Poor Devils

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POOR DEVILS.

Leaving unargued whether or no Brooklyn is a place where poor devils much do congregate, we proceed at once to say that, in any event, no city, not even the model “wealthy and intelligent” one, is without poor devils. They are of various kinds. There are quite a good many of them who wouldn’t by superficial observers be classed in the list; but they belong there nevertheless. Some are dressed in fine clothes, clean shirts, and fare sumptuously every day. Some have bank accounts, draw checks for fabulous sums, and are “good” for the same. Yet for all that, they are poor devils.

There is one in Wall street. He may be seen every day, moving with eager and nervous motions, his face sharp and cadaverous, his eyes sending out a hard non-human expression, and his whole being concentrated in the one thing, money. Of that he has plenty enough—but what else has he? We know him not, yet we know enough of him. He is not to be envied. Through all his cash accounts, his secure standing, his keenness and success in business, we put him down as a poor devil. We put him at the head of the list.

Then a most determined “man of pleasure,” an industrious gentleman who makes it the business of his life to enjoy himself—yet fails. In fact he overdoes it. He works too strong in one direction. Pleasure (the real article) seldom responds to these who make a dead set after it—while on the other hand, it sometimes springs up, gay and impromptu, without warning, without preparation. Do you suppose the one who laughs the loudest, and carouses the oftenest, sees the most happiness?

We should also say that there are poor devils in some of the religious institutions, the churches. Excuse us, but the fact will not be denied. We know a man who is so deeply saturated with the belief of his illimitable sin, his “unworthiness,” that we are with pain compelled, (mentioning no names,) to bring him under the fearful heading of this article. The man we allude to is not a bad man—not very; but he himself has an idea, according to his statements, prayers, &c., that he is as the devil incarnate, even Belzebub. This idea rises with him in the morning, and lies down at night. So you see, good reader, how the want of a little self-esteem can make a poor devil!

A literary poor devil! Behold him, an ill-dressed ghost, haunting the regions of Ann street, Nassau street, and Spruce street, in New York. He has partaken of a great many boarding-houses—being a kind of Wandering Jew of such places. An old-experienced land-lady would know him at a glance, and, without demur, would inform him, “every room occupied.” The literary poor devil is an eater of four-cent pieces of pie—also coffee and cakes. He has had engagements in different capacities in the newspapers. He has even dreamed of writing a book. He drinks lager beer; nor are his lips strangers to gin.

Thus we come to the base of the pyramid of poor devils—the substratum—that great body, the rummies. You may watch one of this sort from the beginning. Hogarth,¹ in his day, pictured a type of one of them, in his “Rake’s Progress.” In New York and Brooklyn you perhaps note a young man, good-looking, well-dressed, hanging round the drinking saloons and barrooms. He picks up his living, after a fashion—but that sinister look out of the once candid and manly face tells it is not now by the trade he served a wholesome apprenticeship to. He drops down, down, little by little, lower and lower, and, in due time, a wreck of a man, points our moral as the most degraded of all the poor devils.

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