
 
 DEMOCRACY OF D AERATES S. 109 
 
 on lier face, wliicli in childhood was doubt- 
 less a smile, is so ghastly that we are 
 thrilled with horror. Ah! poor Ishmaelites 
 of our nineteenth-century civilization, ter- 
 rible is your fate!* 
 
 Of another pastime we catch a glimpse 
 in passing a basement poolroom. Here is 
 a certain fascinating excitement which 
 games of chance ever possess for the human 
 mind; but here also we find the atmosphere 
 which seems everywhere present in the sub- 
 terranean world; fumes of liquor and 
 tobacco are as omnipresent as coarse pro- 
 fanity and still more repulsive jests. 
 
 This scene sug;":ests another I witnessed 
 some time ago in going through a wretched 
 rookery in the North End of Boston. We 
 were in search of a poor sick woman, said 
 to be in a starving condition. Passing one 
 room and hearing loud voices, my friend, 
 who spends his life in relieving the suffer- 
 ing of the poor, quickly opened the door. 
 Around a rude table were seated four men 
 playing cards; the revolver by one and 
 
 *In Chicago, in 1890, more than thirty girls and ■women 
 attempted suicide in tlie statiou-liouses of that city.
 
 110 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 whiskey flask by another were as symbolic 
 of the lives of these young men as their 
 hardened, depraved countenances and red 
 eyes. There was a certain ferocity in the 
 expression of their faces. In one corner of 
 the room I noticed a man hastily throwing 
 some things he had been handling into an 
 old box. The moment the door opened, all 
 the gamblers sprang to their feet, defiant 
 and yet uneasy. Their furtive glances 
 wandered from us to the box. My impres- 
 sion was that they were whiling away the 
 day gaming for the booty or spoils of the 
 
 previous night. " Does Mrs. live in this 
 
 building?" inquired my friend. "We don't 
 know," grumbled two or three voices, as we 
 closed the door. 
 
 Such are the pleasures of this under- 
 world — as false as they are short-lived; 
 utterly spurious ; all counterfeit coins ; bear- 
 ing small resemblance to true enjoyment, 
 whose influence is ever refining and uplift- 
 ing. Pure pleasure is a sun which warms 
 into life all that is noblest in nature, calling 
 out that which is sweetest and richest, 
 developing the flower and fruitage of a
 
 BEMOCBACY OF DARKNESS. HI 
 
 noble character; while the pleasure of 
 which our nineteenth-century inferno boasts, 
 bears precisely the relation to its victim 
 that the candle does to the moth: it daz- 
 zles with its light ; it warms with its heat ; 
 it fascinates with its radiance, but it 
 destroys ! 
 
 Let us now examine some facts relating to 
 this commonwealth of darkness, where vice 
 and crime mingle with misery and want. 
 It is with the great cities that we are chiefly 
 concerned in the present discussion, although 
 the baleful influence has already extended 
 to the smaller cities and towns -, for a nation 
 takes the tone of life largely from her met- 
 ropolitan centres. Dr. Lyman Abbott has 
 well observed that -'the whole country is 
 affected, if indeed its character and history 
 are not determined, by the condition of its 
 great cities." 
 
 Li the outcropping of the lower world in 
 our courts, we catch a glimpse of one aspect 
 of this problem, although it must not be 
 forgotten that the records of our criminal 
 courts represent a small proportion of the 
 crime committed. Thus, for example, the
 
 112 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 prison returns for Grecat Britain for 1889 
 showed that there were fourteen thousand, 
 seven hundred and forty-seven known 
 thieves at large, to say nothing of seventeen 
 thousand and forty-two suspected persons. 
 With this thought in mind, let us take up 
 the records of New York City. In 1889, 
 we find there were eighty-two thousand, two 
 hundred arrests; in 1890, eighty-four thous- 
 and, five hundred and fifty-six arrests. Of 
 the number of persons apprehended in 1889, 
 over five thousand were taken on the charge 
 of theft or robbery, and more than five 
 thousand for assault and battery. Another 
 fact in this connection worthy of thought, 
 is the enormous expense required to keep 
 in partial check this commonwealth of dark- 
 ness. The police department of New York 
 costs yearly four million, eight hundred 
 thousand dollars. * 
 
 And what is true of the criminal records 
 of New York, is, to a certain extent, true 
 of the smaller cities. Take, for example, 
 Detroit, Mich. In 1890 we find there were 
 eight thousand, six hundred and ninety- 
 
 » " Darkuess aud Daylight iu New York," p. 4'J9.
 
 I)E^fOCRACY OF DAEKNESS. 113 
 
 three persons arrested, of which over nine 
 hundred cases were for murder, rape, 
 assault and battery, burglary, larceny or 
 robbery. In speaking of these returns, 
 Commissioner Robinson observes : * 
 
 "The whole number of arrests for the 
 six years (1885-90) was fifty-one thousand, 
 eight hundred and seventy-six, a yearly 
 average of eight thousand and six hundred 
 and forty-six. According to population, 
 there was one arrest for every twenty-three 
 persons; but as four hundred and seventy- 
 three persons were recidivists and figure in 
 two thousand, three hundred and sixty- 
 three arrests, it appears that one person in 
 every thirty-one was a prisoner for some 
 cause or other in 1890." If we take the 
 still smaller town of Saginaw, Mich., we 
 find in 1891 there were two thousand six 
 hundred and twenty-four arrests, in writ- 
 ins: of which Commissioner Robinson 
 observes: "The number of arrests in the 
 city of Saginaw for 1891 was two thousand, 
 six hundred and twenty-four, a slight 
 
 * Ninth Annual Rejiort of Bureau of Labor Statistics of 
 ISIicliigan, p. 401.
 
 114 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 increase over former years. No allowance 
 being made for reconvictions, one person 
 in every 17.6 of population was a prisoner 
 in the year ending March 22, 1891. 
 
 These facts merely hint at the nature 
 and extent of the waste of wealth in our 
 cities, caused chiefly by the subterranean 
 vaults of social life. The financial aspect, 
 however, is of small importance compared 
 with the ethical significance. Whatever 
 adds to the sum of human misery, increases 
 the volume of crime, lowers the standard 
 of morality, entails physical weakness, 
 mental imbecility, or moral degradation, 
 rises above all financial considerations, and 
 is of supreme importance. 
 
 In descending into the under-world, we 
 find no monotony or sameness in life. 
 There are many gradations in crime and 
 vice. Here we see the murderer, the thief, 
 and the burglar; the gambler, the cour- 
 tesan, and the confidence man; the bully, 
 the sneak thief, and the common drunk- 
 ard, who, like a maniac, is always a 
 possible murderer. Here, also, we find 
 pedagogues in crime, as well as, what is
 
 DEMOCRACY OF DARKNESS. II5: 
 
 still more soul-sickening, traffickers in vice. 
 Some striking illustrations of these phases 
 are necessary, in order to impress terrible 
 facts vaguely believed but not realized by 
 the great majority of our thoughtful 
 people ; for a typical case pictures in min- 
 iature a particular class or condition more 
 impressively than any amount of general- 
 izing. Doubtless few people realize that 
 there are Fagans in real life to-day no less 
 terrible than Dickens graphically pictures 
 in his fiction; and we need not go to Lon- 
 don or Paris to find them ; they are flour- 
 ishing at our own door. 
 
 A most striking illustration of this 
 character was given to the public in the 
 well-known case of David Smith, which 
 was widely discussed at the time of his 
 apprehension and conviction, almost three 
 years since. The story, briefly stated, 
 is as follows: Edward Mulhearn, a youth 
 of fourteen years, who lived in a neighbor- 
 ing town and was rather wild, ran away 
 from home to seek his fortune in New 
 York City. After he had exhausted his 
 resources, and while debating^ in his mind
 
 11 G CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 the advisability of returning home, and his 
 probable reception from a somewhat stern 
 father, he was accosted by David Smith, 
 who cordially invited him to his boarding- 
 house. Delighted at the prospect of 
 supper and bed, the boy accepted the invita- 
 tion, was taken to one of the worst 
 lodging-houses in the city, introduced to 
 Smith's friends, and by his newly found 
 protector flattered and cajoled. '•! will 
 make a man of you in less than a week," 
 exclaimed Smith. The next week was one 
 of license; the modern Fagan determined 
 to "show his little friend the city," with 
 all the terrible significance of that expres- 
 sion when uttered by one hardened by 
 years of vice and crime, and who is deter- 
 mined to thoroughly compromise his vic- 
 tim, while firing all that is worst in his 
 nature. Next, Edward was shown how 
 carelessly the women carried their purses; 
 how often they were merely slipped in the 
 outside pocket of their wrap. Edward was 
 assured that it was an easy thing to take 
 them. He was induced to make the 
 attempt. He succeeded and was a few
 
 DEMOCRACY OF DARKNESS. 117 
 
 dollars the richer. The boy was coinpli- 
 mented by Smith and lionized in the den 
 where the easily acquired wealth was 
 squandered. His self-appointed guardian 
 being a positive nature, soon psychologized 
 the youth. The friend and protector now 
 became the iron-hearted master, and the 
 boy a servile slave. He was next taken or 
 sent on several thieving raids. When, how- 
 ever, Smith was not present to direct him, 
 he rarely returned with any booty. This 
 was naturally A^ery unsatisfactory to his 
 master, who saw little revenue to be gained 
 from a poor thief. His fertile brain, how- 
 ever, soon hit upon another expedient. 
 One morning when Edward returned pen- 
 niless, our modern Fagan deliberately 
 locked the door; the boy was then bound 
 securely, after which his arms were horri- 
 bly burned with heated irons pressed deeply 
 into the flesh. Tlie frantic shrieks and 
 pitiful entreaties of the poor lad produced 
 no effect upon his callous master, who 
 poured acid into the wounds which greatly 
 inflamed them. He was now ready for 
 Smith's purpose, and after being assured
 
 118 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 that be must beg money and beg effectively, 
 if he did not wish his arms burned off, he 
 was sent into the street. Smith, however, 
 did not allow him to get beyond his sight. 
 He was compelled to tell all, who were 
 Avilling to listen, a most pitiful story of 
 how, while hard at work in a factory, he 
 was crippled by having some poisonous 
 acid fall on his arms. Edward begged 
 faithfully each day, under the close sur- 
 veillance of his master, and at night 
 turned over a goodly sum, in return for 
 which he received scanty food and a filthy 
 bed. Smith, meantime, was spending his 
 nights in the reckless abandon character- 
 istic of an old debauche who had sounded 
 the lowest depths of vice. One day, how- 
 ever, Edward's father, who was searching 
 New York, street by street, discovered 
 his boy. Smith was arrested and sent to 
 the penitentiary. This is doubtless an 
 extreme case, and yet events are constantly 
 coming to the surface which show how 
 prevalent is this pedagogy in crime. 
 Inspector Byrnes some time ago observed 
 that, during the last two or three years, at
 
 DEMOCRACY OF DARKNESS. 119 
 
 least four hundred boys and young men 
 had been arrested for crimes origmating in 
 low lodging-houses, which are the head- 
 quarters for our modern Fagans. 
 
 There is another pursuit in this under- 
 world even more terrible than this system- 
 atic schooling of the young in theft, — a 
 crime so revolting that it is seldom men- 
 tioned, and for this reason is gradually 
 growing to enormous proportions. I refer 
 to the traffic in girls. The terrible revela- 
 tions of the Fall Mall Gazette, a few years 
 since, sent a shudder through all civilized 
 lands, because, in addition to the horrors 
 depicted, they revealed two startling facts : 
 the prevalence of this polluting, white-child 
 slavery; and, secondly, that at the head of 
 fashionable society stood the battalions of 
 social lepers, for whom these wretches plied 
 their infamous trade. The author of a 
 recent work* on the dark side of Chicago 
 life, commissioned a number of earnest pur- 
 ity-loving persons to investigate this phase 
 of evil in his city. The results were appall- 
 ing. These commissioners found that many 
 
 . * " Chicago's Dark riaccs."
 
 120 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 ivomen were engaged in this loathsome traf- 
 fic. Incoming trains were frequently board- 
 ed. The young, unsophisticated country 
 girl was readily recognized ; her acquaint- 
 ance easily made, after which friendly con- 
 versations elicited all the procuress desired. 
 If the girl proved to be a stranger and had 
 no one to meet her, she usually fell an easy 
 victim. This, however, was only one of 
 many methods employed to decoy the inno- 
 cent to riun. It has, until recently, been 
 the custom of some of these procuresses to 
 obtain visitors' tickets, by which they were 
 enabled to enter the wards of the County 
 Hospital, at Chicago, at all tinier. Here 
 they watched for attractive girls who were 
 convalescent. The fact that they were in 
 the County Hospital proved that they were 
 without resources; and with false promises 
 of lucrative pay for easy and honorable 
 employment, they were led to a fate more 
 terrible than death. The author of the 
 wofk referred to above states that he has 
 been authoritatively informed that the war- 
 den of the County Hospital had recently 
 called in several visitors' tickets, and now
 
 DE2I0CUACY OF DARKNESS. 121 
 
 demands a more thorough exammation mto 
 the standing of those who apply for tickets, 
 because of having- discovered the terrible 
 work going on. I have room only for one 
 case cited; but it will illustrate the horrors 
 of this traffic in human virtue, and should 
 prove a warning to parents. The noblest 
 and purest girls of to-day may be ruined, 
 in spite of themselves, in our great cities ; 
 and owing to that false sentiment which 
 would conceal from the onward-moving 
 victims the pitfalls which lead to death, 
 armies of pure and noble girls, year by year, 
 fall into snares hidden from view until too 
 late. 
 
 Here is the story to which I have referred : 
 A girl, not yet fifteen years of age, 
 came from a town in a neighboring 
 state. She had been a clerk in a grocery 
 store; but, things not being so com- 
 fortable at home as she desired, the 
 thought that in Chicago work could be 
 found, and an independent living 'made, 
 induced her to leave home and go there. 
 After she had been in the city a few days, 
 the weather being cold and frosty, she
 
 122 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 slipped on the curbstone and broke her 
 ankle. Helpless and alone, without home 
 and money, there was but one place for 
 her to go, the County Hospital, and thither 
 she was sent. After a while she was 
 removed to the hospital at Dunning, where 
 she remained for several months. Just as 
 she was about to be discharged, a woman 
 came, and, passing through the ward, 
 spoke to her, and asked if she wished a 
 good position as a nurse-girl. A glowing 
 account was given her of the sweet and 
 beautiful children and their elegant home. 
 The poor child was overjoyed at the 
 prospect of a comfortable home, and at 
 once asked the doctor if she might be dis- 
 charged. The physician gave her the 
 permit to leave; she was brought by the 
 woman into the city; a hack met them at 
 the depot, and she was taken to a house of 
 shame, and there kept under lock and key. 
 A lady commissioner, visiting the house, 
 was heard by the imprisoned child pleading 
 with another of the girls to leave her life 
 of sin; and the final plea struck an attent- 
 ive ear : " If you do get tired of this place,
 
 DEMOCRACY OF DARKNESS. 123 
 
 come to US at — and we'll care for you." 
 The young prisoner determined, if possible, 
 to escape; and a few days later, her door 
 being accidentally left unlocked, she ran 
 out, and, escaping detection, found her way 
 to the house where loving hearts were 
 ready to welcome and help her. 
 
 Thus far we have caught a few glimpses 
 of the horrors of the abyss, have heard 
 some distant plaints from the inferno of 
 our civilization, some notes from the sym- 
 phony of despair; only enough, however, 
 to hint at the measureless misery of this 
 world of gloom, wdiere bloom no fragrant 
 flowers, and from whence hope and joy, 
 inseparable companions of the uncrushed 
 soul, have forever departed. Ah! poor 
 Ishmaelites, your sins are man}' ! but you, 
 also, have suffered from the weight of a 
 world's selfishness, and you have been 
 denied justice and education, which are the 
 handmaids of progress.
 
 WHY THE 
 ISHMAELITES MULTIPLY. 
 
 125
 
 " ' Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, 
 On the bodies and souls of living men ? 
 And think ye that building shall cndui'e, 
 Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor ? 
 With gates of silver and bars of gold 
 Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father's fold ; 
 I have heard the dropping of their tears 
 In heaven these eighteen hundred years.' 
 
 " ' O, Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, 
 We build but as our fathers built. 
 Behold thine images, how they stand, 
 Sovereign and sole, through all our laud. 
 Our task is hard — with sword and flame 
 To hold thy earth forever the same ; 
 And with sharp crooks of steel to keep 
 Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep.' 
 
 " Then Christ sougnt out an artisan, 
 A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, 
 And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin 
 Pushed from her faintly want and sin. 
 These set he in the nudst of them, 
 And as they drew back their garment hem, 
 For fear of defilement, ' Lo, here,' said he, 
 'The images ye have made of me.' " 
 
 James Russell Lowell. 
 
 126
 
 ]\IIY THE ISIIMAELITES MULTIPLY. 127 
 
 V. 
 
 WHY THE ISHMAELITES MULTIPLY. 
 
 Ethical significance of loose morals in the speculative world — 
 A further word on taxation — Immigration — Cheap 
 lodging-houses — The saloon, the supreme curse of nine- 
 teenth-century civilization— The influence of drink on 
 the living — Its influence on posterity — What is to be 
 done — What the church might accomplish. 
 
 1NEXT desire to notice a few basic causes 
 of the appalling increase of crime at the 
 social nadir, an idea of the tropical growth 
 of which may be gained by noting the facts 
 that in 1889 the number of murders known 
 to have been committed in this country 
 were three thousand, five hundred and 
 sixty-eight. In 1890 there were four 
 thousand, two hundred and ninety; and in 
 1891 this mania for human life had so 
 increased that the records show four thous- 
 and, nine hundred and six, murders known 
 to have been committed — an increase in 
 two years of one thousand three hundred
 
 128 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 and thirty-eight murders. Now, it must 
 be evident to the most casual observer, 
 that there are certain potent causes opera- 
 tin 2; in such a manner as to increase the 
 borders of this commonwealth of social 
 night. Space prevents my touching upon 
 more than three or four, which seem to be 
 most immediate in their baleful effects. 
 
 1. The decline in iiitegrity, incident to 
 the rise of the j^resent specidative age, and 
 the ascendancy of the aristocracy of the dol- 
 lar. — It would be impossible to estimate 
 the evil effects upon the social cellar of 
 the rapid accumulation of wealth by extra- 
 moral methods, which has attained such 
 general currency during the past three or 
 four decades, and which, while not neces- 
 sarily transcending the letter of our crimi- 
 nal law, outrages every principle of justice, 
 humanity, and moral rectitude. But it is 
 safe to say that upon no class of people, 
 unless it be the world of w^ealth at the 
 social zenith, have the injurious influences 
 >een more marked than upon those who 
 dwell in civilization's sub-cellar. They are 
 not moles, these children of the nadir;
 
 WHY THE ISHMAELITES MULTIPLY. 120 
 
 many of their number are among the 
 shrewdest and most alert of men; they 
 quickly recognize any deflection from rec- 
 titude on the part of those who profess 
 respectability. From the lips of many 
 who have fallen within the clutch of the 
 law, we have heard self -justification on the 
 score of having merely imitated the kings 
 and barons of the commercial and specu- 
 lative world, showing how closely they 
 follow the questionable movements and 
 methods of the Napoleons of modern finance. 
 Now, this under-world has beheld what all 
 thoughtful persons have noted who have 
 watched the ferocious struggle for fortunes 
 in recent years. They have seen shrewd, 
 calculating men, who in secret council have 
 determined upon a speculative movement 
 by which they expected to reap millions of 
 dollars in a few hours or days, the success 
 of which depended upon their ability to 
 deceive those who still had faith in the 
 integrity of man. They have seen the 
 minions of these commercial brigands 
 industriously engaged for weeks, and some- 
 times months in circulating false and
 
 130 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 intentionally deceptive reports upon the 
 street and through the press. They have 
 watched the grand denouement — the crash 
 of fortunes, the wreck of banks, the despol- 
 iation of hundreds, and the consequent 
 suicide of not a few ; while the calculating 
 conspirators, who from the beginning held 
 a winning hand, have emerged with mil- 
 lions of plunder, amid the applause of a 
 society so morally enervated that justice 
 and human rights sink into insignificance 
 before the gold of the successful bandits. 
 They also have observed the rise of men, 
 not by honorable competition, but by crafty 
 and cunning methods which have enabled 
 them to relentlessly crush out all competit- 
 ors, and thus, over wrecked hopes, honest 
 toil, and ruined fortunes, climb to the 
 heights of the many-times millionaires. 
 And they have also seen the still more 
 common spectacle of men acquiring mil- 
 lions through the aid of injustice, in the 
 robe of special privilege; and that still 
 more cruel wrong, the scaling down of 
 wages of the toiling multitude to the starv- 
 ation line. They have, time and again,
 
 WHY THE ISHMAELITES MULTIPLY. 131 
 
 seen poor girls and haggcard men pushed to 
 the brmk, nay, even driven into the lowest 
 cellar, through these ruthless destroyers of 
 the happiness of millions ; and then, when 
 for policy's sake, or as a sedative for some 
 latent twinge of conscience, or because they 
 wished the applause of the multitude, these 
 rich men have carelessly written a check 
 for the church, or with easy grace have 
 tossed a bag of gold to some theological 
 school, some library, or popular charity, 
 they have beheld the sad spectacle of the 
 church, the city, or the society greedily 
 clutching the polluted wealth, and applaud- 
 ing the giver ; whije the press raised syco- 
 phantic cries of adulation, and thoughtless 
 millions swelled the chorus of praise, appar- 
 ently forgetful of the fact that the ill-got- 
 ten gold given w\as merely a moiet}- of 
 the wealth gained by plundering the 
 masses. Ah! these scenes of shame have 
 not escaped the watchful vigilance of the 
 shadows that glide to and fro in the dark- 
 ness below. The prevalence of this moral 
 bankruptcy has exerted its influence on 
 the under-w^orld. ''What is right above,
 
 132 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 is right below ; we may not proceed as 
 Ccautioiisly ; our course may be more direct, 
 but we will acquire what we gain at a 
 less expense of human happiness, and less 
 loss of lives to the victims." Such is the 
 philosophy of the sub-cellar ; and who can 
 gainsay its truthfulness ? AYe often talk 
 of tiie moral miasma which comes from 
 the submerged millions; it would be well 
 for society to pay more heed to the scorch- 
 ing rays of avarice, which, from above, are 
 withering millions of souls, drying up 
 the fountains of human hope, peace, and 
 joy, and enervating the integrity of a 
 nation. 
 
 2. Unjust social conditions, especially as 
 they relate to taxation. — What is true of 
 the evil suffered in the social cellar is 
 almost equally applicable to the sub-cellar; 
 for the crowding of people in squalid dens 
 brutalizes and criminalizes; and so long as 
 landlords have comparatively low taxes 
 to pay for old, rickety, disease-laden, and 
 vermin-infected rookeries, they will not 
 replace them with clean, healthful, or more 
 commodious buildings; and while vacant
 
 WHY THE ISTTMAELITES MULTIPLY. 133 
 
 lots adjacent to a city are ligbtly taxed, 
 land speculators will hold them out of the 
 reach of the ^^oor. Thus, our present sys- 
 tem of taxation acts as a two-edged sword ; 
 it encourages the landlord to preserve as 
 long as possible the most wretched old 
 building, and it practically bars the poor 
 from securing homes near the outskirts of 
 the city. A recent writer on social prob- 
 lems has pointed out the important fact 
 that wealthy people frequently buy tracts 
 of land on which poor tenants live, tear 
 down the buildings, and leave the land 
 vacant, because they do not want the poor 
 near them. Thus the gulf is, even in envi- 
 ronment, widening day by day between the 
 rich and the poor ; and as one author sug- 
 gests, "Fifth Avenue loathes the slums, 
 and the slums hate Fifth Avenue." The 
 present system of taxation is essentially 
 unjust: it places a fine on industry; it fav- 
 ors the avarice of landlords; it adds to the 
 misery of the slums, and increases our 
 criminal population. 
 
 3. Another fvuiifid source of crime is 
 unrestricted i7nmi(jratlon. — Says Superin-
 
 134 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 tendent Byrnes !* "It has frequently been 
 stated to me by thieves that a large num- 
 ber of foreign criminals have their passage 
 paid to this country by the authorities in 
 their native lands or by somebody else. 
 When they land they have no money, or 
 very little, and they immediately seek a 
 cheap lodging-house, where they can live 
 for almost nothing, meet people congenial 
 to them, and be put in the way of again 
 engaging in criminal pursuits." To what 
 extent this is true, we cannot say; certain 
 it is, however, that large numbers of crim- 
 inals, who are closely pressed by the author- 
 ities in the older civilizations, or who view 
 the new world as an El Dorado for daring 
 souls, drift penniless to our shores, and 
 thus immensely aid in swelling the volume 
 of crime. Our immigration laws should be 
 more stringent. Our nation should cease 
 to be the asylum for the moral wrecks of 
 the world, at least until we have better 
 facilities for reformation than those in 
 operation at present. As the case now 
 stands, the criminal emigrants, as well as 
 
 *•' Darkness and Daylight in New York."
 
 WFIY THE ISHMAELITES MULTIPLY. 135 
 
 thousands of penniless incomers, drift to 
 the cheap lodging-houses, which are already 
 swarming with the lowest and most vicious 
 of our people. And thus the Dead Sea 
 enlarges its banks; crimes increase; pris- 
 ons, almshouses, public hospitals, and insane 
 asylums are crowded to overflowing. 
 
 4. Great as is the reinforcement given to 
 the lower world by immigration, its influ- 
 ence in this respect is meagre compared to 
 the cheap lodging -houses, which, as one care- 
 ful writer avers, more than counterbalance 
 in evil all the good resulting from free lec- 
 tures, reading-rooms, and all similar agencies 
 of reform. In the city of New York there 
 are two hundred and seventy of these houses. 
 The price of a night's lodging is from twen- 
 ty-five cents down to three cents a "spot." 
 At most of them the price is below fifteen 
 cents a night; and in these very cheap 
 quarters we find filth, vermin, foul odors, 
 and everything repulsive — nothing invit- 
 ing. Here congregate the most wretched, 
 dissipated and vicious of our people. In 
 some of these houses men and women pay 
 for a hammock, in others for a bench ;
 
 136 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 while still others pay a few pennies for a 
 spot on the floor. Superintendent Byrnes 
 declares that "they have a powerful ten- 
 dency to produce, foster and increase crime. 
 They are," he continues, "largely the 
 resorts of thieves and other criminals of the 
 lowest class, who here consort together, and 
 lay plans for crime. During the last two 
 or three years, hundreds of young men have 
 been arrested for crimes that originated in 
 these places. In many cases it was the 
 first step in wrong-doing." He then 
 recounts the following significant facts, 
 which illustrate the legitimate fruits 
 springing up from the poisonous atmos- 
 phere of the cheap lodging-houses.* " Lying 
 on my desk are two tintypes of the cheap- 
 est sort, evidently taken in the Bowery. 
 They represent two 3^oung 'toughs,' each 
 holding a pistol at the head of the other. 
 They were taken from the pockets of the 
 young fellows, who were brought into my 
 private room on charges of robbery. These 
 photographs interested! me, and I asked the 
 boys how they came to be taken in that 
 
 * " Darkness and Daylight in New York."
 
 WUV THE TSIIMAELITES MULTIPLY. 137 
 
 style. 'Oh,' tliey answered, 'we held a pis- 
 tol up to the head of a man one night and 
 got his money, and we just thought we 
 would like to see how we looked when we 
 did it.' They seemed proud of their 
 achievement. I mention this as an illus- 
 tration of the sort of young criminals the 
 cheap lodging-houses turn out." 
 
 That we may gain a more comprehensive 
 idea of the magnitude of this evil, let us 
 note some facts in relation to the lodging- 
 houses of New York City. According to 
 the ofHcial report of the police depart- 
 ment, there were, in 1890, four million, eight 
 hundred and twenty-three thousand, five 
 hundred and ninety-five lodgings given in 
 New York's two hundred and seventy 
 lodo:ino:-houses. Of this number one mil- 
 lion, four hundred and fifty-two thousand, 
 r,nd twenty were given in the sixty-four 
 houses found in the eleventh precinct. 
 Thus we find thirteen thousand, two hund- 
 red and fifteen people, on an average, sleep- 
 ing in these nurseries of moral and physical 
 contagion each night ; while, in the eleventh 
 precinct alone, almost four thousand per-
 
 y 
 
 138 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 sons, on an average, are huddled together 
 nightly in filthy quarters. 
 
 5. T7ie saloon. The supreme or capital 
 curse of the nineteenth century is summed 
 up in the one word "saloon," because 
 its influence extends in all directions ; and 
 wherever it is felt, human misery, degra- 
 dation, and moral eclipse follow. It is the 
 devil-fish of our civilization, whose every 
 tentacle crushes to death. It pollutes 
 politics; it degrades manhood ; it makes a 
 possible murderer of every victim ; it fills the 
 slums with want and wretchedness; it 
 crowds our jails to overflowing and is a 
 leading factor in populating insane asy- 
 lums, almshouses, and the Potter's Field ; 
 it destroys the physical strength of man- 
 hood; it beclouds the intellect; it obliter- 
 ates moral integrity. But,-towering above 
 all this, its crowning evil, and that which 
 makes its existence the national crime of 
 the age, is its effect upon the guiltless. ^ 
 The innocent wife, the prattling children, 
 and the unborn baby all feel its cruel 
 curse. This is the phase of the problem 
 which makes its toleration a crime of
 
 WHY THE ISUMAELITES MULTIPLY. 139 
 
 measureless proportions. The supremacy 
 of the saloon affords a most impressive 
 illustration of the possibility of a whole 
 nation becoming morally anassthetized by 
 a curse constantly before its vision, and 
 whose wealth is lavishly used to quell all 
 opposition which would deal it mortal 
 blows. We build insane asylums and in- 
 carcerate madmen, for the protection of the 
 lives of their families and others ; but here 
 w^e find a so-called christian nation giving 
 the stamp of legality to a traffic which 
 takes from thousands of innocent people 
 every gleam of hope and happiness, cloth- 
 ing bodies in rags and minds in perpetual 
 fear. If the saloon cursed only its victims, 
 the case would be different; but it is the 
 gloved hand behind the automatic victim 
 which is responsible for a large proportion 
 of the crimes committed yearly against the 
 innocent. Let me illustrate: A New 
 York journal* recently published a care- 
 ful summary of the history of twenty mur- 
 derers who have expiated their crimes upon 
 the present public scaffold in the city of St. 
 
 *" The Voice."
 
 140 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 Louis, Mc. Of tliis score of condemned men 
 all but four committed the crimes, for which 
 they were executed, wlxile under the influ- 
 ence of liquor; while a number of the mur- 
 ders were primarily caused by drink, or, in 
 other words, the victims were those against 
 whom the drunkards had no more grudge 
 or motive for murder than a maniac exhibits 
 when he kills his best friend. I have only 
 space for a brief sketch of one of these mur- 
 ders, but it is sufficient to illustrate the 
 point I am making — that the saloon to-day 
 is the primal cause of many of the most 
 heinous crimes against the innocent : 
 
 "At the age of twenty-three, young 
 Patrick O'Shea, a sturdy mechanic, mar- 
 ried a beautiful girl named Lizzie Welsh. 
 No happier couple lived than they, and 
 at the end of two years a little boy was 
 added to their family circle; but a cloud 
 appeared on the horizon. Pat began to 
 spend his wages in drunken debauchery, 
 and their once happy hearth-stone was 
 becoming anything but a home. His wife 
 struggled on, earning by the wash-tub food 
 and clothing for herself and boy ; and
 
 WHY THE ISnMAELITES MULTIPLY. 141 
 
 often did her crazed husband, returning 
 from a drunken carouse, compel the weary 
 wife and mother to give up what few 
 dimes she had earned during the day, that 
 he might spend the same for rum. Things 
 went on from bad to worse. Willie had 
 grown to be a strong boy of eleven, when 
 one awful day in March, the patient 
 mother, returning from a long day's work, 
 found her husband sleeping in a drunken 
 stupor. Silently tiptoeing about the room, 
 she quietly prepared a frugal supper, and 
 lovingly tapping him on the shoulder — 
 for she loved him still — said, "Awake, Pat, 
 and get a bite to eat.' He did awake. 
 'Whiskey,' he demanded. 'Give me some 
 money!' But there was no whiskey 
 and no money. He overturned the table, 
 cursed and blasphemed until, with demoni- 
 acal rage, he drew a knife, and caught his 
 wife by the throat. Brave little Willie 
 seized a poker and struck the father, then 
 fled, followed by the crazed parent, knife 
 in hand. Pat, unable to overtake his son, 
 rushed back to the house, and locked the 
 door, Little Willie^ from the outside.
 
 142 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 heard a short, sharp struggle, a shriek 
 and a falL The father staggered to the 
 door with the knife dripping with blood, 
 and the poor boy saw his loving mother 
 Avrithing in the agonies of death, her 
 entrails lying upon the floor." 
 
 There is still another indictment, as 
 grave as this last, to be brought against 
 the saloon, and that is found in its influ- 
 ence on posterity. It is calling into life a / 
 generation of maniacs and murderers, who 
 come into the world predestined to curse 
 society. This fact was recently impress- 
 ively emphasized by Hugues Le Roux in a 
 thoughtful paper on ''Phases of Crime in 
 Paris," in which he cites the eminent Dr. 
 Paul Garnier, chief medical officer of the 
 prefecture of police, as authority for the 
 statement that "in Paris, during the past 
 .sixteen years, lunacy has increased thirty 
 per cent." Here is an appalling state- 
 ment, and the author continues: — 
 
 "The progress of alcoholic insanity has 
 been so rapid that the evil is now twice as 
 prevalent as it Avas fifteen years ago. 
 Almost a third of the lunacy cases oh-
 
 WRY THE ISHMAELITES MULTIPLY. 143 
 
 served at the Bejjot Infirmary are due to 
 tins disease. Every day it declares itself 
 more violently, and with a more marked 
 homicidal tendency. The accomplice of 
 two-thirds of the crimes committed, upon 
 whom the crimmals themselves throw the 
 responsibility of their evil deeds, is alcohol. 
 It visits uj^on the child the sins of the 
 father, and engenders in the following gen- / 
 eration homicidal instincts. Since I have 
 frequented the haunts of misery and vice 
 in Paris, I have observed gutter children 
 by the hundred, who are only awaiting 
 their opportunity to become assassins — 
 the children of drunkards. Moreover, 
 there is a terrible flaw in these young 
 wretches — a flaw which doctors do not 
 observe, ]mt which the psychologist sees 
 clearly and notes with apprehension — the 
 absence of affectional emotions; and as 
 a matter of fact, if these criminals are 
 neither ancesthetiques nor lunatics, their 
 characteristics are insensibility and piti- 
 lessness." 
 
 The terrible influence of liquor upon the 
 civilization of to-morrow is further emplia-
 
 144 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 sized by this author in the following 
 words : — 
 
 " A few years ago I was present in Dr. 
 Garnier's consulting-room, watching the 
 prisoners from the depot filing past. We 
 were informed that a child had been brought 
 by its parents to be examined. These peo- 
 ple were shown in; they belonged to the 
 respectable working-class, and were quiet 
 and well-mannered. The man w^as the 
 driver of a dray belonging to one of the 
 railway stations, and had the appearance 
 of a stalwart workingman. The boy was 
 barely six years old ; he had an intelligent, 
 rather pretty face, and was neatly dressed. 
 'See here. Monsieur le Docteur,' said the 
 father, ' we have brought you our boy ; he 
 alarms us. He is no fool; he begins to 
 read; they are satisfied with him at his 
 school, but we cannot help thinking he 
 must be insane, for he wants to murder his 
 little brother, a child of two years old. 
 The other day he nearly succeeded in doing 
 so. I arrived just in time to snatch my 
 razor from his hands.' The boy stood list- 
 ening with indifference and without hang-
 
 WHY THE ISHMAELITES MULTIPLY. 145 
 
 ino; his head. The doctor drew the child 
 kindly toward him, and inquired, 'Is it 
 true that you wish to hurt your little 
 brother?' With perfect composure the lit- 
 tle one replied, 'I will kill him; yes, yes, I 
 will kill him ! ' The doctor glanced at the 
 father, and asked in a low voice, 'Do you 
 drink?' The wife exclaimed indignantly, 
 'He, sir! Why, he never enters a public 
 house, and has never come home drunk.' 
 They were quite sincere. Nevertheless the 
 doctor said, 'Stretch out your arm.' The 
 man obeyed; his hand trembled. Had 
 these people told lies, then, in stating that 
 the man had never come home the worse 
 for drink? No; but all through the day, 
 wherever he had called to leave a package, 
 the people of the house had given him 
 something to drink for his trouble. He 
 had become a drunkard ivithout knowing it, 
 and the poison that had entered his Ijlood 
 was, at this moment, filling the head of his 
 little child with the dreams of an assassin." 
 }V7iat is to he done? In my judgment 
 the initial step to practical and enduring 
 reform is the patient, exhaustive study of
 
 146 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 the social cellar. We must systematically 
 examine the great root causes of poverty, 
 vice and crime, and also the relation which 
 the upper world bears to the social cellar. 
 We must obtain statistics and facts, not 
 for tlie purpose of proving any special 
 claim, but that we may arrive at the truth, 
 and thus show precisely where the root 
 evils lie, and the relation of each to the sum 
 total of crime and misery. Armed with 
 these facts, an agitation can be inaugurated 
 which will result in a revolution of meas- 
 ureless importance to civilization. But to 
 do this, we must have (1), organization; 
 (2), sufficient means to prosecute the work 
 properly; (3), consecrated lives — persons 
 willing to devote their best service to the 
 noblest of crusades. All these requisites 
 the Church possesses ; and if the spirit of 
 the great Master, whose life was a prayer 
 for the social cellar, still blazes within her 
 sanctuary; if, indeed, the spell of the golden 
 calf has not become more powerful than 
 the golden rule, she can, by embracing this 
 supreme opportunity, win back" the millions 
 Jesus declared he came to seek and to save.
 
 WriY THE ISIIMAELITES MULTIPLY. 147 
 
 but whom she has alienated by withdraw- 
 ing from them. And what is more, she 
 can work a revolution for humanity which 
 Avill change the front of civilization, while 
 she touches with her sweet, inspiring influ- 
 ence millions of our fellow-men who are 
 now struggling without hope. This great 
 reform might easily be inaugurated by a 
 union of churches. If half the churches in 
 any large city would unite, the solution of 
 the problem of the social cellar would be an 
 early achievement, because they possess the 
 requisites — organization, resources, and 
 earnest lives, ready to give their best ser- 
 vice to the supreme demand of our day and 
 generation. 
 
 I will outline a plan of work, which I 
 believe would be thoroughly practical, and 
 which would ultimately result in the inaug- 
 uration of an educational agitation, which 
 would inevitably mean a peaceful but rad- 
 ical revolution ; while its immediate results 
 would outweigh, although not necessarily 
 interfere with, present work along charit- 
 able lines, it would also bring the Church 
 into touch with the lower world. Of
 
 148 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 course, I only give these views as hints of 
 what I believe would prove feasible if any 
 considerable portion of the ministry and 
 their communions in our cities appreciated 
 the great need of immediate measures of 
 relief and reform, and the necessity of plac- 
 ing the principles enunciated by Christ, and 
 exemplified in his life, above all considera- 
 tions of fashionable plutocracy. I would 
 suggest that in each church, the minister 
 and all deeply interested in the cause of 
 human brotherhood, organize themselves 
 into a band, pledged to the double work: 
 first, of scientifically and impartially study- 
 ing the root causes of poverty and crime, 
 and the results flowing from these causes, 
 from ethical, economic and social points of 
 view; also, the relation of these causes to 
 posterity ; and second, to the labor of aid- 
 ing this submerged world with immediate 
 succor. I would have the band of each 
 congregation adopt a simple, broad, but 
 binding pledge, and further elect officers 
 who would constitute a governing board 
 for that special battalion of light; the 
 pledge for membership should carry ab-
 
 WHY THE ISHMAELITES MULTIPLY. 149 
 
 solute and unqestioning obedience to the 
 commands of the superior officers or the 
 governing board. It would be absolutely 
 necessary, it seems to me, to adopt a pledge 
 of obedience as binding as that of a mili- 
 tary organization, in order to secure the 
 best results. The governing board for each 
 cono;reu;ation should affiliate with those of 
 all churches in the movement. And here 
 I would suggest that the governing boards 
 of all the affiliated bodies elect superior 
 officers, under whose direction each board 
 would work precisely as subordinate officers 
 in a regular army. In this manner there 
 would soon be formed a magnificent organ- 
 ization representing the flower of all the 
 churches under perfect discipline, and 
 prompted by the single desire of elevating 
 civilization, and ennobling manhood and 
 womanhood. 
 
 The work could be divided into two dis- 
 tinct divisions : one devoting its energies to 
 the temporary relief of the poor and the 
 rescue of individuals ; the second working 
 for the abolition of the curses which are 
 prime causes in producing poverty and
 
 150 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 crime. It would be the duty of division 
 one to systematically carry on palliative 
 work by establishing coffee-houses, free 
 reading-rooms, free concerts, lectures, indus- 
 trial schools, and factories for those tem- 
 porarily out of employment. The work 
 would have a healthy and uplifting influ- 
 ence, while relieving wretchedness and 
 bringing gleams of hope into otherwise ray- 
 less lives. The labor of the second division 
 would, of course, be vastly more important. 
 Upon its committees, and the individuals 
 employed, would devolve the duty of carry- 
 ing on the most critical and scientific 
 investigations of the various aspects of life 
 in the submerQ;ed world that have ever been 
 attempted. The work in this department 
 should be divided into several sections; the 
 duty of each section being, to collect statis- 
 tics and facts relating to crime and poverty. 
 Each arrest should be noted, the cause 
 leading to the apprehension, and, as nearly 
 as possible, the expense of each case, as well 
 as the penalties imposed ; the history of 
 criminals, their antecedents, the causes 
 whi(^h led to crime; the approximate inllu-
 
 WHY THE ISHMAELITES MULTIPLY. 151 
 
 ence of competition, unjust economic con- 
 ditions, intemperance and otlier evils, as 
 well as the influence exhibited by environ- 
 ment and the law of heredity, in each case 
 examined. Criminology must be studied 
 as a science — so must life in the slums — 
 before we can get the authoritative data 
 essential for a victorious crusade. We 
 must obtain indisputable facts; be able to 
 assign to each evil its proper place ; classify 
 the cardinal causes of poverty and crime, 
 and the relation each bears to the sum 
 total. Once set tliis machinery in motion, 
 and an educational era wdll be inaugurated 
 as irresistible as the Reformation, ushered 
 in by Luther, in Europe, or the twenty- 
 years' anti-slavery agitation of Wilberforce, 
 in England. Monthly meetings should be 
 held, where all important data and infor- 
 mation gathered should be classified and 
 incorporated in carefully prepared reports ; 
 and ministers should devote at least one 
 sermon a month to this great work, pre- 
 senting the facts gathered in the most 
 effective manner. Collections should be 
 taken up regularly, and each congregation
 
 152 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 or community canvassed for subscriptions 
 for the effective and vigorous carrying on 
 of the work. Carefully prepared bulletins 
 containing tables of statistics and data 
 obtained and the central facts secured, 
 should be published at least every three 
 months. In this manner the conscience 
 of our civilization would be stirred to its 
 profoundest depths. 
 
 If this great question is to be solved 
 peaceably, it must be solved at an early 
 day; and if the solution is to come from 
 above, it will be essential to have absolute 
 facts upon which to base the indictments 
 and carry on the agitation. Mere senti- 
 mentality will not answer. We must 
 have incontrovertible data upon which to 
 base our arguments. And to secure this, 
 it is necessary to have organization and 
 concerted action, money to properly prose- 
 cute the work, and men and loomen willing 
 to devote their lives to the noblest crusade 
 ever undertaken for the emancipation of 
 our fellow-men. 
 
 I have a firm and abiding faith in the 
 future. I believe that the education
 
 WHY THE ISHMAELITES MULTIPLY. 153 
 
 which has become so general, the inven- 
 tions which have woven a world into a 
 family, and the strides of science, with its 
 multitudinous blessings, have brought civi- 
 lization to the threshold of a new day, in 
 which brotherhood will triumph over class 
 distinctions; in which the ideas of ancient 
 days, which have enslaved the brains of 
 men, favored the development of the self- 
 ish and sensual side of man's life, and 
 degraded the position of women, will dis- 
 appear. I believe, despite the sneers of 
 self-satisfied conservatism, that the heart- 
 hunger of the age for a higher, broader, 
 and purer life is a prophecy of the accomp- 
 lishment of that vision of the ages, of 
 which prophets, philosophers and sages 
 have caught luminous glimpses, and which 
 every aspiring soul, since the morning of 
 our race, in moments of holy exaltation, 
 has yearned to enthrone in the royal cham- 
 ber of the mind — that ideal life wdiich, 
 held on the sensitive plate of human 
 thought, is, generation by generation, 
 being developed, until even now we behold 
 a splendid prophecy of a dawning reality.
 
 154 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 But while entertaining this firm convic- 
 tion, I do not for a moment lose sight of 
 the more vital truth that upon us devolves 
 the responsibility of ushering in this 
 approaching day by prompt, conscientious 
 and persistent labor for the elevation of 
 the children of the social cellar; for the 
 emancipation and redemption of civiliza- 
 tion's miserables, and securing for all who 
 are oppressed that full-orbed justice em- 
 braced in the golden rule, and without 
 which there can be no enduring civilization.
 
 THE FROTH AND DREGS, 
 
 156
 
 " You preach to me to be just, 
 And this is His realm you say ; 
 And the good are dying with hunger 
 And the had gorge every day." 
 
 The Hindoo's Reply. 
 
 Birds sing as sweetly in the bowers of Spring ; 
 Suns mount as regally their sapphire throne ; 
 Stars set the gloom aglow, and harvests yield, 
 As though man nestled in tlie lap of Love : 
 All, all goes right and merrily with the "World. 
 
 But slip your dainty mask aside and see 
 
 Hell open fathomless at your very feet ! 
 
 The Poor are murdered body and soul ; the Rich 
 
 In Pleasure's Goblet melt their pearl of life : 
 
 Ay, all goes right and merrily with the World. 
 
 So Sodom, grim old Reveller ! danced to her death. 
 Voluptuous Music throbb'd through all her Courts ; 
 Mirth wantoned at her heart, one pulse before 
 The tongues of Fire told out her tale of wrongs — 
 And all went right and merrily with tlie AVorld. 
 
 Gerald Massey. 
 
 156
 
 THE FROTH AND DREGS. 157 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE FROTH AND DREGS. 
 
 Social contrasts as illustrated in two noteworthy books — The 
 Froth — ^Life in the gay, frivolous world of society — 
 Typical scenes — Tendency of such life — Immorality 
 treading on the heels of luxury, idleness and selfishness 
 — The other world, or a glance at the dregs — Crime, 
 poverty and misery in the slums of London — Facts which 
 stagger the imagination — Typical cases. 
 
 EARLY in 1891, on entering one of the 
 largest book stores in Boston, I 
 noticed two immense tiers of books, 
 placed side by side on one of the most 
 prominent counters. Both were meeting 
 with large sales. One of the volumes 
 was bound in black, very plain. The deli- 
 cate binding of the other was protected by 
 white-glazed paper covers, printed in gold. 
 The sight of these two books, placed in 
 juxtaposition, produced in me a distinct 
 mental shock — a strange thrill, such as I re- 
 membered having experienced a few months
 
 158 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 before, when, glancing over one of the New 
 York dailies, I had noticed an extended de- 
 scription of a magnificent ball given by the 
 Vanderbilts at Newport, while in another 
 column, I saw a thrillingly pathetic pen- 
 picture of the terrible want then being 
 experienced in the little cottages and hov- 
 els of the poor strikers on the Vanderbilt 
 railroad. It seemed, as I beheld in bold 
 antithesis, those graphic scenes of gilded 
 splendor and grim squalor, of triumphant 
 capital and vanquished labor, that we 
 might be witnessing the prelude or first 
 mutterings of a storm such as followed the 
 giddy, voluptuous, and selfish life at the 
 Louvre, during those troubled years when 
 the multitudes of Paris saw the world 
 through fierce eyes, sunken far into their 
 sockets by hunger long endured. Some- 
 thing of the same sensation, I experienced 
 on seeing these two books side by side; 
 one, "Society as I Have Found It," by 
 Ward McAllister; the other might have 
 been termed, "Society as I Have Found It," 
 by General Booth. One was an elaborate 
 description of the froth on the surface of
 
 THE FnOTTI AND DJIEGS. 159 
 
 social life to-day, the other a picture of the 
 dregs of civilization; vivid glimpses of the 
 upper and lower strata of our modern life ; 
 the world of indolent frivolity, and the 
 world of crime, degradation, and poverty. 
 The denizens of the one — idlers who eat, 
 drink, dance, and are consumed in a butter- 
 fly existence; the other filled with gaunt, 
 liungry, hollow-eyed millions to whom life 
 is an awful curse. The one basking in the 
 sunshine of wealth, floating on the surface, 
 held up by the great current beneath ; the 
 other doomed to dwell in perpetual night, 
 having settled or been forced to the bottom 
 where the pressure is greatest, and hope dies. 
 These pen pictures of two phases of our 
 civilization are v^ritten by persons who may 
 be justly termed experts in the domain they 
 describe ; and though, from a purely literary 
 point of view, their work is vulnerable, 
 there is no reason to believe that either 
 has given other than a truthful narration, 
 for each is in perfect rai^port with his 
 theme ; each knows the ground over which 
 he journeys, as thoroughly as a trappex' 
 knowg th^ roovwtaitt trail,
 
 IGO CIVILIZATION' S INFFUNO. 
 
 The first of these books, as I have 
 indicated, treats of what may be termed 
 the froth of society, that is, the wealth- 
 laden idlers who live chiefly for themselves, 
 for the petty triumphs in fashion's hollow 
 life, those who enjoy the superficial and 
 artificial life of what is known as society, 
 when millions of their fellowmen are being 
 forced to the depths of want and often into 
 crime. Millions of their brothers and sisters 
 are starving, or stealing that they may not 
 starve, who might be saved, who w^ould be 
 redeemed, if those who constitute this 
 wealth-laden circle in every metropolis 
 would work in concert, and intelligently 
 expend a portion of the immense riches 
 which they annually waste, and which few, 
 if any of them, have created with their 
 own hands, or by personal exertion outside 
 of speculation. It is this world of idlers 
 which Mr. McAllister describes and extols. 
 Some of them owe their prestige chiefly to 
 the fact that their ancestors were early 
 settlers of Manhattan Island ; others have 
 inherited vast fortunes; while the third 
 class are the children of representatives
 
 THE FROTH ANT) DREGS. 161 
 
 of the commercial brigands of to-day, — 
 men who spend months converting into 
 cash a portion of their vast resources; 
 who then withdraw their deposits from the 
 metropolitan banks in such a manner 
 as to send a thrill of uncertainty through 
 the complex fabric of commercial life ; 
 who follow this with gloomy rumors 
 and predictions of impending business 
 failures through the press; who watch an 
 opportune moment, when with tiger-spring 
 they convulse the speculative world, crush- 
 ing banks, bankrupting hosts of individuals, 
 causing many suicides and untold misery, 
 and at length emerge from the chaos 
 they have caused with millions of ill-gotten 
 gains — millions of dollars, not a cent of 
 which has been earned — millions of dollars 
 won by gamblers who have money enough 
 to take away all risks on their part and who 
 understand how to utilize for their purses 
 a system of legal gambling which is daily 
 sapping the moral force of the nation and 
 paralyzing legitimate trade. It is from one 
 of these three classes that we find the 
 majority of fashion's votaries in our great
 
 162 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 metropolis. And liow do they live in this 
 charmed circle? They winter in New- 
 York and summer at Newport, or some 
 other resort of wealth and fashion. Win- 
 ter and surtimer alike they feast, drink and 
 dance. In summer they drive in state; 
 in winter they attend the opera. This, of 
 course, does not occupy all their time, but 
 it represents the absorbing thoughts, which, 
 aside from the passion for money getting, 
 control life. This round of gayety is to 
 this element what invention is to Edison; 
 what evolution was to Darwin; what con- 
 quest was to Alexander; what the redemp- 
 tion of humanity was to Jesus — the motive 
 power which most sways life; the over- 
 mastering impulse of existence ; the thought 
 or desire, before which all else becomes 
 subordinate. Let us examine a few etch- 
 ings from Mr. McAllister's gallery that we 
 may acquire a better idea of the essential 
 spirit of this life. Here we have a picture 
 of a typical picnic at Newport: 
 
 We would meet at Narragansett Avenue at 1 
 P. M., and all drive out together. On reaching the 
 picnic grounds; I had an army of skirmishers, ia
 
 THE FROTH ANT) DREGS. 163 
 
 the way of servants, thrown out, to take from each 
 carriage its contribution to the country dinner. 
 The band woukl strike up, and off the whole party 
 woukl fly in the waltz, while I was directing the 
 icing of the champagne, and arranging the tables ; 
 all done with marvelous celerity. Then came my 
 hour of triumph, when, without giving the slightest 
 signal (fearing some one might forestall me, and 
 take off the prize), I would dash in among the dan- 
 ;ers, secure our society queen, and lead Avith her 
 ;he way to the banquet, Now began the fun in 
 ^ood earnest. The clever men of the pai'ty would 
 assert their claims to tlie best dishes, proud of the 
 efforts of their cook, loud in their praise of their 
 own game pie, which most probably was brought 
 out by some third party, too modest to assert and 
 push his claim. Beauty was there to look upon, 
 and wit to enliven the feast. The wittiest of men 
 was then in liis element, and I only wish I dared 
 quote here his brilliant sallies. The beauty of the 
 land was also there, and all, feeling that they Vv-ere 
 on a frolic, threw hauteur, ceremonial, and grand 
 company manners aside, and, in place, assumed a 
 spirit of simple enjoyment. Toasts were given 
 and drunk'; then a stroll in pairs, for a little inter- 
 change of sentiment; and then the whole party 
 made for the dancing platform, and a cotillion of 
 one hour and a half was danced till sunset. As at 
 a " Meet," the arrivals and departures were a feat- 
 ure of the day. Four-in-hands, tandems, and the
 
 164 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 swellest of Newport turn-outs rolled by you. At 
 these entertainments you formed lifetime intima- 
 cies with the most cultivated and charming men 
 and women of this country. 
 
 These little parties were then, and are now, the 
 stepping-stones to our best New York society. 
 People who have been for years in moui*ning and 
 thus lost sight of, or Avho, having passed their lives 
 abroad, were forgotten, were again seen, admired, 
 and liked, and at once brought into society's fold. 
 Now do not for a moment imagine that all were 
 indiscriminately asked to these little fetes. On 
 the contrary, if you were not of the inner circle, 
 and were a newcomer, it took the combined efforts 
 of all your friends' backing and pushing to procure 
 an invitation for you. For years, whole families 
 sat on tlie stool of probation, awaiting trial and 
 acceptance, and many were then rejected, but once 
 received, you were put on an intimate footing with 
 all. 
 
 From Newport we turn to New York and 
 view a banquet for seventy-two persons, 
 given by a member of this exclusive class. 
 The cost of this banquet was to be ten 
 thousand dollars. Again we quote Mr. 
 McAllister: — 
 
 Accordingly he (the gentleman giving the ban- 
 quet) went to Charles Delmonico, who in turn went
 
 THE FBOTR AND DREGS. 165 
 
 to his cuisine dassifjue to see liow they could pos- 
 sibly spend this sum on this feast. Success crowned 
 their efforts. The sum in such skillful hands soon 
 melted away, and a banquet was given of such 
 beauty and magnificence, that even New Yorkers, 
 accustomed as they were to every species of novel 
 expenditure, were astonished at its lavishness, its 
 luxury. The banquet was given at Delnionico's in 
 Fourteenth Street. 
 
 There were seventy -two guests in the large ball- 
 room, looking on Fifth Avenue. Every inch of 
 the long, extended oval table was covered with 
 flowers, excepting a space in the centre, left for a 
 lake, and a border around the table for the plates. 
 This lake was indeed a work of art ; it Avas an 
 oval pond, thirty feet in length, by nearly the 
 width of the table, inclosed by a delicate golden 
 wire network, reaching from table to ceiling, mak- 
 ing the whole one grand cage ; four superb swans, 
 brought from Prospect Park, swam in it, sur- 
 rounded by high banks of flowers of every species 
 and variety, which prevented them from splashing 
 the water on the talde. There were hills and 
 dales ; the modest little violet carpeting the val- 
 leys, and other bolder sorts climbing up and cover- 
 ing the tops of those miniature mountains. Then, 
 all around the inclosure, and in fact above the 
 entire table, hung little golden cages, with fine 
 songsters, who filled the room with their melody, 
 occasionally interrupted l)y the splashing of the
 
 166 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 waters of the lake by the swans, and the cooing 
 of these noble birds, and at one time by a fierce 
 combat between these stately, graceful, gliding 
 white creatures. The surface of the whole table, 
 by clever art, was one unbroken series of undula- 
 tions, rising and falling like the billows of the sea, 
 but all clothed and carpeted with every form of 
 blossom. It seemed like the abode of fairies ; and 
 when surrounding this fairyland with lovely 
 young American womanhood, you had indeed an 
 unequalled scene of enchantment. But this was 
 not to be alone a feast for the eye ; all that art 
 could do, all that the cleverest men could devise 
 to spread before the guests such a feast as the 
 gods should enjoy, was done, and so well done that 
 all present felt, in the way of feasting, that man 
 could do no more ! The wines were perfect. 
 Blue seal Johannisberg flowed like water. Incom- 
 parable '48 claret, superb Burgundies, and amber- 
 colored Madeira, all were there to add to the intox- 
 icating delight of the scene. Then soft music 
 stole over one's senses ; lovely women's eyes spark- 
 led with delight at the beauty of their surround- 
 ings, and I felt that the fair being who sat next 
 to me would have graced Alexander's feast." 
 
 After reading the above it is well to call 
 to mind the awful facts revealed by vital 
 statistics in New York during recent years. 
 Thus for example, out of 3 9,0 7 9 deaths in
 
 THE FROTH AND DREGS. 167 
 
 the city in 1889, 7,059 died in the hospit- 
 als, insane asylums, and work houses ; 
 more than one person in every six who 
 passed from earth in our metropolis, died 
 in j)ublic institutions ; three thousand, eight 
 hundred and nineteen of those who perished 
 during 1889 were thrown into the Potter's 
 field, too poor for decent burial, w^hile in 
 the year which ended Sept. 1st, 1892, there 
 were 29,720 warrants, for evictions issued 
 in New York. In the presence of such 
 frightful facts, the heartless selfishness 
 which characterizes the reckless extrava- 
 gance of the society Df which Mr. McAllis- 
 ter writes, assumes criminal proportions. 
 But this is by no means the only evil which 
 attends such life. The very atmosphere 
 cannot fail to stifle the highest nature in 
 man, to dwarf, shrivel, and kill the true 
 ethical or spiritual essence of his being, 
 which instinctively turns to humanity's 
 miserables with soul overflowing with love ; 
 which ever shrinks from a mere selfish, 
 butterfly existence, as one shrinks from an 
 adder, knowing it will poison unto death 
 the highest attributes of the soul. The fol-
 
 168 CI VIL IZA TION ' S INFERNO. 
 
 lowing extract well illustrates the blight- 
 ing influence upon the individual, as well 
 as the false idea of life that such an exist- 
 ence inculcates. A wealthy friend, on sail- 
 ing for Europe, placed his wife and daugh- 
 ter in charge of Mr. McAllister, request- 
 ing him to give them a splendid ball at 
 Delmonico's, and draw on him for all 
 expenses. But I will let our author tell 
 the story in his own words. 
 
 I replied: "My dear fellow, how many people 
 do you know in this city whom you could invite 
 to a ball ? The funds you send me will be used, 
 but not in giving a ball." The girl being a beauty, 
 all the rest was easy enough. I gave her theatre 
 party after theatre party, followed by charming 
 little suppers, asked to them the jeunesse doree of 
 the day ; took her repeatedly to the opera, and saw 
 that she was always there surrounded by admirers ; 
 incessantly talked of her fascinations ; assured my 
 young friends that she was endowed with a fortune 
 equal to the mines of Ophir, that she danced like 
 a dream, and possessed all the graces, a sunbeam 
 across one's path ; then saw to it that she had a 
 prominent place in every cotillion and a fitting 
 partner ; showed her whom to smile upon, and on 
 wliom to frown ; gave her the entree to all the nice 
 houses ; criticised severely her toilet until it
 
 TUE FROTIT AND DREGS. 169 
 
 became perfect ; daily met lier on the avenue with 
 the most charming man in town, who, by one pre- 
 text or another, I turned over to her ; made her 
 the constant subject of conversation ; insisted upon 
 it that she was to be the belle of the coming win- 
 ter ; advised her parents that she should have her 
 first season at Bar Harbor, where she could learn 
 to flirt to her heart's content, and -vie with other 
 girls. Her second summer, when she was older, I 
 suggested her passing at iSTewport, where she should 
 have a pair of ponies, a pretty trap, with a well- 
 gotten-up groom, and Worth to dress her." 
 
 Another significant illustration of the 
 artificiality of this existence and its essen- 
 tially demoralizing effect is seen in the 
 naive observation of j\Ir. McAllister: — 
 
 The highest cultivation in social manners 
 enables a person to conceal from the world his 
 real feelings. He can go through any annoyance 
 as if it Avere a pleasure ; go to a rival's house as if 
 to a dear friend's ; smile and smile, yet murder 
 while he smiles. 
 
 There is a far graver aspect presented 
 by this butterfly existence. Such a life is 
 morally enervating. Its tendency is down- 
 ward. Idleness, luxury and extravagance, 
 no less than extreme poverty and degrada-
 
 170 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 tion, breed and foster vice and immorality. 
 The J who see nothing wrong in squander- 
 ing vast sums of money on princely ban- 
 quets, while want is peering from thousands 
 of eyes within rifle shot of their homes, 
 have traveled far on the downward path- 
 way which ends in moral obliquity. The 
 very atmosphere of such a life as Mr. 
 McAllister has so graphically described is 
 permeated with a stygian spell, fatal to the 
 higher manhood as is opium destructive to 
 the moral nature. An impressive illustra- 
 tion of this truth was witnessed at the ball 
 given in New York early in 1891, for the 
 benefit of Carmencita, the details of which 
 revealed the baleful effect of a selfish, sen- 
 sual, butterfly life. Here is a pen-picture 
 of the scenes which ensued after the hus- 
 bands, fathers, and brothers had escorted 
 their wives, daughters, and sisters home, 
 and returned to the scene of frivolous 
 gaiety : * 
 
 Tlie real character of the Carmencita ball at 
 Madison Square Garden did not develop itself 
 until after the procession had ended and the news- 
 
 * Neio York Herald.
 
 THE FROTH AND DREGS. 171 
 
 papers gone to press. Then fun began with all 
 the abandon born of easy morals and flowing wine. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen had been there, hut the 
 men took their 'wives home and returned to see the 
 sport ; the boxes thcij had previonsly occupied with 
 decorum, now became the rendezvous for the liveliest 
 women in town. 
 
 Masks were thrown aside regardless of conse- 
 quences — the women were only too glad to be rec- 
 ognized, and the men were reckless of their 
 reputation. 
 
 Nearly every important social club had a head- 
 quarters ; the Union, New York, Knickerbocker, 
 Calumet, St. Nicholas, and Manhattan men holding 
 levees in one or more boxes. 
 
 Picture, if you can, half a dozen leaders of the 
 german, j^oseurs of grace and dignity at the win- 
 dows of the Fifth Avenue clubs, joining hands in 
 a circle, jumping up and down like wild Sioux in 
 a ghost dance, shouting at the top of their voices 
 and perspiring like hod-carriers ; the centre of tlieir 
 saltatorial efforts being a bright-eyed blonde, kick- 
 ing first the eyeglasses from a near-sighted fellow's 
 face, and then toeing a hole in the crown of a tall 
 silk hat upheld higher than her head. 
 
 It was a devil's carnival. 
 
 Kound and round the great amphitheatre swirled 
 the throng in the most energetic and indefinable 
 manner of locomotion. 
 
 There is a daiace much affected by society called
 
 172 CIVILIZATION'S INFEBNO. 
 
 the " York," in which a couple lock arms and move 
 forward as though promenading, although at inter- 
 vals there is a skipping step or two and then a 
 waltz. 
 
 The " York " was very popular at the Carmencita 
 ball. But the couples did not lock arms. The lady 
 placed her bare white arm axound the neck of her 
 partner; he with one arm encircled her waist. 
 With the disengaged hand the siren upheld her 
 skirts. Instead of walking forward sedately, they 
 rushed at running speed, both kicking their heels 
 in the air, knocking down any one encountered, 
 and then, when united for the waltz, her feet mak- 
 ing circles in the air within a radius not confined 
 to less than a yard above the floor. 
 
 The formality of an introduction was religiously 
 observed, however, in the boxes. 
 
 "Mr. Smith allow me to present you to Mrs, 
 Brown." 
 
 These were the modes of presentation, and the 
 Smiths and Browns, all ordered champagne at five 
 dollars a bottle, and drank it, usually breaking 
 the glasses by way of disregard for the cost. 
 
 The bottle was passed around without glasses 
 once in a while, having been first sweetened by 
 amber-tinted lips that had just held a cigarette, 
 whose ashes would nestle somewhere above the 
 corsage of the damsel who had smoked it. Jew- 
 els of rare value glistened on the necks and arms 
 of those gay but naughty fairies ; the dresses were
 
 THE FROTH AND DREGS. 173 
 
 from Worth Street, perhaps, but made of the cost- 
 liest materials and in the most becoming style 
 and perfect fit. 
 
 Silk hosiery and satin slippers, some edged 
 with gold lace, in colors to match the dress, were 
 the invariable rule. 
 
 An incident of delightful originality was that 
 afforded by the lady in the right-hand second-row 
 box who insisted with some opposition and much 
 encouragement in balancing upon her nose a cham- 
 pagne glass filled with the "sparkling cider" so 
 freely dispensed at six dollars a bottle. 
 
 Just as she had succeeded in her attempt the 
 glass tipped forward, and the lady's shoulders were 
 bathed in wine. 
 
 At the same time she accused her escort of push- 
 ing her, and soundly boxed his ears. 
 
 The ball ended at half past four o'clock. 
 
 Another journal thus gives some details 
 of this disgraceful scene : * 
 
 That " sparkling cider " didn't begin to make 
 its presence felt till the big hands had gone about 
 the dial at least three times. Then the fun began, 
 fast and furious. It galloped along between three 
 and four o'clock A. M. at a pace that a jockey would 
 have given his life almost to rival. Every man 
 gtarted out from the post with a pocket-book and 9, 
 
 *f ^m York Ilemlti, 
 
 \ 

 
 174 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 girl. There was plenty of " sparkling older " in 
 the lockers, and so it was only a question of the 
 pocket-book. And yet, after all, did he who had 
 the fattest wallet have the most sport ? Perhaps 
 the Avide-awake newspaper man, who had to keep 
 his brain and his eyes bright, saw as much of the 
 humorous, pathetic, revolting, or enjoyable that 
 was going on as any one. 
 
 The reporter saw a pretty young girl, who had 
 never seen more than one season pass by her 
 eyes in this city, lying hopelessly drunk, obliv- 
 ious, in an ante-room. He saw there, also, painted 
 faces, fat necks, half-shut eyes, showing from pri- 
 vate boxes. They were the histories of what the 
 fair-haired, fair-complexioned girl lying helpless 
 in the ante-room was the prophecy. As they 
 glanced down from under their heavy -lidded eyes, 
 how it must have recalled to them the old-time 
 carnivals of which tliis dance, bold and hilarious 
 as it was, was but a reminiscence. Did they stop 
 to think ? 
 
 He saw, too, a gray-haired, gray-mustached citi- 
 zen, whom everybody knows about the Stock 
 Exchange, seated in a dimly lighted box, which the 
 curtains protected with a friendly shadow, between 
 two women from a side street, as well known as his 
 own name, with an arm about the neck of one girl 
 and another about the neck of a bottle of that 
 <' sparkling cider." There, hours before, he had sat 
 greet, blase, eminently proper, iu the game box,
 
 THE FFvOTn AND DEEGS. 175 
 
 witli a haughty, brown-haired, fur-enwrapped wo- 
 man beside him. She had, after a few moments, 
 thrown her furs aside, for the heat was intense. 
 Half disdainfully, with the slightest suspicion of 
 an amused smile wreatliing her lips, she had 
 watched Carmencita's entry with her Spanish camp 
 followers; watched Carmencita sway and bend in 
 the dance she went through on the dais in the cen- 
 tre of the Garden ; watched the proem to the juice- 
 of-the-grape-enlivened carnival that was just being 
 born. She was his wife, and al)out midnight she 
 had gone aAvay. Did she wish him to go aAvay with 
 her ? Didn't she care ? 
 
 The young girl, whose brilliant cheeks and Avell- 
 filled figure proclaimed her the country girl, lay 
 in the ante-room, oblivious of the noise around her. 
 They carried her away finally. Darwin once pro- 
 nounced something to the world about the survival 
 of the fittest. Perhaps twenty years from now 
 she may be sitting, rouged, be-wigged, Avith a heart 
 of flint, watching through a long-handled tortoise- 
 shell lorgnette her of the gazelle feet who may 
 be the favorite of the hour then. Perhaps, how- 
 ever, she may be sleeping in the Potter's Field. 
 
 Turning away from the boxes and the anterooms, 
 the reporter saw the scenes enacted that made 
 Carmencita's ball the thing most talked of yester- 
 day. The French ball was an abandoned riot in 
 posse. Carmencita's was, after three o'clock, a bac- 
 chanalian festival in posse. Young girls were there,
 
 176 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 one of whose legs was uplifted in the air precisely 
 at an angle of forty -five degrees from the one on 
 the floor, on which they poised themselves; 
 and all around them gathered intimate circles of 
 men, from beardless youths to bearded brokers, 
 who clapped, applauded, egged them on to still 
 higher attainment. Wine flowed, the music 
 breathed soft, seductive strains, hands clapped, 
 men cheered, and the ball went on- 
 
 Here we have extravagance blended with 
 sensualism ; money flows as does the cham- 
 pagne; manhood is eclipsed; the bestial tri- 
 umphs over unclouded reason. No society 
 dwelling in a healthful atmosphere could 
 so debase itself; manhood accustomed to 
 pure thinking, upright and honest living, 
 could never sink to such depths of debauch- 
 ery. And, aside from the debasement of 
 manhood, the sullying of soul, the evil 
 influence and the criminal extravagance, 
 there looms up a crime which is still graver 
 and more far-reaching than squandering 
 wealth to feed the fires of bestiality, the 
 crime against the tinhorn. The father's 
 sensuality will stain tlie soul, fire the pas- 
 sions, and poison the mind of his offspring, 
 no matter how pure in tliought, how chaste
 
 THE FROTH AND DREGS. 177 
 
 in life, liow holy in impulse the wife. The 
 men who from their homes of wealth and 
 luxury returned to Madison Square Garden 
 that Friday night to drink champagne with 
 the courtesans of the town, many of whom 
 doubtless they themselves had lured from 
 virtue's paths, will transmit a curse to their 
 children more subtle, yet more deadly, than 
 the all-dreaded leprosy — a curse summed up 
 in the frightful words, " leprosy of the soul." 
 
 Such are the inevitable results of a career 
 of selfish indulgence fostered by such a life 
 as Mr. McAllister extols, and, while his 
 exclusive set may not have been repre- 
 sented, or at least been conspicuous in the 
 bacchanalian revelry described above, this 
 criminally frivolous life at the social ze- 
 nith enervates manhood and sends forth 
 a death-germinating miasma, fatal alike 
 to good morals and high thinking. 
 
 In speaking of the Patriarchs' balls 
 which are such a feature of society life 
 among the " four hundred," Mr. McAllister 
 describes how he fought for and secured 
 entertainments of the most luxurious and 
 expensive chai'acter possible. "We must
 
 178 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 spare no expense to make them a credit to 
 us and to the great city in which they are 
 given." A credit to squander money, 
 while thousands in the compass of New 
 York are slowly starving for the lack of 
 money to buy the food the system craves ! 
 But our author continues : — 
 
 The social life of a great part of our commun- 
 ity, in my opinion, hinges on this and simihir 
 organizations, for it and they are organized social 
 power, capable of giving a j)assport to society to 
 all worthy of it. 
 
 And now let us see a typical man of this 
 mad, gay world : — 
 
 I must here give a slight sketch of one of the 
 handsomest, most fascinating, most polished, and 
 courteous gentlemen of that or any other period- 
 We will here call him the Major ; amiability itself, 
 a man both sexes could full in love with. I loved 
 him dearly, and when I lost him I felt much of the 
 charm of life had departed with him. At all these 
 country parties, he was always first and foremost. 
 My rapidity of thought and action always annoyed 
 him. " My dear fellow," he would say, " for heav- 
 en's sake, go slow ; you tear through the streets as 
 if at some one's bidding. A gentleman should 
 stroll leisurely, casting his eyes in the shop win
 
 THE FROTH AND DREGS. 179 
 
 dows, as if in searcli of amuseuient, while you go 
 at a killing pace, as if on business bent. The man 
 of fashion should have no business." Again, he 
 had a holy horror of familiar garments. '' My 
 dear boy," he would smile and say, '' when will you 
 discard that old coat ? I am so familiar with it, 
 I am fatigued at the sight of it." 
 
 On one subject we were always in accord — 
 our admiration for women. My eye was quicker 
 than his, and I often took advantage of it. I 
 would say, " Major, did you see that beauty ? 
 By Jove, a most delicious creature ! " " Who ? 
 Where ? " he would exclaim. " Why, man ! " I 
 replied, " she has passed you ; you have lost her." 
 "■ Lost her ! How could you let that happen ? 
 Why, why did you not sooner call my attention to 
 her ? " 
 
 From this pitiful picture of life that is 
 worse than a failure — of the froth on hu- 
 manity's bosom, where riches are squandered 
 while manhood is enervated; where the 
 noblest ideals are eclipsed by life devoted 
 to the gratification of the "lust of the eye, 
 the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life," 
 we turn to view another phase of our civili- 
 zation. In his "Darkest England," we 
 have a vivid picture of society as General 
 Booth has found it. Here a colossal figure
 
 180 CIVILIZATION'S INFfJRKO. 
 
 looms up in a world of darkness; a voice 
 comes from the brink of the abyss and 
 speaks in tones that ring around the globe 
 — a clarion voice, pleading in the name of 
 humanity for the submerged millions. On 
 the verge of the social pit the eye of the 
 spectator dilates with horror; the voice is 
 hushed; the heart sickens. As one descends 
 it grows darker. Here society exists in 
 strata. 
 
 In London alone there are more than 
 three hundred thousand persons on the 
 very brink of the abyss, whose every 
 heart-beat thrills with fear, whose life- 
 long nightmare is the dread that the 
 little den they call home may be taken 
 from them. Beneath them, at the door of 
 starvation, are over two hundred thousand 
 human lives; still further down we find 
 three hundred thousand in the stratum of the 
 starving, in the realm where hunger gnaws 
 night and day, where every second of every 
 minute, of every hour of every day, is 
 crowded with agony. Below the starving 
 are the homeless — they who have nothing 
 with which to procure a lodging even in
 
 THE FBOTH AND BBEGS. 181 
 
 the worst quarters ; they who sleep with- 
 out shelter the year round, hundreds of 
 whom may be found any night on the cold 
 stone slabs along the Thames enbankment. 
 Some have a newspaper between them- 
 selves and the damp stones, but the major- 
 ity do not even enjoy this luxury! This 
 army of absolutely homeless in London 
 numbers thirty-three thousand. 
 
 Below these hells we find others still 
 more terrible — the hells of vice and crime. 
 In Great Britain alone there are one hun- 
 dred thousand prostitutes, and General 
 Booth estimates at least a hundred thou- 
 sand more very poor women whom poverty 
 has driven to secretly increase their earn- 
 ings by their shame. 
 
 There are twenty-two thousand juvenile 
 thieves. There are thirty-two thousand, 
 nine hundred and ten reputed thieves out 
 of prison, and thirty-two thousand in jail. 
 There are half a million drunkards in 
 Great Britain. The court record for a 
 single year showed the conviction of one 
 hundred and sixty thousand drunkards. 
 It is estimated that sixty thousand drunk-
 
 182 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 ards annually die in the United Kingdom. 
 Below these hells are others where all light 
 has vanished, where we hear naught but 
 the confused roar of angry brutes, madly, 
 blindly seeking whom they may destroy. 
 Then we have the public institutions, laden 
 with the miserables. According to the 
 official reports of the Register-General, one 
 person in every five in London dies in the 
 workhouse, the hospital, or the lunatic 
 asylum. In 1887, there were eighty-two 
 thousand, five hundred and forty-five deaths 
 in London. Of these seventeen thousand 
 perished in public institutions. 
 
 Such are the rugged outlines presented 
 by this world at the social nadir; such the 
 general aspects as, from the verge of the 
 abyss, one's eyes wander down the strata 
 extending from the honest, industrious poor, 
 to the hopelessly depraved. This is the 
 world of which General Booth writes and 
 in which he has already accomplished 
 much . 
 
 In order to gain a clearer idea of this 
 life, it is necessary to notice a few typical 
 cases. We have just examined the sketch
 
 THE FROTir AND DREGS. 183 
 
 drawn by Mr. McAllister of a typical life 
 in this butterfly world; let us now squarely 
 face life in the abyss. That we may bet- 
 ter know this world, we must approach it. 
 From a distance the scene startles and 
 stao:Q!;ers the mind. A closer examination 
 touches the heart. He who would fathom 
 its misery must look upon individual 
 scenes and cases which are strictly typical. 
 In this manner the truth is brought home 
 — what before was merely seen is now felt, 
 and the tragic aspects of the life of the sub- 
 merged millions is sensibly appreciated. 
 Let us, then, glance at some typical aspects 
 of life in this grim region. The following 
 picture would form a striking background 
 for a setting, showing the ten-thousand- 
 dollar banquet at Delmonico's, so felicit- 
 ously described by Mr. McAllister. It is 
 taken from the record of one of General 
 Booth's most trusted officers, who was sent 
 to investigate the actual condition of the 
 homeless poor in one portion of London. 
 
 Just as big Ben strikes two, the moon, flashing 
 across the Thames and lighting up the stone- 
 work of the embankment, brings into relief a
 
 184 CIVILIZATION' S INFERNO. 
 
 pitiable spectacle. Here on the stone abutments, 
 which afford a slight protection from the biting 
 wind, are scores of men, lying side by side, hud- 
 dled together for warmth, and, of course, without 
 any other covering than tlieir ordinary clothing, 
 which is scanty enough at the best. Some have 
 laid down a few pieces of waste paper, by way of 
 taking the chill off the stones, but the majority 
 are too tired even for that. 
 
 General Booth's officer interviewed these 
 homeless ones, three hundred and sixty of 
 whom he found, one night, sleeping on the 
 banks of the Thames, between Blackfriar's 
 and Westminster. We will select a few 
 cases : 
 
 No. 1. I've slept here two nights. I'm a con- 
 fectioner by trade. I came from Dartford. I got 
 turned off because I'm getting elderly. They can 
 get young men cheaper, and I have the rheuma- 
 tism so bad. I've earned nothing these two days. 
 I thought I could get a job at Woolwich, so I 
 walked there, but could get nothing. I found a 
 bit of bread in the road, wrapped up in a bit of 
 newspaper; that did me for yesterday. I had a 
 bit of bread and butter to-day. I'm fifty-four 
 years old. When it's wet, we stand about all 
 night, under the arclies. 
 
 No. 2. I'm a tailor. Have slept here four
 
 THE FROTH ANt> DREGS. 185 
 
 niglits running. Can't get work. Been out of a 
 job tliree weeks. It was very wet last night. I 
 left these seats, and Avent to Covent Garden Mar- 
 ket, and slept under cover. There were about 
 thirty of us. The policS moved us on, but we 
 went back as soon as they had gone. I've had a 
 pen'worth of bread and pen'worth of soup during 
 the last two days, — often go without altogether. 
 There are women sleep out here. They are decent 
 people, mostly charwomen and such like, who 
 can't get work. 
 
 No. 3. Elderly man; trembles visibly with 
 excitement at mention of work ; produces a card, 
 carefully wrapped in old newspaper, to the effect 
 that Mr. J. R. is a member of the Trade Protec- 
 tion League. He is a waterside laborer. Last 
 job at that was a fortnight since. Has earned 
 nothing for five days. Had a bit of bread this 
 morning, but not a scrap since. Had a cup of tea, 
 and two slices of bread yesterday, and the same 
 the day before. The deputy at a lodging-house 
 gave it to him. He is fifty years old, and is 
 still damp from sleeping out in the wet last 
 night. 
 
 No. 4. Been out-of work a month. Carman by 
 trade. Arm withered, and cannot do Avork prop- 
 erly. Has slept here all the week. Got an awful 
 cold through the wet. Lives at odd jobs [They all 
 do.] Got sixpence yesterday for minding a cab, 
 and carrying a couple of parcels. Earned nothing
 
 186 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 to-day. Has been walking about all day, looking 
 for work, and is tired out. 
 
 No. 5. Youth, aged sixteen. Sad case. Lon- 
 doner. Works at odd jobs, and at match selling. 
 He has taken 3d. to-day ; i. e., net profit, l^d. 
 Has five boxes still. Has slept here every night 
 for a month. Before that, slept in Covent Gar- 
 den Market, or on doorsteps. Been sleeping out 
 six months. Has had one bit of bread to-day : 
 yesterday had only some gooseberries and cherries, 
 i. e., bad ones that had been thrown away. Mother 
 is alive. She " chucked him out," when he re- 
 turned home on leaving Feltham, because he 
 couldn't find her money for drink. 
 
 These are fairly typical cases, writes 
 General Booth, of the army of nomads, 
 who are wandering homeless through the 
 streets, and he continues : — 
 
 Work, work ! it is always work they ask. 
 The divine curse is to them the most blessed of 
 benedictions. 'In the sweat of thy brow tliou 
 shalt eat thy bread,' but alas for these forlorn sons 
 of Adam ! they fail to find the bread to eat, for 
 society has no work for them to do. They have 
 not even leave to sweat. Most of them now do 
 more exhausting work in seeking for employment 
 than the regular toilers do in their worksliops,
 
 THE FROTH AND DREGS. 187 
 
 and do it under the darkness of hope deferred 
 Avhich niaketb the heart sick. 
 
 Below this tier of the homeless who have 
 hope, looms up the despairing multitude, 
 they who battle until body fails and brain 
 reels ; they who, confronted by the spectre 
 of crime and the spectre of death, hear the 
 voice of fate cry "Choose !" Here is a typical 
 case : 
 
 A short time ago a respectable man, a chemist, 
 in HoUoway, fifty years of age, driven hard to the 
 Avail, tried to end it all by cutting his throat. 
 His wife also cut her throat, and at the same time 
 they gave strychnine to their only child. The 
 effort failed, and they were placed on trial for 
 attempted murder. In the Court, a letter was 
 read which the poor wretch had Avritten before 
 attempting his life : — 
 
 " My dearest George : — Twelve months have I 
 now passed of a most miserable and struggling 
 existence, and I really cannot stand it any more. 
 I am completely worn out, and relations who 
 could assist me won't do any more, for such 
 was uncle's last intimation. He never inquires 
 whether I am starving or not. Three pounds, — 
 a mere flea bite to him — would have put us 
 straight, and with his security and good interest 
 might have obtained me a good situation long ago.
 
 « 
 188 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 I can face poverty and degvadation no longer, and 
 would sooner die than go to tlie workhouse, what- 
 ever may be the awful consequences of the steps 
 we have taken. We have, God forgive us ! taken 
 our darling Arty with us, out of pure love and 
 affection, so that the darling should never be 
 cuffed about, or reminded or taunted with his 
 heart-broken parents' crime. My poor wife has 
 done her best at needle-work, washing, house- 
 minding, etc., in fact, anything and everything 
 that would bring in a shilling ; but it would only 
 keep us in semi-starvation. I have now done six 
 weeks' travelling from morning till night, and not 
 received one farthing for it. If that is not 
 enough to drive you mad, — wickedly mad, — I 
 don't know what is. No bright prospect any- 
 where ; no ray of hope. May God Almighty for- 
 give us for this heinous sin, and have mercy on 
 our sinful souls, is the prayer of your miserable, 
 broken-liearted, but loving brother, Arthur. We 
 have now done everything that we can possibly 
 think of to avert this wicked proceeding, but can 
 discover no ray of ^ hope. Fervent prayer has 
 availed us nothing ; our lot is cast, and we must 
 abide by it. It must be God's will, or He would 
 have ordained it differently. Dearest Georgy, I 
 am exceedingly sorry to leave you all, but I am 
 mad, — thoroughly. You, dear, must try and for- 
 get us, and, if possible, forgive us ; for I do not 
 consider it our fault Ave have not succeeded. If
 
 THE FROTH AND DREGS. 189 
 
 you could get three pounds for our bed, it will 
 pay our rent, and our scanty furniture may fetch 
 enough to bury us in a cheap way. 
 
 '• Don't grieve over us or follow us, for we shall 
 not be Avorthy of such respect. Our clergyman 
 has never called on us or given us the least conso- 
 lation, though I called on him a month ago. He 
 is paid to preach, and there he considers his 
 responsibility ends, the rich excepted. We have 
 only yoiirself and a very few others who care one 
 pin what becomes of us ; but you must try and 
 forgive us, is the last fervent prayer of your 
 devotedly fond and affectionate, but broken-hearted 
 and persecuted brother. 
 
 [Signed] E. A. ., 
 
 This is an authentic human document, a tran- 
 script from the life of one among thousands who 
 go down inarticulate into the depths. They die 
 and make no sign, or, Avorse still, they continue to 
 exist, carrying about with them, year after year, 
 the bitter ashes of a life from which the furnace 
 of misfortune has burnt away all joy, hope, and 
 strength. 
 
 Then we have the vicious — a world so 
 terrible that one sickens as he explores it; 
 a world into which the vast majority have 
 been forced by the selfishness and brutality 
 of our present civilization — the inhumanity 
 of man.
 
 190 CIVILIZATION'S INFEBlSrO. 
 
 In a preceding chapter we caught a 
 glimpse of life in the sub-cellar, and will 
 not further penetrate the hell of vice 
 and crime into which the vast majority 
 of those in the upper stratum, who do 
 not perish in the battle for bread, ulti- 
 mately sink; my present purpose beiug 
 to place in antithesis, the idle rich, and 
 the starving poor, and by typical illus- 
 trations, lead men and women to think.
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A 
 VISION. 
 
 191
 
 Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the 
 
 Time, 
 City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime ! 
 There among the glooming alleys Progress halts on palsied 
 
 feet, 
 Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousand on the 
 
 street. 
 
 There the Master scrimps his haggard sempstress of her daily 
 
 bread. 
 There a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead. 
 There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted 
 
 floor 
 And the crowded couch of incest in the warrens of the poor. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 For Truth and Right we plead, and light for crying Human 
 
 need ; 
 For wingless angels here in sight and famished earth we 
 
 plead. 
 Columbia, not Jerusalem ; for life this side the grave ; 
 We kneel to touch the garment's hem of Him who died to 
 save. 
 
 King out, ring out the fervent cry, "Man's needs are God's 
 
 commands " ; 
 And putting strife forever by, unite with hearts and hands — 
 To free the wage-slave ; and — released — the Eden usher in, 
 "Where each true heart is holy priest : and each true man is 
 
 King. 
 
 Rev, George Vaughan. 
 
 192
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 193 
 
 VII. 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 
 
 Social contrasts in Boston — Palaces and people in the Back 
 Bay — Wealtli which might transform the slums — Ban- 
 quets whose cost would relieve the misery of hundreds 
 of families — The slums of the West End — A Pathetic 
 incident — The details of three grim tragedies — The 
 slums of the Noi'th End — Typical cases — A vision. 
 
 PERHAPS there is no more effective 
 method of awakening the sleeping 
 consciences of our people to a realization of 
 the essential immorality and injustice of 
 present social conditions, than by present- 
 ing some striking contrasts, oUch as may 
 be witnessed by any one living in our 
 great cities, but which are usually over- 
 looked in an age of fierce competition and 
 ceaseless battle for gold. It is my purpose 
 to give as simply as possible the story of 
 an afternoon's pilgrimage recently taken 
 through two commonwealths within the 
 borders of Boston,
 
 194 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 It was a cold, clear, crisp January after- 
 noon. I left my office at one o'clock. 
 Passing in front of the massive library 
 building and the magnificent New Old 
 South Church, one of the most imposing 
 temples in our city, dedicated to the wor- 
 ship of the humble Son of Man, I turned 
 down Boylston Street. On my left was 
 the unpretentious Second Unitarian Church; 
 on my right, across Copley Square, stood 
 the showy and somewhat pretentious Back 
 Bay Museum; almost directly in front rose 
 that magnificent model of church architect- 
 ure, Trinity, the pride of New England, 
 and a church whose pewholders are worth 
 many millions of dollars. On reaching 
 Clarendon Street I turned toward the heart 
 of the Back Bay, and in a few minutes I 
 had passed the Commonwealth Avenue 
 Baptist Church, whose heaven-piercing spire 
 is ornamented with angels holding golden 
 trumpets to their mouths, presumably pro- 
 claiming "Peace on earth and good will to 
 men." The human eye loves the beautiful; 
 and yielding to the natural temptation, I 
 swept the broad avenue fi'om the Public
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 195 
 
 Garden to the Back Bay Park. Through 
 the leafless trees I saw on either side a wall 
 of splendid palaces. No cottages or hovels 
 offended the eye of wealth. Here dwell 
 scores of men who, without seriously feel- 
 ing the expense, could transform the slums 
 of Boston by erecting model apartment 
 houses after the manner employed so wisely 
 by George Peabody in London ; while in so 
 doing they would lessen crime, raise the 
 average morality, and make life, for thou- 
 sands of their fellow-men, mean something 
 far more than a mere hopeless and savage 
 struggle on tlie animal plane. Slowly mov- 
 ing toward the Public Garden, I passed 
 more than one home where live wealth's 
 favored sons, who, without making a per- 
 ceptible inroad upon their accumulations, 
 could give to our Commonwealth a great 
 industrial home, equipped and ready to 
 receive and transform the children of the 
 slums, who are orphans or worse than 
 orphans, and wlio are now, month b}^ month, 
 being swept with irresistible power into the 
 vortex of crime destined to curse the society 
 of to-morrow and generations yet unborn —
 
 196 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 children who are cursed at birth and by 
 environment, but who would, nevertheless, 
 become useful members of society, if placed 
 in an institution where they would feel the 
 elevating influence of love and the refine- 
 ment of culture, and where they would be 
 taught to completely master at least two 
 trades, while their minds and souls were 
 being trained by intellectual and moral 
 culture. 
 
 With these thoughts in mind I slowly 
 approached Arlington Street. Among the 
 carriages which passed me, my attention 
 was particularly attracted to one bearing 
 a coat-of-arms, and whose driver was 
 in full livery. The very horses seemed to 
 feel that they were aristocratic animals, as 
 with sleek coats and arched necks they 
 pranced by. Within this carriage sat two 
 ladies, but I saw no marks of content on 
 their faces; rather, a worn, wearied, anxious, 
 and dissatisfied expression. They were 
 evidently surrounded by the luxury which 
 wealth gives, and they probably spend their 
 summers abroad, mingling with the fash- 
 ionable devotees of the decaying aristoc-
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 197 
 
 racies of the Old World; for the arms 
 emblazoned on the carriage spoke of an 
 attempt to ape foreign custom and a con- 
 tempt for republican simplicity. Wealth 
 apparently gave them what gold could 
 bestow, but it evidently had not given 
 the priceless pearl of life, the serenity of 
 soul which comes alone from living for 
 others. This led me to study the faces 1 
 passed in this commonwealth of the rich. 
 The wrinkles of care and anxiety, the 
 shadow of apprehension, the unutterable 
 soul-craving, which haunts eyes that are 
 unsatisfied — these marked many faces. 
 Some, it is true, wore the light, joyous 
 expressions which so well become youth, 
 and now and then I met a person upon 
 whose silver brow peace seemed to rest con- 
 tent. Jealousy, sensualism, and unsatisfied 
 desire were visible on many countenances; 
 and T could not help feeling that the con- 
 ditions which enabled colossal fortune to 
 rise by the side of starvation and increas- 
 ing misery had robbed a vast majority of 
 the children of wealth of the only thing 
 which makes life worth living. Indeed,
 
 198 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 such must be the case. The divine in man 
 cannot blossom or life yield its richest treas- 
 ures while gold is society's god. So long 
 as the first question asked is, " How rich is 
 he?" so long as the standard is gold instead 
 of character; so long as men feel and 
 believe that money is the greatest thing in 
 the world, the deepest and finest toned 
 chords in the harp of life will give forth no 
 melody ; the supreme gift of life, that peace 
 which comes only as the result of sinking 
 self for others, will be exiled from the 
 human heart; while that priceless essence 
 of divinity in man, the soid, will wither, 
 shrivel, and become as something dead. 
 
 I went through the avenue, down Arling- 
 ton Street, and ascended Beacon Hill 
 almost to its golden-crested dome. I had 
 passed uninterrupted rows of palaces. I 
 had found no hovel or cottage, and I had 
 seen no sign of want except in the soul- 
 hunger which peered forth from many eyes. 
 The residents of many of the palaces I had 
 passed give fashionable balls and banquets 
 each winter, at which the cliampagne drank, 
 alone, would keep scores of starving mor-
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISIOX. 199 
 
 tals in comparative comfort through the 
 pitiless winter months. I remembered 
 that only a few weeks before I had seen 
 carried away the debris of one of these 
 fashionable parties. For this special occa- 
 sion fifteen cases of champagne had been 
 ordered, over thirteen cases of which had 
 been consumed by the guests before half- 
 past five in the morning, at which hour the 
 festivities had come to an end. I wondered 
 then, and I wondered as I walked past the 
 home of the gentleman who gave the ball, 
 how much of the divine in the nature of 
 those champagne-imbibers vanished that 
 cold winter night, for the soul withers much 
 as does a weed-choked flower when the ani- 
 mal eclipses the spiritual in our being. 
 
 Leaving Beacon Street, I turned down 
 the slope of the hill leading toward the 
 populous and plebeian quarter of the West 
 End. It was not long before the scenes of 
 fashionable wealtli disappeared; and it was 
 curious to see along some streets how the 
 old-time wealth, which once made these 
 quarters the most fashionable and select 
 part of the city, seemed to be struggling
 
 200 CIVILIZATION'S INFER NO. 
 
 against the ever-increasing waves of poverty. 
 A few blocks farther, and I had entered 
 another world, the commonwealth of want. 
 Here scenes of abject misery and sickening 
 depravity among the young and old are 
 often witnessed; although here, also, amid 
 vice, penury, and woe, every now and then 
 there blossoms forth a royal soul, evincing 
 such heroism and true nobility as to give 
 one hope for all mankind. It was in this 
 part of the city, a short' time since, that the 
 following tragic incident occurred: A little* 
 fatherless waif sold newspapers, the money 
 for which went largely to supply a drunken 
 mother with rum. Almost nightly the lit- 
 tle fellow ascended to his home in the gar- 
 ret, only to receive abuse, and not unfre- 
 quently a brutal beating from his pai^tially 
 intoxicated parent. One night he returned 
 without as much money as the woman 
 expected. She had been drinking a great 
 deal that day, and at once began abusing 
 the boy. As she talked, rage rose in her 
 liquor-inflamed brain ; finally she seized him, 
 saying slie would throw him out of the win- 
 dow. The little fellow pleaded, and fought
 
 A PILGUniAGE ANT) A VISION. 201 
 
 for his life, but she pushed him through the 
 glass; he struggled with all his strength, 
 and managed to get back in the room but 
 the glass had cut him most horribly and 
 the sight of blood only served to inflame 
 the mother, who now threw the bleeding 
 child on the floor, and sprang upon him. 
 At this moment neiQ;hbors broke in. The 
 boy almost bled to death l)efore medical 
 assistance could be summoned. The police 
 who interrogated him, when they arrested 
 tlie mother, could by no method of ques- 
 tioning force the child to say anything that 
 would criminate her. She, however, was 
 taken to jail on the testimony of spectators. 
 A friend who is spending his life in the 
 slums of the West End gave me the details 
 of this incident, and added : " I visited the 
 little fellow at the hospital a few days ago. 
 He was bearing up bravely, and in conver- 
 sation would not allow a word to be said 
 against his mother. ' It is drink tltat is to 
 hlame,' he insisted." 
 
 The case of this little boy reminds me of 
 another tragedy enacted in the slums of 
 the North End, a few months ago. A poor
 
 202 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 father having lost his wife, was overtaken 
 by chronic invalidism. His little savings 
 were soon exhausted. He had two small 
 children, and driven to despair when he 
 contemplated the probable fate of his child- 
 ren, he finally decided that all should leave 
 the world together. He killed his children 
 and then cut his own throat. He left 
 behind a pathetic letter setting forth the 
 struggle he had undergone and the reasons 
 which led to the tragic deeds. These inci- 
 dents are representative of tragedies occur- 
 ring so frequently that they have long since 
 dulled our sensibilities. We read of them 
 to-day and forget them by to-morrow. 
 And yet until we feel in our own souls 
 something of the agony of heart experien- 
 ced by these victims of despair, we will 
 not appreciate the appalling wrongs to be 
 righted by justice and love. And perhaps 
 it may be well to pause here long enough 
 to note some characteristic tragedies which 
 portray the causes leading to the death of 
 representatives in different groups among 
 those who struggle upon the verge of the 
 abyss only at last to fall before remorseless
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 203 
 
 social conditions which enable the few to 
 monopolize the land, control the public 
 highways and fatten upon class laws or 
 special privileges. 
 
 Some time ago the details of a most heart- 
 rending tragedy crept into the papers. It 
 occurred about the time that an eminent 
 American Divine declared to a young man, 
 who endeavored to interest him in the suffer- 
 ing poor," That one must go to the Old World 
 to find involuntary poverty." Since then 
 the condition of our very poor in the great 
 cities has grown steadily more and more 
 deplorable. I give the details of this case 
 as reported by the Chicago dailies at the 
 time of its occurrence : 
 
 Martin Arnclt, a tailor, aged 53, was found dead 
 in the park near the Douglas Monument early yes- 
 terday morning. A bullet-hole near the left tem- 
 ple and a small single-barrelled pistol in his right 
 hand indicated the cause. The body was removed 
 to No. 1318 State St., where he lived. His wife 
 did not know how to account for the suicide. 
 Her husband had left home early Thursday morn- 
 ing as usual, taking his lunch with him, to go to 
 work. About ten A. M., however, the mail carrier 
 handed her a letter, which contained an explana-
 
 204 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 tion. It had been written and posted Thursday 
 evening. This was the substance : 
 
 Dear Anne : I spoke to the book-keeper, Mr. 
 Priddart, at Clement & Sayers', and requested 
 liim to give me half of a cent more for each coat, 
 but he replied that he couldn't do it. He allowed 
 me to take one lot at half a cent more. But 
 immediately afterwards Mr. Raahe (the foreman) 
 came and told me he had something nice to tell 
 me : " Mr. Priddart had engaged another man, 
 who would press the coats for one cent, and as 
 soon as you have that lot of coats done you can 
 stop work." I told him when a man wanted a 
 trifle more for his work, he got discharged; that 
 I thought it was rather mean. I looked all over 
 for another place, but could not find one. I don't 
 know what I shall do now, and I have made up my 
 mind not to return to you again. I looked over 
 the constitution of the Harigari, and find that if a 
 brother commits suicide his wife and children 
 receive the regular benefit — $500 ; and from the 
 Druids you will have no difficulty in getting the 
 money to bury me. You will be better off than if 
 I live. Therefore it is my intention to end this 
 miserable life, and I have picked out the Douglas 
 Monument as the place to die. There you will 
 find my corpse. I beg you to forgive me. I can't 
 do otherwise. I hope my folks (brothers and sis- 
 ters in Germany) will not hear anything about it. 
 If you marry again do not let your man mistreat
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 205 
 
 Hugo (his son.) T commit this deed with my full 
 senses, although I know well what a disgrace I 
 put on you and the family. I cannot do other- 
 wise. Sooner or later it would have happened. 
 That is all I have to say. M. Arndt. 
 
 It seems that Ardnt had worked only a short 
 time for Clement & Sayers, — this being his second 
 week. The coats referred to were of linen, and a 
 man can press half-a-dozen in an hour. Last 
 week, by working ten hours a day, he made $4.80. 
 It was his habit to ride from 1318 State Street to 
 416 Milwaukee Avenue in the morning at a cost 
 of ten cents, and to walk home at night, — a dis- 
 tance of five miles. Had he ridden both ways, 
 the $4.80 would have been reduced to $3.60. 
 He was a temperate man, but hard work had 
 reduced him to almost skin and bones. Having 
 been dismissed, and tliere being few chances for 
 employment nowadays, he made up his mind to 
 go where bread and butter are not needed. That 
 he was determined to end his life is evidenced by 
 two wounds, — one in the body below the heart, 
 and another in the head. He must have fired 
 first at his heart. Missing it and not dying, he 
 deliberately loaded the pistol a second time and 
 fired into his brain, and this accomplished his 
 purpose. 
 
 Here are the details of another suicide 
 due to present social conditions; which
 
 206 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 further impresses the contemplative mind 
 with the difference between the altruism of 
 Jesus and the motive power which to-day 
 animates a nation boasting that it is Chris- 
 tian, while it permits such frightful trag- 
 edies to pass with little or no protest from 
 the shepherds or the flocks who represent 
 the Nazarine. A few months ago the body 
 of a half-starved girl was found in the lake 
 at Chicago. It was the corpse of Mamie 
 Jennings — beautiful, ill-starred Mamie Jen- 
 nings — one of an army which poverty is 
 to-day hounding to death in a land which 
 boasts of unexampled prosperity. Here is 
 the story condensed from the daily papers. 
 Mamie Jennings was the daughter of a 
 once prosperous gentleman, who through 
 successive misfortunes came at last to 
 want, and died in utter destitution. 
 Mamie was a beautiful girl over twenty 
 years of age. Her mother was a confirmed 
 invalid. In the great overflowing city, 
 crowded with the unemployed, the poor 
 girl found the struggle for bread, raiment 
 and shelter for her mother and herself a 
 frightful battle. There was, however,
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 207 
 
 nmcli innate heroism in the fiber of her 
 being, and slie faced fate bravely as ever 
 strong men faced the cannon. At last her 
 health broke down, but she could not afford 
 to be sick ; a starving mother's face was 
 constantly before her eyes. One who 
 investigated the case after her death wrote 
 thus graphically of her struggle : 
 
 Almost miable to stand from weakness, she 
 bent over a waslitub all that day, and when she 
 returned liome in the evening she cried herself to 
 sleep. At five o'clock in the morning she arose, 
 and without any breakfast — for there was only 
 enough in the house for one — she started off to 
 work. She was unable to Avalk down town, and 
 she took tlie last nickel in the house to pay her 
 fare. When she reached the Troy she was sick. 
 '' I don't believe I'll be able to work to-day," she 
 said to the cashier. There were dark circles 
 under her eyes and she trembled from the cold. 
 The cashier told her to go home and return Fri- 
 day. After leaving the place, about seven o'clock, 
 nothing Avas seen of her until her body was found 
 in the lake. 
 
 The same writer thus concludes his pen- 
 picture of this every-day tragedy, which
 
 208 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 has become so common as merely to call 
 for short notices in the papers: — 
 
 There are Imuclreds of thousands in this hand 
 of boasted plenty and misery, who are condemned, 
 through no fault of their own, to the same life of 
 grinding toil and hopeless penury that Mamie 
 Jennings lived ; and the marvel is, not that this 
 poor, crushed, suffering, starving girl determined 
 to end it all with one plunge, and welcome obliv- 
 ion or the unknown, rather than endure it longer, 
 but that so few of the miserable do likewise. 
 
 I have paused in my pilgrimage long 
 enough to briefly refer to some grim, every- 
 day tragedies which are typical, in order 
 if possible, to impress the reader with the 
 real significance of the awful happenings so 
 common to-day as to excite little comment. 
 
 From the West End I passed to what is 
 known as the slums of the North End, 
 and was joined by a friend whose life is 
 spent in saving the sinking, much as the 
 heroic life-savers spend theirs on the ocean's 
 treacherous shores. In the slums of the 
 North End we catch a glimpse of the 
 social nadir of Boston. Within ten minutes' 
 walk from the historic Old North Church, 
 and within an hour's stroll from the pal-
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 209 
 
 aces of Beacon Hill, we encounter poverty 
 so terrible, that its existence in the heart 
 of a Christian centre of wealth and culture, 
 brands our civilization with shame, and 
 puts a blister on Religion's brow — all 
 the more because so much of it is unin- 
 vited poverty. 
 
 The casual observer who traverses the 
 streets of the North End, little imagines 
 the horrible squalor all around him, for 
 the reason that almost all the dilapidated 
 buildings are hidden from view by brick 
 fronts. The worst features of the North 
 End slums are unsuspected by our people 
 who have not passed up the scores of alley- 
 ways, through the narrow corridors, or 
 down through the cellar-like passages 
 which line the streets, into the courtyards 
 of the democracy of night. Those who 
 have thus penetrated into the real heart of 
 the slums are appalled. Frequently the 
 buildings are brick, facing the street ; but 
 passing through the alley-way we find 
 great, dilapidated wooden houses in the 
 rear, which swarm with human beings. 
 If the passers-by could see what the brick
 
 210 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 walls which front Hanover and other streets 
 of the North End hide from view, I believe 
 a sense of self-respect, if no higher motive, 
 wonld be voiced in an agitation so deter- 
 mined as to lead to radical changes. But 
 from all appearance, we must wait for some 
 terrible contagion, arising from these plague 
 spots, to strike down thousands of the chil- 
 dren of the rich, before justice will be heard. 
 The first family visited presented a very 
 pitiful spectacle ; and as it typifies a class 
 far larger than our popular economists 
 would have easy-going people believe, I 
 will give the facts somewhat in detail. 
 The father is an industrious Italian, who 
 has succeeded for the past few years in 
 securing employment most of the time. 
 He and his wife were very frugal. They 
 feared the approach of a rainy day when 
 sickness or decrepitude might bring them 
 from the brink of starvation into the 
 depths. Hence every penny possible was 
 saved. They had three children, the oldest 
 eight. The mother worked out, making 
 what she could. The little eight-year-old 
 child kept the home, and tended her young 
 
 yy
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 211 
 
 brother and sister. By self-denial and 
 strict economy this little family had saved 
 one hundred dollars, when a blow fell upon 
 them. The overwork and constant strain 
 endured by the wife and mother expressed 
 itself in a stroke of paralysis, the whole of 
 one side of the body being rendered lifeless. 
 The husband, who seems a very kind-hearted 
 man, was compelled to leave his work to 
 care for his wife. He summoned doctors. 
 Of course the source of income ceased; 
 meantime, rent, doctor's bills, fuel, and 
 food day by day ate up the careful savings 
 of several years. The wife rallied a little, 
 and the afflicted husband sought work. 
 His place had been fdled by another; and 
 then followed a weary search for something, 
 anything to do ; but in the winter there are 
 many seeking work and he found it impossi- 
 ble to obtain employment at any price. 
 During this time all their savings had dis- 
 appeared ; they had no money for coal or 
 food. At this juncture a young lady, who 
 had become interested in tlie* sufferers, vis- 
 ited my friend in the North End with money 
 to gladden some hearts during the Christ-
 
 212 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 mas season. Together they visited this 
 family. The day was bitter cold; but in 
 the wretched den, which these mifortunates 
 call home, the messengers of love found the 
 invalid wife and hungry children with no 
 fire and no food. The young lady pur- 
 chased coal and provisions, and in other 
 ways brightened Christmas for these poor 
 children of an adverse fate. I saw the 
 family a week later; they still enjoyed the 
 warmth and food provided by this noble- 
 hearted young woman. The rent paid Ijy 
 this family is nine dollars a month ; the 
 father can as yet get no work; the rooms, 
 two in number, look out upon a small and 
 filthy court. The surroundings are squalid ; 
 stifling odors on every hand. In the house 
 the most abject poverty is everywhere vis- 
 ible. Here a father, mother, and throe lit- 
 tle children are on the very brink of the 
 abyss, through no fault of their own. In 
 spite of industry and pinching frugality 
 they are facing starvation, and even work 
 is denied. This family, as I have observed, 
 is a fair type of numbers of families in Bos- 
 ton's vortex of want.
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 213 
 
 Is it right that millions of dollars of 
 acquired wealth should every year be lav- 
 ished in wanton luxuries, which enervate 
 manhood and undermine the virility of 
 civilization, while God's children in the 
 social cellar are starving? Is it right that 
 we build churches costing from five hun- 
 dred thousand to five million dollars each, 
 while our brothers are seeking work to 
 save their loved ones, and finding none? 
 This is one of the most solemn questions 
 ivhich confronts our j^Tesent civilization. If 
 Christianity meant half what Jesus intend- 
 ed it should mean, this state of things 
 could not endure for a single day. 
 
 In another tenement we found, on the 
 fourth floor, an old woman living in a soli- 
 tary room only five feet w^ide. This was 
 her home — dining-room, sleeping -room, 
 and kitchen, scarcely more than a closet. 
 This poor woman pays seventy-five cents 
 a week rent. She is nearing the grave; 
 and I felt, on studying her face, so deeply 
 wrinkled by a life of anxious care and 
 years of suffering and privation, that here 
 death would surely be a messenger of relief.
 
 214 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 Descending a few steps into a sombre 
 cellar, we found the abode of a family of 
 six. Two dark, damp rooms or burrows 
 constituted the home of this family. They 
 were very cold, as there was no vestige of 
 fire in the room. The air also was heavy 
 with vile odors. Here were several little 
 children being raised amid filth, in an y 
 atmosphere reeking with moral impurity 
 and crime. They will form a part of the 
 civilization of to-morrow. 
 
 In this neighborhood we visited a widow 
 with two little children ; her husband was 
 lost at sea, and she supports the family 
 by her needle. It is useless to add that 
 life is one long, dreary, and well-nigh hope- 
 less nightmare to her, as it is to scores of 
 widow women in the slums. The sea is 
 almost as cruel as man, and hundreds of 
 poor women who live in the squalor of our 
 sea-ports wait weary years for loved ones 
 who come no more. 
 
 Off a vile-smelling court we found a 
 family of three children. The mother was 
 up town sewing. The world of these little 
 ones is bounded for the most part by the
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 215 
 
 four walls of two small rooms. Here, 
 amid the plainest furniture and in 2)lenty 
 of dirt, from morning till night the little 
 girl watches her little brothers. They are 
 Portuguese, but attend the Bethel Mission. 
 "Can you not sing us a song?" said my 
 friend. After some persuasion, the little 
 girl and the oldest boy sang, " My Country, 
 'Tisof Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty!" I 
 involuntarily started. What grim satire 
 was I hearing ! Little dwarfed lives, 
 starving in poverty and wretchedness, in 
 the filth of the slums, singing, "Sweet 
 Land of Liberty!" I was glad that they 
 did not comprehend the meaning of the 
 song, for it would have made life more 
 bitter. 
 
 We visited many more places where pov- 
 erty was what I term uninvited ; but these, 
 being typical, will enable us to catch a 
 glimpse of the commonwealth of the unfor- 
 tunates at the social nadir. I have not the 
 space to show another phase of this prob- 
 lem or to cite cases to illustrate how this 
 life breaks down the moral nature; how a 
 life in dens unfit for brutes, brutalizes
 
 216 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 God's children. We hear much about the 
 vice and crime and the drunkenness of the 
 slums; to me it is a marvel that there is 
 not more. When I see the lavish waste 
 of wealth for wines and luxuries at the 
 social zenith, while abject poverty abounds 
 within cannon range of the scene of revel- 
 ry, I sometimes almost lose faith in man. 
 But when I visit the slums and see virtue 
 and probity under such a terrible strain, 
 and with everything pressing viceward, 
 I have my faith in humanity restored. 
 That there is intemperance, crime, and 
 immorality there, no one deiiies. This 
 trinity of the night holds high carnival at 
 the social nadir; but that, in spite of envi- 
 ronment and the brutalizing influence 
 everywhere present, virtue, industry, and 
 self-respect still live, is to me a continual 
 source of wonder, and testifies most elo- 
 quently to the innate spark of divinity in 
 the human soul. I returned from my 
 j)ilgrimage heart-sickened and depressed. 
 The squalor, the filth, the vile odors, the 
 hungry souls, the haunting eyes, the 
 pinched faces of starved youth and helpless
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 217 
 
 age, produced a sense of weariness and 
 oppression difficult to describe. I soon fell 
 into a painful reverie. How is it, I asked, 
 that the commonwealth of the prosperous 
 is so selfishly short-sighted ? Do not these 
 millionaires see in the loved ones around 
 them something more priceless than the 
 gold they worship? Do they not see that 
 at their very doors are cesspools of disease, 
 where death-breeding germs will some day 
 subtly steal upward and permeate the air 
 of their exclusive realm, until their own 
 loved fragile flowers will wither and fall, 
 leaving their homes strangely desolate ? 
 Can they not understand the profound 
 wisdom of the passages in the Scrip- 
 tures which teach us that '' No man 
 liveth unto himself," and '• That it is more 
 blessed to give than to receive"? Can 
 they not feel that only as we elevate, 
 purify, and ennoble other homes, do we 
 glorify and protect our own hearthstones, 
 and that sooner or later retribution wdll 
 overtake the selfish soul? 
 
 Then I must have fallen asleep, for 
 before me stood an angel with face sad, 
 
 /
 
 218 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 yet wonderfully sweet, and the angel said, 
 "Look!" And I saw the slums of our 
 city, and from a hundred homes I beheld 
 something almost impalpable emanating 
 — something which resembled smoke, 
 which assumed a thousand fantastic and 
 gruesome forms, as in great clouds it 
 slowly floated over the city. Then I heard 
 a great cry. The sobbing of a mighty city 
 was audible. Death was everywhere pres- 
 ent. I beheld thousands of our people flee- 
 ing to the depots ; but scarcely had they 
 left the city when the wires flashed, quick, 
 sharp, and unsympathetic, the fateful news 
 that all cities and towns were quarantined 
 against Boston. I saw that numbers flee- 
 ing died on the way, and others, finding all 
 places barred against them, returned to die 
 at home. The plague, impalpable but ter- 
 rible, seemed omnipresent. The city was 
 draped in black. '*The innocent and noble 
 are dying," I said. "Say rather, 'They are 
 being promoted' " ; but I saw a tear glisten 
 in the angel's eyes, and I said, "Was all 
 this waste of life necessary?" And the 
 angel said, "Even so, for man had hard-
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 219 
 
 enecl his heart against his brother man. 
 He had closed his ears against the cry of 
 the poor for justice. He had sowed to the 
 Vind, and is now reaping the whirlwind. 
 Sorrow," continued the angel, and the 
 voice was rich in melody, "makes man 
 thoughtful. In the midnight of grief he 
 hears the voice of justice, which is the voice 
 of the Most High. Look once more ! " Now 
 I beheld a scene of marvellous beauty 
 opening before my view. Great buildings, 
 each covering a square and from six to 
 eight stories high, rose on every hand. 
 Each was built in the form of a hollow 
 square, and within the enclosures I saw 
 borders of flowers fringing playgrounds, 
 where were fountains and many happy 
 children. The music of their laughter 
 chimed melodiously with the splashing of 
 the water. Here and there I noticed large 
 temple-like buildings, and I said, "What 
 are these?" The angel replied, "We will 
 enter one." At the threshold (for in my 
 dream I moved as thought travels) I was 
 impressed by the immensity and simplicity 
 of the structure. We entered and descended
 
 220 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 to the basement. I beheld great swim- 
 mmg-pools and an immense gymnasium; 
 above were large eating-halls, where plain 
 food was served at reasonable prices; 
 beyond the eating-halls were commodious 
 reading-rooms, free to all the people. We 
 ascended a broad stairway to the next floor. 
 Here I saw a large hall, in which a clear- 
 voiced orator was describino; the wonders 
 of other lands and ages, and by the aid of 
 a magnificent stereopticon was entertaining 
 and instructing an immense audience. 
 This also was free. In another hall an 
 artist was entertaining a large congrega- 
 tion by giving an effective charcoal talk. 
 Beyond was a free night school. "These 
 quarters are the habitation of the poor, 
 once the slums of Boston," said the angel; 
 " but" she continued, " Let us look 
 further," and now I beheld a broad, green 
 expanse dotted with beautiful houses and 
 some large buildings. "This," explained 
 the angel, "is the home of orphan children. 
 Here within each cottage may be found 
 twenty little ones. In the large buildings 
 a wonderful schooling is being given.
 
 A PILGRIMAGE AND A VISION. 221 
 
 Each child is made master of a trade, 
 while his soul is being developed by love, 
 by music, and by ethical teaching. The 
 intellect is also schooled. To the children 
 this is heaven, for love meets them on 
 every hand. " This," said the angel, 
 "which you see is only the first step; it is 
 the lifeboat sent out to save a few who are 
 sinking; it is an earnest of the awakening 
 of the divine in man. Beyond and above 
 this. Progress, Fraternity, and Justice are 
 leading the people. All special privileges 
 and class laws have been abolished. 
 Through the broad land societies of human 
 brotherhood have been formed pledged to 
 love all God's children, to drown the hoarse 
 roar of hate with the music of love; to 
 overcome evil by good; to drive out the 
 darkness by the light." The angel van- 
 ished. I awoke.
 
 WHAT OF THE MORROW? 
 
 223
 
 " 'Tis coming up the steep of Time, 
 
 And this old world is growing brighter ; 
 "We may not see its dawn sublime, 
 
 Yet high hopes make the heart throb lighter ; 
 Our dust may slumber under-ground 
 
 "When it awakes the world in wonder ; 
 But we have felt it gathering round, 
 
 "We have heard its voice of distant thunder. 
 ' Tis coming ; yes, ' tis coming ! 
 
 " There's a Divinity within 
 
 That makes men great if they but will it ; 
 God works with all who dare to win , 
 
 And the time cometh to reveal it. 
 
 ' Tis coming ; yes, ' tis coming ! 
 
 " Fraternity, Love's other name — 
 
 Dear, heaven-connecting link of being — 
 Then shall we grasp thy golden dream, 
 
 As souls, full-statured, grow far-seeing. 
 Thou shalt unfold our better part. 
 
 And in our life-cup yield more honey ; 
 Light up with joy the poor man's heart. 
 
 And love's own world with smiles more sunny. 
 " ' Tis coming ; yes, ' tis coming." 
 
 Gerald Massey. 
 
 224
 
 WHAT OF THE MORROW? 225 
 
 VTII. 
 WHAT OF THE MORROW? 
 
 Are radical changes for the betterment of the industrial mil- 
 lions pending ?— The perils of the present — What we must 
 expect from the upholders of class privileges — The 
 unmistalcablo drift of the times toward human brother- 
 hood — A persistent ideal once rooted in the popular 
 mind never departs without a struggle for supremacy — 
 Encom-aging signs — Tlie Slogan cry of the new day — 
 The prophetic view of William Morris. 
 
 IN the midst of poverty, which is the her- 
 itage of so many white slaves in country 
 and city life to-day, we are confronted by 
 the question: Will the morrow witness a 
 new order of things? Will conditions be 
 so changed that uninvited want will be 
 reduced to exceptional cases, if it does not 
 entirely disappear, and will social aspects 
 be so changed that it will be easier for men 
 to do right than to sin? In other words, 
 will conditions tend to develop and bring 
 out all that is noblest, purest, and most
 
 226 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 divine in man's nature? I believe such 
 changes not only possible but inevitable, if 
 those whose hearts have been touched by 
 the higher altruistic thought of the hour 
 do their duty. There are to-day, as never 
 before, multitudinous forces at work, 
 leagued with Justice and the Dawn. 
 Some are silent, and their influence is 
 unsuspected; while above and beyond all 
 is the impalpable but persistent ideal of 
 human brotherhood, which has taken pos- 
 session of the hearts and brains of millions 
 of thinking men, women, and children. 
 
 And yet we must not allow ourselves to 
 be deceived by expectations of an easy 
 triumph. Forces which, in themselves, 
 hold invincible potency may be held in 
 check, if not defeated, by a soulless plutoc- 
 racy intrenched behind class laws. Such a 
 plutocracy as is found in the giant trusts 
 and monopolies of our day. Now the fact 
 is beginning to dawn on thoughtful people 
 that we Americans, who have fallen into 
 the foolish halDit of parroting trite phrases 
 about self-government, are in reality far 
 less our own masters than most people sup-
 
 WHAT OF THE MORROW? 227 
 
 pose. The truth cannot be denied that an 
 oligarchy, representing many interests, but 
 having a common cause to defend, shapes, 
 when it does not instigate, a large propor- 
 tion of our present-day legislation. I very 
 much doubt whether the members of Con- 
 gress or the representatives in various state 
 legislatures dream how perfectly the 
 gloved hand of organized capital guides 
 the helm of state; how important meas- 
 ures are defeated, dangerous bills are enac- 
 ted, amid the alternate enthusiasm and 
 apathy of the public. That the press is 
 also being silently and, in many cases, 
 unwittingly swayed and influenced, is 
 undoubtedly true. The following story 
 related of the famous chess-playing autom- 
 aton of Paris, long an unsolved mystery in 
 the French capital, is suggestive. The 
 emperor, hearing much of the ingenious 
 piece of mechanism, determined to inspect 
 it, and if possible unravel the enigma. 
 The automaton played marvellously well 
 until the emperor designedly made a false 
 move, when with a sweep of the arm it 
 cleared the board, while the emperor,
 
 228 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 springing to his feet, exclcaimed, " There is 
 a man behind the automaton!" So if our 
 people had boasted less and observed more 
 during the past three decades, they would 
 have seen behind the vicious class legis- 
 lation which has fostered plutocracy and 
 virtually placed the reins of the govern- 
 ment in the hands of organized capital, a 
 selfish, grasping, directing brain concoct- 
 ing apparently innocent bills which each 
 year were passed by the various legisla- 
 tures, or became organic law through Con- 
 gressional acts. Furthermore, we must not 
 lose sight of the fact that when the despot- 
 ism of accumulated wealth becomes fully 
 aroused to the dangers which confront it, 
 all the energies which belong to the 
 instincts of self-preservation, will be put 
 forth to maintain the unjust and inequit- 
 able conditions through which the few 
 reap the harvests of the man}-. 
 
 Two things must be brought about before 
 we can hope for the advent of the great 
 vital reformative measures which will, 
 through the operation of justice, transform, 
 to a certain extent at least, the face of civ-
 
 WHAT OF THE MOBEOWf 229 
 
 ilization. First, the people must be aroused 
 to the danger of the silent influences now 
 operating in Washington, in the various 
 state capitals, and even upon the judiciary 
 and through the press; and, being aroused 
 to the magnitude of the peril, they must, 
 for a time at least, sink all petty strife, 
 and move in solid phalanx against the 
 common enemy. The measures proposed 
 may not come up to our ideals, but if they 
 make for the equality of opportunity, and 
 are founded upon justice, they should be 
 accepted by sincere reformers as steps in 
 the right direction. With this catholic 
 standa^'d before us, all who have faith in 
 civilization, all who love humanity, all 
 who bov/ before the sacred shrine of Just- 
 ice, should move forward. Aj^jjreciafion 
 of the magnitude of the i^eril, and concerted 
 action — these are the supreme needs of 
 the hour. That millions of people are 
 becoming aroused, is admitted by all 
 thoughtful persons. I believe that the dis- 
 content of the present has reached such 
 a stage that no palliative measures icill 
 satisfy the ^?eo^??e.
 
 230 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 This awakening of the masses, as a 
 result of independent investigation and 
 thoughtful study, is one of the reasons 
 on which I base my faith in the dawn- 
 ing day. Another reason is found in the 
 fact that scores of the best thinkers of 
 our time have entered the arena for the 
 industrial millions. Eminent essayists, 
 clergymen, novelists, and poets are sound- 
 ing the bugle for the toiling multitude. 
 
 There is another reason why I believe in 
 the near approach of radical reformatory 
 measures. Never in the history of the 
 world have so many thoughtful people 
 apprehended clearly the great basic truth, 
 that in a complex life like ours the inter- 
 ests of all are so interwoven that anything 
 which injures one, sooner or later injures 
 all, and that which elevates one elevates 
 all. We are beginning to learn the vital 
 lesson that only by justice and love can 
 we secure true happiness as individuals, or 
 enduring prosperity as a nation. 
 
 Then, again, the ideals of men are 
 broadening. The conception of God is 
 changing. The progress-paralyzing mias-
 
 WHAT OF THE MORROW? 231 
 
 ma of creeds, which a few years ago envel- 
 oped the warrmg sects of Christendom, is 
 disappearing before the dawn of a higher 
 conception of God's truth and a truer 
 apprehension of what constitutes religion 
 "pure and undefiled." Creeds are falling 
 away, and deeds are coming to take their 
 place. The religion of the morrow will 
 emphasize life rather than dogma. Its 
 mission will be to seek and to save, 
 because love will be tile all-mastering pas- 
 sion of those who have felt the higher civ- 
 ilization pulsing through their veins. And 
 this breadth of thought will enable gigantic 
 reforms along palliative lines to be carried 
 on, as well as radical fundamental changes, 
 which, in the nature of things, will require 
 more time. I believe the day is not far 
 distant wdien societies embracing Christians, 
 Hebrews, Buddhists and Agnostics — in a 
 word, societies embracing all who love man- 
 kind enough to sacrifice self in the interests 
 of humanity — will strike hands for a com- 
 mon good. It may not come this year or 
 next year; but the trend is unmistakably 
 toward the union of those who believe in
 
 232 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 saving man here and now. When such or- 
 ganizations shall be formed in our cities and 
 hamlets, they will be schools of the higher 
 ethics for all members, as well as active 
 and aggressive forces for the redemption of 
 life in the social cellar. They will establish 
 in the slums reading-rooms and halls for 
 lectures, concerts, and healthful amuse- 
 ments, where all will be welcome. They 
 will provide swimming-pools and gymnasi- 
 ums; they will open kindergarten and indus- 
 trial schools. They will teach cooking and 
 sewing to girls, and useful trades to boys ; 
 and at the same time they will teach the 
 young to be pure, just, and noble. They 
 will seek out the suffering and the starving ; 
 they will help the weak to become strong. 
 They will catch a guiding and overmaster- 
 ing inspiration from the words of Victor 
 Hugo, when the great poet-prophet exclaims : 
 "Sacrifice to the mob! Sacrifice to that 
 unfortunate, disinherited, vanquished, vaga- 
 bond, shoeless, famished, repudiated, despair- 
 ing mob; sacrifice to it, if it must be, and 
 when it must be, thy repose, thy fortune, 
 thy joy, thy country, thy liberty, thy life.
 
 WHAT OF THE MORROW? 233 
 
 The mob is the human race in misery. 
 Tlie mob is the mournful beginning of the 
 people. The mob is the great victim of 
 darkness. Sacrifice to it thy golcl^ and thy 
 blood, which is more than thy gold, and 
 thy thought, which is more than thy blood, 
 and thy love, which is more than thy 
 thought ; sacrifice to it everything except 
 justice. Receive its complaint: listen to 
 it touching its faults and touching the 
 faults of others; hear its confession and its 
 accusation. Give it thy ear, thy hand, thy 
 arm, thy heart. Do everything for it 
 excepting evil. Alas ! it suffers so much, 
 and it knows nothing. Correct it, warn it, 
 instruct it, guide it, train it. Put it to the 
 school of honesty. Make it spell truth; 
 show it the alphabet of reason; teach it to 
 read virtue, probity, generosity, mercy. 
 Hold thy book wide open. Be there, 
 attentive, vigilant, kind, faithful, humble. 
 Light up the brain, infiame the mind, 
 extinguish selfishness; and thyself give 
 the example. It is beautiful that Force 
 should have Right for a master, that 
 Progress should have Courage as a leader.
 
 234 CIVILIZATION'S INFEHNO. 
 
 that Intelligence should have Honor as 
 a sovereign, that Conscience should have 
 Duty as a despot, that Civilization should 
 have Liberty as a queen, and that the serv- 
 ant of Ignorance should be Light." 
 
 The truth and inspiration voiced in these 
 sentiments will be the key-note of the new 
 crusade. I believe that the ideal of a noble 
 and happy life for man, woman, or child, 
 which to-day so persistently haunts the 
 brain of millions of earth's children, will 
 be realized. Not to-morrow or next year, 
 but in the future; yes, the near future. 
 We must not grow discouraged if the tide 
 seems to ebb sometimes ; it will return with 
 renewed power. It takes some time, after 
 intellectual assent has been gained, for new 
 truths to enter the bone, blood, and fiber of 
 actual life. Especially is this true of those 
 teachings which run counter to the precon- 
 ceived ideas and inherited prejudice of gen- 
 erations. We must expect disappointments. 
 The pessimism of the discouraged on the 
 one hand, and the optimism of the dilettante 
 on the other will continue to obstruct all 
 radical reformative work. But neither
 
 WHAT OF THE MORROW? 235 
 
 will the cry that "it is useless to further 
 bcattle," or the assertion that "all is well," 
 check the onward flow of reformative 
 thought now in motion. / helieve the daiv7i 
 to he hreaking. Never have ideas gained 
 such rooting in the heart of the learned 
 and unlearned, great and small, as have 
 these dreams of a better day, without blos- 
 soming into realities. It may be that the 
 light will not come until blood flows, 
 because intrenched wealth is arrogant, and 
 may refuse concessions until too late; yet 
 if we do our duty in efforts to arouse those 
 in easy circumstances, to a sense of what 
 is right and just, and at the same time to 
 educate, purify, and uplift, while we aid 
 and encourage those now sinking in gloom 
 and darkness, the conflict may be averted. 
 This thought is thus admirably put by 
 the great English poet, artist, and social 
 reformer, William Morris: — 
 
 " It is we must answer and hasten, 
 And open wide the door 
 For the rich man's hurrying terror, 
 And the slow-foot hope of the poor.
 
 236 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO. 
 
 " Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched, 
 And their unlearned discontent, 
 We must give it voice and wisdom 
 Till the waiting-tide be spent." 
 
 Only justice can prevent a bloody cata- 
 clysm — that is a thought which must be 
 emphasized at all times. 
 
 Be the early result as it may, ultimately 
 the day will break — the day of justice, 
 and brotherhood of love and joy for man, 
 woman, and child. I have a profound 
 faith in the truth expressed by Mr. Morris 
 in these prophetic lines which appear in his 
 last volume of poems : — 
 
 "Come hither, lads, and hearken 
 For a tale there is to tell. 
 Of the wonderful days a coming, when all 
 Shall be better than well. 
 And the tale shall be told of a country, 
 A land in the midst of a sea, 
 And folk shall call it England 
 In the day that's going to be. 
 
 " There more than one in a thousand 
 Of the days that are yet to come 
 Shall have some hope of the morrow, 
 Some joy of the ancient home.
 
 WHAT OF THE MOBBOW? 237 
 
 For then, laugh not, but listen 
 To this strange tale of mine : 
 All folk that are in England 
 Shall be better lodged than swine. 
 
 '< Then a man shall work and bethink him, 
 And rejoice in the deeds of his hand, 
 Nor yet come home in the even 
 Too faint and weary to stand. 
 Men in that time a coming 
 Shall work and have no fear 
 For to-morrow's lack of earning 
 And the hunger- wolf anear. 
 
 " I tell you this for a wonder. 
 That no man then shall be glad 
 Of his fellow's fall and mishap 
 To snatch at the work he had. 
 For that wliich the worker winneth 
 Shall then be his indeed. 
 Nor shall half be reaped for nothing 
 By him that sowed no seed. 
 
 '' strange, new, Avonderful justice ! 
 But for whom shall Ave gather the gain ? 
 For ourselves and each of our fellows, 
 And no hand shall labor in vain. 
 Then all Mine and all Thine shall be Ours, 
 And no more shall any man crave 
 For riches that serve for nothing 
 But to fetter a friend for a slave."
 
 Front the press of the Arena Piibltshtng Company. 
 
 ilhe Hit of the year." 
 
 Helen H. 
 Gardener 
 
 Chicago Times 
 
 Rockford(Ill.) 
 Republican 
 
 The Literary Hit 
 of the Season 
 
 Price, paper, ^o cents ; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 AN UNOFFICIAL PATRIOT. 
 
 Have you read Helen H. Gardener's new war story, "An 
 Unofficial Patriot"? No? Then read what competent 
 critics say of this remarkable historical story of the Civil 
 War. 
 
 " Helen H. Gardener has made for herself within a very few 
 years an enviable fame fur the strength and sincerity of her 
 writing on some of the most important phases of modern social 
 questions. Her most recent novel, now published under the title 
 of ' An Unufficial Patriot,' is no less deserving of praise. As an 
 artistic i)iece of character study this book is possessed of supe- 
 rior qualities. There is nothing in it to offend the traditions of 
 an honest man, north or south. It is written with an evident 
 knowledge of the circumstances and surroundings such as might 
 have made the story a very fact, and, more than all, it is written 
 with an assured sympathy for humanity and a recognition of 
 right and wrong wherever found. As to the literary merit of 
 the book and its strength as a character study, as has been said 
 heretofore, it is a superior work. The stu ly of GriftUh Daven- 
 port, the clergyman, and of his true friend, ' Lengthy ' Patterson, 
 is one to win favor from every reader. There are dramatic 
 scenes in their association that thiill and touch the heart. 
 Davenport's two visits to President Lincoln are other scenes 
 worthy of note for the same quality, and they show an apprecia- 
 tion of the feeling and motive of the president more than histori- 
 cal in its sympathy. Mrs. Gardener may well be proud of her 
 success in tlie field of fiction." 
 
 " Helen Gardener's new novel, ' An Unoflidal Patriot,' which 
 is just out, will probably be the most popular and salable novel 
 since ' Robert Elsmere.' It is by far the most finished and 
 ambitious book yet produced by the gifted author and well de- 
 serves a permanent place in literature. 
 
 "The plot of the story itself guarantees the present sale. It 
 is ' something new under the sun ' and strikes new sensations, 
 new situations, new conditions. To be sure it is a war story, and 
 war stories are old and hackneyed. But there has been no such 
 war story as this written. It gives a situation new in fiction and 
 tells the story of the war from a standpoint which gives the book 
 priceless value as a sociological study and as supplemental 
 history. 
 
 " The plot is very strong and is all the more so when the 
 reader learns that it is true. The story is an absolutely true one 
 and is almost entirely a piece of history written in form of fic- 
 tion, v\ith names and minor incidents altered." 
 
 For sale by all nezvsdealers, or sent postpaid by 
 
 Arena Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.
 
 From the press of the Arena PiiblisJiing Company. 
 
 Cujo iSfouels of Absorbing Interest. 
 
 Eibert 
 Hubbard 
 
 Syracuse Herald 
 
 Boston Times 
 
 The New York 
 Voice 
 
 Detroit 
 
 News-Tribune 
 
 rirs. 
 
 S. M. H. 
 Gardner 
 
 \ 
 
 Price, paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 FORBES OF HARVARD. 
 
 In " Forbes of Harvard" Mr. Elbert Hubbard has pro- 
 duced a work which has won the unqualified praise of all 
 lovers of clean, wholesome and elevated fiction. Below 
 we give some critical opinions of this most delightful 
 work. 
 
 " ' Forbes of Harvard.' A delicate and artistic piece of work, 
 full of high-toned sentiment, good-natured and finely shaded 
 character drawing." 
 
 "The book has a flavor of Concord, and the influence of 
 Emerson, the Alcotts and Thoreau is felt throughout it. It is 
 philosophical, moral, religious and social in its bearings, but no 
 one of these matters is given undue precedence." 
 
 " The author of ' Forbes of Harvard ' has succeeded in doing 
 what very few writers have done. He has told a bright, clever 
 story bv means of a series of letters. Instead of describing his 
 characters he has let them reveal themselves in their epistles." 
 
 "'Forbes of Harvard' is a series of letters written by differ- 
 ent persons, one of whom is at Harvard, and tells in an inter- 
 estingly vivid way a neat and good story, sure to be read with 
 pleasure." 
 
 Price, paper, '^o cents; cloth, $1.25. 
 THE FORTUNES OF flARGARET WELD. 
 
 A novel dealing with the relation of the sexes in a bold 
 
 but delicate manner. 
 
 This book tells the story of a good woinan who made a 
 grave mistake. It touches our hearts like an old sorrow, 
 and we go with Margaret on her tortuous earth journey ; 
 we partake of her ambitions and her joys ; we know the 
 bitterness of her portion, and we, too, catch glimpses and 
 feel somewhat at the last of her serene peace. A lofty, 
 purpose runs throughout the pages. A just tribute is in- 
 directly paid to the Quakers, the only sect who having 
 power never persecuted ; the people who made the only 
 treaty that was never sworn to and yet never broken. The 
 world will be better for this book. 
 
 For sale by all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by 
 
 Arena Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.
 
 From the press of the Arena Publishing Company. 
 
 iThe Latest Social Uision. 
 
 Byron A. 
 Brooks 
 
 Richmond, Va. 
 Star 
 
 Chicago Times 
 
 Review of 
 Reviews 
 
 T.yman Abbot 
 Paper, The 
 Outlook 
 
 Nashville, Tenn. 
 Banner 
 
 ,J 
 
 Price, paper, ^o cents ; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 EARTH REVI5ITED. 
 
 The New Utopia, " Earth Revisited," is the latest social 
 vision, and in many respects the most charming work 
 of this character which has ever appeared. In it we see 
 the people, the state and the church under true civilization, 
 and the new psychology is introduced in such a manner 
 as to interest students of psychical research. 
 
 Here are a few press opinions : — 
 
 " As a story, it is very interesting." 
 
 " Worthy of consideratiun for its study of the social and other 
 questions involved." 
 
 "The story is written in an autobiographical form and pic- 
 tures the social, industrial, religious and educational America of 
 1992. As a work of fiction the volume embodies in a fanciful 
 way a view expressed in the closing words: 'To live is to love 
 and to labor. There is no death.' The style is clear and direct." 
 
 " Mr. Brooks is an earnest man. He has written a religio- 
 philosophical novel of life in the coming century. The hero of 
 this story has lived the life of the average man and at length, 
 when he finds himself dying, he wishes that he might have a 
 chance to live his life over. I'he wish is granted and he is born 
 again on the earth a century later. Social and scientific and 
 religious evolution have in a hundred years contrived to make an 
 almost irrecognizable world of it. Human nature is changed ; 
 altruism is fully realized; worship has become service of man; 
 the struggle for wealth and social rank has ended. Mr. Brooks' 
 book is worth reading by all S'ncere people, and in particular 
 by those interested in Christian socialism and j.pplied Christian- 
 ity." 
 
 " If you should happen to pick up Byron A. Brooks' ' Earth 
 Revisited ' and read the first chapter, the chances are that you 
 would follow the story on to the end, even if you had other 
 things on hand spoiling for your attention. Summed up. 
 'Earth Revisited' is a wild though delightful st'>ry, short 
 enough to be filled from end to end with throbbing interest and 
 long enough to fully round eft' the things that are introduced." 
 
 Por sale by all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by 
 
 Arena Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.
 
 From the press of the Arena Publishing Company. 
 
 Piction : Social, Economic an6 Reformaiiue. 
 
 Hamlin 
 Garland 
 
 The great Novel 
 of the present 
 popular 
 Industrial and 
 Political uprising 
 
 Emil Blum 
 
 and 
 
 Sigmund 
 Alexander 
 
 One of the most 
 scathing 
 Arraignments of 
 conventional 
 Hypocrisy ever 
 Published 
 
 
 Price, paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 A SPOIL OF OFFICE. 
 
 This is a stirring novel of western life, and deals with 
 the great movement known as the Farmers' Alliance. 
 
 Entitled to rank among the greatest of American novels. — 
 Minneapolis Spectator. 
 
 Radically unconventional, and doulitle^s the truest picture of 
 Western life that has appeared in American fiction. — Commer- 
 cial Advertiser, Detroit, Mich. 
 
 A work which possesses a fascinating interest for the super 
 ficial reader, and many excellent suggestions for the thoughtful 
 student of the economic questions of the day — a rare combi- 
 nation. — Books and Amotions, Toronto, Can. 
 
 Price, paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.00. 
 
 WHO LIES? An Interrogation. 
 
 This is unquestionably the most vivid and realistic ex- 
 pose of the sham hypocrisy and lies of conventional 
 society which has appeared since the publication of Max 
 Nordeau's " Conventional Lies of Civilization," which in- 
 deed suggested the work. "Who Lies?" is written in 
 story form, and is exceedingly interesting. 
 
 This is one of the boldest, most radical and realistic works of 
 the decade. It is unconventional as it is unicjue, and will un- 
 questionably call forth criticisms in quarters where its shafts 
 enter. — Illinois State Sentinel. 
 
 One does not know what a rare thing the truth is until one is 
 pledged for a whole week to tell "the truth, the whole truth, 
 and nothing but the truth." These gentlemen in their various 
 callings who wager to tell the truth for a week lose friends and 
 patronage fr(jm the word " go." 
 
 Each mentally curses the day he took that fool pledge to tell 
 the truth, and never before knew that he was a liar. The cor- 
 ruption of modern society is shown up in its most revolting yet 
 most realistic light. AH this is admirably told in "Who 
 Lies," a work pulilished lately by the Arena Company, of Bos- 
 ton. We know the work to be one full of plain, unvarnished 
 truth, a single " lecture" on realism (delivered by the professor 
 when under obligation to speak the truth) containing the 
 essence of the modern social question and its solution. — Jiich- 
 mond Daily Telegram, Ind. 
 
 /•"or sale by the trade, or sent postpaid by 
 
 The .Irena Publishing Company.
 
 Front the press of tlic .Ircna Piiblishiiii^ Company . 
 
 Fiction : Social, Economic an6 Hefornriatiue. 
 
 i 
 
 E. Stillman 
 Doubleday 
 
 A story of the 
 Struggles of 
 Honest ludustrj' 
 under Present 
 Day Conditions. 
 
 Charles S. 
 Daniel 
 
 A Story of the 
 Transformation 
 of the Slums 
 
 Price, paper, ^o cents; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 JUST PLAIN FOLKS. 
 
 A novel for the industrial millions, illustrating two stu- 
 pendous facts : — 
 
 1 . The bounty and goodness of nature. 
 
 2. The misery resulting from unjust social conditions 
 which enable the acquirer of wealth to degenerate in 
 luxury and idleness, and the wealth producer to slave him- 
 self to death, haunted by an ever-present fear of starva- 
 tion when not actually driven to vice or begging. It is an 
 exceedingly interesting book, simply and atfectingly told, 
 while there is a vast deal of the philosophy of commun- 
 ism in the moralizing of Old Bat. All persons interested in 
 wholesome fiction, and who also desire to understand the 
 conditions of honest industry and society-made vice, 
 should read this admirable story. 
 
 AI 
 
 Price, paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 
 A Social Vision. 
 
 One of the most ingenious, unique and thought-provoking 
 sturics of the present generation. It is a social vision, and in 
 many respects the most noteworthy of the many remarkable 
 dreams called forth by the general unrest and intellectual activ- 
 ity of the present generation. But unlike most social dreams 
 appearing since the famous " Utopia " of Sir Thomas More, 
 this book has distinctive qualities which will commend it to 
 many readers who take, as yet, little interest in the vital social 
 problems of the hour. A quiet humor pervades the whole vol- 
 ume which is most delightful. 
 
 The brotherhood of man and various sociological and philan- 
 thropic ideas, such as the establishment of a college settlement 
 and the social regeneration of Old Philadelphia, are a few of 
 the topics discussed in '■ Ai," a novel by Charles' Daniel, who 
 calls it "A Social Vision." It is alternately grave and gay; and 
 the intellectual freshness reminds one constantly of Edward 
 Everett Hale's stories, with which " Ai " has much in common. 
 This is a clever hook, and, what is much more important, one 
 whose influence is for good. — Public Ledger.
 
 r'roin tiie press of the Arena Publishing Company. 
 
 -iction : Social, Economic an6 Beformatiue. 
 
 Byron 
 A. Brooks 
 
 The 
 New Utopia 
 
 Hamlin 
 Garland 
 
 A powerfully 
 Dramatic Novel, 
 dealing with the 
 Struggles of the 
 Poor in City and 
 Country 
 
 Price, paper, ^o cents; ctoth, $1.2^. 
 
 EARTH REVISITED. 
 
 A story for earnest men and women of the new time. 
 Mr. Flower, in "Civilization's Inferno," portrays some 
 hideous phases of modern civilization. Mr. Brooks, in 
 I "Earth Revisited," pictures our earth blossoming in 
 peace, joy and happiness, under cooperation. This story, 
 which is charming as a pure, clean love story, is made the 
 vehicle for shadowing forth an ideal, civilization through 
 the working of the law of all for all. Few social studies 
 are so helpful in psychical suggestions as " Earth Revis- 
 ited," and probably this work more than any other Uto- 
 pian romance sustains the interest of the reader from first 
 to last. 
 
 Price, paper, ^o cents; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 JASON EDWARDS. 
 
 This work is one of the most powerful portrayals of the 
 struggles of the mechanic in the city and the farmer in the 
 West ever published. It is highly dramatic while per- 
 fectly realistic, and though it ends in a burst of sunshine, 
 its noble lessons will linger in the heart. 
 
 Ilamlin Garland's splendid qualities — bis sympathy with 
 humanity, his perception of the subtlest meaning of nature, his 
 power tu bring his people before you as if you had grown up 
 in their duoryarcls — these are i.is own. 
 
 Mary E. Wilkins has given us the pathos of humblest New 
 . England; Charles Egt)ert Craddock has made known to us the 
 I secrets of the Tennessee Mountains; Rudyard Kipling has 
 carried us to India; and now, at last, here is the story-teller of 
 farm life in those Western prairies among which Hamlin Gar- 
 land grew up, to which he goes back, now and again, with the 
 child's heari, the man's insight. — Louise Chandler Moiilton, in 
 Boston Herald. 
 
 For sale by all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by 
 
 Arena Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.
 
 Fro7)i the press of the, Arena Publishmg Co., Boston, Mass. 
 
 Serious Ijtiorhs for Students of Social, Economic anb 
 Political Problems. 
 
 Price, paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.25 
 
 Samuel 
 Leavitt 
 
 A handbook for 
 
 Money 
 
 Reformers 
 
 riarion 
 Todd 
 
 A strong work 
 in favor of 
 Governmental 
 Ownership of 
 Railroads 
 
 OUR MONEY WARS. 
 
 The most complete and comprehensive history of 
 American finance ever published. The book is the result 
 of a lifetime of study and work, and will be indispensable 
 to all who wish to keep posted on the money question. 
 Mr. Leavitt is a man of wide experience, and his work 
 shows not only remarkable ability but great insight and 
 rare courage. Mr. Leavitt has long been before the pub- 
 lic as a contributor to such publications as the North 
 American Review, the Forum, and the New York Tribune, 
 World ^.Vi^ Graphic. In 1878 he was managing editor of 
 Peter Cooper's New York Advocate. In 1883 he was 
 made superintendent. In 1887 he made sixty speeches for 
 Henry George in the memorable campaign in New York 
 when the great reformer polled seventy thousand votes. 
 This book will be a textbook for reformers, and is invalu- 
 able to all who wish to acquaint themselves with the finan- 
 cial history of our country. The chapters deal with the 
 money question during difierent periods as follows: 1600 
 101700. 1700 to 1776. 1776101786. 1786 to 1796. 1796 
 to 1806. 1806 to 1816. 1816 to 1826. 1826 to 1836. 
 1836 to 1846. 1846 to 1856. 1856 to 1861. 1861 to 
 1866 (the war period). 1866 to- 1873. ^"^12) to 1880 
 (seven years of famine in a land of plenty). 1880 to 1885 
 (the triumph of plutocracy). 1885 to 1893 (the beginning 
 of the end). 
 
 P)-ice, paper, ^o cents ; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 RAILROADS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. 
 
 An indispensable work for all persons interested in the 
 railroad problem. It is a powerful and convincing argu- 
 ment in favor of government control. 
 
 This is a rather unusual subject to be treated of by a lady, but 
 the author has done her work with thoroughness and ability. 
 She considers one of the most serious questions of the times to 
 be whether the railways shall own the people or the people o\^■n 
 the railways. In discussing this question she tirst gives the rail- 
 way statistics from official sources of the United States, Ger- 
 many, Austro-Hungary, India, Victoria, England, France, and a 
 number of other countries, with an explanation of the Zone 
 System in operation in Austria and Hungary. 
 
 For sale by all newsdealers, or sent postpaid by 
 
 Areola Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.
 
 From the press of the Arena Publishing Company. 
 
 Serious Ijblorhs for Stubents of Social, "Economic an6 
 Political Problems. 
 
 Price, paper, ^o cents; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 Prof. 
 
 Frank 
 
 Parsons 
 
 A Noble Work 
 which will 
 appeal to all 
 High Thinking 
 Alen and Women 
 
 OUR COUNTRY'S NEED : or The Development 
 of Scientific Industrialism. 
 
 A work on industrial philosophy, of which Professor 
 Parsons, to use his own words, says : — 
 
 " My object in the book is to construct a new political 
 science on the idea that manhood and noble living are the 
 supreme objects of all human endeavor, and, therefore, the 
 true objects of all laws and institutions, industrial institu- 
 tions among the rest." 
 
 The late Phillips Brooks read the manuscript of this 
 remarkable work, and wrote to the author, " ' Our Coun- 
 try's Need' is destined to be an epoch-making book." It 
 is a volume for the present hour, and those interested in 
 live social problems will find it a wonderful work, filled 
 with striking thoughts presented in a very engaging and 
 convincing manner. 
 
 Poems of Reform. 
 
 Frances 
 
 Margaret 
 
 Milne 
 
 Published only in cloth. Price $1 .00. 
 
 FOR TO-DAY. 
 
 A Notable 
 Volume of 
 Poems of the 
 New Time 
 
 This book is elegantly printed in large and beautiful 
 
 type, on first-class paper, and its cover is as chaste as it is 
 
 substantial. 
 
 Another clarion voice in the chorus of a new day. . . . Many 
 of the poems thrill with an emhusiasm which marks a soul aflame 
 with redemptive thought. — The Arena. 
 
 The nohle aim of all Mrs. Milne's writings, comhined with 
 their great literary merit, should commend them to all. What 
 Whittier was to the anti-slavery movement, Mrs. Milne is to this 
 greater movement of to-day, which is based on "equal rights for 
 all, special privilege to none" — which means freedom not alone 
 for the black man, nor the white man, but for all mankind. — 
 The Star, San Francisco. 
 
 For sale by all newsdealers , or sent postpaid by 
 
 Arena Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.
 
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