MUNICIPAL Lodging House, New York City
Female Showers and Wash Rooms
I started as directed, down to Winter and Darian Streets, to the Galilee Mission. I had proceeded but a short distance when I saw standing on a corner one of the great army of workers. His appearance told me plainly what he was,—his hands were calloused, and his half-worn shoes were covered with a white viscous substance, and a dim mist of lime dust clouded his entire person. I stepped up to him and asked where I could get a free bed.
“Don’t know of such a place in the city, but you can get a bed at the Lombard Street woodyard by working three or four hours for it. But don’t go there unless you have to—they won’t treat you right.”
I thanked him and went on down to the Mission. As I approached it, one of the followers of the Mission, with a Bible or hymn-book under his arm, was at the door in an altercation with one of the great army of unfortunates. The man had an honest face, but the glazed eyes told he had been drinking. I heard the attendant say,
“Now, you get out of here or I’ll fix you! I’ll have an officer here in a minute, and he’ll land you in jail in pretty quick time.”
The man was at the drinking faucet at the side of the building.
“I haven’t done anything. All I’m doing is getting a drink of water.”
What the trouble was, I do not know, but what I saw was a seemingly peaceable man abused, thrown out on the street, with the threat hurled after him of police and prison.
I stepped around to another one of the attendants at the door, and I asked if I could get a free bed there. He said in a hard way, “No, you can’t.”
“I am willing to work for it.”