In the second year of the great civil war, when the Irish brigades marched through the streets, New york was a city full of tribes. War chiefs, rich and poor. It wasn't a city really, It was more a furnace where cities someday might be forged.
.
The Five Points! Murderer's Alley. Brickbat Mansion.The Gates of hell! In this wild place.... Look upon the face of this poor child. She lives in squalor, in this godforsaken den of vice and misery behind me. Every year the Reformers came. Every year the Points got worse. As if it liked being dirty.
.
The Five Points. Paradise square! The streets here are always livelier in the evening.
Who are the gangs around now?
We got the Daybreak boys and the Swamp Angels. They work the River Luton ships. The Frog Haulers shanghai sailors down around the bay. Shortails were rough for awhile, but they became a bunch of jackrolling dandies. Lolling around Murderer's Alley looking like Chinamen. The Plug Uglies they're from somewhere in the old country. They got their own language. No one understands what they're saying. They love to fight the cops. And the Nightwalkers and Ratpickers. They work on their backs and kill with their hands. They're so scurvy, only the Plug Uglies will talk with them. But who knows what they're saying. The Slaughterhouses and the Broadway Twisters are a fine bunch of Bengal boys! And the little Forty Thieves.
Not a bunch of Miss Nancy's.
So warriors is what I brought. The O'Connell Guard! The Plug Uglies! The Shirt Tails! The Chichesters! The Forty Thieves!
On my challenge, by the ancient laws of combat .We are met at this chosen ground... .to settle for good and all....who holds sway, over the Five Points. Us Natives, born rightwise to this fine land.. or the foreign hordes defiling it! Under the ancient laws of combat I accept the challenge of the so called Natives. You plague our people at every turn! But from this day out, you shall plague us no more!
Is this the new lad?
Just another bastard I folded in the warmth of my embrace.
THE BUTCHER
You get to know a lot by butchering meat. We're made up of the same things. Flesh and blood. Tissue. Organs. I love to work with pigs. The nearest thing in nature to the flesh of a man, is the flesh a pig. This is the liver. The kidneys. The heart. This is a wound. The stomach will bleed and bleed. This is a kill. This is a kill. And the artery. This is a kill. Bleed 'm slow. Let them think about it for a while.
BOSS TWEED AND THE BUTCHER
I can't get a days work done... .for all the good citizens coming here.. .harrassing me about crime in the Points.Some even go so far to accuse Tammany of connivance.. .in this so called rampant criminality. What can I do? I can't have this.
Something has to be done.
What do you have in mind?
I don't know. Maybe we should hang someone.
Who?
No one important necessarily.
Back alley thieves, with no affiliations.
How many?
3 or 4.
. GALLOWS SCENE
You stand here convicted.. .of ludeness, jackrolling... ..sneak thievery, chloral hydrating, strangulation and corruption of the public
There's my old friend.
How are you feeling, Arthur?
I'm okay. Okay you know.
I see that you are dressed for the occasion, Arthur.
You know me, Bill. Always like to look me best.
That's the spirit.
Nice locket. I'll give you a dollar for it.
It's me mother's.
Dollar and a half?
Done.
I'll miss you, Arthur.
See you in the hot country, Shamus.
Is my son present here? Where's my little fellow? Look at your dad. Farewell dear boy. I never struck a foul blow...or turned a card. May God greet me as a friend!
That night the Reformers held a dance. That was the Five Points alright.
Each of the Five Points is a finger... .when I close my hand it becomes a fist. And any time that I wish, I can turn it against you.
TWEED
The police? Oh, no! Jezus,no! The appearance of the law must be upheld. Especially while it's been broken.
Quite a pair of conversationists aren't you!
We're deep thinkers.
I was in Hell Gate for 16 years. I'm just trying to make my way is all... just like you.
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