COMPARA TI VE STREET-PO VERTY. 55 



more about the style of building in the newer and extending parts 

 of the city ; it did not differ much, however, from what you might 

 see at home, in some of the suburbs of Boston for instance. 



It would be more strange to you to see long, narrow streets, 

 full from one end to the other, of the poorest-looking people you 

 ever saw, women and children only, the men being off at work, I 

 suppose, sitting, lounging, leaning on the door-steps and side- 

 walks, smoking, knitting, and chatting; the boys playing ball in 

 the street, or marbles on the flagging ; no break in the line of 

 tall, dreary houses, but strings of clothes hung across from oppo- 

 site second-story windows, to dry ; all dwellings, except a few 

 beer, or junk shops, in the cellars. You can see nothing like 

 such a dead mass of pure poverty in the worst quarter of our 

 worst city. In New York, such a street would be ten times as 

 filthy and stinking, and ten times as lively ; in the middle of it 

 there would be a large fair building, set a little back (would that 

 I could say with a few roods of green turf and shrubbery be- 

 tween it and the gutter, in which the children are playing), with 

 the inscription upon it, "Public Free School;" across from the 

 windows would be a banner with the " Democratic Republican 

 Nominations;" hand organs would be playing, hogs squealing, 

 perhaps a stampede of firemen ; boys would be crying newspa- 

 pers, and the walls would be posted with placards, appealing, 

 with whatever motive, to patriotism and duty, showing that states- 

 men and demagogues could calculate on the people's reading and 

 thinking a little there. There would be gay grog-shops, too, 

 with liberty poles before them, and churches and Sunday school 

 rooms (with lying faces of granite-painted pine) by their side. 

 The countenances of the people here exhibited much less either 

 of virtuous or vicious character, than you would discern among 

 an equally poor multitude in America, yet among the most mis- 

 erable of them (they were Irish) I was struck with some singu- 



