I felt somewhat flattered by this encouraging condescension, and I admit now that I did not feel particularly happy at the idea of bearding the thieving lion, with his hyena-like satellites, in his den. I felt something like a criminal under arrest myself, and I am sure that everyone in the car must have thought that the world-famed detective force of New York had added another notorious catch to the many they have so cleverly made.
As we passed close to the windows of the houses, and actually looked into the rooms on the second and third stories, Detective Jonathan H. O'Flaherty would point out to me a room here and there which was being watched by his comrades, and as we approached nearer and nearer to the purlieus of the poor, he positively detected seated in rooms in shady hotels which harboured thieves a forger, a housebreaker, and other notabilities of a worse character. Indeed, I would not have been surprised had the arm of the law been literally stretched out at any moment, and one of these gentlemen transferred from his seat through the window and deposited by my side in the carriage.
America is a free country. England, we are assured, is not; but the fact that the police are allowed to arrest anybody they please without showing any authority whatever is a curious contradiction which the Britisher may be pardoned for smiling at.
Detective Jonathan H. O'Flaherty and I had a rather warm argument upon this point, and I must say that in the end I had to admit that there was a good deal to be said in favour of the utter want of liberty to which Americans have to submit.
ITALIANS.
"For instance," said my guide, "to-morrow is a public holiday. At daybreak I guess we'll be afther locking up every thief, vagabond, and persons suspected of being varmint of this description in this great city, and it's free lodgings they'll have till the holiday's played out. In that way crime is avoided, and the truth of the saying proved that 'prevention is better than cure.'"
"But there is an unpleasant feeling that this autocratic power may lead to mistakes. In England the police must have a warrant," I said.
"Guess, stranger, if we waited for a warrant the varmint'd vanish, and there'd be the divil to pay. No, sir, I reckon we Amurricans don't wait for anything—we just take the law into our own hands right away. A short time ago I was sitting enjoying some singing in one of the saloons in the Bowery here, and right through in front of me sat two foreigners with the most perfect false whiskers on that I ever clapped eyes on. That was enough for me. I went outside, sent one of my men for assistance, and then sent in a theatrical lady's card to one of the gentlemen. The bait was taken, and he came out. We arrested him straight away, and made him send in for his friend, who came out, and we nailed him as well. Turned out afterwards that they had come to kill one of the actresses—love affair, revenge, and all that sort of thing. In your country guess you'd have arrested them after the murder; we had them before. There was no harm done, but they got a fine of a few dollars."
He put his hand suddenly upon mine as he said this. For a second I thought that he imagined my whiskers were false, and that this was only a plant to lock me up! It was evident my nerves were becoming unstrung, and as soon as we were in the street my good-humoured and excellent guide told me that in another five minutes we would begin our voyage of discovery. We passed through the Chinese quarter, down Mott Street, and I could not but feel a pang of sympathy for these aliens, looked upon by the Americans as vermin. It is a strange war, this between John Chinaman and Sambo for the vassalage of the States; but in poor England, the asylum of the alien, all nationalities have an equal chance, and the nigger, the Chinaman, the Jew, and the German can walk arm in arm, whether in the squalid streets of Spitalfields or the aristocratic precincts of Pall Mall.