They are infatuated with the rush and roar of a great metropolis. They are fascinated by the illusion of pleasure. Broadway, Fifth Avenue, the mansions, the lights, the beauty. A fever of living is in their blood. An unnatural hunger and thirst for excitement is burning them up. For this they labor. For this they endure a hard, unnatural existence. For this they crowd themselves in stifling, inhuman quarters, and for this they die. The joys of the Christmas tide are no illusion with most of us, the strange exhibition of fancy, of which it is the name, no mockery of our dreams. Far over the wide land the waves of expectation and sympathetic appreciation constantly oscillate one with the other in the human breast, and in the closing season of the year are at last given definite expression. Rings and pins, the art of the jeweler and the skill of the dress-maker, pictures, books, ornaments and knickknacks—these with one great purpose are consecrated, and in the material lavishness of the season is seen the dreams of the world come true.
There is one region, however, where, in the terrific drag of the struggle for existence, the softer phases of this halcyon mood are at first glance obscure. It is a region of tall tenements and narrow streets where, crowded into an area of a few square miles, live and276 labor a million and a half of people. It is the old-time tenement area, leading almost unbrokenly north from Franklin Square to Fourteenth Street. Here, during these late December evenings, the holiday atmosphere is beginning to make itself felt. It is a region of narrow streets with tall five-story, even seven-story, tenements lining either side of the way and running thick as a river with a busy and toilsome throng.
The ways are already lined with carts of special Christmas goods, such as toys, candies, Christmas tree ornaments, feathers, ribbons, jewelry, purses, fruit, and in a few wagons small Christmas greens such as holly and hemlock wreaths, crosses of fir, balsam, tamarack pine and sprigs of mistletoe. Work has not stopped in the factories or stores, and yet these streets are literally packed with people, of all ages, sizes and nationalities, and the buying is lively. One man, who looks as though he might be a Bowery tough rather than a denizen of this particular neighborhood, is offering little three-, five- and ten-inch dolls which he announces as “genuine American beauties here. Three, five and ten.” Another, a pale, full-bearded Jew, is selling little Christmas tree ornaments of paste or glass for a penny each, and in the glare of the newly-turned-on electric lights, it is not difficult to perceive that they are the broken or imperfect lots of the toy manufacturers who are having them hawked about during the eleventh hour before Christmas as the best way of getting rid of them. Other dusty, grim and raucous denizens are offering candy, mixed nuts, and other forms of special confections, at ten cents277 a pound, a price at which those who are used to the more expensive brands may instructively ponder.
Meats are selling in some of the cheaper butcher shops for ten, fifteen and twenty cents a pound, picked chickens in barrels at fifteen and twenty. A whole section of Elizabeth Street is given up to the sale of stale fish at ten and fifteen cents a pound, and the crowd of Italians, Jews and Bohemians who are taking advantage of these modest prices is swarming over the sidewalk and into the gutters. A four- or five-pound fish at fifteen cents a pound will make an excellent Christmas dinner for four, five or six. A thin, ice-packed and chemically-preserved chicken at fifteen or twenty cents a pound will do as much for another family. Onions, garlic, old cast-off preserves, pickles and condiments that the wholesale houses uptown have seen grow stale and musty on their shelves, can be had here for five, ten and fifteen cents a bottle, and although the combination is unwholesome it will be worked over as Christmas dinners for the morrow. Cheap, unsalable, stale, adulterated—these are the words that should be stamped on every bottle, basket and barrel that is here being scrambled over. And yet the purchasers would not be benefited any thereby. They must buy what they can afford. What they can afford is this.
The street, with its mass of life, lingers in this condition until six o’clock, when the great shops and factories turn loose their horde of workers. Then into the glare of these electric-lighted streets the army of shop girls and boys begins to pour. Here is a spectacle interesting and provocative of thought at all seasons, but trebly so278 on this particular evening. It is a shabby throng at best, commonplace in garb and physical appearance, but rich in the qualities of youth and enthusiasm, than which the world holds nothing more valuable.
Youth in all the glory of its illusions and its ambitions. Youth, in whom the cold insistence of life’s physical limitations and the law have not as yet worked any permanent depression. Thousands are hurrying in every direction. The street cars which ply this area are packed as only the New York street car companies can pack their patrons, and that in cold, old, dirty and even vile cars. There are girls with black hair, and girls with brown. Some have even, white teeth, some shapely figures, some a touch of that persuasive charm which is indicated by the flash of an eye. There are poor dresses, poor taste, and poor manners mingled with good dresses, good taste and good manners. In the glow of the many lights and shadows of the evening they are hurrying away, with that lightness of spirit and movement which is the evidence of a long strain of labor suddenly relaxed.
“Do you think Santa Claus will have enough to fill that?” asks an officer, who is standing in the glare of a balsam- and pine-trimmed cigar store window, to a smartly dressed political heeler or detective who is looking on with him at the mass of shop-girls hurrying past. A shop-girl had gone by with her skirt cut to an inch or two below her knee, revealing a trim little calf and ankle.
“Eee yo! I hope so! Isn’t she the candy?”
 
Christmas in the Tenements
“Don’t get fresh,” comes quickly from the hurrying279 figure as she disappears in the throng with a toss of her head. She has enjoyed the comment well enough, and the rebuke is more mischievous than angry.
“A goldfish! A goldfish! Only one cent!” cries a pushcart vendor, who is one............