blind man's alley bear its name for a reason. until little more than a year ago its dark burrows harbored a colony of blind beggars, tenants of a blind landlord, old daniel murphy, whom every child in the ward knows, if he never heard of the president of the united states. "old dan" made a big fortune--he told me once four hundred thousand dollars-- out of his alley and the surrounding tenements, only to grow blind himself in extreme old age, sharing in the end the chief hardship of the wretched beings whose lot he had stubbornly refused to better that he might increase his wealth. even when the board of health at last compelled him to repair and clean up the worst of the old buildings, under threat of driving out the tenants and locking the doors behind them, the work was accomplished against the old man's angry protests. he appeared in person before the board to argue his case, and his argument was characteristic. "i have made my will," he said. "my monument stands waiting for me in calvary. i stand on the very brink of the grave, blind and helpless, and now (here the pathos of the appeal was swept under in a burst of angry indignation) do you want me to build and get skinned, skinned? these people are not fit to live in a nice house. let them go where they can, and let my house stand." in spite of the genuine anguish of the appeal, it was downright amusing to find that his anger was provoked less by the anticipated waste of luxury on his tenants than by distrust of his own kind, the builder. he knew intuitively what to expect. the result showed that mr. murphy had gauged his tenants correctly.