Taking its title from the cry of the barefoot girls who sold roasted ears of corn on the streets at night, this book leads readers up creaking tenement stairs into the attic rooms of the New York poor. Robinson’s life scenes follow drunkards, ruined families and street children, and press the case that rum lies behind much of their misery.
A best-selling reform book of 1854, revealing for historians of New York, poverty and the temperance crusade. Download the free EPUB.