LXX.
AMONG THE DETECTIVES.
DETECTIVE LIFE.—CURIOSITIES OF LIFE IN A GREAT CITY.—NOT KNOWING YOUR NEIGHBORS.—PECULIAR ACQUAINTANCES.—ROBBERY OF A DRY GOODS STORE.—INGENIOUS DETECTION OF THE CRIME.—LOVE AND JUSTICE.—A SURPRISING DENOUEMENT.
There are some men who seem better fitted to live beneath the surface of the earth than in the open air. Their habits are much like those of the mole or the weasel, and sometimes they are not altogether unlike those animals in general appearance. They have the burrowing propensity of the rat and the woodchuck, and in many instances their lives are about as reputable as that of the first-mentioned animal. They seem to avoid the light of day, and to spend their lives in undermining the works and lives of others. Great cities can furnish a good supply of these men, and the rural districts are not altogether destitute of them. They flourish best in large cities, as there they have a better field for their operations than in the country. In the country everybody knows everybody else for a considerable distance around, and can tell you about his family and its antecedents for as many years as you care to know. Frequently the people observe the manners and habits of their neighbors with more care than they observe their own.
In the city men go about their daily occupations, knowing little and caring little about others, except those with whom they come in contact or have relations of a business character. In New York, for example, there is not one householder in five who knows the name and occupation of his next-door neighbor, and generally he does not care to know. People may occupy the same house for years without knowing anything about each other. I can give a personal experience of my own which will illustrate what I have here stated.
During the first year of my residence in New York, after remaining a few weeks at a hotel I went one day in search of lodgings in a private house. I found a house whose exterior pleased me, and on the door-post there was the attractive announcement, “Rooms to let.” I rang the bell, made known my object, saw the vacant room, was satisfied, and engaged it. Next day I moved in. I took my meals at a hotel, and for a year and a half occupied that room.
AN ODD EXPERIENCE.
I did not know the name of anybody in the house except the proprietor, and never troubled myself about the occupants of the rooms on the floor where I was located. One day, in ascending the stairs, I met an acquaintance coming down; an acquaintance whose business was in the very office where I was located, and whose desk was not far from mine. We hailed each other, and our conversation revealed the fact that he had been for two years an occupant of that house, and I had been there nearly a year. Had we been in the country or almost anywhere else in America than in New York, we should have known each other’s local habitation and names in less than a fortnight.
City life, politics, and poverty are about equal in the opportunities they afford for making acquaintances with peculiar people. These acquaintances may not be formed very rapidly; but as one moves about in a great city, he is certain, sooner or later, without any effort on his own part, to be introduced to men whom he would not always be willing to recognize in public. Without ever going to church he may make the acquaintance of clergymen. Without touching a playing card or entering a gaming house he may be acquainted with gamblers. Without studying the mysteries of the kinchin lay, or familiarizing himself with the language of the inhabitants of Blackwell’s Island, or the state penitentiary, he may become acquainted with thieves of various grades. Without doing anything for which he should be “shadowed” he may be familiar with detectives, and without speculating in stocks he may know the men whose fortunes are made and lost on Wall Street. A great city is an epitome of the globe, and in its streets, and alleys, and by-ways may be found all the vicious and dangerous elements of human existence.