From them there was no appeal. It was not the only instance
of the kind by a good many. Neither the landlord's protests nor
the tenant's plea "went" in face of the camera's evidence, and I
was satisfied.
[Illustration: Lodgers at Five Cents a Spot]
I had at last an ally in the fight with the Bend. It was needed,
worse even than in the campaign against the police lodging-houses,
for in that we were a company, in the Bend I was alone. From the
day--I think it was in the winter of 1886--when it was officially
doomed to go by act of legislature until it did go, nine years
later, I cannot remember that a cat stirred to urge it on. Whether
it was that it had been bad so long that people thought it could not
be otherwise, or because the Five Points had taken all the reform
the Sixth Ward had coming to it, or because, by a sort of tacit
consent, the whole matter was left to me as the recognized Mulberry
Bend crank--whichever it was, this last was the practical turn it
took. I was left to fight it out by myself. Which being so, I laid
in a stock of dry plates and buckled to.
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