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Title: Ben, the Luggage Boy, or, Among the Wharves
Date of first publication: 1870
Author: Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832-1899)
Date first posted: March 22 2013
Date last updated: March 22 2013
Faded Page eBook #20130346
This eBook was produced by: Taavi Kalju, Paul Ereaut, Joseph Cooper and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Transcriber’s notes:
A list of some of the author’s other books has been moved from the front
papers to the end of the book.
[Illustration: Front cover]
[Illustration: Title page:
RAGGED DICK SERIES BY HORATIO ALGER JR.
BEN THE LUGGAGE BOY]
BEN, THE LUGGAGE BOY;
OR,
AMONG THE WHARVES.
BY
HORATIO ALGER, JR.,
AUTHOR OF “RAGGED DICK,” “FAME AND FORTUNE,” “MARK, THE MATCH
BOY,” “ROUGH AND READY,” “CAMPAIGN SERIES,”
“LUCK AND PLUCK SERIES,” ETC.
THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.,
PHILADELPHIA,
CHICAGO, TORONTO.
TO
ANNIE,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
In Tender Remembrance,
BY HER
_AFFECTIONATE BROTHER_
PREFACE.
In presenting “Ben, the Luggage Boy,” to the public, as the fifth of the
Ragged Dick Series, the author desires to say that it is in all
essential points a true history; the particulars of the story having
been communicated to him, by Ben himself, nearly two years since. In
particular, the circumstances attending the boy’s running away from
home, and adopting the life of a street boy, are in strict accordance
with Ben’s own statement. While some of the street incidents are
borrowed from the writer’s own observation, those who are really
familiar with the different phases which street life assumes in New
York, will readily recognize their fidelity. The chapter entitled “The
Room under the Wharf” will recall to many readers of the daily journals
a paragraph which made its appearance within two years. The writer
cannot close without expressing anew his thanks for the large share of
favor which has been accorded to the volumes of the present series, and
takes this opportunity of saying that, in their preparation, invention
has played but a subordinate part. For his delineations of character and
choice of incidents, he has been mainly indebted to his own observation,
aided by valuable communications and suggestions from those who have
been brought into familiar acquaintance with the class whose mode of
life he has sought to describe.
NEW YORK, April 5, 1876.
BEN, THE LUGGAGE BOY;
OR,
AMONG THE WHARVES.
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