He was a pious man, I take
it, for when I tried to have him photograph the waifs in the baby
nursery at the Five Points House of Industry, as they were saying
their "Now I lay me down to sleep," and the plate came out blank
the second time, he owned up that it was his doing: it went against
his principles to take a picture of any one at prayers. So I had
to get another man with some trouble and expense. But on the whole
I think the experience was worth what it cost. The spectacle of a
man prevented by religious scruples from photographing children at
prayers, while plotting at the same time to rob his employer, has
been a kind of chart to me that has piloted me through more than
one quagmire of queer human nature. Nothing could stump me after
that. The man was just as sincere in the matter of his scruple as
he was rascally in his business dealings with me.
There was at last but one way out of it; namely, for me to get a
camera myself. This I did, and with a dozen plates took myself up
the Sound to the Potter's Field on its desert island to make my
first observations.
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