HELEN DILT.
There are thousands of people in New York, to whom some portions of the metropolis are as much of a mystery as Paris, or Bagdad, or Calcutta, or Cairo in Egypt.
This may seem like a singular statement, yet it is a perfectly true one.
Along the East River front of the city many sights are to be seen, which could not but be as surprising as interesting to those to whom this section of the city is a sealed book.
Here junk-shops flourish in all their glory, side by side with old iron and old chain shops.
Groggeries of the lowest kind abound, and here is the lair of the river-pirate.
Sometimes blocks occur on which not a single building is to be found, save small offices in connection with iron or lumber yards.
At night no section of New York is more lonesome, or more inviting to the performance of deeds of darkness.
Just opposite a tumble-down pier, not far from Grand street ferry, stood, and still stands, a little shanty, built in the rudest manner, only one story in height.
Into this shanty we wish to convey the reader, at least in imagination.