CHAPTEE  XVII.

LURKING PLACES OP SIN —FACE TO FACE WITH CRIME —
CELLAR HAUNTS AND UNDERGROUND RESORTS OP CRIMI¬
NALS—THE STORY OP JIM, AN EX-CONVICT.

The Slums of New York—Cellar Harbors for Criminals — Face to Face with
Crime — Old Michael Dunn — A Tour through Criminal Haunts — Jim
Tells the Story of his Life — Sleeping in Packing Boxes, Boilers, and
Water Pipes — My Visit to one of his Hiding Places — A Thrilling Experi¬
ence in a Damp and Mouldy Cellar — Locked in—A Mad Fight for Life—
Floating on a Plank — Underground Resorts of Pickpockets and Thieves

— How River Thieves Operate — A Midnight Expedition — An Evil Re¬
gion —Young Ruffians and Sneak Thieves—Patroling the Streets at Night

— The Policeman's Story — Open Vice of Every Form — Lurking Places
of Criminals — Sneak Thieves — Dangerous Localities— " Hell's Kitchen"
Hope for the Future.

NOT the least surprising experience of one who has learned
to know the slums in every aspect is the flat denial of
most NeY' Yorkers that they exist save in the slightest degree.

"All exaggeration, every word of it," said an energetic
business man to me only the other day, — one who every day
of his life Y'alked down to his office, his way lying Y'ithin a
stone's throw of some of the worst sights New York has to
offer. Two minutes from Broadway would take him into the
" Great Bend " on Mulberry Street, and his own place of busi¬
ness has at its back a nest of tenement-houses, one, at least,
with a cellar which has harbored many a criminal. Neverthe¬
less, like many another, he knows nothing of the wretched life
existing almost under his eyes.

Of the same mental order are certain good women, long
members of the Charity Organization Society, but so absorbed
in the Y'ork of their pet institution as to be quite insensible to
any form of life going on without the scope of their somewhat
limited vision.    They, too, think this talk about the misery of

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