"  Clear  out,  you  dirty  brats — away  with  you,  lousy  beggars
— home  to  your  kennel,  young  thieves.  Don't  come  on  these
steps  again,  or  I  will  throw  your  corn  in  the  gutter."

Are  these  the  words  to  work  reform  ?  They  are  such  as
fall  every  day  and  night  upon  the  ear  of  just  such  specimens
of  the  young  sprouts  of  humanity,  that  vegetate  and  grow  a
brief  summer  in  the  city,  dying  in  some  of  the  chill  winters
of  neglect,  that  come  over  their  tender  years,  blighting,  freez
ing,  killing.  How  little  of  the  gold,  Cerberus  guards,  would
serve  to  warm  these  two  young  children  into  useful  life.  How
little  those  who  guard  or  use  it,  care  for  those  they  drive


LIFE     SCENES     IN     NEW    YORK.  19

unfeelingly  away  from  their  door  steps — for  what?  They
have  made  it  a  place  of » convenience  for  their  nightly  trade.
Tired  of  walking,  carrying  a  heavy  pail  between  them — heavy
to  them — it  would  be  light,  and  were  it  all  gold,  compared
with  that  within — they  have  sat  themselves  down,  and  just
uttered  one  brief  cry  of  "Hot  corn,  here's  your  nice  hot
corn  !"  when  they  are  roughly  ordered  to  "  clear  out,  you  dirty
brats."  Yes,  they  are  dirty,  poor,  and  miserable,  children  of
a  drunken  father — who  made  them  so  ?  No  matter.  They
are  so,  and  little  has  that  gold  done  to  make  them  otherwise.
