N. Y. Five Points

u is oue oi tiic truest of our oíd axioma thíit one-half of the world doos not know liow the otlier half live. It is espeeially so In tliis country where the extremes are not intermingled as In poorer and foreign lands. For instanee not one in a thousand throughout the country knows how the poor and wretched in the large citles live. Even in the Metropolis of the Republic there is no larger ratio of those who have obseryed the squalor, the filth, the life in that bed of crime, the " Five-Points." Being in New York a fortnight ago, in the course of a Sunday afternoon stroll we sauntered down the Bowery to Chatham Square, and thence a few steps to the famous, or rather the infamous FivePoints. As it was Sunday, the men were not at work and the place was in its glory. Every third store was an open dram shop, while those between were tobáceo stores, theatres, dime museums, billiard rooms, restaurants. Over head were tenements where signs told of "lodgings" for 25 cents per week. Their gentle diversions wert lights of roosters, dogs, cats, boys, girls, men, women - in fact, anything that coult hit hard, scratch deep, bite viciouslj'. II all added to the " fun." Brutal, drunken men leered when they knocked over little clnldren with a beer bottle. Olil hags took their daily exercise in poundingwith their crutches weak and sickly little cripples. It was a place of torraents. But even here are oases. For, as we were seeing the strange sights, hearing the discordant sounds, and wondering if these were really human beings of like nature as ourselves. the sound of singing broke strangely in on the din. We listened and upon ascertaining the directlon we followed it, and were suddenly out of the uproar into a little chapel. In the centre was a large organ with about a hundred and fifty boys on one side of it, and perhaps two hundred girls on the other side. All were between the ages of four and ten years, and although tliey came from such surroundiugs they were clean and neatly dressed. Seated compactly In rows they kept perfect order. We soon found that it was the regular Sunday service of song at the House of Industry, an institution founded for the purpose of rescuing little children from homes of poverty and wickedness and of teaching them ways of industry and uprightness. An liour is spent by them every Sunday in tinging and repeatinsj the Creed, the Commandments and the trainee! and sang many difflcnlt plecei without books or notes. One of tin sweetest was Mendelssohn's " But th Lord is Mindful of Ilis Own," and ai their clear soprano voices rang out it wal evident they sang with pleasure and profit. After the service they marched to the supper hall where they took their places, each one haring a bowl of bread and ïnilk and a cooky. After grace the fun began, and it was a lively sight to see the spoons fly and the mouths go. Apparentlj' many were ruther unaccustonied to wrestling with spoons, so fingers carne into ready use even for bread and Blik. Up-stairs were dormitories, school rooms and a nursery for the wee little ones. In the building the children are taught to read, wrlte, count, sew and to take good care of themselves. The boys have a printing office where they learn the trade. Tuis Institute is doing an immense amount of good, and aftords a pleasing and attractive contrast with its clean, bright and decorated walls and rooms to the dirty, ill-smelling disease-haunted, dark and terrible hall-ways, attics and cellars, where oaths, blows, violence and crime are more common than anything Few who visit New York and see Cen¦ tral Park, the Academy of Music, the elegant theatres, the bridge and art ;alleries, stores, churches, and other beautiful objects of interest, eyer dream that within a stone's throwahnost of Franklin Square lies this horrible monster crushing out lives, souls, minds and ambitions. A hot-bed of pestilence, sin and shaine, it menaces the health, property and welfare of nearly two millions of people. But such was within the strange experience of the editor.