The French Quarter of New York [pp. 61-69]

66 THE FRENCH QUARTER OF NEW YORK. [April,
means or liberty to return to France, they are surely doomed
either to menial occupation or to misery. As domestic servants
there is an opening for them, or they can enroll themselves under
the orders of some chef. The alternative is starvation wages at
factory work for a few months in the year, with the parks as a
lodging for the rest of it. We know of an ex-captain of engineers-probably cashiered for misconduct, but undoubtedly an
ex officer-whose present occupation is dish-washing in a restaurant. Another-a handsome, bright young fellow, who shows
official documents to prove that he held a cavalry commission
and was wounded at Villiers-sur-Marne-was recently a chronic
applicant for lodgings at the Salle d'Asile in South Fifth Avenue, and sold pins in the streets for a living. An ex-artillery
captain is a corn-porter on the North River. An ex-notary lights
the fires and sweeps the floors in an up-town school for four dollars a week. A talented young artist was lately barkeeper for
his board in a little beer-shop near Washington Square. And
most New-Yorkers have heard of the Vicomte d'Aspremont,
who died last year, who had been a commandant in the French
army, had devoured two large fortunes, and ended his days as a
newspaper-carrier in the French quarter at the age of seventyfive.
A class of men who are very apt to go to the bad in the
French quarter are ex.ndn-commissioned officers. Used for
years to having all their work done for them, having forgotten
whatever trade or occupation they had on entering the army,
without acquiring any knowledge in exchan~e which can be of
service to them here, they are the most helpless kind of immigrants. We knew of one whose history here affords material for
reflection. Though he had passed the examination entitling him
to leave the army after a year's service, he preferred to stay, and
for several years held the rank of sergeant-major. He had previously been an apothecary, and on leaving the army set out for
this country on the strength of his acquaintance with that branch
of the medical profession. He had barely money to pay his way
for a month, but when that was gone he had a remarkably fluent
and persuasive tongue to fall back upon. He used it to some
purpose, inventing the most complicated stories of his expectations to keep his landlord in patience. Month after month went
by, the ex~sergeant~major denying himself nothing, especially in
the line of drinkables. In his language he was as profane as the
sapper to whom rien n'est sacr6. He was so "advanced" an infidel as to have no patience with the superannuated ideas of Vol