American Notes for General Circulation

by Dickens, Chales

  Each cell door on this side has a square aperture in it. Some of

  the women peep anxiously through it at the sound of footsteps;

  others shrink away in shame. - For what offence can that lonely

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  Dickens, Charles - American Notes for General Circulation

  child, of ten or twelve years old, be shut up here? Oh! that boy?

  He is the son of the prisoner we saw just now; is a witness against

  his father; and is detained here for safe keeping, until the trial;

  that's all.

  But it is a dreadful place for the child to pass the long days and

  nights in. This is rather hard treatment for a young witness, is

  it not? - What says our conductor?

  'Well, it an't a very rowdy life, and THAT'S a fact!'

  Again he clinks his metal castanet, and leads us leisurely away. I

  have a question to ask him as we go.

  'Pray, why do they call this place The Tombs?'

  'Well, it's the cant name.'

  'I know it is. Why?'

  'Some suicides happened here, when it was first built. I expect it

  come about from that.'

  'I saw just now, that that man's clothes were scattered about the

  floor of his cell. Don't you oblige the prisoners to be orderly,

  and put such things away?'

  'Where should they put 'em?'

  'Not on the ground surely. What do you say to hanging them up?'

  He stops and looks round to emphasise his answer:

  'Why, I say that's just it. When they had hooks they WOULD hang

  themselves, so they're taken out of every cell, and there's only

  the marks left where they used to be!'

  The prison-yard in which he pauses now, has been the scene of

  terrible performances. Into this narrow, grave-like place, men are

  brought out to die. The wretched creature stands beneath the

  gibbet on the ground; the rope about his neck; and when the sign is

  given, a weight at its other end comes running down, and swings him

  up into the air - a corpse.

  The law requires that there be present at this dismal spectacle,

  the judge, the jury, and citizens to the amount of twenty-five.

  From the community it is hidden. To the dissolute and bad, the

  thing remains a frightful mystery. Between the criminal and them,

  the prison-wall is interposed as a thick gloomy veil. It is the

  curtain to his bed of death, his winding-sheet, and grave. From

  him it shuts out life, and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood

  in that last hour, which its mere sight and presence is often allsufficient

  to sustain. There are no bold eyes to make him bold; no

  ruffians to uphold a ruffian's name before. All beyond the

  pitiless stone wall, is unknown space.

  Let us go forth again into the cheerful streets.

  Once more in Broadway! Here are the same ladies in bright colours,

  walking to and fro, in pairs and singly; yonder the very same light

  blue parasol which passed and repassed the hotel-window twenty

  times while we were sitting there. We are going to cross here.

  Take care of the pigs. Two portly sows are trotting up behind this

  carriage, and a select party of half-a-dozen gentlemen hogs have

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  just now turned the corner.

  Here is a solitary swine lounging homeward by himself. He has only

  one ear; having parted with the other to vagrant-dogs in the course

  of his city rambles. But he gets on very well without it; and

  leads a roving, gentlemanly, vagabond kind of life, somewhat

  answering to that of our club-men at home. He leaves his lodgings

  every morning at a certain hour, throws himself upon the town, gets

  through his day in some manner quite satisfactory to himself, and

  regularly appears at the door of his own house again at night, like

  the mysterious master of Gil Blas. He is a free-and-easy,

  careless, indifferent kind of pig, having a very large acquaintance

  among other pigs of the same character, whom he rather knows by

  sight than conversation, as he seldom troubles himself to stop and

  exchange civilities, but goes grunting down the kennel, turning up

  the news and small-talk of the city in the shape of cabbage-stalks

  and offal, and bearing no tails but his own: which is a very short

  one, for his old enemies, the dogs, have been at that too, and have

  left him hardly enough to swear by. He is in every respect a

  republican pig, going wherever he pleases, and mingling with the

  best society, on an equal, if not superior footing, for every one

  makes way when he appears, and the haughtiest give him the wall, if

  he prefer it. He is a great philosopher, and seldom moved, unless

  by the dogs before mentioned. Sometimes, indeed, you may see his

  small eye twinkling on a slaughtered friend, whose carcase

  garnishes a butcher's door-post, but he grunts out 'Such is life:

  all flesh is pork!' buries his nose in the mire again, and waddles

  down the gutter: comforting himself with the reflection that there

  is one snout the less to anticipate stray cabbage-stalks, at any

  rate.

  They are the city scavengers, these pigs. Ugly brutes they are;

  having, for the most part, scanty brown backs, like the lids of old

  horsehair trunks: spotted with unwholesome black blotches. They

  have long, gaunt legs, too, and such peaked snouts, that if one of

  them could be persuaded to sit for his profile, nobody would

  recognise it for a pig's likeness. They are never attended upon,

  or fed, or driven, or caught, but are thrown upon their own

  resources in early life, and become preternaturally knowing in

  consequence. Every pig knows where he lives, much better than

  anybody could tell him. At this hour, just as evening is closing

  in, you will see them roaming towards bed by scores, eating their

  way to the last. Occasionally, some youth among them who has overeaten

  himself, or has been worried by dogs, trots shrinkingly

  homeward, like a prodigal son: but this is a rare case: perfect

  self-possession and self-reliance, and immovable composure, being

  their foremost attributes.

  The streets and shops are lighted now; and as the eye travels down

  the long thoroughfare, dotted with bright jets of gas, it is

  reminded of Oxford Street, or Piccadilly. Here and there a flight

  of broad stone cellar-steps appears, and a painted lamp directs you

  to the Bowling Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley; Ten-Pins being a game of

  mingled chance and skill, invented when the legislature passed an

  act forbidding Nine-Pins. At other downward flights of steps, are

  other lamps, marking the whereabouts of oyster-cellars - pleasant

  retreats, say I: not only by reason of their wonderful cookery of

  oysters, pretty nigh as large as cheese-plates (or for thy dear

  sake, heartiest of Greek Professors!), but because of all kinds of

  caters of fish, or flesh, or fowl, in these latitudes, the

  swallowers of oysters alone are not gregarious; but subduing

  themselves, as it were, to the nature of what they work in, and

  copying the coyness of the thing they eat, do sit apart in

  curtained boxes, and consort by twos, not
by two hundreds.

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  But how quiet the streets are! Are there no itinerant bands; no

  wind or stringed instruments? No, not one. By day, are there no

  Punches, Fantoccini, Dancing-dogs, Jugglers, Conjurers,

  Orchestrinas, or even Barrel-organs? No, not one. Yes, I remember

  one. One barrel-organ and a dancing-monkey - sportive by nature,

  but fast fading into a dull, lumpish monkey, of the Utilitarian

  school. Beyond that, nothing lively; no, not so much as a white

  mouse in a twirling cage.

  Are there no amusements? Yes. There is a lecture-room across the

  way, from which that glare of light proceeds, and there may be

  evening service for the ladies thrice a week, or oftener. For the

  young gentlemen, there is the counting-house, the store, the barroom:

  the latter, as you may see through these windows, pretty

  full. Hark! to the clinking sound of hammers breaking lumps of

  ice, and to the cool gurgling of the pounded bits, as, in the

  process of mixing, they are poured from glass to glass! No

  amusements? What are these suckers of cigars and swallowers of

  strong drinks, whose hats and legs we see in every possible variety

  of twist, doing, but amusing themselves? What are the fifty

  newspapers, which those precocious urchins are bawling down the

  street, and which are kept filed within, what are they but

  amusements? Not vapid, waterish amusements, but good strong stuff;

  dealing in round abuse and blackguard names; pulling off the roofs

  of private houses, as the Halting Devil did in Spain; pimping and

  pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, and gorging with coined

  lies the most voracious maw; imputing to every man in public life

  the coarsest and the vilest motives; scaring away from the stabbed

  and prostrate body-politic, every Samaritan of clear conscience and

  good deeds; and setting on, with yell and whistle and the clapping

  of foul hands, the vilest vermin and worst birds of prey. - No

  amusements!

  Let us go on again; and passing this wilderness of an hotel with

  stores about its base, like some Continental theatre, or the London

  Opera House shorn of its colonnade, plunge into the Five Points.

  But it is needful, first, that we take as our escort these two

  heads of the police, whom you would know for sharp and well-trained

  officers if you met them in the Great Desert. So true it is, that

  certain pursuits, wherever carried on, will stamp men with the same

  character. These two might have been begotten, born, and bred, in

  Bow Street.

  We have seen no beggars in the streets by night or day; but of

  other kinds of strollers, plenty. Poverty, wretchedness, and vice,

  are rife enough where we are going now.

  This is the place: these narrow ways, diverging to the right and

  left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as

  are led here, bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse

  and bloated faces at the doors, have counterparts at home, and all

  the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses

  prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and

  how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes

  that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of those pigs live

  here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu

  of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting?

  So far, nearly every house is a low tavern; and on the bar-room

  walls, are coloured prints of Washington, and Queen Victoria of

  England, and the American Eagle. Among the pigeon-holes that hold

  the bottles, are pieces of plate-glass and coloured paper, for

  there is, in some sort, a taste for decoration, even here. And as

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  seamen frequent these haunts, there are maritime pictures by the

  dozen: of partings between sailors and their lady-loves, portraits

  of William, of the ballad, and his Black-Eyed Susan; of Will Watch,

  the Bold Smuggler; of Paul Jones the Pirate, and the like: on

  which the painted eyes of Queen Victoria, and of Washington to

  boot, rest in as strange companionship, as on most of the scenes

  that are enacted in their wondering presence.

  What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A

  kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only

  by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies beyond this tottering

  flight of steps, that creak beneath our tread? - a miserable room,

  lighted by one dim candle, and destitute of all comfort, save that

  which may be hidden in a wretched bed. Beside it, sits a man: his

  elbows on his knees: his forehead hidden in his hands. 'What ails

  that man?' asks the foremost officer. 'Fever,' he sullenly

  replies, without looking up. Conceive the fancies of a feverish

  brain, in such a place as this!

  Ascend these pitch-dark stairs, heedful of a false footing on the

  trembling boards, and grope your way with me into this wolfish den,

  where neither ray of light nor breath of air, appears to come. A

  negro lad, startled from his sleep by the officer's voice - he

  knows it well - but comforted by his assurance that he has not come

  on business, officiously bestirs himself to light a candle. The

  match flickers for a moment, and shows great mounds of dusty rags

  upon the ground; then dies away and leaves a denser darkness than

  before, if there can be degrees in such extremes. He stumbles down

  the stairs and presently comes back, shading a flaring taper with

  his hand. Then the mounds of rags are seen to be astir, and rise

  slowly up, and the floor is covered with heaps of negro women,

  waking from their sleep: their white teeth chattering, and their

  bright eyes glistening and winking on all sides with surprise and

  fear, like the countless repetition of one astonished African face

  in some strange mirror.

  Mount up these other stairs with no less caution (there are traps

  and pitfalls here, for those who are not so well escorted as

  ourselves) into the housetop; where the bare beams and rafters meet

  overhead, and calm night looks down through the crevices in the

  roof. Open the door of one of these cramped hutches full of

  sleeping negroes. Pah! They have a charcoal fire within; there is

  a smell of singeing clothes, or flesh, so close they gather round

  the brazier; and vapours issue forth that blind and suffocate.

  From every corner, as you glance about you in these dark retreats,

  some figure crawls half-awakened, as if the judgment-hour were near

  at hand, and every obscene grave were giving up its dead. Where

  dogs would howl to lie, women, and men, and boys slink off to

  sleep, forcing the dislodged rats to move away in quest of better

  lodgings.

  Here too are lanes and alleys, paved with mud knee-deep,

  underground chambers, where they dance and game; the walls bedecked

  with rough designs of ships, and forts, and flags, and American

  eagles out of number: ruined ho
uses, open to the street, whence,

  through wide gaps in the walls, other ruins loom upon the eye, as

  though the world of vice and misery had nothing else to show:

  hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and murder:

  all that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here.

  Our leader has his hand upon the latch of 'Almack's,' and calls to

  us from the bottom of the steps; for the assembly-room of the Five

  Point fashionables is approached by a descent. Shall we go in? It

  is but a moment.

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  Heyday! the landlady of Almack's thrives! A buxom fat mulatto

  woman, with sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily ornamented with

  a handkerchief of many colours. Nor is the landlord much behind

  her in his finery, being attired in a smart blue jacket, like a

  ship's steward, with a thick gold ring upon his little finger, and

  round his neck a gleaming golden watch-guard. How glad he is to

  see us! What will we please to call for? A dance? It shall be

  done directly, sir: 'a regular break-down.'

  The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the

  tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra

  in which they sit, and play a lively measure. Five or six couple

  come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively young negro, who is the

  wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known. He never

  leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest,

  who grin from ear to ear incessantly. Among the dancers are two

  young mulatto girls, with large, black, drooping eyes, and headgear

  after the fashion of the hostess, who are as shy, or feign to

  be, as though they never danced before, and so look down before the

  visitors, that their partners can see nothing but the long fringed

  lashes.

  But the dance commences. Every gentleman sets as long as he likes

  to the opposite lady, and the opposite lady to him, and all are so

  long about it that the sport begins to languish, when suddenly the

  lively hero dashes in to the rescue. Instantly the fiddler grins,

  and goes at it tooth and nail; there is new energy in the

  tambourine; new laughter in the dancers; new smiles in the

  landlady; new confidence in the landlord; new brightness in the

  very candles.

  Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his