Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/89

 they passed out of the Tombs and boarded an uptown car.

"A derrick at work in that wreck yesterday fell on a working-man. He has a wife and four children. We must see how he is getting on."

They got off on the Bowery, turned down a cross street toward the East River, threading their way through the masses of people jamming the sidewalks, and dodging missiles from dirty children screaming and romping at play.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Kate, "I thought Broadway and Fifth Avenue and the shopping districts crowded—but this is beyond belief! I didn't know there were so many people in the world."

"And what you see, just a drop in the ocean of humanity. There are miles and miles of these tenements in New York—square mile after square mile, packed from cellar to attic. We have a million and a half crowded behind these grim walls on this island alone."

"Surely not all so ugly and wretched as these?"

"Many worse. But don't let the outside deceive you. Back of these nightmares of scorched mud, festooned with shabby clothes, are thousands of brave loving men and women, living their lives cheerfully, not asking us for pity. Even in this squalor grow beautiful, innocent girls like flowers in a muck-heap. When I see these children growing up thus into fair men and women with such sur-