CHAPTEE III.

UP SLArGHTEE ALLEY, OB LIFE IN A TENEMENT-HOUSE—A
TOUR THROUGH HOMES OF MISERY, WANT, AND WOE
— DRINK'S DOINGS.

Why Called Slaughter Alley — Kicking a Missionary Downstairs — Life and
Scenes in Tenement-Houses — Voices and Shapes in the Darkness — My
Tour with the Doctor — Picking our Way through Slime and Filth —
"Mammy's Lookin' for You"—"Murtherin' Dinnis" — Misery and
Squalor Side hy Side — Stalwart Tim—In the Presence of Death — "I
Want to go, but I'm Willin' to Wait" — Patsy—A Five-Year-Old
Washerwoman—Sickening Odors — Human Beasts — Dangerous Places

— "Mike Gim'me a Dollar for the Childer" — The Charity of tlie Poor

— "Oh, Wurra, me Heart's Sick in me" — Homes Swarming with
Rats — Alive with Vermin and Saturated with Filth — The Omnipresent
Saloon — A Nursery of Criminals and Drunkards — The Terrible Influ¬
ence of Drink — Conceived in Sin and Born in Iniquity — Tlie Dreadful
Tenement-House System.

WHY " Slaughter " Alley, who shall say, since among its
inhabitants not one can tell. No map of New York
holds the name, but from the fact that one of the oldest inhab¬
itants reports that it was once Butcher Alley one may conclude
two things: either that more than one murder done at this
point has given it right to the name, or that it has arisen from
the slaughter of the innocents, — the babies, who die here
in summer like rats in a hole. And in the old days, when this
whole seething, turbulent spot was quiet meadows sloping to
the East Elver, there may have been, as vague tradition in¬
dicates, an actual slaughter-house, cleaner, we will warrant,
than any successor found to-day.

Be this as it may, the name has established its right to per¬
manence, and the alley shall make its revelation of what one
form of New York tenement-house has for its occupants.

To one familiar with the story of old New York, Eoose-