# Chief Inspector Byrnes — How the Other Half Lives character guide

> Chief Inspector Byrnes in How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Inspector Byrnes

**First appearance:** 0011-vii-a-raid-on-the-stale-beer-dives

## Snapshot

The police chief whose raids on stale-beer dives and lodging houses mark the tenement's edge, where summer heat turns rooftops into bedrooms and streets into morgues.

## Who they are

He belongs to the world of shortened beats and doubled patrols, where a German's garden does the work of a dozen police clubs and a park can quiet a nest of agitators. His authority measures the tenement's pressure from outside—June's first hot nights bring reports of sleepers rolling from roofs and windowsills. He matters because he shows reform arriving as force, and because his statistics of death sit uneasily beside the narrator's quieter testimony.

## In the story

### [VIII: The Cheap Lodging-Houses](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/chapters/viii-the-cheap-lodging-houses)

Quoted extensively on the role of lodging-houses in breeding crime and the corruption of young men.

### [XVIII: The Reign of Rum](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/chapters/xviii-the-reign-of-rum)

Mentioned as having men who spot criminals in reputable saloons.

### [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/chapters/endnotes)

Referenced in endnote 9 regarding lodging-houses.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/chief_inspector_byrnes
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters