iness, some of them trying their luck occasionally after
there had been an exciting "hit," but none reporting him or in any way
interfering with his unlicensed plunder of the miserable and besotted
wretches that crowded his neighborhood.

From the whisky-shop to the policy-shop went Mother Hewitt. Here she put
down five cents more; she never bet higher than this on a "row." From
the policy-shop she went back to the whisky-shop, and took another
drink. By this time she was beginning to grow noisy. It so happened that
the woman who had left the baby with her a little while before came in
just then, and being herself much the worse for drink, picked a quarrel
with Mother Hewitt, accusing her of getting drunk on the money she
received for keeping the baby, and starving it to death. A fight was the
consequence, in which they were permitted to tear and scratch and bruise
each other in a shocking way, to the great enjoyment of the little
crowd of debased and brutal men and women who filled the dram-shop. But
fearing a visit from the police, the owner of the den, a strong, coarse
Irishman, interfered, and dragging the women apart, pushed Mother Hewitt
out, giving her so violent an impetus that she fell forward into the
middle of the narrow street, where she lay unable to rise, not from any
hurt, but from sheer intoxication.

"What's up now?" cried one and another as this little ripple of
disturbance broke upon that vile and troubled sea of humanity.

"Only Mother Hewitt drunk again!" lightly spoke a young girl not out
of her teens, but with a countenance that seemed marred by centuries of
debasing evil. Her laugh would have made an angel shiver.

A policeman came along, and stood for a little while looking at the
prostrate woman.

"It's Mother Hewitt," said one of the bystanders.

"Here, Dick," and the policeman spoke to a man near him. "Take hold of
her feet."

The man did as told, and the policeman lifting the woman's head and
shoulders, they carried her a short distance, to where a gate opened
into a large yard used for putting in carts and wagons at night, and
deposited her on the ground just inside.

"She can sleep it off there," said the policeman as he dropped his
unseemly load. "She'll have a-plenty to keep her company before
morning."

And so they left her without covering or shelter in the wet and chilly
air of a late November night, drunk and asleep.

As the little crowd gathered by this ripple of excitem