to No. 218 Chrystie Street, and within two hours had re-
moved everything to the sidewalk.

By that time word had reached Ryan, and he and some
of his henchmen returned. They were thoroughly aroused
but quite helpless. As there was no court in session, and the
marshals were in possession of the premises, Kurzman was
rid of Ryan for good and all. This was the first exhibition
I ever saw of how justice might be travestied.

The next day Ryan's attorneys appeared before Hart-
man and attempted to have the proceedings reopened,
and upon Hartman's refusal to do so, attacked him bit-
terly. The Judge said that if the learned counsel would
not at once stop his impudent remarks, the court would
forget its dignity long enough to leave the bench and
"punch him in the jaw."

My next experience brought me in contact with even a
worse element. Kurzman had foreclosed a second mort-
gage on some houses on West Thirty-ninth Street between
Tenth and Eleventh avenues. They were part of the
block that was called "Hell's Kitchen." Many of the ten-
ants owned only a mattress and a few chairs, and no
kitchen utensils of any kind, and frequently paid their
rents in instalments of less than one dollar. Twice I saw
women carried out of the buildings the worse for the "ex-
citing arguments" they had indulged in with some of their
visitors. It would not have paid us to dispossess these
people, as the new ones would have been no better. We
collected the rents for a few months longer until the first
mortgages were foreclosed.

This condition was very general throughout the City of
New York. The boom days of real estate had disap-
peared, and with them, the optimistic speculators. Real
estate was unsalable, and those who had received mort-
gages in payment of some of their capital and all their
profits were confronted with the choice of either abandon-

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