John Marsh's millions Author:Charles Klein Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XI. The Bowery, that Broadway of the slums, odoriferous sink of cosmopolitan pauperism, degradation, and crime, wore its familiar, everyday aspect of ... more »ugly squalor and vice—grimy, dilapidated rookeries, dark, sinister hallways, filthy, greasy pavements littered with decayed fruit skins, gutters choked up with offensive black slime, suspicious- looking characters, abominable stenches of sauerkraut and stale beer which offended the nostrils on every side. On the slender rails high overhead occasional trains crashed by with a sullen roar; in the middle of the roadway rushing trolley cars noisily clanged their warning gongs, while on either sidewalk stretching as far south as the City Hall cheap clothing shops, tough saloons, low dance halls, pawnbrokers, penny arcades, vaudeville shows, displayed their gaudy signs. Up and down pushed and jostled a perspiring and motley crowd —bearded Jew peddlers, pallid sweat-shop workers, Chinese, flashily dressed "toughs," furtive-eyed pickpockets, sailors on shore leave, factory girls,painted street walkers, slouching longshoremen, tattered tramps, derelicts of both sexes—an appalling host of unkempt, unwashed, evil-smelling humanity. In the side streets, just off the main thoroughfare, conditions were even more congested and depressing. On either hand ricketty, grimy tenements were alive with bearded Russians, fierce- looking Italians, vociferating Irish, pot-bellied Germans. From broken windows hung clotheslines bending under the load of newly washed rags; on flimsy, rusty fire-escapes were jammed filthy mattresses on which slept the wretched occupants, glad to escape from the foul air and heat within; dark stairways and stoops were thronged with neglected, consumptive children. The evil smells were so numerous that it was impossib...« less