Chapter X: I Meet Some Outcasts

A sharp contrast to this waif of the street is the case of a statesman under a cloud. I was sitting on a bench near the bunk-house one day at twilight, when I noticed a profile silhouetted against the window. I had seen only one profile like that in my life, and that was when I was a boy. I moved closer. The man sat like a statue. His face was very pale and he was gazing vacantly at the walls in the rear of the building. Finally, I went over and sat down beside him.

"Good evening," he said quietly, in answer to my salutation. I looked into his face--a face I knew when a boy, a face familiar to the law-makers of Victoria for a quarter of a century. I called him by name. At the sound of his own name, his paleness turned to an ashy yellow.

"In Heaven's name," I said, "what are you doing here?" He looked at me with an expression of excruciating pain on his face, and said:

"I have travelled some thousands of miles in order to be alone; if you have any kindness, any pity, leave me."

"Pardon me," I said, "for intruding."

That night the Ex-Club invited him to take part in their deliberations. He refused, and his manner showed that he considered the invitation an insult. I had known this man as a brilliant orator, a religious leader, the champion of a sect. In a city across the sea I had sat as a barelegged boy on an upturned barrel, part of an immense crowd, listening to the flow of his oratory. Next day he left the bunk-house. Some weeks afterward I found him on a curbstone, preaching to whoever of the pedestrians would listen.

At the close of his address, I introduced myself again. He took me to his new lodging, and I put the questions that filled my mind. For answer he gave me the House of Commons Blue Book, which explained the charge hanging over him. Almost daily, for weeks, I heard him on his knees proclaim his innocence of the unmentionable crime with which he was charged. After some weeks of daily association, he said to me:

"I believe you are sent of God to guide me, and I am prepared to take your advice."

My advice was ready. He turned pale as I told him to pack his trunk and take the next ship for England.

"Face the storm like a man!" I urged, and he said:

"It will kill me, but I will do it."

He did it, and it swept him to prison, to shame, and to oblivion.

Nothing in the life of the bunk-house was more noticeable than the way men of intelligence grouped themselves together. Besides the Judge, there were an ex-lawyer, an ex-soldier of Victoria and a German Graf. I named them the "Ex-Club." Every morning they separated as though forever. Every night they returned and looked at one another in surprise.

At election-time both political parties had access to the register, and every lodger was the recipient of two letters. Between elections a letter was always a matter of sensational interest; it lay on the clerk's table, waiting to be claimed, and every lodger inspected it as he passed. Scores of men who never expected a letter would pick it up, handle it in a wistful and affectionate manner, and regretfully lay it down again. I have often wished I could analyze the thoughts of these men as they tenderly handled these rare visitors conducted by Uncle Sam into the bunk-house.

It was a big letter with red seals and an aristocratic monogram that first drew attention to a new-comer who had signed himself "Hans Schwanen." "One-eyed Dutchy" had whispered to some of his friends that the recipient of the letter was a real German Graf.

He was about sixty years of age, short, rotund, corpulent. His head was bullet-shaped and set well down on his shoulders. His clothes were baggy and threadbare, his linen soiled and shabby. He had blue eyes, harsh red hair, and a florid complexion. When he arrived, he brought three valises. Everybody wondered what he could have in them.

The bouncer was consumed with a desire to examine the contents, and, as bouncer and general floor-manager of the house, expected that they would naturally be placed under his care. When, however, it was announced that the newcomer had engaged "One-eyed Dutchy" as his valet, the bouncer swore, and said "he might go to ----."

There was something peculiar and mysterious in a ten-cent guest of the Bismarck hiring a valet. The Germans called him Graf von Habernichts. He kept aloof from the crowd. He had no friends and would permit no one to establish any intercourse with him.

His valet informed an intimate friend that the Graf received a check from Germany every three months. While it lasted, it was the valet's duty to order, pay for, and keep a record of all food and refreshment. When the bouncer told me of these things, I tried very hard to persuade the Graf to dine at my house; but he declined without even the formality of thanks. After a few months, the revenue of the mysterious stranger dried up and "One-eyed Dutchy" was discharged.

A snowstorm found the old Graf with an attack of rheumatism, and helpless. Then he was forced to relinquish his ten-cent cot and move upstairs to a seven-cent bunk. When he was able to get out again, he came back dragging up the rickety old stairs a scissors-grinder. Several of the guests offered a hand, but he spurned them all, and stuck to his job until he got it up.

Another snowstorm brought back his rheumatism; he got permission to sit indoors. The old wheel lay idle in the corner; he was hungry and his pipe had been empty for a day and a night; but still he sat bolt upright, in pain, alone, with starvation staring him in the face. The third day of his voluntary fast he got a letter. It contained a one-dollar bill. The sender was watching at a safe distance and he recorded that the Graf's puzzled look almost developed into a smile. He gathered himself together and hobbled out to a nearby German saloon. Next day came the first sign of surrender. He accepted a commission to take a census of the house. This at last helped to thaw him out, but it didn't last long.

His rheumatism prevented him from pushing his wheel through the streets and I secured him a corner in a locksmith's basement. He had not been there many weeks when he disappeared. The locksmith told a story which seemed incredible. He said the old Graf had sold his wheel and given the proceeds to an Irishwoman to help defray the funeral expenses of her child.

Some months later, the clerk of the bunk-house got a postal card from "One-eyed Dutchy." He was on the Island, and the Graf and he were working together on the ash gang. I secured his release from the Island.

When he returned to the bunk-house, every one who had ever seen him noted a marked change. He no longer lived in a shell. He had become a human, and took an interest in what was going on. One night when a few of the Ex-Club were exchanging reminiscences, he was prevailed upon to tell his story. He asked us to keep it a secret for ten years. The time is up, and I am the only one of that group alive.

"In 1849 it was; my brother and I, students, were in Heidelberg. Then broke out the Revolution. Two years less of age was I, so to him was due my father's title and most of the estate. 'What is Revolution?' five of us students asked. 'We know not; we will study,' we all said, and we did. For King and Fatherland our study make us jealous, but my brother was not so.

"'I am revolutionist!' he says, and we are mad to make him different.

"'The King is one,' he said, 'and the people are many, and they are oppressed.'

"I hate my brother, and curse him, till in our room he weeps for sorrow. I curse him until he leaves.

"By and by in the barricades he finds himself fighting against the King. In the fight the rebels are defeated and my brother escapes. Many are condemned and shot. Not knowing my heart, my mother writes me that my brother is at home.

"I lie in my bed, thinking--thinking. Many students have been shot for treason. Love of King and Fatherland and desire to be Graf, are two thoughts in my heart.

"I inform. My brother is arrested, and in fortress is he put to be shot.

"Four of us students of patriotism go to see. My heart sinks to see my brother, so white is he and fearless. His eyes are bright like fire, and he stands so cool and straight.

"'I have nothing but love,' he says; 'I love the cause of truth and justice. To kill me is not to kill the truth; where you spill my blood will Revolution grow as flowers grow by water. I forgive.'

"Then he sees me. 'Hans!' he says, 'Hans!' He holds out his arms. 'I want to kiss my brother,' he says. The General he says, 'All right.'

"But I love the King. 'No! I have no brother! I will not a traitor kiss!'

"My Gott! how my brother looks! He looks already dead--so full of sorrow is he.

"A sharp crack of guns! They chill my heart, and down dead falls my brother.

"I go away, outside glad, but in my heart I feel burn the fires of hell. Father and mother in one year die for sorrow. Then I am Graf.

"I desire to be of society, but society will not--it is cold. Guests do not come to my table. Servants do not stay. They tell that they hear my mother weep for sorrow in the night. I laugh at them, but in my heart I know them true. Peasants in the village hide from me as I come to them.

"But my mind is worse. Every night I hear the crack of the rifles--the sound of the volley that was my brother's death. Soldiers I get, men of the devil-dare kind, to stay with me. They do not come back; they tell that they hear tramp, tramp, tramp of soldiers' feet.

"One night, with the soldiers, I take much wine, for I say, 'I shall be drunk and not hear the guns at night.'

"We drink in our noble hall. Heavy doors are chained, windows barred, draperies close arranged, and the great lamp burns dim. We drink, we sing, we curse God und das Gesindel. 'We ourselves,' we say, 'are gods.'

"Then creeps close the hour for the guns. My tongue is fast and cannot move; my brow is wet and frozen is my blood.

"Boom! go the guns; then thunder shakes the castle, lightning flashes through the draperies, and I fall as dead.

"Was I in a dream? I know not. I did not believe in God; I did not believe in heaven or in hell; yet do I see my past life go past me in pictures--pictures of light in frames of fire: Two boys, first--Max, my brother, and I, playing as children; then my mother weeping for great sorrow; then the black walls of the great fortress--my brother with arms outstretched. Again my blood is frozen, again creeps my skin, and I hear the volley and see him fall to death. I fear. I scream loud that I love the King, but in my ear comes a voice like iron--'Liar!' A little girl, then, with hair so golden, comes and wipes the stain of blood from my brow. I see her plain.

"Then I awake. I am alone; the light is out; blood is on my face. I am paralyzed with fear, so I cannot stand. When I can walk, I leave, for I think maybe that only in Germany do I hear the guns. For twenty years I live in Spain. Still do I hear the guns.

"I go to France, but yet every night at the same hour freezes my blood and I hear the death volley.

"I come to America, which I have hated, yet never a night is missed. It is at the same hour. What I hate comes to me. Whatever I fear is mine. To run away from something is for me to meet it. My estate is gone; money I have not. I sink like a man in a quicksand, down, down, down. I come here. Lower I cannot.

"One day in 'the Bend', where das Gesindel live, I see the little girl--she of the golden hair who wiped my stain away.

"But she is dead. I know for sure the face. What it means I know not. Again I fall as dead.

"I have one thing in the world left--only one; it is my scissors-grinder. I sell it and give all the money to bury her. It is the first--it is the only good I ever did. Then, an outcast, I go out into the world where no pity is. I sit me down in a dark alley; strange is my heart, and new.

"It is time for the guns--yet is my blood warm! I wait. The volley comes not!

"The hour is past!

"'My Gott, my Gott!' I say. 'Can this be true?' I wait one, two, three minutes; it comes not. I scream for joy--I scream loud! I feel an iron hand on me. I am put in prison. Yet is the prison filled with light--yet am I in heaven. The guns are silent!"

One day a big letter with several patches of red sealing-wax and an aristocratic monogram arrived at the bunk-house. Nearly two hundred men handled it and stood around until the Graf arrived. Every one felt a personal interest in the contents. It was "One-eyed Dutchy," who handed it to the owner, and stood there watching out of his single eye the face of his former master. The old man smiled as he folded the letter and put it into his pocket, saying as he did so: "By next ship I leave for Hamburg to take life up where I laid it down."

* * * * *

The only man now living of those bunk-house days is Thomas J. Callahan. He has been attached for many years to Yale University and doing the work of a janitor. Many Yale men will never forget how "Doc" cared for Dwight Hall. He is now in charge of Yale Hall. The circumstances under which I met Doc were rather peculiar.

"Say, bub," said Gar, the bouncer, to me one day, "what ungodly hour of the mornin' d'ye git up?"

"At the godly hour of necessity," I replied.

"Wal, I hev a pal I want ter interjooce to ye at six."

I met the bouncer and his "pal" at the corner of Broome Street and the Bowery next morning at the appointed hour.

"Dat's Doc!" said Gar, as he laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.

His friend bowed low and in faultless English, said: "I am more than pleased to meet you."

"I can give you a pointer on Doc," the big fellow continued. "If ye tuk a peaner to th' top av a mountain an' let her go down the side sorter ez she pleases, 'e c'u'd pick up the remains an' put thim together so's ye w'u'dn't know they'd been apart. Yes, sir; that's no song an' dance, an' 'e c'u'd play any chune iver invented on it."

Doc laughed and made some explanations. They had a wheezy old organ in Halloran's dive, and Doc kept it in repair and played occasionally for them. Doc had a Rip Van Winkle look. His hair hung down his back, and his clothes were threadbare and green with age. His shoes were tied to his feet with wire, and stockings he had none. Doc had studied in a Medical College until the eve of his graduation. Then he slipped a cog and went down, down, down, until he landed at Halloran's dive. For twelve years he had been selling penny song-sheets on the streets and in saloons. He was usually in rags, but a score of the wildest inhabitants of that dive told me that Doc was their "good angel." He could play the songs of their childhood, he was kind and gentle, and men couldn't be vulgar in his presence.

I saw in Doc an unusual man, and was able to persuade him to go home with me. In a week he was a new man, clothed and in his right mind. He became librarian of a big church library, and our volunteer organist at all the Sunday meetings.

After two years of uninterrupted service as librarian, during which time Doc had been of great service in the bunk-house, I lost him. Five years later, crossing Brooklyn Bridge on a car, I passed Doc who was walking in the same direction. At the end of the bridge I planted myself in front of him. "Doc," I said, "you will never get away from me again." I took him to New Haven, where he has been ever since.

It is needless to say that several years' work in the midst of such surroundings gives one a hopeless outlook for that kind of work. In 1891 a movement to establish a municipal lodging house was organized, and I became part of it. A committee composed largely of business men met in the office of Killaen Van Ransellaer, 56 Wall Street. In discussing the plan of a municipal lodging house, the "Wayfarers Lodge" in Boston, an institution of the character under discussion, was pointed out as a model, and it was decided to send a representative to Boston to investigate and make a report on it.

I was suspicious of the printed report of the Boston place. It spoke of the men getting clean bedding, clean sheets and good meals; and experience was teaching me that that kind of catering for the tramp would swamp any institution. Then, I knew something about the padding of charitable reports. I did not care to offer any objection to the sending of a representative, but I determined to go myself; so, dressed in an old cotton shirt with collar attached, a ragged coat, a battered hat and with exactly the railroad fare in my pocket, I went to Boston. I stopped a policeman on the street, told him I was homeless and hungry. "Go to the Police Station," he said, and knowing that at each Police Station tickets of admission were served, I presented myself to the Sergeant at the desk.

Furnished with a ticket, I went to No. 30 Hawkins Street, and there fell in line with a crowd of the same kind of people I was working with and for on the Bowery. We had about an hour to wait. When it came my turn for examination, I was rather disturbed to find the representative of the committee sitting beside the superintendent, investigating the tramps as they passed. I knew he could not recognize me by my clothes, but I was not so certain about my voice, so I spoke in a low tone.

"Open your mouth," the superintendent said. "Where are you from?"

I kept my eyes on the ground and answered a little louder, "Ireland."

"You are lying," the superintendent said. "Where are you from?"

"Ireland," I answered again in the same tone.

Two kinds of checks lay on the table in front of him--one pile green, the other red. After answering the rest of the questions, I was given a red check and taken to a cell where a black man stripped me to the skin.

"Why did I get a red card while most of the others got a green card?" I asked.

"You're lousy, boss, dat's why."

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Steam 'em." So he tied my clothes in a bundle and put them under a pressure of two hundred and fifty pounds of steam, the coloured man remarking as he stowed them away: "What's left of 'em when they come out, boss, aint gwine to do no harm." Then I was marched, sockless, with my shoes on and a metal check strung around my neck, to the bath where I was taken charge of by another coloured man.

"Here!" he said, as he pointed to an empty tub. I bathed myself to his satisfaction and then looked for the clean towels of the "Annual Report," but found them not. Instead, there was a pile of towels already used--towels made of crash--and I was told to select the driest of them and dry myself.

"I was clean when I went into that tub," I said to the black man--"I am cleaner now; but if I dry myself with this sodden piece of crash, I will be dirtier than when I began." The black man proceeded to force me to do this and his attempt nearly ended the experiment, for I refused pointblank to do it. "No, thank you," I said, "I will walk up and down until I dry."

When the superintendent of that department was called into counsel, my use of English rather surprised him, and he let it go at that. Then we were marched upstairs to bed; there were one hundred and fifty beds in a big dormitory. I looked around for the linen of the "Annual Report," and was again disappointed. The cots were furnished with horse blankets.

The method of arousing the men in the early morning was rather unique. A man with a stick--a heavy stick that reminded me of an Irish flail--thumped the bare floor, and, to my astonishment, there was a rush of this savage-looking, naked crowd to the door. As I knew no reason for the excitement, I took my time.

I followed the men to the boiler-room, where, after calling out my number, I got the bundle corresponding to it, and it looked like a crow's nest. Everybody around me was hustling to get his clothes on, boiled or unboiled; and again I was mystified as to the hurry. When I arrived in the yard, I discovered the reason for this unusual activity of my parishioners. The first men out in the yard had a cord of wood each to saw, and it took twice as long to chop as it did to saw it. Those who were last had to chop. I took my axe and began my task. Soon the splinters were flying in all directions. The man next to me was rather put out by this activity and said that if he wanted to work like that he could do it outside.

"This ain't no place to work like that," he said; then he began to expectorate over my block and annoy me in that way. I tried a few words of gentle persuasion on him, but it made him worse. He bespattered my hands and the axe handle, and I took him by the neck and ran him to the other end of the yard and dumped him in a corner. Any kind of a fuss in that yard had usually a very serious ending; but this had not, for the yard superintendent took my part.

I think it was about eleven o'clock in the forenoon when I finished my wood, and went in to get breakfast, which consisted of a bowl of gruel and two hard biscuits. One of these biscuits I kept hanging in my study for two years. After breakfast I marched into the office, and said to the superintendent:

"Brother, I want to ask you a few questions which belong to a domain--that mysterious domain that lies between the facts and your 'Annual Report.'"

"Are you a reporter?" was his first question.

Assuring him that I was not, I asked him the necessary questions, and, furnished with some real information, I returned to the Wall Street Conference.

I think John H. Finley of the City College was the representative, and he rendered his report. Then I stood up and told of my experience which differed vitally from the re-hash of the "Annual Report." The facts, as I found them, were all in favour of such an institution. A man would have to be mighty hard up to go to the Boston municipal lodging house; and that is exactly what was needed. The necessity for padding the "Annual Report" I could never find out.

The municipal lodging house agitated at that time is now a fact. It has been duplicated. On February 19th, 1893, in the Church of the Covenant on Park Avenue, I made the suggestion, and it was published in the papers the following day, that there was a splendid opportunity for a philanthropist to invest a few million dollars at five per cent. in a few lodging houses on a gigantic scale. What connection the Mills Hotels bear to that suggestion, I do not know, but they are the exact fulfilment of it.

* * * * *

A few years in that work gave me a terrific feeling of hopelessness, and I longed for some other form of church work where I could obviate some of the work of the Bowery. The best a man could do on the Bowery was to save a few old stranded wrecks; but the work among children appealed to me now with far greater force. I also saw the necessity of the preacher touching not only the spiritual side of a man, but the material side also. A preacher's function, as I understood it after these experiences, was to touch the whole round sphere of life.