Lights and Shadows of New York Life / or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City

There were many plans for supplying the city of New York with fresh water, previous to the adoption of the Croton Aqueduct scheme, but we have not the space to present them here.  They were all inadequate to the necessities of the city, and all in turn were thrown aside.  The most important was one for obtaining the water supply from the Bronx River.  It was believed that a daily supply of 3,000,000 gallons could be obtained from this stream, but nothing was done in the matter, and it was not until the prevalence of Asiatic Cholera in 1832 had impressed upon the people the necessity of a supply of pure water, nor until the great fire of 1837 had convinced them that they must have an abundance of water, that the scheme for supplying the city from the sources of the Croton River was definitely resolved upon.  De Witt Clinton gave his powerful support to the scheme, and the citizens at the municipal elections expressed themselves unqualifiedly in favor of a full supply of fresh water.  It was decided to obtain the supply from the Croton River, and in May, 1837, the work on the aqueduct which was to convey it to the city was actually begun, and on the 4th of July, 1842, the Croton water was distributed through the city.

The original cost of the aqueduct and reservoirs was about $9,000,000.  Since then the increased supply, the new reservoirs, pipes, etc., have made the total amount upward of $40,000,000.  The total receipts from the water tax since the opening of the aqueduct have amounted to about $22,000,000.  The tax at present amounts to about $1,232,000 annually.

The suburbs of New York are very attractive, and excursions to nearly every point within reach of the city are made every day during the summer months.  The fares are low, and a day may be pleasantly spent on the water by leaving the city about 8 o’clock in the morning and returning at 6 or 7 P.M.

One of the pleasantest excursions of this kind, is up the Hudson.  One may go as far as West Point or Poughkeepsie, and enjoy the magnificent scenery of the famous river, or he may leave the boat at West Point, and spend an hour or two at that place before the arrival of the down boat.  The steamers on the Hudson are the best of their kind, and afford every opportunity for enjoyment.

Staten Island, in New York Bay, seven miles from the city, and in full sight of it, offers many attractions to the pleasure seeker.  There are several lines of steamers plying between the city and the towns on that island, and making hourly trips.  The sail across the bay is delightful, and the fare is only ten or twelve cents each way.

In the streets in the vicinity of the water, there are many buildings used as “Sailors’ Boarding-houses.”  One would suppose that poor Jack needed a snug resting-place after his long and stormy voyages, but it is about the last thing he finds in New York.  The houses for his accommodation are low, vile places.  They are located in the filthiest sections of the city, and are never clean.  Jack, however, is used to hard fare.  He has spent six months, or it may be two years, in the damp and cheerless forecastle, and he will not grumble at the aspect of the only quarters available to him on shore.  He has crowded with twenty men and boys into a space much smaller than the chamber assigned him, and he does not object to having half a dozen room mates.  The bed is a wretched cot, but it is better than a bunk or a hammock, and Jack is not so used to cleanliness as to make him very fastidious.

The landlords of these places are simply the meanest of thieves and bullies.  They charge a uniform price of about seven dollars per week, for which they give a mean bed in a dirty room occupied by five or six other persons, and three indifferent meals a day.  They do not, however, reap their profits from their legitimate business.  Their principal earnings are gained by their crimes.

They keep their runners in the harbor on the watch for ships coming in from long voyages.  These board the vessels as soon as they reach the bay, and at once begin to extol the merits of their several establishments.  They are adepts at their art, and before the vessel has cast anchor at her berth, they have secured one or more men apiece for their houses.  They never leave them after this, but “stick to them” until they receive their wages, after which they conduct them to the boarding-house, and turn them over to the landlord.  If the sailor is unwilling to promise to become a guest at the boarding-house, the runner has but little trouble in inducing him to “drop in and look at it.”  The great object is to get him within its doors.  The first sense of freedom from the confinements of the ship is very grateful to Jack, and puts him in a good humor with himself and everybody else.  This renders him the easier a victim.

Usually, however, “Shanghaiing” is practised upon drunken sailors only.  They are made drunk, as has been stated, immediately after the discovery of the loss of their wages, and are kept so until an opportunity presents itself for sending them to sea.  Thus they are gotten rid of, care being taken to ship them only on voyages of two and three years duration.  The landlords receive a premium on the men furnished by them.  They also make out fictitious claims against the poor fellows, and pocket the three months’ wages advanced by the owners or masters of the vessels on which the unfortunates are shipped.

The merchants of the city have also organized a “Seamen’s Exchange,” the objects of which are thus set forth by the Association:

“The objects of this Association shall be the moral, mental, and social improvement of seamen, to elevate their character and efficiency as a class, and to protect them from impositions and abuses at home and abroad.

“To build up such an organization of respectable seamen as will command the respect of the community, enable ship-owners to protect themselves from the imposition of worthless and disorderly characters claiming to be seamen, but disgracing the name, and secure for their vessels reliable and efficient crews; while at the same time the seaman will be enabled to select good ships and good officers, and thus secure good treatment.”

They propose to attain these objects by the adoption of the following measures:

Our engraving presents a view of the building now in course of erection by the Association.

The ballet seems at last to have found a home in New York, and to have become one of the permanent institutions of the great city,—witness the triumphs of the Black Crook, of Humpty Dumpty, and the spectacular plays of the Grand Opera House.  It must be confessed that it is well done here.  The Black Crook carries off the palm.  Its ballets are the best arranged and the best executed, and its dancers are as good looking and attractive as ballet girls ever are.

There are several hundred girls and women in New York who earn their living by dancing in the ballets of the various theatres.  The Black Crook alone employs about one hundred.  Those who have seen these damsels in their glory, in the full glare of the foot and calcium lights, amidst the most gorgeous surroundings, and under the influence of delicious music, may have come to the conclusion that such a life must be very pleasant.  They little know the experience of a ballet girl.  “It’s a hard life,” said one of them, not long since, “and very little fun in it, if you’re decent.”

The ballet girl always appears on the bills as a miss, but some of them are married, and have to support helpless or worthless husbands.  They are of all nationalities.  The Premières are generally French or Italian—at least on the bills.  These are usually excellent dancers, and are fond of their art.  They are well paid, and as a rule save their money.  Mdlle. Bonafanti received $150 per week from the managers of Niblo’s Theatre.  Mdlle. Morlacchi also receives large sums.  She is a sensible woman, and has invested her earnings in a pretty home in New England, where she spends her summers.

The ballet girl rises about eight o’clock in the morning, and is off to rehearsal by nine.  A duller, more dreary sight than a rehearsal of a ballet by daylight, and in plain dress, cannot be imagined.  The theatre is dark and gloomy, the stage not much lighter, and everything is in confusion.  There is a smell of escaping gas in all parts of the building.  Scattered about the stage are a number of girls and women in half skirts, with fleshings on their legs, and some of them with woollen hose drawn over the fleshings to keep them warm.  They are terribly jaded and hollow eyed, and they seem incapable of being interested in anything.  A very different set from the smiling, graceful houris of the evening before.  At a given signal the music begins, and the girls commence a series of capers which seem utterly ridiculous.  It is downright hard work for the girls, however; and those who are not engaged in leaping, or pirouetting, or wriggling, are leaning against the scenery and panting with fatigue.  The leader of the ballet storms and swears at them, and is made frantic by every little mistake.  The rehearsal occupies several hours.  If there is a matinée that day, it is kept up until it is time for the girls to dress for that performance.  Between the close of the matinée, and the opening of the evening performance, there is not much time for the tired girls to rest.

The performance is not over until near midnight.  Then the dancer must change her dress, fold her stage dress carefully away, make up her bundle, and set out for home.  The principal dancers, such as Bonafanti, and Morlacchi, of course, have an easier time than the ordinary ballet girls, but all work hard.

It is commonly supposed that the ballet-dancer is of necessity an impure woman.  Too many of them are; but, as a class, they are much abused.  They work hard, and do not have much leisure time, and deserve more sympathy than reproach.  Men, especially, think that, because they appear on the stage in a state of semi-nudity, they are immodest and of easy virtue; and in New York there is a class of men, of nominal respectability, who appear to regard ballet-dancers as their legitimate prey.  They exert all their arts to lead these poor girls astray, and are too often successful.  There is not a ballet-dancer in the city but can tell many a tale of persecutions of this kind; and if ever the devil employed a legion of emissaries to do his work, they must be the grinning, leering men who occupy the front seats in the theatres during the ballet performances, and who spend their leisure time in seeking to compass the ballet-girl’s ruin.

The majority of the ballet-dancers dwell with their parents, but many of those in the upper ranks of the profession like the freedom of Bleecker street, and reside in that thoroughfare.  Thompson street also contains several boarding-houses patronized by dancers and burlesque actresses.  A writer in the New York World gives the following clever sketch of the more prosperous ballet-girl at home:

“It was strictly a theatrical boarding-house, and all the young ladies were dancers.  ‘It would never do to have anybody else here.  Mrs. Sullivan is Miss Jones’s dresser at the “Adelphi,” and she has kept house here some years.  Her husband was an actor, and he went to California and never came back.  She’s a dear good woman, and treats us like her daughters.’

“‘How many of you board here?’

“‘Thirteen.  All of them are high-priced dancers—no ballet and utility girls here.  No, sir!  We pay $10 to $15 a week for board.  She treats us like her own family.’

“The next room was occupied by ‘a very great swell,’ the première danseuse of the ‘Lyceum’.  It contained a superb piano littered with stage properties, dresses, and general odds and ends.  The furniture was of splendid quality, and large tinted photographs of prominent French ‘professionals,’ including an unusually prepossessing likeness of Schneider, decked the walls.  Satin tights, exquisitely pink, hung out of a half-open trunk.  The danseuse was seated at a small table, her own profuse golden hair coiled after an indolent fashion, while her diamonded fingers were hard at work saturating some superb yellow tresses in a saucerful of colorless fluid, a bleaching agent for continuing the lustre of blond hair.  A clamorous parrot trolled a bar or two of ‘Un Mari Sage’ overhead, and a shaggy poodle lay couched in leonine fashion at her feet, munching a handsome though fractured fan.  A well-directed kick of her dainty little slippered foot sent the sacrilegious animal flying on the entrance of the two invaders.  This was Mademoiselle Helene Devereux, a young lady who twirled her toes for a salary scarcely less than that of the President of the United States.  French by birth, she spoke English with a pure accent.  She seemed much amused at the errand of her masculine visitor.

“‘Devereux’s nice, isn’t she?’ said Miss Bell.  ‘She’s very good, and she’s plucky.  A fellow once followed her home from rehearsal, chirping to her all the way.  She said nothing, but went right on into the livery stable next door.  The fellow went in after her, and she snatched a carriage whip out of the office, and, oh my! didn’t she thrash him?  Nobody interfered, and she whipped him till her arm ached.  Ever since then she’s been receiving dreadful letters, and so has Mrs. Sullivan.  She can’t find out who sends them, and she’s never seen the fellow again.’”

I.  THE DESERVING POOR.

Poverty is a terrible misfortune in any city.  In New York it is frequently regarded as a crime.  But whether the one or the other, it assumes here proportions which it does not reach in other American communities.  The city is overrun with those who are classed as paupers, and in spite of the great efforts made to relieve them, their suffering is very great.

The deserving poor are numerous.  They have been brought to their sad condition by misfortune.  A laboring man may die and leave a widow with a number of small children dependent on her exertions.  The lot of such is very hard.  Sickness may strike down a father or mother, and thus deprive the remaining members of a family of their accustomed support, or men and women may be thrown out of work suddenly, or may be unable to procure employment.  Again, a man may bring himself and his family to want by drunkenness.  If the children are too young to earn their bread, the support of the family falls upon the wife.  Whatever may be the cause of the misfortune, the lot of the poor in New York is very hard.  Their homes are the most wretched tenement houses, and they are compelled to dwell among the most abandoned and criminal part of the population.  No wonder poverty is so much dreaded here.  The poor man has little, if any, chance of bettering his condition, and he is gradually forced down lower and lower in the scale of misery, until death steps in to relieve him, or he takes refuge in suicide.

Thanks to the Missionaries, many of the deserving poor have been brought under the constant care of the Mission Establishments, from which they receive the assistance they need.  Yet there are many who cannot be reached, or at least cannot be aided effectively.  The officers of the Howard Mission relate many touching incidents of the suffering that has come under their notice.

The mother at length fell ill, and the child in despair applied to the Howard Mission for aid, which she received.  Food and clothing were given to the mother, but they were of little use to her, as she died within two days.  The breath had scarcely left her body, when the wretches who occupied the outer cellar stripped her of all her clothing, and left her naked.  She was wrapped in an old sheet, put into a pine box, nailed up and buried in the potter’s field, without the pretence of a funeral.

The little girl, now left alone, succeeded in obtaining some sewing.  She worked on one occasion from Tuesday until Saturday, making eleven dozen leaves for trimming ladies’ velvet cloaks.  She furnished her own thread, and paid her own car fare.  She received eight cents a dozen for the leaves, or eighty-eight cents in all, or less than the thread and car fare had actually cost her.  The officers of the Howard Mission now came to her aid, and gave her a home in their blessed haven of rest.

One of the evening papers, about a year ago, contained the following “Incident of City Life:”

“‘Happy soul! thy days are ended,
  Leave thy trials here below:
Go, by angel guards attended,
  To the breast of Jesus, go!’

“Well, she died that night, and I am sure she is in heaven now.”

Great efforts are made by the organized charities of the city to relieve the sufferings of the deserving poor.  Prominent among these charities is the “Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor.”  The object of the Society is to help them by enabling them to help themselves and gradually to lift them up out of the depths of poverty.  The city is divided into small districts, each of which is in charge of a visitor, whose duty it is to seek out the deserving poor.  All the assistance is given through these visitors, and nothing is done, except in extreme cases, until the true condition of the applicant is ascertained.  Money is never given, and only such supplies as are not likely to be improperly used.  Every recipient of the bounty of the Society is required to abstain from intoxicating liquors, to send young children to school, and to apprentice those of a suitable age.  During the twenty-seven years of its existence, ending October 1st, 1870, the Society has expended in charities the sum of $1,203,767, and has given relief to 180,000 families, or 765,000 persons.  The office of the Society is in the Bible House.

II.  THE BEGGARS.

The New York beggars are mainly foreigners.  Scarcely an American is seen on the streets in this capacity.  Every year the number is increasing.  Foreigners who were professional beggars in their own countries, are coming over here to practise their trades, and these make New York their headquarters.  It is estimated that there are more professional beggars here than in all the other cities of the country combined.

Broadway, and especially Fourteenth street, Union Square, and the Fifth avenue are full of them.  They represent all forms of physical misfortune.  Some appear to have but one leg, others but one arm.  Some are blind, others horribly deformed.  Some are genuine cripples, but the majority are sound in body.  They beg because the business is profitable, and they are too lazy to work.  The greater the semblance of distress, the more lucrative is their profession.  Women hire babies, and post themselves in the thoroughfares most frequented by ladies.  They generally receive a considerable sum during the course of the day.  Others again provide themselves with a basket, in which they place a wretched display of shoestrings which no one is expected to buy, and station themselves in Broadway to attract the attention of the charitably disposed.  The most daring force their way into private houses and the hotels and demand assistance with the most brazen effrontery.  They hang on to you with the utmost determination, exposing the most disgusting sights to your gaze, and annoying you so much that you give them money in order to be rid of them.  They, in their turn, mark you well, and remember you when you pass them again.

Besides these street beggars, there are numbers of genteel, and doubtless well-meaning persons who make it their business to beg for others.  They intrude upon you at the most inconvenient times, and venture into your private apartments with a freedom and assurance which positively amaze you.  Refuse them, and they are insulting.

Then there are those who approach you by means of letters.  They send you the most pitiful appeals for aid, and assure you that nothing but the direst necessity induces them to send you such a letter, and that they would not do so under any circumstances, were not they aware of your well-known charitable disposition.  Some persons of known wealth receive as many as a dozen letters of this kind each day.  They are, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, from impostors, and are properly consigned to the waste-basket.

Housekeepers have frequent applications every day for food.  These are generally complied with, as, in all families of moderate size, there is much that must either be given or thrown away.  Children and old people generally do this kind of begging.  They come with long faces and pitiful voices, and ask for food in the most doleful tones.  Grant their requests, and you will be amused at the cool manner in which they will produce large baskets, filled with provisions, and deposit your gift therein.  Many Irish families find all their provisions in this way.

Carlyle’s savage description of the people of England—“Eighteen millions of inhabitants, mostly fools”—is not applicable to his countrymen alone.  It may be regarded as descriptive of the world at large, if the credulity, or to use a more expressive term, “the gullibility” of men is to be taken as a proof that they are “fools.”  Many years ago a sharp-witted scamp appeared in one of the European countries, and offered for sale a pill which he declared to be a sure protection against earthquakes.  Absurd as was the assertion, he sold large quantities of his nostrum and grew rich upon the proceeds.  The credulity which enriched this man is still a marked characteristic of the human race, and often strikingly exhibits itself in this country.  During the present winter a rumor went out that a certain holy woman, highly venerated by the Roman Catholic Church, had predicted on her death-bed, that during the month of February, 1872, there would be three days of intense darkness over the world, in which many persons would perish, and that this darkness would be so intense that no light but that of a candle blessed by the Church could penetrate it.  A Roman Catholic newspaper in Philadelphia ventured to print this prophecy, and immediately the rush for consecrated candles was so great on the part of the more ignorant members of that Church, that the Bishop of the Diocese felt himself obliged to publicly rebuke the superstition.  This credulity manifests itself in nearly every form of life.  The quack doctors or medical impostors, to whom we shall devote this chapter, live upon it, and do all in their power to encourage it.

It may be safely said that no honest and competent physician will undertake to treat cases by letter.  No one worthy of patronage will guarantee a cure in any case, for an educated practitioner understands that cases are many and frequent where the best human skill may be exerted in vain.  Further than this, a physician of merit will not advertise himself in the newspapers, except to announce the location of his office or residence.  Such physicians are jealous of their personal and professional reputations, and are proud of their calling, which is justly esteemed one of the noblest on earth.  They are men of humanity, and learning, and they take more pleasure in relieving suffering than in making money.  To those who have no money they give their services in the name of the Great Healer of all ills.  They have no private remedies.  Their knowledge is freely given to the scientific world that all men may be benefited by it, contenting themselves with the enjoyments of the fame of their discoveries.

The quack, however, is a different being.  In some cases he has medical knowledge, in the majority of instances he is an ignoramus.  His sole object is to make money, and he sells remedies which he knows to be worthless, and even vends drugs which he is sure will do positive harm in the majority of cases.

The best plan is never to answer a medical advertisement.  There are regular physicians enough in the land, and if one is influenced by motives of economy, he is pursuing a mistaken course in dealing with the advertising quack doctors of New York.  If there is real trouble, so much the greater is the need of the advice of an educated and conscientious physician.  If concealment is desired, the patient is safe in the confidential relations which every honest physician observes towards those under his care.  A man is simply a fool to swallow drugs or compounds of whose nature he is ignorant, or to subject himself to treatment at the hands of one who has no personal knowledge of his case.

Dr. Harris, the recent Superintendent of the Board of Health of New York, has frequently pointed out the evils resulting from the use of these compounds.  Dr. Sayre mentions several cases of fatal poisoning by the use of hair dye, which came under his notice.

The newspapers frequently contain such advertisements as the following:

A RETIRED PHYSICIAN, OF FORTY YEARS’ practice, discovered, while in India, a sure remedy for consumption, bronchitis, colds, etc.  Having relinquished his practice, he has no further use for the remedy, and will send it free on receipt of a three cent stamp to pay return postage.

The letters “Y.M.C.A.” are familiar to every city and town of importance in the Union, and are well known to be the initials of one of the most praiseworthy organizations in the world.  It is needless to enter into any general account of the Young Men’s Christian Association, and I shall devote this chapter to a description of the means employed by that body to carry on its work in the metropolis.  A writer in Harper’s Magazine has aptly described the headquarters of the Association as a “Club House.”  “For such it is,” he adds, “both in its appliances and its purposes, though consecrated neither to politics, as are some, to social festivities, degenerating too often into gambling and intemperance, as are others, nor to literature and polite society, as are one or two, but to the cause of good morals, of pure religion, and of Him who is the divine Inspirer of the one and the divine Founder of the other.”

The building thus referred to is located on the southwest corner of Fourth avenue and Twenty-third street, and is one of the handsomest and most attractive edifices in the city.  The locality is admirably chosen.  It is in full sight of the Fifth avenue and the neighboring hotels, and but one block east of Madison Square.  On the opposite side of Twenty-third street is the beautiful Academy of Design; diagonally opposite is the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and immediately across Fourth avenue is the splendid structure of St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church.  It is but three minutes’ walk from the stages and cars on Broadway, and two of the most important lines of street cars pass its doors.  No better location could have been chosen.

On the opposite side of the main hall is the Reception Room of the Association, at one side of which is a door leading into the office of the Secretary, who is the executive officer.  Adjoining the Reception Room are the Social Parlors and the Reading Room, in the latter of which the leading journals of the country are on file.  The parlors are used for receptions and other social reunions of the members.  From the Reception Room a flight of stairs leads directly down to the gymnasium and bowling-alley, where are to be found all the appliances for the development of “muscular Christianity” in its highest form.

On the third floor, which is on a level with the gallery of the Lecture Room, are rooms for prayer meetings, Bible classes, and week day classes for instruction in modern languages and other studies.  Adjoining these is a handsome Library Room.  The collection of books is increasing rapidly, and promises to be both valuable and useful.