Justice in the By-Ways, a Tale of Life

A bottle of wine, and the mild, persuasive manner of Mr. Snivel, so completely won over George’s confidence, that, like one of that class always too ready to give out their hear...

“Having served well the offices of felons and impostors, Hag Zogbaum would instruct her girls in the mysteries of licentiousness. When they reached a certain age, their personal...

Night has thrown her mantle over the city. There is a great gathering of denizens at the house of Madame Flamingo. She has a _bal-masque_ to-night. Her door is beset with richly...

Tom Swiggs has enjoyed, to the evident satisfaction of his mother, a seven months’ residence in the old prison. The very first families continue to pay their respects to the goo...

“Their tracts are so carefully got up. If my poor old negro property could only read—(Mrs. Swiggs pauses.) I was going to say-if it wasn’t for the law (again she pauses), we cou...

A pleasant passage of sixty hours, a good shaking up at the hands of that old tyrant, sea-sickness, and Lady Swiggs finds the steamer on which she took passage gliding majestica...

Tom has passed a restless night in jail. He has dreamed of bottled snakes, with eyes wickedly glaring at him; of fiery-tailed serpents coiling all over him; of devils in shapes...

You must know, reader, that King street is our Boulevard of fashion; and though not the handsomest street in the world, nor the widest, nor the best paved, nor the most celebrat...

While Mrs. Swiggs is being entertained by Sister Scudder and her clerical friends in New York, Mr. Snivel is making good his demand on her property in Charleston. As the agent o...

Purged of all the ill-humors of her mind, Mrs. Swiggs finds herself, on the morning following the excellent little gathering at Sister Scudder’s, restored to the happiest of tem...

Regard us forbearingly, generous and urbane reader; follow us undaunted whither we go, nor charge us with tracing crime in a bad cause. We will leave the old prison, the dejecte...

Reader! have you ever witnessed how cleverly one of our mob-politicians can, through the all-soothing medium of a mint-julep, transpose himself from a mass of passion and bad En...

Madame Montford returns, unsuccessful, to her parlor. It is conscience that unlocks the guilty heart, that forces mortals to seek relief where there is no chance of finding it....

Madame Montford, pale, thoughtful, and abstracted, sits musing in her parlor. “Between this hope and fear-this remorse of conscience, this struggle to overcome the suspicions of...

Our very chivalric dealers in human merchandise, like philosophers and philanthropists, are composed merely of flesh and blood, while their theories are alike influenced by circ...

Pale and hesitating, Brother Spyke says: “I have no passion for delving into such places; and having seen enough for one night, am content to leave the search for this vile old...

June, July, and August are past away, and September, with all its autumnal beauties, ushers in, without bringing anything to lighten the cares of that girl whose father yet pine...

Disappointed, and not a little chagrined, at the failure of his mission, the young man muses over the next best course to pursue. He has the inebriate’s welfare at heart; he kno...

The two lone revellers remain at the pier-table; moody and hectic. Mr. Snivel drops into a sound sleep, his head resting on the marble. Weak-minded, jealous, contentious-with al...

The city clock strikes one as Mrs. Swiggs, nervous and weary, enters the House of the Foreign Missions. Into a comfortably-furnished room on the right, she is ushered by a man m...

While the scene we have related in the foregoing chapter was being enacted, there might be seen pacing the great colonnade of the Charleston hotel, the tall figure of a man wrap...

On taking leave of her father, Maria, her heart overburdened with grief, and her mind abstracted, turned towards the Battery, and continued, slowly and sadly, until she found he...

“Steady a bit! Here I am, boys, turned up again—a subject of this moral reform school, of moral old Charleston. If my good old mother thinks it’ll reform a cast-off remnant of h...

“Oh! George-George!” she whispers imploringly, as her eyes meet his; and turning upon the couch of her chamber, where he hath lain her, awakes to consciousness, and finds him wa...

Now Worth street and Mission Place. in New York, there stands, like a grim savage, the house of the Nine Nations, a dingy wooden tenement, that for twenty years has threatened t...

“What could the woman mean, when on taking leave of me she said, ‘you are far richer than me?’” questions Maria McArthur to herself, when, finding she is alone and homeless in t...

Mr. Fitzgerald sees that his last remark is having no very good effect on Madame Montford, and hastens to qualify, ere it overcome her. “That, I may say, Madame, was not the las...

Anna gives George Mullholland the letter of release, and on the succeeding morning he is seen entering at the iron gate of the wall that encloses the old prison. “Bread! give me...

While the earth of Potter’s Field is closing over all that remains of Anna Bonard, Maria McArthur may be seen, snatching a moment of rest, as it were, seated under the shade of...

The morning following the events detailed in the foregoing chapter, finds the august Sleepyhorn seated on his judgment-seat. The clock strikes ten as he casts his heavy eyes ove...

It is night. King street seems in a melancholy mood, the blue arch of heaven is bespangled with twinkling stars, the moon has mounted her high throne, and her beams, like messen...

You must know that, notwithstanding our high state of civilization, we yet maintain in practice two of the most loathsome relics of barbarism-we lash helpless women, and we scou...

To bear up against the malice of inexorable enemies is at once the gift and the shield of a noble nature. And here it will be enough to say, that Maria bore the burden of her il...

Leaving for a time the scenes in the House of the Nine Nations, let us return to Charleston, that we may see how matters appertaining to this history are progressing. Mr. Snivel...

If, generous reader, you had lived in Charleston, we would take it for granted that you need no further enlightening on any of our very select societies, especially the St. Ceci...

Mr. McArthur has jogged on, in the good old way but his worldly store seems not to increase. The time, nevertheless, is arrived when he is expected to return the little amount b...

It is night-Mr. Keepum is seen seated before a table in his drawing-room, finishing a sumptuous supper, and asking himself: “Who dares to question me, the opulent Keepum?” Mr. S...

Mr. Soloman Snivel has effected a reconciliation between old Judge Sleepyhorn and the beautiful Anna Bonard, and he has flattered the weak-minded George Mullholland into a belie...

Maria McArthur having, by her womanly sympathy, awakened the generous impulses of Tom Swiggs, he is resolved they shall have a new channel for their action. Her kindness touched...

It is Bulwer, the prince of modern novelists, who says: “There is in calumny a rank poison that, even when the character throws off the slander, the heart remains diseased benea...

A very common story is this of Madame Flamingo’s troubles. It has counterparts enough, and though they may be traced to a class of society less notorious than that with which sh...

A few days have elapsed, Maria has just paid a visit to her father, still in prison, and may be seen looking in at Mr. Keepum’s office, in Broad street. “I come not to ask a fav...

Prefaces, like long sermons to fashionable congregations, are distasteful to most readers, and in no very high favor with us. A deep interest in the welfare of South Carolina, a...

We come now to another stage of this history. Six months have glided into the past since the events recorded in the foregoing chapter. The political world of Charleston is resol...

On his return from the theatre, Mr. McArthur finds his daughter, Maria, waiting him in great anxiety. “Father, father!” she says, as he enters his little back parlor, “this is w...

By some mysterious process, known only to Keepum and Snivel, the old Antiquary was found at large on the day following Tom Swiggs’ return, notwithstanding the Appeal Court did n...

Let us leave for a time the pursuit with which we concluded the foregoing chapter, and return to Charleston. It is the still hour of midnight. There has been a ball at the fashi...

Maria has passed a night of unhappiness. Hopes and fears are knelling in the morning, which brings nothing to relieve her anxiety for the absent one; and Mr. Snivel has taken th...

A gambling den. situated on Meeting street. “You must get money, George. Here you are nothing without money. Take this, try your hand, make your genius serve you.” Mr. Snivel pu...