LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1810, 9 December 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

" OBCS3 MAGGIE." [From the " Sunday World"] I like to stroll about in the dead of night through the streets of a great city, when all is quiet, when the noise and bustle of the day have subsided, when all the million voices of the great living monster have gone to rest and but a few sounds arise here and there, in subdued tones coming from a distance, like the whisper of the city in its Bleep. As a human face when Bleep has chased from it all the varied emotions, the studied expressions it has worn during the weary, busy struggle of the day, falls back into its natural folds and shows the ruling feature, the innermost character of the man, so, I fancy, does a great city in its sleep open before the gaze of an attentive observer the innermost depth of its social life with all its mysteries and sufferings. The noisy vanity fair, raging and bustling through the streets at daytime, outroars the deeper and graver notes of life. "Vice, passion, and misery assume in broad daylight a uniform mark of respectability, br.t when the stillness of night falls upon the dark city then all that has fled from the light of day creeps out into the flickering, unsteady glare of the gas lamps, then the face of misery is seen in all itß unfeigned horror, the voice of passion resounds uncontrolled, _ and vice arises and walks in the streets in its most abject form. On a particularly sultry night in July I undertook one of my habitual wanderings through the city. The heat was insufferable, such as those poor outcasts who are obliged to pass all summer in town are alone doomed to erdare. My way lay through a narrow street situated between the Bowery and the East Biver. On both sides arose the black, towering masses of the tenement houses which line the street. The air was stifling and impregnated with pestiferous emanations arising from the ash-barrels and out of the callar-holes of the houses. It was evident that the wretohed inhabitants of these wretched dwellings had been unable to find rest and sleep within the walls of their narrow, crowded cells ; the doorsteps, the balconies, were lined with reclining human figures in different postures, some of them half naked, panting heavily for one single breath of fresh, invigorating air. All was client around. From time to time the tinkling of the car bells and tl • hoof beat of the teams on the pavement sounded in the distance, or a shrill steam whistle from some boat on the river disturbed the stillness of the night, and then all again was silent and I heard only my footsteps re-echoed from the dark walls of both sides of the street.

Suddenly a piercing cry, uttered by a w;man's voice, broke the silence, and was followed by heart-rending sobs and moans. I stopped involuntarily in my walk and turned in the direction whence these sounds c*me. My first thought was that a murder or robbery was being committed. I looked up and down the street in the vain hope of espying a policeman, and finding none I retraced my steps into a dark lane from which the moans and the sobs still arose more piercing and terrible than before. A momert later I stood by the entrance of one of those suspicious looking beer saloons, adorned with stained window panes and multicolored gas lamps, which abound in these quarters. The woman lay on the flags of the sidewalk, her face turned to the ground, convulsive sobs shaking her body—the very picture of misery, and looking mere like a heap of rags than like a human being. All I was able to distinguish by the flickering light of the nearest gas-lamp was a profusion of glowing red hair which descended in thick undulating locks from her head and straggled in the mud which covered the pavement, I stooped down and touched her shoulder. •What is the matter?' I asked. * Haß anybody hurt you V She shook her head without tu-ning round and continued sobbing. ' Come now,' I said again in a louder tone, •lookup and tell me what is the matter. Come with me ; you need not be afraid.' ' I won't, I wont!' she sobbed. ' Leave me alone to die here. I won't go to the station again I' ' But I am not a policeman,' I continued, bending down to her ; ' come, look up !' This time she set mod to understand me. Turning round she lifted herself to a sitting posture, and leaning on her elbow looked me full in the face It was a sight I shall never forget in all my life. In the midst of long dishevelled tresses of golden auburn hair appeared a face of wondrous, almost childlike beauty and purity of expression, It was ashy pale, besmeared with mud, and drops of blood trickled down the check from a small wound on the forehead ; but all this could not efface the regal beauty of the features and the whole form of the girl. Lying there in the mud like an outcast dog the girl wore a look as if she were a queen reclining on her throno. 1 What do you want V she muttered in a hoarse voice. ■ I can't go anywhere to-night;

'am tipsy. . . . And oh! that villain, that scoundrel 1' she exclaimed, shaking her fist in the direction of the saloon, whence iFsued the sounds of a banjo and of coarse, drunken voiceß. *He beat mo so that I can scarcely stand, and tore all my clothes to patches. Look !'

tore with one hand at the miserable rags which covered her body and a piece of them remained in her grasp, discovering a neck and shoulders of beautiful form and marble whiteness. In this gesture there was such a bopless misery, such an utter indifference to all womanly shame, that it went straight to my heart.

• Tell me.' I said, after ineffectually trying to raise her to her feet, ' who are you ?' She looked at me with a broad, vacant stare of her dark eyes for a moment and then broke out into a mad, convulsive laugh. ' Who I am!' she repeated incessantly, •Ha! ha! ha !'

The laugh tamed into sobbing ; she again laid her face down on the pavement and wept and moaned disconsolately. The noise had at last attracted the attention of one of the ' beßt ones in the world' who happened to be strolling through the streets. Slowly, with a majestic tread the portly form approached to where I was standing and demanded In a severe tone — 1 What'e the row here!'

•This woman,' I rejoined, ' Begins to have been tadly treated in that aaloon yonder.' ' Ob, at Old Nick's !' remarked the official with a knowing smile. 'No wonder. It is a mad gang down there. But what's this woman ? Let me see.'

He lifted her by the shoulders and looked into hsr face. The girl screeched louder than ever, made a df-sperfte attempt at ris'ng to her feet, but ftll back again, motionless.

'lt is Maggie,' observed the policeman in cool tone. ' She is at it again, poor girl.' ' Who is sbe ?' I asked.

'I don't know, sir, and neither does anybody kr.o-v anything about her, I presume. She is just Maggie, and nothing more, and a mud, awfol kind of girl she is, to be sure. Just as you see her now, so I have picked, her up nearly every night the;e two weeks since nhe has returned from the itland She will have to go arain, that's all ! Come now, Masgie,' the ofKcer continue 1, shaking the girl by the thoulder, ' brace up, that's a good girl, or.me !'

Bit she r» • aine.l motionless, breathing hard and apparently senseless. •Well, well muttered the policeman, 'I shall have to carry her aea ! n ' Ho stoopi-.l tlnwn p.t,A lifted the girl in his ums like a child.

' Is she not too hervy for you ? ' ? rsked. The man smiled.

'Oood gracious, s'r shot's a,-, a eh Id, and as tn that ;-.hs is hardly more than a child ; see how young t;e poor thing looks.' Observing that I had before me one of those rare representatives of tbi-ir species who have not yeteichauged hearts for clubs, I resolved to accompany him to the station house. Wh la walking I tried to extract from him all the information I could about the strange being he crtriied in his arm!, and who before we had reached our destination, had gone to sleep like a child with her head on his broad shoulder.

All I could learn was that Maggie had lived for more than a year in this precinct, and since two months in a dingy back room of ' Old Nick's ''hotel.' Whence she came or what her name was, nobody knew. (To be continued.')