Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 157

1880 · 16 pages

Catalog Note *Mike Merry, the Harbor Police Boy: The Night-Hawkes of Philadelphia* by Charles Morris features a crime narrative set in midnight Philadelphia. The story opens in a Kensington tavern where five men, led by the sharp-featured "Levi the Fox," meet secretly before proceeding to the Delaware wharves. A diminutive spy follows them, overhearing the word "Fleetwing" and reporting to a harbor police crew stationed on a barge. The spy signals the police with a whistle, and a young figure identified as Mike joins their boat. Meanwhile, Levi's group rows downstream toward a docked vessel where an intruder scales aboard and approaches a sleeping bearded man in a cabin, knife raised. The narrative shifts to introduce characters in a poor Philadelphia district. The serial combines detective work, waterfront crime, and apparent murder-plot elements, with distinctive period dialect and nautical setting details characteristic of adventure pulp fiction.

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