Solon Robinson

“ Three thousand robes of fine cloth, silks, gauze, and lace, pass the Battery gates in one night, fluttering to the open sea breeze, without one thought from those who wear them for the poor little girl that sits shivering by the path, crying hot corn, or vainly striving to beg one penny from the overflowing purses that freely give dollars for amusement, and less than nothing to misery, or for its annihilation. Little do they think that this child has a mother at home, who once counted one in just such a thoughtless throng. ”

“ These are tears of joy and gladness. How noble, how generous, how good!"
"Just like him," said the other gentleman.
"This to me! Oh, Mr. Lovetree, this to the poor widow! This to my daughter!"
"To me, mother, to me? Does it mean me? Yes! Oh, mother, may I kiss him?"
Before anybody could say no, if they had been disposed to, Stella was in his arms, and who shall say, that to one of his wealth, that moment was not cheaply purchased for five hundred dollars. Happiness is contagious. Those who feel it, feel as though they would like to make everybody else feel just so. ”

“ Wild Maggie, thy sins are forgiven. Look at thy work. This is the poor outcast boy of whom you said, "Tom, I am going to provide you with a home. You must go to the House of Industry, reform, and make a man of yourself."
The work is more than half done.
Madalina, though still suffering from her brutal treatment, was a happy girl when she found that she was not to be driven out to beg in the streets.
But she could not understand why her mother wanted her to sleep at home. Tom could. "Too young! Pooh! before she is a year-older, she will be lost." Too true! ”

“ She would not have her daughter see her weep.
"Tom, my boy, tell me; come, Tom, that is a good boy—the truth, nothing but the truth—I must know it."
Good boy, again, and his heart overflowed. He could stand kicks, and cuffs, and curses, without a tear, but he could not hold out against, "good boy."
"Maggie, I will not lie to you, I could not; but I can't tell you the truth."
"Why?"
"I am 'fraid you won't call me good boy again."
"Yes, I will. I don't believe you are a bad one."
"And you won't hate me?"
"No, no; she cannot hate you, for you have been good to her mother, to-day."
"Mother! Oh! ”

“ No, she did not remember that; she only remembered that he was her husband; wounded, dying husband, in need of some kind hand to make his bed and smooth his passage to the grave, and she would leave all without a thought to follow him to the hospital. She was his wife. Now there is a struggle between duty and affection—between husband and children. She cannot go with both. One must be neglected; which shall it be? Had the husband been what he was when that girl was born, the heart of many a wife would give the ready answer. ”

“ If they have given up their sons, if they have surrendered the great street to the almost exclusive occupancy, at night, of painted harlots; have they also given up their daughters, surrendered them to the wiles of the seducer? do they let them go out without fear, even in company with their male friends, to be jostled upon the side-walks by midnight ramblers, and seated at the same table, at some of the great "saloons," side by side with those who win to kill, whose trade is death, whose life is gilded misery, though enticing as the siren's song? ”

“ Do I look like the drunken Tom Nolan that kept a family of starving beggars, with two other families, in one room, ten by twelve feet square; and that a garret room, without fireplace, without glass in its one window; with the roof so low that I could only stand up straight in one corner; and that mean room in the vilest locality on earth, in a house—ah! whole row of houses, tenanted by just such miserable, rum-beggared human beings—buildings owned by a human monster—houses for the poor which are enough to sicken the vilest of beasts ”

“ If somebody would publish the truth, or only half the truth, of what I alone know of the crime and misery about the Five Points of New York, and how much good all the good men have done who have devoted themselves to the reformation of those wretched human beings, I do think that everybody with a good heart would buy the book, and thus contribute a mite to aid the good work—a work that saves from a life worse than death, scores of children and young girls, lost to every virtuous thought or action ”

“ The beggar girl might not have felt it. The little seamstress did. A taste of virtue, civilization, christianity, friendship, love, had given the food of sin and shame a hated taste. Sold by a mother to a libidinous brute—to a miserable rum-selling,—worse than rum-drinking—wretch, who wears gentlemanly garments, and kicks, burns, and gags little beggar girls. It was too much for human nature to bear, and it sunk under this last blow, worse than the first.
Madalina went to bed with a raging fever—a nervous prostration. All that kindness and skill could do, was done for the poor sufferer ”

“ Villainy is too often successful in this life. It was in this case. Jealousy, a feeling of revenge, drives more women to infidelity towards those they love, than all other causes.
It did its perfect work with Athalia, and then the fiend who had accomplished the work, laughed at her, and told her how she had been fooled, thinking it would have the usual effect, to make her careless of what she did in future. It had an entirely different effect upon Athalia. It was this that produced the state of mind that Adelaide called the dumps, the blues, and the tears that Stella saw her shed. ”

“ Noble Tom! Glorious good boy! What a heart! How long is it since thou wert as one of them, kicked and cuffed, and groveling drunk in the gutter? Who thought then that thy rags and filth covered such a heart? Who knew of the virtuous lessons given thee by a pious mother; and how, after [201] years of forgetfulness, sin, wretchedness, misery, that that good seed would vegetate and bring forth such sweet flowers and good fruit, as we are now tasting in these good deeds and kind words. What if nine of the fallen whom we lift up, fall back again? ”

“ What better could I have than HOT CORN, since that was the inciting cry that waked my pen to action, to paint these life scenes in vivid pictures, for the world to look at and improve?
If, in my daily walks and midnight rambles, I have seen revolting sights, the details of which are harrowing to your soul as you read, so much the more need that they be opened to your view. Wounds must be seen to be healed. Old sores are often pronounced incurable, simply because they are old. ”

“ Sunk in misery, poverty, crime, filth, degradation, want; neglected by all the world; hated by those who should love; trodden down by those who should, if they did a Christian duty, lift up; living in habitations such as—but no matter, you shall go with me, by and by, to see where they live—how could they lift themselves up, how could they be industrious and improve their condition, how could they accept bibles and tracts, with any promise of good? ”

“ Do the tired servants sleep? No. They are flitting up and down, with noiseless tread, to furnish late suppers and health-destroying luxuries, to a host of men and gayly dressed women. 'Tis the palace of luxury—'tis but a step from the palace to the tombs—'tis but a step beyond to the home of "the Rag Picker's Daughter"—'tis here that the first step is taken which leads to infamy like that of that daughter's mother. 'Tis here that he, whose trade is seduction, walketh unshamed at noonday, or prowls at midnight, to select his victims. ”

“ Take care, big heart, for just now Charley enters the scene, and before he has observed that a stranger is in the room, he has kissed Athalia.
Mischief has broke loose to-night. What is in the men? What is in Walter Morgan, that a kiss given to that girl, for the first time seen that night, should send a pang to his heart? How it goes throbbing through every nerve, and pricks into the very core of sensation. Take care, big heart and little heart, nature is at her sports and she always makes pleasures sweet by contrast with pain. ”

“ The villain looked at her for a moment, then, satisfied that she was asleep, he reached over her, and lifted a beautiful little girl from her side.
"Mother! mother!"
The light shone in her face—the mother started at the appealing cry for help—sprang up—Heavens, what do we see? It is little Sissee—Little Katy's sister and her mother!
What a sight for that mother! The man she so much dreaded—the man who had so disturbed her dreams—with her child, her last, her only child, in his strong arms, and no one near to protect, to save. ”

“ She well knew that the corner grocery, where he would stop to buy the loaf of bread, which he promised to share with the two children, kept a row of glistening glasses and decanters upon the same shelf with the loaves. "The staff of life," and life's destroyer, side by side. She knew his appetite—she knew the temptation to which he would be subjected, she knew he could not resist, she knew the vampire who dealt in life and death, would suck up that shilling, if with it came the heart's blood of him, her, and their two children. ”

“ Meltrand, said, 'Oh dear,' and she went away feeling sad. I do wish I knew what it could be in that name that made her feel so sad. Some reminiscence connected with the loss of her little girl, I suppose. It is very sad, to lose a child by death, it must be very much more sad to have one stolen away, and never know what becomes of it, whether dead or alive; and if the mother should meet her own child in the street not to know it; but dear me, how I am running on while you are eating your supper, as though you had nothing to think of but the things that interest me so much. ”

“ Oh, sir, I know that I am now on my death bed, and I feel as though I was talking from the spirit world, and I do pray you to tell my fellow creatures, one and all—tell my own sex who are just beginning this life of temptation, degradation, sin, shame, woe, and death, what it brought me to, what it will bring all to, sooner or later, who, indulge as I did, first in wine, and, finally, in anything, everything that could sink reason into forgetfulness. ”

“ True they had white skins and Christian clothes, and spoke the language of a civilized nation, and dwelt in "one of the first cities in the world." Yet they pursued a poor, young, helpless female, like a hunted hare through the streets, and now press hard upon her two protectors; one a delicate, sickly lady, the other a timid servant girl, with a cry to Bill, the leader, to "bring her out"—to drag her by force from where she has sunk down upon the very threshold of a house which she hopes may offer her protection, yet she dares not ask it. ”

“ Such a broadway may be seen, nay, must be seen, by all who enter the great, high, oaken doors of the granite portal of one of the best of the great Broadway hotels in New York, for the way is wide open, inviting the weary traveller to enter the great, dome-shaped "exchange"—exchange of gold, health, peace of mind, domestic blessings, for a worm that will gnaw out the very soul ”

“ Poor girl—poor little Katy! Thy mother loves thee now. Look down from thy blest abode—it is thy mother calls, it is thy voice she hears, and she answers, "Yes, yes I will come."
"She is better, sir," said Phebe, as we entered the door. "She has been sitting up a good deal, and she talks of going over to your house to-morrow, Mrs. Morgan; she says she must go out, and take the air, or she never will get well." ”

“ How fancy will work; how it will send sharp pangs to the heart; sharper than a two-edged sword; how the feeble wife will look down upon that roof, and pray for it to give up her husband. Other wives have prayed the tomb for the same object, both equally effective. Both will pray to both again, and both will feel that hardest of all pangs for a wife to bear, the pang that tells of a lost husband; lost in one case almost as sure as the other; the loss more hard to bear, when lost while living, than when lost by death. ”

“ At length the voice grew faint, and then ceased altogether, and then I knew that exhausted nature slept—that a tender house-plant was exposed to the chilling influence of a night rain—that an innocent girl had the curb-stone for a bed and an iron post for a pillow—that by and by she would awaken, not invigorated with refreshing slumber, but poisoned with the sleep-inhaled miasma of the filth-reeking gutter at her feet, which may he breathed with impunity awake, but like [106] the malaria of our southern coast, is death to the sleeper. ”

“ My wife is like an aged counsellor, there is wisdom in her every word, but she cannot go out through the streets, leaning upon my arm, still full of manly strength, like Maggie, while I lean upon her still greater strength—the strength and might of a strong mind."
"Here is a letter from our dear child," said Mrs. Reagan to her husband, one evening as he came in from work. "Sit down and read it aloud, for some how, my old eyes get dim every time I try; I cannot imagine what is the matter with them."
I can. They were full of tears. ”

“ Gold is refined of its adhering dross by fire. Otis still lives, and every day he warns some one, not only of the folly and sin, but the danger, of visiting that class of houses, if only from curiosity. They are all traps for the unwary, and gulfs into which the soul sinks blindfold down to perdition.
We have lost sight of Athalia. Let us return to her—she will need all our sympathy, for she stands upon the very brink of a precipice, over which though many have fallen, few ever returned.
Mrs. Laylor manifested the greatest sympathy for Athalia that one friend could for another. ”