New York City Sightseeing Tours

im may have been forced on by circumstances which an experienced officer can understand and appreciate. In such cases he generally leans to the side of mercy, for the men of the New York force are kind and humane. Their advice to the party against whom the offence has been committed, is not to resort to the law, but to try the offender again. In this way they have saved many a soul from the ruin which an exposure and punishment would have caused, and have brought back many an erring one to the paths of virtue and integrity. There are men of tried honesty in this city to-day, men holding responsible positions, whose lives, "Could their story but be told," would verify this assertion. CHAPTER XVII. FIVE POINTS. Leave Broadway opposite the New York Hospital, and pass down Pearl street in an easterly direction. Five minutes walking will bring you to the abode of poverty and suffering, a locality which contrasts strangely with the elegant thoroughfare we have just left. Cross Centre street, and continue your eastward course, and a few minutes will bring you to Park street. Turn short to the left, follow the line of Park street, and in a few minutes you will see that blessed beacon light in this great sea of human misery and sin, the "Five Points Mission." You are now fairly in the heart of the Five Points district. It is a horrible place, and you shudder as you look at it. The streets are dark and narrow, the dwellings are foul and gloomy, and seem filled with mystery and crime. It is the worst quarter of the city, and from here, over to East River, you will scarcely find it any better. Yet, bad as it is, it is infinitely better than the Five Points of fifteen or even ten years ago. Then the place was notorious for its crimes. Murders, robberies, outrages of all kinds, were of daily occurrence. The officers of the law dared not enter the district for the purpose of suppressing crime, and fugitives from justice found a safe refuge here. A man who entered the district carried his life in his hand, and unless he was either in secret or open league with the denizens of the quarter, was tolerably sure of losing it. Now there is vice and crime enough there, Heaven knows, but the neighborhood has vastly improved. The steady advance of business and trade up the island has broken up many of the vilest dens of the quarter, and has made travel through its streets more constant. Besides this, the new police system has made the neighborhood safe, except at certain hours of the night, by thoroughly patrolling it, and promptly punishing disorder and violence. The character of the inhabitants has also improved, and the district now contains thousands who are poor without being criminal. The disreputable classes have been scattered, too, and no longer herd together around the "Old Brewery," which was once the chosen headquarters of crime. The Mission now occupies that locality, and the work of the Lord is going on where the Devil once reigned supreme. THE POPULATION. Still, as we have said, crime and want are plentiful at the Five Points. The Fourth, and Sixth wards, which constitute this district, are known as the most wretched and criminal in the City. They are also the most densely populated--one of them containing more people than the entire State of Delaware. The streets of this section of the city are generally narrow and crooked, and the intense squalor and filth which disfigure them, cause them to seem much darker than they really are. Every house is packed to its utmost capacity. In some of these houses are to be found merely the poor. In others the character of the inmates is such, that no policeman will enter them alone, and not even in parties unless well armed. These buildings seem overflowing with human beings. Half a million of people are crowded into this and the adjacent quarters of the City. One block of this district is said to contain three hundred and eighty-two families. Dirt and filth of all kinds prevail. [Illustration: A den in Baxter street.] Few of the people can read or write, and the only education the children receive is in crime. The houses are almost all entirely out of repair. The stairways are ricketty, and see