Cast Adrift

T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur

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• Publié par: kuzec
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 36
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cast Adrift, by T. S. Arthur This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Cast Adrift Author: T. S. Arthur Release Date: December 8, 2009 [EBook #4592] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAST ADRIFT *** Produced by Charles Aldarondo, and David Widger CAST ADRIFT By T. S. Arthur Author Of "Three Years In A Man-Trap," "Orange Blossoms," Etc., Etc. Philadelphia: Cincinnati: New York: Boston: Chicago, Ills.: New Castle, Pa.: San Francisco, Cal.: 1873 TO THE READER. IN this romance of real life, in which the truth is stranger than the fiction, I have lifted only in part the veil that hides the victims of intemperance and other terrible vices—after they have fallen to the lower deeps of degradation to be found in our large cities, where the vile and degraded herd together more like wild beasts than men and women—and told the story of sorrow, suffering, crime and debasement as they really exist in Christian America with all the earnestness and power that in me lies. Strange and sad and terrible as are some of the scenes from which I hare drawn this veil, I have not told the half of what exists. My book, apart from the thread of fiction that runs through its pages, is but a series of photographs from real life, and is less a work of the imagination than a record of facts. If it stirs the hearts of American readers profoundly, and so awakens the people to a sense of their duty; if it helps to inaugurate more earnest and radical modes of reform for a state of society of which a distinguished author has said, "There is not a country throughout the earth on which it would not bring a curse; there is no religion upon the earth that it would not deny; there is no people upon the earth it would not put to shame;"—then will not my work be in vain. Sitting in our comfortable homes with well-fed, well-clothed and happy-hearted children about us—children who have our tenderest care, whose cry of pain from a pin-prick or a fall on the carpeted floor hurts us like a blow—-how few of us know or care anything about the homes in which some other children dwell, or of the hard and cruel battle for life they are doomed to fight from the very beginning! To get out from these comfortable homes and from the midst of tenderly cared-for little ones, and stand face to face with squalor and hunger, with suffering, debasement and crime, to look upon the starved faces of children and hear their helpless cries, is what scarcely one in a thousand will do. It is too much for our sensibilities. And so we stand aloof, and the sorrow, and suffering, the debasement, the wrong and the crime, go on, and because we heed it not we vainly imagine that no responsibility lies at our door; and yet there is no man or woman who is not, according to the measure 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 DETAILED CONTENTS. CAST ADRIFT. CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER XX. CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER XXIII. CHAPTER XXIV. CHAPTER XXV. CHAPTER XXVI. CHAPTER XXVII. CHAPTER XXVIII. CHAPTER XXIX. DETAILED 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