Then the struggle begins for
existence and bread. She is a seamstress, a dry-goods clerk, but her
shame finds her out when an infant is born to her, unnamed. One night,
hungry, and torn with the struggle of a lost hope, she rushes into the
streets and seeks the river. On a lone pier she seeks refuge from her
'lost life.' The night-watchman, anxious about the cotton and rosin
confided to his charge, does not hear the cry of 'Mother' from a
despairing girl, or the plunge into the gloomy, silent river below. She
is not found for days after, and then her once fair face is gnawed
threadbare with the incisors of crabs, and the once white neck, rounded
as a pillar of glory, is a mere greenish mass of festering corruption
She is not recognized, and thus fills the page devoted to missing
people. [Footnote: New York World.]
CHAPTER LXXVI.
CONCLUSION.
Our task is done. We have told, as far as we are capable of telling,
the secrets of this great and growing city. Our purpose has been two-
fold, to satisfy a reasonable curiosity on the part of those who never
have seen, and probably never will see New York, and to warn those who
design visiting the city, of the dangers and temptations which await
them here. We warn them earnestly to confine their visits to the
numerous harmless and innocent attractions of the Metropolis, and to
shun those other, darker quarters of the city, which are but so many
gateways to the paths that lead down to ruin and death.
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