The Republic

Correspondence of the Republic.

New York, July 26—4 p. m.

A Phase of City Life.

Passing along Fulton street this morning, my eye happened to catch the following brief and singularly emphatic announcement, written in a good, bold hand, and pasted on an awning-post, opposite Alderman Stoneall's famous cabaret:

"WANTED,

GOOD DINNER!"

This significant advertisement excited a train of reflection. It struck me as a veritable instance of the true sublime. There is no unnecessary, circumlocutory mode of expression about it, unless the adjective may be obnoxious to severe criticism. There is a pathos about the address which no one can resist who really deserves good dinner. No mock modesty—no false delicacy—no bending of the suppliant knee are here. Webster or Brougham never condensed more lofty eloquence into one brief sentence. The epithet "good," to which I have supposed some rigid rhetoricians might possibly object, rather increases my admiration of this literary production. It discovers that the author is no common candidate for favor. He does not seek the frigid charities of the world in the hope of "cold wittles." He magnifies the office of mendicancy. He asks a "good dinner," and tacitly promises that he will do justice to it. But he gives no clue to his whereabouts. He is as inscrutable as "Junius." Who can he be? But, ah! inscribed on how many awning-posts, and doorways, and crumbling hovels in this great city might we not read far more startling and pathetic announcements than that. All along many a street, and lane, and alley we might, had we clearer vision, read, "For God's sake give me a dinner"—"give me bread"—"give me one morsel of bread!" Is it any wonder that the pestilence should now be smiting down its thousands in our great populous cities? Could you come with me into some of those regions in this crowded metropolis in which hundreds of human beings are crammed into filthy tenements, reeking with pestilential vapors, you would be ready to exclaim that that does indeed look like just retribution, when swiftly destructive disease breaks forth amid these awful abodes of desolation and despair, and carries death and terror into the palaces of the rich, who care not for their suffering brethren. I do not believe that people at a distance form any thing like a correct estimate of the amount of physical destitution which exists in this metropolis. Rents are so enormously high that it is impossible for great masses of the poor to obtain more than a single apartment for a large family, and that, too, in a filthy and unhealthy portion of the city. Often one hundred and fifty human beings will be found crowded together in a house not fit for the accommodation of more than thirty persons! Imagine the result. The stench is overwhelming. There is of course no moral government or discipline, and the noise, blasphemy, disorder, quarreling, and all manner of evil which prevail, are indescribable. Probably about one hundred thousand human beings in this city live in the manner which I have described—that is, in filthy, unventilated, crowded tenements. They consist of the lowest class of artizans, who are dissolute and earn only three or four dollars a week—of chiffoniers or rag-pickers, who collect refuse of all kinds thrown into the streets, bones, rags, and the sweepings of the stores—of pickpockets, thieves and prostitutes of the lowest character—and of German and Irish immigrants, who are induced to linger in this city, destitute of means and unable to obtain any thing but the most precarious employment, and filling the principal streets with beggars. In proportion to its population there is much poverty and destitution, as much abject and revolting pauperism in New York, as in any other city on the globe. Strangers do not know of this, and vast numbers of the better class of our own citizens cannot imagine, as they walk the chief thoroughfares, that such a lamentable state of things can exist. But they who have the means of examining the obscure regions of the metropolis know better. How can any one be surprised then that a pestilential visitation should tell with fearful violence on such a population, embracing in its limits such masses of putrescent and decaying humanity? As I left my house this morning, I saw a miserable creature—a poor, famished, ragged being, that was once a full-grown man, gnawing a raw turnip which he had picked from the gutter! He was a German. "Bad! bad!" I exclaimed, and motioned to the wretched man the poisonous morsel from him. "Oh! nein, nein!" he replied, still eagerly biting at the turnip; "das ist sehr gut!—es ist süss! Ich habe hunger!" ("Oh! no, no! This is good! It is sweet! I am hungry!") I beckoned to him to come with me, and said I would give him something better. Still retaining his dangerous prize, and looking as if half suspecting my good intentions, he followed to my house; and it was only when he received a piece of bread and meat that he threw the turnip away. How long is all this to last? When, oh! when will the rich and pious awake to the conviction that it is not enough to build churches that cost half a million a piece, and send scores of missionaries to Burmah and Seringapatam?