Knots Untied; Or, Ways and By-ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives

by George S. McWatters

It is only about nineteen hundred years since the advent of Christianity; and perhaps not over two hundred and fifty millions of people at the present time profess to be Christians, and belong to some of the symbolized divisions of the church, while may be not over three hundred millions more profess to be Christians in spirit; and not much of good could well be expected to grow up in so short a time, and with so few advocates to encourage it; yet the writer confesses that, in some of his weaker moods, he is astonished after all that something has not been done by Christian people to abolish the proximate and fruitful cause of nearly all the crimes and sufferings, namely, poverty. The sufferings of the poor in New York, for example, are terrible to contemplate; and the much-boasted great charities of the metropolis are directed only to temporary relief of the sufferers. This is their highest aspiration even. They proclaim no desire to do more, at best, than to smooth the bed of the sick, and procure "places" for children (to grow up and work for others in), or situations for this woman or that poor man out of employment.

The right of these children and these poor men and women to live at all, and the duty of society to guarantee to the individual the enjoyment of that right, are wholly ignored by them. Year after year they perform their patchwork charities with a patience which would be commendable in the pursuit of science, and which, while it astonishes the writer at its stupidity, nevertheless commands from him, as he cheerfully confesses, a sort of respect, if not admiration; for many of these charity-doers are really the best of people at heart, and would doubtless, if they knew how, do better, act more wisely. But they are ignorant of better means than they use; and, in fact, it has never occurred to them that better and wiser means ought to be, or could be taken than those they employ, to assuage human suffering.

With his study and understanding of sociology, Officer McWatters must necessarily see, we think, and painfully feel, how meagre and pitiful are the amends which charity makes to those victims whom society has robbed of their rights; and his sense of this must constantly operate to weaken his courage and chill his enthusiasm in the cause of petty or "patchwork" charities. Yet withal so abundant is his good nature, so sensitive his sympathies, that years do not seem to abate his zeal therein at all; and here is the wonder. He keeps on in his good works, though the institutions of society multiply the sufferings he would abate, and bring to his door ten new sufferers because he has just aided one old one. As long as such souls as McWatters' continue doing their good deeds, so long will the rapacious and extortionate thank them, and continue to create victims for them to practise their humanity upon. The landlord, whose tenant is poor and sick, is very grateful, of course, to the "charitable society" which helps his tenant to pay the rent; and it is a question with the writer, sometimes, if it were not better that the kind and tender-hearted benefactors of the poor were less numerous; for if the poor were goaded on by suffering a little further, they might, dispelling the mists of ever-fallacious "hope" from before their eyes, come to see their rights, and demand them.

It is to the advantage of the master to feed his chattel-slave sufficiently well to keep him in good strength for work. Charity, under direction of the masters in society, feeds the working classes only up to the point of usefulness as wages-slaves. It is cheaper for a given present time to keep a poor man in a working condition than it is to let him starve to death, and so incur the expense of burying him. That expresses the morale of the master-classes' "consideration" of the subject-classes; and here in the United States the "tender love" of the strong for the weak is just as marked as in other lands, perhaps; but, alas! no more so, notwithstanding our boasted love of "liberty and right."

But we remarked that Officer McWatters must understand all this, and yet pursues his constant course of charities. Not for the wisdom (or the lack of it, as the case may be) which prompts or permits him to do the thousand acts of benevolence for which he is noted, is it that he commands so much of our admiration, but for that tireless sympathy and wondrous vitality of benevolence (so to characterize it) which ever bestir him, notwithstanding his clear understanding that he will, and can alone, only mitigate effects, and not cure causes; that he is "carrying coals to Newcastle" all the while, or is putting one brick on a pile, only to see a dozen fall therefrom; and this, though he repeats it day after day.

As we have before remarked, Officer McWatters is not a rich man, save in his own good nature and the affection of his multitudinous friends; and his charities mean something to his purse, drawing from it constantly whatever he can find time or opportunity to place there; for, if the writer is correctly informed, Officer McWatters has never received a cent for his multifarious labors in connection with any of the several organized charities to which he is attached. As a member of the Metropolitan Police he received his salary, rendering therefor his full duty; and this was all he had to support himself and family upon; and that was constantly depleted by his benevolence, as we have remarked before. In view of these facts, Officer McWatters is elevated, in our esteem, to the rank of the Howards, and the other marked philanthropists of the world.

McWatters and the Soldiers.

During the late civil war, as we have said, Officer McWatters took a deep and patriotic interest in the conflict. This was manifested in many ways, particularly towards the soldiers and their families; and he has not forgotten them since. Whatever the reader may think of a man who in this age allows himself to go deliberately into a contest, the avowed purpose of which is to maim and kill his fellow-men, for any cause; or what he may think of that order of society which compels a man to enlist in a cause of cruelty and blood (as hosts of men were driven into the rebel ranks at the point of the bayonet, or by conscription, or want of something else to do, however remonstrating), ought to have but little bearing upon the case of the veteran soldier now.

Our Northern soldiers went to the war with the assurance of the public press, and the declaration of hundreds of thousands of those who remained at home, but who gathered in crowds ("to see the soldiers off") at the places of departure, that they should, on their return, receive the gratitude of those for whom they fought. Promises were abundant, and the poor, confiding fellows for the most part believed them, and on the battle-field found consolation for their hardships and dangers in the love of those they had left behind, and which, poured forth in unstinted measure on their return, was to be their "good and abundant reward." Poor fellows! they have learned, for the most part, the value of their countrymen's love; they have learned how priceless is the glory of an arm or a leg lost, since it secures for them, who only had precarious homes before, a permanent home in the poor-house, or has led them to the due consideration of the virtue of economy; the estimable and superior value of rags over the whole coats they used to wear; of temperance in eating, and other like virtues. Very few care for the "veteran soldier" now, and his family is left to starve with those of other paupers, or with those of the imprisoned criminal. This is the sad truth; and were another civil war to arise to-day, probably but very few of the old rank and file, who are still strong and able, would muster around the standard again, but would generously suggest to those who remained at home before, that they might now win all the victories, and enjoy all the glory.

But there are a few in the community who have not forgotten the maimed veterans and their suffering families; and chief among these few is Officer McWatters; for we hazard nothing in saying, that, all things considered, there cannot be found another person, male or female, in the whole land, who has done more for the poor soldiers and their families than he. He seems to be impelled in his constant care for them by what amounts to almost a generous frenzy, and which might so be denominated were it not that his deeds in their behalf are always directed by wisdom; it is a passion, at least, with him; the poetry of his current life.