It is a human
impulse, I suppose. We all like to be thought well of by our fellows.
But at 3 A.M. the veneering is off and you see the true grain of
a thing. So, also, I got a picture of the Bend upon my mind which
so soon as I should be able to transfer it to that of the community
would help settle with that pig-sty according to its deserts. It was
not fit for Christian men and women, let alone innocent children,
to live in, and therefore it had to go. So with the police
lodging-rooms, some of the worst of which were right there, at the
Mulberry Street Station and around the corner in Elizabeth Street.
The way of it never gave me any concern that I remember. That would
open as soon as the truth was told. The trouble was that people
did not know and had no means of finding out for themselves. But
I had. Accordingly I went poking about among the foul alleys
and fouler tenements of the Bend when they slept in their filth,
sometimes with the policeman on the beat, more often alone, sounding
the misery and the depravity of it to their depth.
Pages:
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269