Document 6.1

Bayard Taylor, "A Descent into the Depths," The Nation, vol. 2 (March 15, 1866): 332-333

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A DESCENT INTO THE DEPTHS.
DIVERSIONS OF THE FOURTH WARD.

THE Fourth Ward, I believe, is the only rival of the Sixth in its triple distinction of filth, poverty, and vice. At the close of our inspection of the latter we held a consultation with Captain Thorn, who recommended not only a separate night for this district, but also two or three hours during the day, and kindly offered his services as guide and protector. We met, by appointment, on Monday afternoon, at the police station in Oak Street.

The sharp north wind which was blowing not only froze the filth and garbage of the streets into a solid mass, but almost completely deodorized the lanes and alleys we visited. In this respect we were not called upon to endure a very severe trial, but there was still enough left to stimulate the imagination and cause us to shudder as we anticipated the effect of summer heat upon these low-lying, swarming quarters.

Since our exploration of the Five Points, ten days previous, an event had occurred which is destined, let us hope, to relieve the city of much of the reproach and the danger which I have already described. The new Board of Health had been appointed, and the owners of these barracks and cellars becoming suddenly conscious of a change in the atmosphere, began at once to clean and ventilate and purify. The names of Dr. Willard Parker and Mr. Schultz have run far in advance of their official action. Fifteen hundred loads of filth have been already removed from the Fourth Ward, and in many courts and alleys only a dirty tide-mark on the walls remains to tell of their recent condition. Some streets (Cedar Street, for instance) were still ridged up to the height of nearly two feet for their entire length, but the accumulations had been loosened and broken up preparatory to removal.

We first visited some houses in Fisher's Alley, which may possibly be a little better than the dwellings in Cow Bay, though of this I cannot venture to speak positively. There may be slight degrees of comfort - or rather discomfort - perceptible to the inmates, which an inexperienced eye would fail to distinguish. It is difficult to draw comparisons below a certain grade of wretchedness; whether true or false, they are equally odorous. In these houses we found a family in each room, some with half a dozen lodgers in addition. Children swarmed in the dark passages, on the broken stairs, and in the noisome back-yards. The walls were cracked, the ceilings leaky, the broken floors mended, in some places, with barrel-staves nailed over the holes, and the windows so patched and dirty as to exclude much of the light. The rent varied from three to five dollars a month. In almost every instance it had either been recently increased, or an increase was threatened.

The custodian of one of the houses -- a woman with black eyes and bruised nose -- was anxious to impress upon us the fact that the place was soon to be cleaned. Arrangements would be made in a day or two, she said, to remove the great pile of refuse in front of the door. There were also hints of scrubbing and whitewashing; but all such improvements will be very temporary in their effects. There is no permanent cure short of tearing down the buildings.

We next descended into a number of lodging-cellars, not more than one in five of which was lighted, except, perhaps, by a window in the upper part of the door. Dark, damp, unventilated, and so cramped that we were frequently unable to stand upright, these dens paid a rent of from nine to sixteen dollars a month! The price of a night's lodging is fifteen cents. Although we were always careful to leave the door open wherever we entered, a few minutes in such an atmosphere were enough to produce oppression of the lungs and a disagreeable taste in the mouth. What must it be towards morning, after a dozen men and women have been sleeping there for hours?

In the lower part of Cherry Street we found barracks a shade better in appearance, and very much more expensive. The rooms were still miserably shabby and dilapidated, but the ceilings were higher, the windows larger, and some rooms of southern aspect were tolerably cheerful. Here the families have a habit of arranging their crockery in open dressers, the shelves of which are ornamented with cut paper; pictures are common, and the reckless untidiness of the people is chiefly to be seen in their beds. Some of the families occupied two rooms, and furnished board as well as lodging. The fronts of the houses present a better appearance than the rear, but there is little difference in the rent.

In one of the attics we found a German chair-maker sitting at a table, with a bowl of pieces of carrots, potatoes, and turnips before him. He looked at us with an idiotic stare, scarcely answering our questions, though put in his own language, and, finally, after tapping his breast and saying, "I'm sick !" fell to eating again. There was no fire in the stove nor any furniture in the room. Another miserable den brought double the usual rent, because it was a "furnished apartment." The furniture was a bed, two chairs, and a chest of drawers, all on the point of falling to pieces. The inmate, a broad-faced, unkempt girl of seventeen, informed us that a man lived with her. Two other girls, visitors, made a pretence of turning away their heads and laughing, but she faced us with a defiant boldness which might indicate either courage or depravity.

Turning into East Gotham Court we found a block of tenement-houses, upwards of one hundred and fifty feet long, standing at right angles to the street. There were six houses, and twenty families to a house, and a similar block in an adjoining court - making two hundred and forty families, living in the rear of the street, within a space a hundred yards long. The narrow alley-way which gave access to these dwellings was pierced, at regular intervals, with open gratings, down which we looked into a continuous open sewer, the common sink of all. It was fortunate for us that the keen cold kept down its terrible exhalations. There was only one thing to be said in favor of these blocks, and a similar one upon the other side of the street - the cellars were not inhabited.

Two hours sufficed to make us acquainted with the life of the poorer classes in the ward. After seeing the three varieties - the cellar, the vile back tenement, and the shabby front tenement -our further exploration was simply a repetition. The same state of things was continually reproduced, in different phases of repulsiveness. We grew weary of looking upon a degradation so passively accepted.

Captain Thorn promised us a different experience for the evening, and we were not disappointed. We proposed seeing the diversions, the delights, the indulgences, of the same class of people, to whom the dance-houses of Water Street are what the Academy of Music is to the dwellers on Murray Hill. We waited until nine o'clock, that the curtain might first fairly rise on the subterranean orgies, and then set out again in the company of our stalwart friend.

Many nationalities are here represented - mixed in some localities, clannishly separated in others. China was the first with which we made acquaintance. Into a basement, along a dark passage, where a furious little dog gave warning of strangers, and the door opened upon a misty atmosphere of opium and tobacco, a perspective of sleeping-berths in the background, and a group of flat Mongolian faces around a table covered with huge dominoes. The pieces were hastily mixed together, and the game broken off, when the captain made his appearance. The landlord, however, greeted us courteously, and some twelve or fifteen of his boarders gathered around, a mild curiosity lurking in their small eyes. The opium-smokers, stretched at full length in the berths, and inhaling the precious vapor through hollow reeds, looked at us listlessly through the mists of their dreams. It was evident that to them we were phantom figures, standing somewhere in remote Space. In an inner room the same indulgence was going on, and the air was dense with the peculiar odor of the drug.

These Chinamen were mostly sailors. Some who had given up the sea, and now sell bad cigars and other cheap commodities, have married Irish women, and are adding a new Celto-Cathayan race to our cosmopolitan population. For board and lodging (the former including, as the landlord informed me, much rice and chop-sticks) they pay two dollars and forty cents per week. Captain Thorn stated that they were the quietest and best behaved people in the ward. Their demeanor to us was polite and respectful and, although I have an exceeding dislike to the Chinese as a race, I could not help acknowledging that these specimens, at least, were by no means so brutalized as their Caucasian brethren next door. Their obtuse moral sense, it seems, does not lead them into such depths of degradation as the perverted moral sense of the Anglo-Saxon. The latter, when he is ignorant, is the most ignorant, when vicious the, vilest, when brutal the most of a brute, of any race on the earth.

A native-American establishment in Water Street was the next point of interest. Viewed from the street it was a drinking saloon, but through a half-open door in the rear came the sound of music and glimpses of white and pink figures. The floor was clean, the bar in admirable order, pictures on the walls, and an air of order -- almost of respectability -- about the whole place. A man of firm, sharp features, and keen, intelligent eye, bade us welcome. We passed through the bar-room and took seats in a rear hall, upwards of fifty feet in length. At the further end, on a platform, sat four musicians; on the floor twelve girls were dancing a quadrille. Half of the latter were décoletées to the last point; their heads were decorated with ribbons and flowers, and their distended skirts reached a little below the knee. They resembled giant children of eight or ten, except that their dancing had none of the grace of childhood. The others, in plain dresses of dark calico, moved like nuns among these bedizened creatures.

Presently the host came into the room, took his station by the door, and commanded a march. The music struck up, and the girls formed a double line across the hall, swaying from side to side in time with the measure. Then commenced a series of evolutions, marching, countermarching, right-about facing, the word of command being given by the host in a loud, sharp tone -- nor those words only, but many a savage reprimand, as some happened to fall out of step or line. His cold, severe, classical face formed the strongest possible contrast both to the scene and the other actors in it. His authority was unquestioned, whether cheerfully acknowledged or not. My friend ordered some refreshment for the dancers, and it was furnished without interrupting the evolutions. The girls fell into single file, marched, still swaying from side to side, to a counter near the music, took, in turn, a glass of something (apparently beer, from its color), emptied it with a "Here's to you, gentlemen!" and danced on.

The proprietor of this place appeared to be a man of considerable intelligence, if not education. He was no common character; his ascendency among those abandoned creatures was the least manifestation of his capacities, and if his gains are in proportion to his shrewdness (which I suspect is the truth), it will be safe to predict that in three years he will be alderman, in five member of the legislature, and that in ten he will have a house -- possibly on Fifth Avenue.

Water Street abounds with dance-houses of similar character. We visited twelve or fifteen, which differed only in the proportions of the dancing-saloons in the rear, and the number of female performers. There are portions of the street where almost every other house is so occupied, and the rents paid by the proprietors are enormous. There are frequently two counters for the sale of liquor, one next the street, and the other at the rear end. Over some of these I saw the notices, "Twenty cents for a dance," and "Ten cents for a drink." Notwithstanding the greater expense, much more dancing than drinking was going on. Perhaps the captain's presence put a stop to the latter indulgence, or it was too soon in the evening; but certainly there was very little drinking to be seen, and no intoxication anywhere.

Towards midnight the dancing became incessant. The Scotch reel seemed to be most popular, though there were occasional waltzes and quadrilles. The male dancers, to judge by their peculiar swing and shuffle, were mostly sailors -- many of them boys of eighteen, or even less. The girls went through their part with a weary, mechanical air, often drawing their naked shoulders together as the cold wind blew upon them. At first, on entering, the general effect was coarse and repulsive; and it was singular how soon this impression was softened by the wonderful sensuous glamour which belongs to music. The air, impure as it was, presently became rhythmic; the dancing figures, though by no means graceful, assumed a fawn-like character, and the real purpose of the establishment, carefully kept in the background, was no longer suggested.

I could easily understand that vice, thus embellished, should be attractive, especially to the inhabitants of the dens we had visited in the afternoon. It is, in appearance at least, a step above their reckless wretchedness. Warmed, lulled into semi-forgetfulness by some potent stimulant and "flattered by music's golden tongue," no one can wonder that a week's earnings are so often spent for a night's dissipation. The exhibition of moderate neatness and partial order, in these places, was so agreeable, by contrast, that I found myself constantly forgetting their disreputable character. The first step towards reclaiming the lower classes of our population must be the introduction of some innocent form of recreation and amusement -- not moral lectures, but music, dances, puppet-shows even -- diversions which give more than the dance-house now offers, without its temptations.

In the midst of this region there is a Mission House, which we also entered. We found a clean, well-lighted hall, with plain benches for the auditory, a platform for speakers, and texts of Scripture upon the walls. The services were over, but the janitor, a gray-headed man, was very enthusiastic in setting forth his own redemption from evil ways. "In two weeks I shall be, eight years old," said he -- "eight years in Christ. I was once a miserable creature; no one would receive me, or have anything to do with me. I tried to join the Odd Fellows, but they would not have me. No more would the Freemasons; for I was a drunken sot. Then at last, I went to Jesus, and he took me just as I was." This old man was the happiest person we saw; he was completely filled and satisfied by his faith.

After we had exhausted the principal attractions of Water Street, Captain Thorn proposed taking us to a "dago crib" - a very mysterious and suggestive term, until I learned that Spaniards were called "dagos," when I guessed that it was simply a corruption of the individual name "Diego" applied to a class. The place was kept by a Messinese Sicilian, married to a Hamburg woman. Dancing of an animated character was going on down the centre of a long room, on either side of which sat a row of villanous-looking Spaniards and Italians, with an occasional German. The glances they shot at us from under scowling brows boded no prepossession in our favor, and the captain's company was more agreeable than ever. Yet the landlord and his assistant were models of graceful courtesy. The former sent for a bottle of sweet Sicilian wine and filled glasses for us, the Hamburg woman joining in the salutation. This place, being more wicked than most of the others, was proportionately interesting, and we spent half an hour watching the appearance and movements of the persons assembled.

A round of the lager-beer saloons of Chatham and William Streets closed our labors for the night. If the dance-houses seemed respectable by contrast with the lodging-cellars, these saloons were aristocratic. Here there was plenty of space, plenty of light, ventilation, ornament, music, and, above all, order and (at least external) decency. The proprietors are semi-cultivated men, most of whom have had a wide experience of the world. The beer is excellent, its quality not having diminished with the size of the glass. Many of the saloons do an immense business and their proprietors are rapidly becoming wealthy. Those in the Fourth Ward are in no wise inferior to the similar establishments on the Bowery.

A few steps up Frankfort Street brought us to a view of the City Hall by moonlight. Here, also, there is a foul atmosphere which no Health Commissioners can purify. Which is worse, vice in low places or dishonesty in high? As I reflected upon this question, I found myself less inclined to pronounce harsh judgment upon the classes we had just visited, seeing how inevitably their phase of poverty produces filth, and filth loss of self-respect, and loss of self-respect vice, and vice crime. More than half the evil in the world springs from material rather than moral sources. And missions, charities, schools, and associations for reform work against wind and tide until we have a good municipal government.

B. T.

NEW YORK, March 8, 1866

The Fourth Ward: Life and Death in New York, 1860-1870 Primary Source Collection 6: Descriptions of Fourth Ward Saloons 6.1: Bayard Taylor, "A Descent into the Depths," The Nation, vol. 2 (March 15, 1866): 332-333 6.2: James Dabney McCabe, excerpt from, "The Wickedest Man in New York", chapter 36 of Secrets of the Great City (Philadelphia: Jones Brothers, 1868) 6.3: McCabe, excerpt from "Kit Burns's," chapter 44 in Ibid. Also from McCabe: Document 4.1: "Sailors' Boarding Houses" See also Primary Source Collection 5: Crime