Cast Adrift | Page 2

of his or her influence, responsible for the human debasement and suffering I have portrayed.
The task I set for myself has not been a pleasant one. It has hurt my sensibilities and sickened my heart many times as I stood face to face with the sad and awful degradation that exists in certain regions of our larger cities; and now that my work is done, I take a deep breath of relief. The result is in your hands, good citizen, Christian reader, earnest philanthropist! If it stirs your heart in the reading as it stirred mine in the writing, it will not die fruitless.
THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
The unwelcome babe--The defrauded young mother--The struggle between life and death--"Your baby is in heaven"--A brief retrospect--A marriage for social position--An ambitious wife and a disappointed husband--The young daughter--The matrimonial market--The Circassian slaves of modern society--The highest bidder--Disappearance--The old sad story--Secret marriage--The letters--Disappointed ambition--Interview between the parents--The mother's purpose--"Baffled, but not defeated"--The father's surprise--The returned daughter--Forgiven--"I am not going away again, father dear"--Insecurity and distrust

CHAPTER II.
The hatred of a bad woman--Mrs. Dinneford's plans for the destruction of Granger--Starting in business--Plots of Mrs. Dinneford and Freeling--The discounted notes--The trap--Granger's suspicions aroused--Forgery--Mrs. Dinneford relentless--The arrest--Fresh evidence of crime upon Granger's person--The shock to Edith--"That night her baby was born"

CHAPTER III.
"It is a splendid boy"--A convenient, non-interfering family doctor--Cast adrift--Into the world in a basket, unnamed and disowned--Edith's second struggle back to life--Her mind a blank--Granger convicted of forgery--Seeks to gain knowledge of his child--The doctor's evasion and ignorance--An insane asylum instead of State's prison--Edith's slow return to intelligence--"There's something I can't understand, mother"--"Where is my baby?"--"What of George?"--No longer a child, but a broken hearted woman--The divorce

CHAPTER IV.
Sympathy between father and daughter--Interest in public charities--A dreadful sight--A sick babe in the arms of a half-drunken woman--"Is there no law to meet such cases?"---"The poor baby has no vote!"--Edith seeks for the grave of her child, but cannot find it--She questions her mother, who baffles her curiosity--Mrs. Bray's visit--Interview between Mrs. Dinneford and Mrs. Bray--"The baby isn't living?"--"Yes; I saw it day before yesterday in the arms of a beggar-woman"--Edith's suspicions aroused--Determined to discover the fate of her child--Visits the doctor--"Your baby is in heaven"--"Would to God it were so, for I saw a baby in hell not long ago!"

CHAPTER V.
Mrs. Dinneford visits Mrs. Bray--"The woman to whom you gave that baby was here yesterday"--The woman must be put out of the way--Exit Mrs. Dinneford, enter Pinky Swett--"You know your fate--New Orleans and the yellow fever"--"All I want of you is to keep track of the baby"--Division of the spoils--Lucky dreams--Consultation of the dream-book for lucky figures--Sam McFaddon and his backer, who "drives in the Park and wears a two thousand dollar diamond pin"--The fate of a baby begged with--The baby must not die--The lottery-policies

CHAPTER VI.
Rottenness at the heart of a great city--Pinky Swett's attempted rescue of a child from cruel beating--The fight--Pinky's arrest--Appearance of the "queen"--Pinky's release at her command--The queen's home--The screams of children being beaten--The rescue of "Flanagan's Nell"--Death the great rescuer--"They don't look after things in here as they do outside--Everybody's got the screws on, and things must break sometimes, but it isn't called murder--The coroner understands it all"

CHAPTER VII.
Pinky Swett at the mercy of the crowd in the street--Taken to the nearest station-house--Mrs. Dinneford visits Mrs. Bray again--Fresh alarms--"She's got you in her power"---"Money is of no account"--The knock at the door--Mrs. Dinneford in hiding--The visitor gone--Mrs. Bray reports the woman insatiable in her demands--Must have two hundred dollars by sundown--No way of escape except through police interference--"People who deal with the devil generally have the devil to pay"--Suspicion--A mistake--Sound of feet upon the stairs--Mrs. Dinneford again in hiding--Enter Pinky Swett--Pinky disposed of--Mrs. Dinneford again released--Mrs. Bray's strategy--"Let us be friends still, Mrs. Bray"--Mrs. Dinneford's deprecation and humiliation--Mrs. Bray's triumph

CHAPTER VIII.
Mrs. Bray receives a package containing two hundred dollars--"Poor baby! I must see better to its comfort"--Pinky meets a young girl from the country--The "Ladies' Restaurant"--Fried oysters and sangaree--The "bindery" girl--"My head feels strangely"--Through the back alley--The ten-cent lodging house--Robbery--A second robbery--A veil drawn--A wild prolonged cry of a woman--The policeman listens only for a moment, and then passes on--Foul play--"In all our large cities are savages more cruel and brutal in their instincts than the Comanches"--Who is responsible?

CHAPTER IX.
Valuation of the spoils--The receiver--The "policy-shop" and its customers--A victim of the lottery mania

CHAPTER X.
"Policy-drunkards"--A newly-appointed policeman's blunder--The end of a "policy-drunkard"--Pinky and her friend in consultation over "a cast-off baby in Dirty alley"--"If you can't get hush-money out of its mother, you can bleed Fanny Bray"--The way to starve a baby--Pinky moves her quarters without the use of "a dozen furniture cars"--A baby's home--The baby's night nurse--The baby's supper--The baby's bed--How the baby's money is spent--Where the baby's nurse passes the night--The baby's