Standing on the steps of the Astor House, New York, one cheerless forenoon in early June, with my carpet-bag in one hand and my fresh medical diploma in the other, with a heavy weight of sorrow at my heart, and only sixteen cents in my pocket, I presented, to myself at least, a picture of such utter despair as words are inadequate to express.[4]
My home—no; I had none—the home, rather, of my kind old father-in-law, where dwelt, for the time being, my wife and child, was many hundred miles away. And how was I to reach it? I could not walk that distance, and sixteen cents would not carry me there. I looked up Broadway, and I looked down towards the Battery. I was alone amid an immense sea of humans, which ebbed and flowed continually past me. O, how wistfully I looked to see if there might be one face amongst the throng which I might recognize! but there was none. Strange, passing strange, not one of that host did I ever gaze upon before! Where—how—should I raise the money necessary to take me from this land of strangers?
“Pinny, sir? Just one pinny. Me father is broken up, and me mither is sick at home. For God’s sake give me jist one pinny to buy me some bread.”
I turned my gaze upon the picture of squalor and wretchedness just by my side. I need not describe her; she was just like a thousand others in that great Babel.
“Here is doubtless a case of distress, but it is not of the heart, like mine. Such poor have no heart. Skin, muscle, head, stomach! heart, none!”
“Where is your father, did you say?” I asked, mechanically.
“In the Slarter-house; broken up from a fall from a stagin’ in Twenty-sixth Street, sir,” replied the beggar-girl, still extending her hand for a penny.
“What is he doing in a slaughter-house, sis?” I inquired.
“The Slarter-house is Bellyvew horse-pittle, sir; that’s what we Irish call it, sir. Will ye give me the pinny, sir?”
