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SECOND EDITION 
 
 RICHARD K FOX. 
 
 WITH NEW ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
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 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
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 When you leave, please leave this book 
 
 Because it has been said 
 "Ever thing comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned book." 
 
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 (ill l ol Sl YMOl K B. DURSl Ol I) York LIBRARY 
 
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GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM 
 
 AHD 
 
 City Characters. 
 
 BY SAMUEL A, MACKEEVER, 
 
 THE AMERICAN CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 PUBLISHED AT THE 
 
 NATIONAL POLICE GAZETTE OFFICE, 
 
 NET7 YOKE. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, hj 
 
 RICHARD K. FOX, 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
Samuel Anderson Mackeever, 
 
 HIS EIFE AUD WHAT HE DID III IT. 
 
 In presenting to the public this series of sketches, whose appearance originally in the National, Police 
 Gazette achieved immediate and pronounced success, the publisher is actuated by a desire to rescue from 
 the oblivion into which similar fugitive works inevitably fall, some of the best productions of a pen so full of 
 present performance and of future promise, that its loss leaves a vast gap in local literature. Samuel 
 Anderson Mackeever was a historic figure in American journalism. He was a journalist only in the sense 
 that his labors were in the busy field of newspaperdom, instead of in that superior walk of literature in 
 which far inferior men win more extended fame, and to high rank in which he held the clearest title : that of 
 genius. Although his duties frequently imposed such tasks upon him, ho was by no means a reporter, in 
 the accepted sense of the word. He was a thoughtful student of human nature, an artist whose quick eye, 
 keen natural wit and fertile ancy combined to direct a master hand, which gilded all it touched. What 
 Gavarni and Dickens did with pencil and pen for the two great cities of the Old "World, he performed for the 
 metropolis of the New. His works constitute a gallery of word pictures which paint New York as it had 
 never been painted before. Beaming with light, sombre with shadow, merry in the May sunshine, shud- 
 dering in the February sleet, the varying phases of its teeming life, waking and sleeping, fair and foul, from 
 cellar to garret, from boudoir (o brothel, move by in a panorama vivid in local color, strong and symmetri- 
 cal in form, instinct with the vitality which grows only under the artist hand. Few nooks and erannies of 
 either the town or the ways and doings of its people, escaped the busy chronicler. During the past three 
 years his department in the National Police Gazette and the third column of the front page of the Evening 
 Telegram became the medium through which the general public found daily and weekly introduction to 
 itself. That they did not object to the way in which the master of ceremonies performed his work, the 
 popularity of the sketches proved. It was not, however, till death rang down the curtain, that the world at 
 large knew anything of the man whose pen had procured them so many pleasant hours, and even then it 
 was only through brief and necessarily more or less incorrect obituaries in the daily press. 
 
 In consideration of this fact, nothing could be more appropriate as an introduction to this little volume 
 than the story of its creator's life. 
 
 Samuel Anderson Mackeever used to describe himself as born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, by the 
 accident of a railway. His father and mother were on their way to Philadelphia, on September 16, 1848, 
 when the event occurred. It cost his mother her Life. 
 
 His early years were spent principally in Philadelphia, where his father for a long term filled 
 the position of Superintendent of the House of Refuge. From time to time during his life, there 
 would crop up in the publications to which the dead journalist was contributor the names cf 
 full blown criminals whom he recollected as mere midgets of villainy when he made the round of 
 the jail at his father's side. Once the writer and himself went into a Nassau street restaurant to 
 invite nightmare with a Bohemian compromise between a v< ry late supper and early breakfast 
 after a hard night's work. A flashily dressed young female with red-rimmed eyes and tear stained 
 cheeks, and two men were eating oysters at the next table. It was a mockery of revelry such as 
 ',ne rarely sees. One of the men, a handsome, though not prepossessing young fellow, was talking very 
 loudly, cracking rank jokes which no one replied to. But he had his right wrist handcuffed to the other's'left, 
 
J.1FE OF SAMUEL ANDERSON MACKEEVER. 
 
 half concealed by the table cloth. They were a western detective and a murderer whom he had hunted 
 down in New York, and captured in the course of a spree in which he and his paramour were squandering 
 the spoil of his crime. The two men were the developments of two Philadelphia House of Refuge boys. 
 One had turned thief, the other thief-taker, and one was leading his old comrade to the gallows. Mr. Mae- 
 keever was recognized by botb, and over the beer-dabbled table, with the maudlin harlot sobbing as she 
 drank herself into hysterics, the murderer and the police spy toasted the man whom they remembered as their 
 old jailer's son, and whom both knew and admired in his profession. The last act of the assassin's xife was 
 to address the rude but graphically written story of his career of crime, on the eve of his execution, to New 
 York, with the expressed hope that Mr. Mackeever would have it published "over my name." The thief's 
 vanity lived still at the foot of the gibbet ! 
 
 The name of Samuel Anderson Mackeever figured on the roll of the Philadelphia High School at an age 
 when other boys are usually still puzzling their tangled wits over minor studies. He graduated early, and 
 with such honor that his diploma was signed by the entire Faculty of the "People's College," as Phila- 
 dclphians are fond of calling it. He had applied for a position in the First National Bank of Philadelphia, 
 a: d when he went to interview the directors carried his diploma in its tin case as the best recommendation 
 he could advance. It proved such. He commenced a commercial career which ended in his becoming re- 
 ceiving-teller of the bank, a post he only left to embark in journalism. 
 
 In one of his graphic sketches, " The Bank Clerk," occurs a paragraph which probably is a reflection of 
 lis own experience during this portion of his career : 
 
 "The bank clerk lives constantly in an atmosphere of luxury. The men he meets during the day are 
 monied individuals, from the millionaire notch down. If he is in the cash department he handles greenbacks 
 so constantly that the bills passing through his hands actually lose their monetary value, and become to 
 him as so much merchandise. 
 
 " His work is light and he is well paid forit. The situation is a life one if he behaves himself, and aa the 
 old roosters drop from their stools into their coffins he advances along the line of promotion. 
 
 "In his leisure hours the bank clerk is a great society or sporting man, just as his fancy determines. 
 He lives up town in a first-class boarding house. He is very particular about his dress, generally wearing 
 the English style of clothes which the brokers affect. If he is not calling upon the ladies in the evening he is 
 at the theatre, or in some billiard hall where he has a private cue.. Too frequently he doesn't get home 
 until very late, and when this happens it is necessary for him to have a couple of brandies and soda in the 
 morning before he can get his hand in steady writing trim." 
 
 The line of promotion advanced too slowly for the ardent fancied, blonde receiving teller, who found his 
 bright intelligence handicapped by the rigid rules of business. During his clerical career he had two 
 passions. One was the stage, the other literature. To gratify the first he joined a leading amateur com- 
 pany. The other found employment in the production of various fanciful sketches contributed to the local 
 press. HiB first story which ever found its way into print was identical in plot with the chief motive of 
 "Wilkie Collins' " Moonstone." It was the experience of a somnambulist who plays detective on his own 
 identity and hunts his respected self down. 
 
 One of the most talented of the amateur company in which the stage struck bank clerk figured as a 
 bright light, was a young lady who on one occasion assumed the part of Columbia in a patriotic burlesque of 
 the literary actor, his first dramatic work, as he often laughingly said. In Columbia Mr. Mackeever found 
 the wife whose tender care sweetened his last hours, and in whose company he made the last silent j ourney, 
 from among the rustling palms to the ice-bound cemetery in Philadelphia where he found final rest. 
 
 His retirement from the bank occurred shortly after his early marriage, and a little while before the 
 birth of his only child. Then commenced his real battle of life, with no better weapon than his pen. At 
 one time, in order to earn the living he required, he was directly connected with four papers and a con- 
 tributor to as many more as he could find a market in. At various times ho figured in the columns of every 
 paper in the Quaker City except the Public Ledger. Some of his earliest reportorial work was done on Fitz- 
 gerald's City Item, then in its infancy. His best labors were devoted to the Morning Post, of which John 1). 
 Stockton and Major A. It. Calhoun were respectively editor and publisher. An ardent friendship sprang up 
 between the editor and his young subordinate, an amity which ripened steadily until the former's death. 
 
 The Morning Post did not run a very extended course. Mr. Mackeever then became attached to other 
 papers, chief among them being the Inquirer. It was in the interest of several papers, however, that he 
 attended the Presidential Convention which resulted in the nomination of Horace Greeley. There he met 
 Jolin Gilbert, another newspaper man of local fame, now an attache of the staff of the Philadelphia 
 T.hies. After the Convention they went to Washington aud thence to Long Branch, on business for their 
 respective journals. There the mad fancy of a vagabond trip to Europe took possession of them. They had 
 hardly money to pay for the passage, but they went on, trusting to fortune, and lauded in Liverpool with a 
 single sovereign between them. 
 
 During the passage they had made the acquintance of a young Spaniard of wealth, Senpr Santago De 
 Lima. The young Spaniard had a very imperfect knowledge of English, and was altogether likely to fall an 
 
LIFE OF SAMUEL AXDEBSOX MACKEEVER. 
 
 easy prey to the sharpers of London. He requested his friend Mackeever, in whose vast knowledge he possessed 
 unbounded confidence, to act as cicerone for him. It was a burst of sunrise on a dark future. Mackeever, who him- 
 self knew London only from the books of his favorite author, Dickens, accepted the responsibility at once. " How- 
 ever little I knew," he used to say, "it was more than he did." From London they went to Paris, whence the 
 grandee returned home to Barcelona. The Bohemians were left to shift for themselves in the very heart of Bohemii, 
 ignorant of the language, and within a few francs of bankruptcy. 
 
 Thanks to a loan from an American visitor whom they had met at home they managed to reach Boulogne ! 
 There the vice consul furnished them with a passage to Southampton. They landed in England with a gold- 
 headed cane and their wits as their only assets. 
 
 Gilbert's overcoat had long since found its way into the bowels of the Temple, to figure as a relic in some Paris- 
 ian old clo' shop. Mackeever retained his, a natty, mouse-coiored affair, which a shop-seller consented to sacrifice 
 half a sovereign for. The cane they kept to give them their start in life in London. They set out by the high road 
 for the Capital, nearly 200 miles away. The record of the trip would fill a volume, It was a tramp against hunger 
 lightened only by the most determined hopefulness of two stout hearts. 
 
 One of its brightest episodes occurred as they were nearing London. Their money had given out, they were hun- 
 gry, despairing, almost desperate enough to steal. Mackeever in addition was ill, and scarcely able to crawl along at 
 a snaii's pace. A tramp tinker's wife squatted on the edge of a ditch, bathing a bruised forehead and a black eye, 
 Ler liege lord, having performed the marital duty of inflicting these vigorous caresses on her, was stalking off in the 
 distance, leaving her to follow with his heavy kit. 
 
 Sorry as their plight was, the two famishing men found hers so much more sorrowful that they stopped to cheer 
 her. They shouldered her kit for her, and as they strolled along in company she learned their story. Under her 
 grime and degradation burned some of the divine fire of true womanhood, a remnant the blows of her brutal master 
 had failed to extinguish in blood. As they parted she slipped something into Mackeever's hand. It was her last 
 half-crown, and she pushed on, empty-pocketed, to sup doubtless on a beating from her furious lord, and the 
 memory of an act of charity done in good time. 
 
 They spent their first night in London houseless, in the rain, snatching a brief shelter in a deep doorway, or 
 under the arch of Temple Bar, always, however, to experience, like Poor Jo, the nudge of a policeman's mace and the 
 command, " Come now, jcu move on." Next day they pawned the cane and slept with full stomachs in a "thrip- 
 penny doss." When the cane was devoured and slumbered away they found quarters for a night or two in St. James' 
 Park. Day followed day in the same dreary succession. They wandered about, wearing their hopes out on the 
 stones of London, which they began to think were no harder or more merciless than men's hearts. 
 
 Ir. their loiterings they began to haunt the docks, with a vague fancy that they might find one of the whole- 
 smled skippers they had read about, or, at least, obtain an opportunity to work their passage home. None of the 
 skippers seemed to be in London, and they were not promising enough sailors to be jumped at. Among the ships 
 they boarded in their apparently hopeless quest, and now they boarded every one they came across, was an old New 
 Tork and London packet, the Rhine. The captain, inspirod with sympathy by Mackeever's condition, for the merry 
 Bohemian's hard life had told heavily on him, consented to give him a passage to New York, but for himself alone. 
 He refused to desert his friend, zr.i a compromise was at length effected by which he shipped as cook's mate and 
 Gilbert, whose athletic strength *tood him in good stead, as seaman before the mast. They signed the papers, re- 
 ceived their sovereign advance, bpent it in a feast of congratulation in a waterside public house, and went to sea 
 without a farthing in their pockets, but rich in the knowledge that they were homeward bound. 
 
 The passage was a long and hard one. The vessel carried a 'tween decks crammed with emigrants of the rough- 
 est sort, and the coot's mate had his hands full. Unaccustomed labor and exposure did their work. "When the 
 "Rhine" came up New York Bay Mackeever was completely broken down, a phantom, lost to identification in a wild 
 cloud of yellow beard and hair. 
 
 They found a land'ady up-town with enough confidence in human nature to lease them a room on a week's 
 credit, in spite of their rags and misery. In fact, it was the misery that worked it. Mackeever's solemn assertion 
 that he would die on the doorstep scared her. There was a stove in this room On it they cooked enough food to 
 keep them alive, procured by some mysterious means known to Gilbert alone, for his friend was too sick to go 
 abroad. While in bed he dictated two articles, describing their trip across the Atlantic and their journey back. 
 These were sent to the Evening Telegram, then under the editorial management of Felix J. Defontaine, They were 
 accepted and Mr. Mackeever received $20 for the two. 
 
 It was the first money he had ever earned in New York. 
 
 He followed his first articles in the Telegram up with others. His winning manner and eminently mag- 
 netic joviality made him many friends at once. A very few weeks proved him to be a valuable reporter and 
 an able scribe. The consequence was that he was soon actively employed. His first real reportorial work 
 here was performed for the Sunday Mercury, then under the managing editorship of Dr. Wood It was a 
 practice wit* i^ unattached reporters on the daily papers to apply for Saturday night assignments on the 
 
LIFE OF SAMUEL ANDERS OX MA CKEETER. 
 
 Mercury. On the night John Scannell shot John Donohue, Mr. Mackeever had made his first application for 
 work. There was none. He was lounging in the office alone, hesitating to encounter the inclement night be- 
 fore Gilbert, who had been sent on a mission, returned, when news of the murder was reeeived. " The Doctor 
 looked at me," he said, " and shook his head dubiously. Then he asked me, ' Young man, do you think you 
 could report a murder ?' ' I could tell better if I had the chance,' I answered. He gave me the chance and I 
 never heard him say he regretted it. I who had been loafing in the office without car-fare home rattled up- 
 town in a coupe, and with the prospect of a good night's work, which it proved to be, for I made over $25 
 out of it." 
 
 During his first couple of months in metropolitan journalism, Mr. Mackeever was a space writer on the 
 Telegram and Hei aid, and a contributor of random articles to other papers, notably the Sun. He was then 
 employed on the Telegram at a salary, doing much extra work on the Herald. During this period he made 
 his several balloon voyages with Donaldson as special for the latter paper, becoming also a volunteer for the 
 Daily Graphic balloon voyage. In connection with Colonel James B. Mix he furnished many letters to the 
 Chicago Times during the Beecher trial. The same gentleman was associate editor with him of ex- Warden 
 Sutton's " History of the Tombs." The resignation of the Telegram, dramatic critic led to his assumption of 
 that post, which he held with honor till he left New York to return no more. He now commenced the 
 publication of a series of sketches on the editorial page of the paper similar to " City Characters" he con- 
 tributed later under the nom de guerre of Colonel Lynx to the National Police Gazette. The Telegram 
 series were styled " Popular Pictures," and were an immense hit. He also began the publication of those 
 spicy editorial paragraphs for which the Telegram soon became famous. 
 
 In 1874 Mr. Mackeever attached himself to the editorial staff of the late Frank Leslie. He was at various 
 times editor of Happy Homes, the Lady's Magazine, the Young Men of America and last of The Day's Doings. His 
 pen elevated this last out of the profoundest mire of feeble lewdness into rank as one of the brightest sen- 
 sational papers in the world. His co-editors at various times here were Mortimer Thompson, better known 
 as Q. K. Philander Doesticks, P. B., whose most intimate friend he was to the last, Mr. C. Edmond Pillet, 
 now of the Sunday News editorial staff, and with whom he afterwards collaborated as dramatist in the play 
 of " Nathan Hale," Sydney Rosenfeld, the dramatist, Frank Norton, now proprietor and editor of The Era, 
 Thomas Powell, partner of John Brougham in The Lantern, and various other of the genial comedian's liter- 
 ary ventures, Bracebrydge Hemying (Jack Harkaway) and a score of others equally well known. With one and 
 all of these his relations were of the most affectionate sort. In fact, throughout his life, his acquaintances 
 were ever his friends. He died without an enemy if such a miracle is possible in this politely hypocritical age. 
 
 Although he was compelled to relinquish his reportorial connection with the Telegram by his labors at 
 Frank Leslie's, Mr. Mackeever continued to fulfil his duties as dramatic critic and paragrapher. In 1872 he 
 severed his connection with Mr. Leslie, assuming the work of providing the Telegram with the now famous 
 third column sketches. At about the same time he became a contributor to the National Police Gazette 
 with his successful serial, " The Phantom Friend." The series of sketches now famous as " Glimpses of 
 Gotham " followed, as did also the "City Characters " and the " Midnight Pictures." It is from these that 
 the selections which follow have been culled. It was Mr. Mackeever's intention to have edited them him- 
 self. Unfortunately, fate has called upon a friend's hand to do the work of that which is forever still. 
 
 In addition to his regular employment, Mr. Mackeever was continually engaged in various works in 
 which his versatile genius was especially demanded. He wrote lectures and songs, edited books and corres. 
 ponded with out-of-town papers, notably the Philadelphia Times, whose first New York correspondent he 
 was. Although a marvelously facile and rapid writer, a man whose train of thought seemed to run freely, 
 no matter how adverse circumstances were, or what surroundings hampered him, he had but little time for 
 rest, until his increasing illness rendered it imperative. His dramatic work especially entrenched on his 
 time. After a hard day's labor with the pen came the evening at the theatre, the excitement of the play 
 and the entracte, so that by bed-time but a few hours of rest remained. A constitution of iron would have 
 been shattered far more quickly than tough flesh and blood succumbed. 
 
 About a year ago Mr. Mackeever began to experience the necessity of a change. To avoid the rigor of a 
 Northern Winter, he pitched on Florida as the most convenient place of retirement. His wife accompanied 
 him, their child going to Philadelphia to her grandmother's care. Although his connection with the 
 Telegram continued his health permitted little labor, and half a dozen letters made up the sum of his contri- 
 butions to its columns. His sketches for the Gazette continued uninterruptedly, and in such spare time 
 as remained to him between this work and his battle with disease, he added a few chapters to a novel of 
 local life, on which his ambit- ju was set. 
 
 As a dramatic critic, Mr. Mackeever made a host of friends in the profession, and nothing but want of 
 time prevented his name becoming a marked one in the list of American playwrights. His dramatic 
 feuilleUms were among the best of their kind. He contributed them at various times to the Frank Leslie 
 publications, to the Arcadian, whose chief writer he was, under Louis Engels' management, and to the 
 National Police Gazette. 
 
 Mount Vernon Cemetery, in Philadelphia, was the scene of hi* interment, under the auspices of his 
 
LIFE OF SAMUEL ANDERSON MACKEEYER. 
 
 ■wife's family. His own family are now located in Washington. The funeral was attended by a committee 
 of the New York Press Club, of which he was one of the founders, and members of the Philadelphia press. 
 But one strange face was visible at the funeral. It was that of a hard-featured man of sixty, whom no one 
 knew, and who left the cemetery as quickly as he had come. The presence of this mourner is a reminder of 
 a curious episode in the dead man's career. 
 
 Some years ago he became possessed of a fancy to live in a tenement house, to find out, by actual con - 
 tact with them, something about the poor, whose lives, so full of the hard romance of poverty, he was so 
 fond of picturing. He found a room in an up-town tenement on the East Side. The proprietor was a mat- 
 ter-of-fact Irishman, who was popularly believed never to smile. He made friends with his lodger and was 
 reformed. He learned to laugh, and even to crack jokes on his own account, and, altogether, developed into 
 a social animal wonderful to behold. A year later the writer was invited by Mr. Mackeever to attend a 
 wedding up-town. The bridegroom was the tenement house proprietor. Now that he had discovered what 
 his old lodger was, he worshipped him almost as a Polynesian savage does his idol. He knew more about 
 his works than Mackeever did himself, and was particularly fond of writing to him suggestions for new sub- 
 jects. It was he who traveled to Philadelphia to pay bis last tribute of respect to his dead friend. 
 
 It was this charm of spirit and of manner which made Samuel Anderson Mackeever what he was — a 
 Benjamin of literature. Bright as his works were, they were but a reflection of his sunny nature. Sterling 
 as they were, they were no purer gold than his own warm heart. 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 -r- -anasKWAi 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 LADIES WHO WANT MONEY. 
 
 I remember among other pretty bits of poetry -which I 
 read in my books at school, was one about the robin and 
 the disastrous effect which the approach of winter was 
 supposed to have upon him. 
 
 There "was one verse which began : 
 The fierce wind doth blow, 
 And we shall have snow. 
 What will the poor robin do then ? 
 Poor thing ! 
 
 I was of an exceedingly sensitive nature, and the tough 
 out-look for the robin used to affect me wonderfully, but 
 as I gradually ascertained that they either went south on 
 the air-line, or put up with relatives in snug quarters 
 north, I ceased to worry. 
 
 But I never pick up a New York paper and read of the 
 preparations, more or less extensive, which certain 
 human robins are making for the winter but what I think 
 of the bird whose prospective sad fate used to cause my 
 childish tears to flow down my little nose, and thence 
 drop a sympathetic splash to the page of the book before 
 me. 
 
 Who are the New York robins ? 
 
 They are the shrewd poor, the sentimental hard-up, the 
 dead-broke men and women who have no money to buy 
 sealskins and grate-fires, but who appreciate those 
 creature comforts quite as well as the pampered people of 
 fortune. 
 
 Where do you find these bird-tracks? In the news- 
 papers' advertising columns. 
 
 It was Henry Ward Beecher who said that the most 
 interesting part of the New York Herald was the adver- 
 tisements, and I am frequently inclined to believe him. 
 To-day I agree with him particularly, for I have been out 
 robin shooting, and have a bag full of game for my read- 
 er-. 
 
 Only don't let the printer make it all into a " pi." 
 
 The favorite stamping ground of the robins is the 
 financial department of the paper. 
 
 Bight under the head of a bonafide advertisement about 
 borrowing $10,000 (as if anybody ever had so much money 
 all simultaneously), I catch my first bird. 
 
 It is ayonng widow, and a modest one, for she only 
 wants $100. And she doesn't desire it for nothing. On 
 her part she contracts to furnish a handsome room, with 
 board. She signs herself " Discreet." A discreet young 
 widow tendering a handsomely-furnished room, 
 with board, is a rare combination of earthly happiness. 
 There will be no trouble in her getting the money. Hard 
 and harsh and cynical as the world is, there are dead 
 loads of bald-headed philanthropists just aching to help 
 such a worthy person along. 
 
 Next, we have a gentleman who states that he was once 
 a dazzling light on the stock exchange. He is free to con 
 fees that speculation ruined him, but although it robbed 
 liirn of his diamond studs and his coupe, and his credit at 
 Delmonico's, not to mention his box at the theatre, and 
 his standing in the club, it did not, thank God, as it could 
 not under any circumstances, take away from him his 
 extensive knowledge of the ins and outs of the street 
 
 He might not have been able to hold on to the colossal 
 fortune he was rapidly amassiug for himself, but his very 
 sad experience has been of priceless value to him, and he 
 
 is now ready,being in possession of some exclusive points, 
 to put a man with $20,000 in the way of making a 
 million. 
 
 This is surely a bird. I might spell it a " robbin'." 
 
 Ten to one this lump of sugar lands a blue-bottle. Some 
 back-country yokel, with a whetstone in his pocket, will 
 go in and purchase a vast deal of knowledge, if he doesn't 
 get away with anything else. 
 
 Softly I Here's a nice birdie. It's a young, refined lady 
 who wants a hundred from a refined, honorable gentle- 
 man. "No triflersneed applv. ' 
 
 She wouldn't take that money from a greasy, unrefined 
 pork-butcher, would she ? Oh, no I I shouldn't wonder 
 now if she wouldn't prefer the money perfumed, a hun- 
 dred (scents) to the dollar, as it were. 
 
 In the same neighborhood I detect the "te-weet" of a 
 young lady of twenty years who wants a hundred until 
 she is of age. She also wants it from a gentleman. 
 Strange, isn't it, that you never see an advertisement like 
 this : 
 
 A MODEST YOUNG WOMAN, FINANCIALLY EMBAB- 
 rassed, would like to borrow $100 from another mod- 
 est young woman who has it to lend. Address, " Mock 
 Turtle. " 
 
 But you never do see such advertisements, whether it 
 is strange or not. I must investigate this branch of flfe 
 subject 
 
 What have I next in my game-bag? Another refined 
 bird— refined perhaps in the furnace of misfortune. She 
 has a house, but she's devilish hard-up. You can tell that 
 by the emphasis she puts on her prayer for immediate as- 
 sistance. Altogether this is a mysterious case. Her 
 gentlemen must be wealthy. She names no amount. Per- 
 haps she wants thousands. I shan't answer that one. 
 
 One young woman contemplates housekeeping, and she 
 wants an elderly gentleman to assist her. She doesn't 
 state what he is to do. Perhaps he is to wash dishes, fetch 
 up coal and answer the bell. It would simplify matters 
 all around if these birds who are in quest of winter quar- 
 ters would be more explicit. I know lots of elderly gentle, 
 men who would feel awkward and embarrassed if they 
 had to call personally and talk over an advertisement like 
 that. She signs herself "Marrion." Ha, ha 1 A light 
 breaks upon me. She is a " M anion" young party, and 
 the elderly gentleman is to assist 
 
 There are any quantity of refined, elegant, handsome, 
 modest widows, married women and young girls who 
 want to sell pawn tickets. In these cases there are many 
 that are of genuine distress, but in a great number of in- 
 stances the design is to effect one interview and trust to 
 luck for enlisting the sympathy of the caller. 
 
 Many a proud woman who once entertained in regal 
 style and flashed through her drawing-room like a be- 
 jeweled comet has been forced to realize on her gems and 
 then on the flimsy memorandums of her hard luck. 
 
 These are romances of life in New York that have no 
 affiliation with the sharpers and pretty swindlers I havo 
 ealled robins. And yet you can scarcely style them swin- 
 dlers. There are few of the discreet widows and refined 
 young women but who would like to pay back in coin, if 
 they had it. Not being possessed of that very useful 
 
la 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 article, they mint their smiles only too frequently and 
 stamp them -with a kiss. 
 
 Some try the pathetic, -which is business in its way, 
 Just as much as the cold advertisement of a lot of pig iron 
 for sale. Voila the case of the "young lady" who is 
 "painfully embarrassed." Ah I I have suffered from this 
 pain myself ! It is a deplorable tightness in the chest. 
 She wants a hundred, also, and desires that the lender 
 shall trust to her honor. 
 
 Why do they all want a hundred dollars, or most of 
 them? Let me see: 
 
 Dress $40 
 
 Bonnet 10 
 
 Coat 25 
 
 Shoes 5 
 
 Stockings (of the right stripe) 3 
 
 Gloves 5 
 
 Lingerie , , 12 
 
 $100 
 
 There you are. Now how do you suppose I found all 
 this out? Simplest thing in the world. I gave a lady 
 friend $100 and told her to see what kind of robin plumage 
 she could get for it. 
 
 The more I have reflected upon the transaction the 
 more I am convinced that it certainly was the simplest 
 thing in the world. But this is the age of materialism. 
 You must pay for precise knowledge. Then, again, I am 
 a philanthropist. 
 
 Not infrequently the sick are appealed to. The pocket 
 is approached, in fact, through the stomach or the liver. 
 One lady of the most appalling culture, who is bang-up on 
 all kinds of chronic diseases, wants a " sufferer" to assist 
 hjg. This is very fine. Think of gradually getting well 
 anu cheering a cultured heart at the same time 1 In these 
 cases I presume the bleeding process is resorted to exten- 
 sively. 
 
 Just now there are a good many robins who would like 
 to make themselves cosy for the winter by selling their 
 mining stock shares at a tremendous sacrifice. They 
 wouldn't do this under any circumstances if they didn't 
 have to go to the south of France for their health. Is the 
 mine solid f Look at that red-streaked map on the wall 
 and that huge nugget of quartz on the window-sill 1 Why, 
 the mines of Peru are catch-penny swindles alongside 
 of it. 
 
 Some of the ladies are not "cultured," or " refined," or 
 "modest," but only "genteel." They want to go into 
 business in a small way, and would like some honorable 
 gentleman, etc. 
 
 I like the ringing tone of the young woman who is not 
 even " genteel," but simply a young woman "who can 
 adapt herself to anything. " She wants $250. 
 
 A widow will explain all about it at an interview. One 
 hundred and fifty dollars will take her from the slough of 
 despond and put her upon the pinnacle of happiness, 
 
 A matrimonial agency will condescend to take in a part- 
 ner for $500. There is a chance. This is certainly the 
 matrimonial season. Everybody, who isn't, should be 
 getting married. My friend Alphy, of Spain, is going to 
 buy another ticket in the amatory lottery, and no doubt 
 his example will be largely followed. 
 
 Injustice to Emeline, between whom and myself at the 
 present moment there is an honorable coolness, I will 
 state that the matrimonial establishment referred to is 
 not the one in Williainslmrgh I wrote of. 
 
 It still flourishes. She has enlarged it by adding a 
 divorce bureau. x 
 
 An inventor asks for means to help him bring to perfec- 
 tion a machine that will just knock the spots out of every 
 
 thing. He doesn't say what the idea is , but if you invest 
 gated you would probably discover another perpetual 
 motion or a Keely motor. 
 
 By the way what became of Keely T He lived a long 
 while on that pint of water. I consider him a boss 
 robin, a regular turkev buzzard. 
 
 A dressmaker wants a " Silent Partner. " He's to say 
 nothing, and pay the bills. 
 
 And so they go on until, the female list exhausted, you 
 come upon the people who have business to sell. These an 
 a very remarkable species of the robin. You can have no 
 idea of the vast amount of wealth that is ready to pour 
 into the coffers of the man who has sums of monc 
 ranging from $50 to $50,000 to put up, until you read thei 
 cards. x 
 
 That's the amount you pay to see the hand. 
 
 The preposterous number of oyster saloon, milk routes, 
 bakeries, gin mills and barber shops, that will just make 
 the eternal fortune of the one starving there now, and 
 the other fellow thatonght to come with $300, are enough 
 to stagger you. 
 
 Some of the "ads" are densely mysterious. Such is 
 the ease with the one where a man of " nerve " is asked 
 for. He is to have $3,000, and is to "make an operation" 
 that will yield $10,000 " immediately." 
 
 As if to tantalize these poor robins the same columns 
 are crowded with the blatant offers of capitalists who 
 have money to loan on anything and everything. And 
 yet the man with the gold-mine in the oyster saloon, and 
 the capitalist who is after a gold-mine rarely come to- 
 gether. 
 
 In other parts of any of our great advertising dailies 
 you will find the notices of philanthropists, who are on 
 the look-out for poor little robins, and who wish to be- 
 friend them. 
 
 The Spanish gentleman who wants to meet an American 
 lady for mutual improvement and learn English is of this 
 kind, this very kind. 
 
 Do you not remember the case of the pretty shop-girl 
 who taught the rich Spaniard English in a west side 
 restaurant, where they have elegant private supper 
 rooms ? Well, she was a robin, working hard 
 week in a store for a pittance ; and she seemed glad 
 enough, when the " fierce w r ind did blow, - ' and it looked 
 like snow to avail herself of the opportunities ofl'ered 
 her. 
 
 If I remember correctly the father raised quite a fuss 
 and brought the case into the courts, but the weak girl 
 had tasted champagne and quail. You couldn't got her 
 back to pork and beans. 
 
 There is no question but that nine-tenths of these femi- 
 nine pipings of distress in the " Financial columns " of 
 the papers are mere blinds, and bold manoeuvres to get 
 acquainted with men of money. 
 
 They will always be so construed at any rate bj* the 
 men of money who take the trouble to answer them, and 
 if I possess any fair readers I tell them plainly now that 
 if they resort to this method of raising the wind, they 
 must suffer the broadest construction to be placed upon 
 their action. 
 
 I have a friend who took the trouble, "just out of curi- 
 osity " he said, to follow up one of the advertisements. 
 The distressed one wanted but $80 in order together 
 trunks from the rapacious landlady, who was holding 
 them astcollateral for board had and enjoyed. 
 
 The lady waa a nice talker, a real fluent one, and in- 
 terested my friend from the start Her husband, she 
 said, was not long dead, and she was endeavoring to get 
 along by herself without appealing to that haughty 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 13 
 
 family, supposed to be rolling in luxury somewhere 
 from which her marriage had estranged her. 
 
 This resolute, noble spirit had its effect upon the chival- 
 ric gentleman. 
 
 " You're an old cynic, Paul,'' he said to me one ni-jht 
 in my rooms, " that's what you are. I'm glad I gavo her 
 the money. She's a square woman." 
 
 " Yes, she's a square woman," I repeated, " but she'll 
 come round." 
 
 He laughed at the double entendre and left me. The next 
 time I saw him he wanted $1,000. 
 
 " But what for?" I asked, after giving the address of a 
 man I thought might accommodate him. 
 
 " For her." 
 
 " For whom?" 
 
 "Why the woman that wanted the $80. Don't you re- 
 member ? I've got to pay certain bills, you know." 
 
 " You don't mean to tell me that the squaro woman—" 
 
 "Came round? Yes. I do." And away ho dashed, 
 looking more troubled and careworn than I had ever 
 seen him. 
 
 Now. I am going to ask a favor of you. Please insert 
 the following "ad" for me and charge to Profit and 
 Loss: 
 
 WON'T SOME GENTEEL, PLUMP, PRETTY, DISCREET 
 young widow come and see a painfully embarassed 
 Boh'emian and loan him $1,000, trusting to his honor. 
 Address, P. P., Police Gazette. 
 
 I want to revolutionize this business and that's the way 
 to do it. Heretofore it has been all one-sided. I too am a 
 a robin, " poor thing." 
 
 FIFTH AYKKTTJE OH SUNDAY. 
 
 There isn't a man in the country— and I'll put $500 up 
 at the Clipper office— which I believe is the usual "toot" 
 when 30U bet — to back it, who has a greater reverence 
 for the genuine article of Religion than I have. 
 
 And there isn't a man who has a greater abhorrence 
 of the fraudulent material which you too frequently have 
 dealt out to vou by the metropolitan pastors. 
 
 I was led into this train of thought by what I saw and 
 heard as I walked down Fifth Avenue last Sunday just as 
 the matinees were coming out— I beg pardon, just as the 
 congregations were breaking up. 
 
 What did I see? 
 
 I saw New York female loveliness in all its Fall glory, 
 and an expensive glory it is too. I saw the sun catch up 
 the sheen of the diamonds, and multiply their magnifi- 
 cence until the imagination as to their cost was perfectly 
 staggered. 
 
 I saw pretty women, pretty enough to eat, pretty 
 enough to make a man think that perhaps there is some- 
 thing in cannibalism after all, bowing to other pretty 
 women from carriage windows, and kissing their hands, 
 gloved out of sight, to the agony of the yonng men on the 
 sidewalk, who acknowledged the courtesy with a bow. 
 
 I wish I could give you a description of the Fall style of 
 New York bow, but I am afraid that my pen is not equal 
 to the task. It makes me sadder when I reflect upon the 
 vast number of young sports in those rural towns where 
 the Gazittk penetrates, who would bo only too glad to 
 practice it to perfection behind the barn, and then try it 
 in all its full-fledged loveliness upon the Maud Mullers of 
 the vicinity who gather on Sundays at the meeting 
 house. 
 
 All that I can remember of it is that the right arm goes 
 up suddenly, like the patent iron hook that snatches the 
 mail bags at unimportant stations, and grabs the hat. 
 
 This is carried up about afoot in a vertical line, and 
 held there while " with moderate haste you could tell '' 
 a lie, or a hundred, either, to give Shakespeare with a 
 little altering. 
 
 While this is being done the body bends at the pelvis 
 (be particular about the pelvis), until the spinal line of 
 Jir" -tion is departed from at least ten degrees, but not 
 
 Then the hat comes down, the arm gets to the side again 
 with military precision, and the vertebrae stack them- 
 selves up once more like bone chips to be swept in by the 
 dealer. 
 
 And so they are swept in, and the dealer's name ia 
 Death. 
 
 But this is getting into outside business, thi3 is dis- 
 J counting the game. What else did I see? 
 
 I saw hosts of young men who wero at the Sixth Avenue 
 dance houses, and in worse places, the night before. 
 
 A Turkish bath, and two or throe stiff brandy cocktails 
 had given them nerve enough to see tho girls home 
 whom they are trying to marry, and purely for specula" 
 tive reasons, but the tell-tale flush of the cheek, and the 
 false lustre of the eye, the nervous, debonnair use of the 
 hand and cane, could not deceivo so old an observer 
 as P. P. 
 
 You can rest assured that they didn't stay to dinner, 
 and that once round tho corner from the prospective 
 fathers-in-laws' residences, they made all haste to reach 
 the club, sink into a chair, strike the bell, and scrawl on 
 the pad offered by the waiter an order for brandy and 
 soda. 
 
 Sinee these youug men do not go to church themselves, 
 except when an actor or actress Ls buried, or there is a 
 swell wedding, perhaps my remarks, which are intended 
 to point to tho sham quality of the religion of the period 
 — I do not mean religion in its generic sense, but in the 
 red-plushed pew exhibition of it— do not apply to them. 
 
 But still they form part of tho pageant which makes 
 Fifth Avenue and Broadway so entertaining to me at 
 i this season, when everyone is bound to have his or her 
 fall harness on, and the young men who still cling to the 
 straw hat sit pondering in their dismal rooms upon the 
 various ways of blowing out the penny dip of light. 
 
 To some it's a chandelier with electric points of flaming 
 beauty. They are the ones I admire, and I am afraid 
 envy, when I see them returning from their devotions. 
 
 The horses step out bravely ; the well-appointed car- 
 riages flash in the sun ; the gay throng on the trottotr have 
 the seraphic smile of beings who have just been told that 
 their seats are taken in Heaven'3 best circle. Ah 1 it i/ 
 grand, it is inspiriting, but it is a terrible masquerade. 
 
 What do I hear ? 
 
14 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 I hear men who have just listened to sermons on the 
 advisability of laying up treasures in Heaven, discussing 
 the sudden rise in stocks in Wall street and making plans 
 for the " puts " and " calls " of the morrow. 
 
 Young ladies who are strolling along together gossip 
 about the bonnets and dresses, and analyze the merits of 
 the various matinees they attended the afternoon pre- 
 vious. 
 
 It is all the world, the flesh and the devil knows what 
 else beside religion. 
 
 There is none of that, no pondering over the text, no 
 goiu/ home in quiet meditation. Spiritual duty ceased 
 when the doxology was sung, and the last note of the 
 heavily-salaried soprano floated out from the choir 
 gallery. 
 
 What do we find in the choir ? 
 
 We find a few ladies and gentlemen, some of whom may 
 have been singing " Pinafore " at a ' shneid ' theatre on 
 the Saturday night, furnishing a variety of fancy music 
 that ranges from the measured cadences of old-time so- 
 lemnity to the melodious frippery of the Italian opera. 
 
 These are hired people, and it is not their business to 
 pay any attention to the preaching. As a general rule 
 they don't. Those who do not stay awake to flirt, or 
 read a mysteriously produced novel, get behind a music 
 stand, and go to sleep. • 
 
 I have heard of games of euchre being played in aa or- 
 gan loft, but I prefer not to believe the stories. My opin- 
 ion of the empty forms of devotion indulged in at present 
 is unfavorable enough as it is. 
 
 The singers in big churches are all professionals. They 
 appear in opera and concert, and are always on the look- 
 out to cash their notes into greenbacks. I know two or 
 three church tenors and have always found them jolly 
 good fellows. They like a drink almost as well, but not 
 quite, as they like two drinks, and on more than one 
 occasion I have wondered, as the artist staggered from 
 the Sunday side door of the corner saloon to keep his 
 church engagement, how he ever managed to get through 
 with it. 
 
 Sometimes they do make mistakes. There was my 
 friend Dunn for instance, a baritone. He's dead now, 
 and it won't harm him to tell the story, provided Ex- 
 Superintendent Kiddle doesn't go repeating it at a seance. 
 
 Bob Dunn, in addition to being the baritone of an east- 
 side chureh was a singer in a Prince street " Free and 
 Easy." Those of the brethren who have attended such 
 entertainments know that Wednesday and Saturday 
 evenings are the occasions when the funis indulged in. 
 
 Bob at the time I speak of was counted a rival of 
 Johnny Roach in his pathetic rendition of " Muldoon," 
 and on the disastrous Sunday to which I have reference, 
 Mr. Dunn was asleep in the organ loft after the opening 
 services. He had not reached his home until 4 a. m. , and 
 even at that hour he had insisted upon Mrs. Dunn getting 
 ujp to eat a Yarmouth bloater, and a welsh-rarebit which 
 he had brought home for her. 
 
 Win n you find a man about midnight commencing to 
 develop a desire to take home to the " old lady " some 
 pig -feet, or a box of fried oysters, you may rest assured 
 that the liquor he has taken has floated his conscience 
 from its moorings. 
 
 Mr. Dunn slumbered as I have said all through the ser- 
 uj"ii. Hut he was not idle— he was dreaming. 
 
 He was in the Prince street saloon again. The tobacco 
 smoke hung about like a yellow cloud shifted hither and 
 yon by the waiters as they rushed around delivering 
 "tobys" of ale, "hot scotches," "shandy-gaff," and 
 other orders. The tenor of the evening had just Bet down 
 after singing something about meeting his darling girl 
 
 when the little stars were a-shining, and the little birds 
 were a-singing. 
 
 It was Bob's turn. It was really Bob's turn in church, 
 and the organist was shaking him bythe shoulder. He 
 rose to his feet and looking about him cried: 
 
 " Order gentlemen, if you please." 
 
 Then clearng his throat he began: 
 
 " Come and see me, I'll trate ye dacent, 
 Iil make ye drunk, and I'll fill yer can, 
 Sure, when I walk the strate 
 Says each one I mate 
 There goes Muldoon, he's a solid man." 
 
 There was perhaps just as much religious warmth in 
 Mr. Dunn's little verse as in the florid singing which had 
 preceded it, but the management of the church didn't 
 think so, and Mr. Dunn's services were dispensed with. 
 
 It is only a question of time when we shall have a full 
 brass band in the church gallery. As long as we are going 
 to depart from the simple, soul-stirring hymns and psalms 
 of our fathers, I am decidedly in favor of it. 
 
 What is the use of going half the way as they do over 
 in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, where Arbuckle toots on the 
 key-bugle. If the key-bugle has a place in a choir gallery, 
 so has a fiddle, and I am sure that there is as much the- 
 ology in a bass-drum as there is in a French horn. 
 
 There's as much wind anyhow, and that reminds me of 
 Talmage. 
 
 If there is a cause for this undeniable sham which we 
 are making of our religious duties, attending to them pre- 
 cisely as Ave do to mundane affairs, and buying our pews 
 at auction as we buy pools at a horse race, it must be 
 found in the mouthings of such mountebanks as Talmage. 
 
 He robs religion of all dignity at the start. Instead of 
 a black-gown he put on a jester's cap of bells, and where 
 we look for the grave diction of a man impressed with 
 his subject we find the blatant braying of an ass. 
 
 The familiar manner in which Talmage alludes to the 
 Almighty, is something that actually appals mc even. 
 You might jndge that they had belonged to the same fire 
 company together, or had been associated just as inti- 
 mately some other way. 
 
 He would have us believe that his transatlantic trip 
 was a complete ovation. There is no use denying that he 
 preached to immense audiences, but then you must re- 
 collect that one fool makes many, and that Great Britain 
 has always been noted for producing an immense quan- 
 tity of crack-brained individuals who will drop their work 
 and run for half a day after a five-legged mule if one hap- 
 pens along 
 
 The sensible papers saw through Talmage at once, and 
 in some that I have just been reading he received a terri- 
 ble analysis. There certainly should be a law against 
 such men bringing discredit upon an entire nation by 
 working the game of their own aggrandizement. 
 
 I feel so badly about it myself that I shall not go to Eng- 
 land for several seasons yet, not until they have forgotten 
 our Long-legged friend. 
 
 Beecher is somewhat accountable for the mixed condi- 
 tion of affairs In religion, although in an entirely different 
 waj- from the Tabernacle wind-mill. The Rev. Henry Ward 
 is a man Of brains— too much brains in one quarter of his 
 head, and his intellectual strength is undeniat le. He 
 preaches magnificently, but when you come to think it 
 all over you find it merely a lecture. He is vague, shad- 
 owy and i.on-eoniniittal in his creed. Fou get a general 
 idea that your duty on this earth is to do good and be 
 happy, and that everything will be squared hereafter. 
 
 Mi- p reaches among other things, " that you shall love 
 your neighbor." 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 15 
 
 Now if your neighbor is cross-grained and unlovable, if 
 you can't get your love invested on your neighbor, you 
 nfust love your neighbor's wife, and the maid-servant 
 within his back-door. 
 
 Beecher tried this plan himself. He wanted to love 
 Theodore. No doubt he did. But Theodore was cold and 
 distant, especially his head, which was extremely dis- 
 tant 
 
 So he turned to Elizabeth, and with what results we al- 
 readv know. 
 
 Now take the idiocy of Talmage, the heterodoxy of 
 Beecher, and the shoddy atmosphere of nearly all our 
 fashionable churches, and you have a very good theory 
 for the present state of religious matters. 
 
 I repeat what I said at the beginning of this article, that 
 I have an abiding respect for true devotion, but I think a 
 small-sized crab-net would be large enough to land all 
 
 that could be found in a survey of the crowds that I met 
 walking home from church through the soft sunlight of 
 last Sunday morning. 
 
 It is getting to be a question of show, just as the silver 
 plate is trotted out on state-dinner occasions. 
 
 Pews are knocked down like horses at "Tattersalls.'' 
 and are upholstered in opera-box fashion. 
 
 The men attend as a matter of social form, and women 
 turn the church into a millinery bazar where the styles 
 can be studied from behind the barricade furnished by a 
 gilt-edged and Kussia-leather prayer book. 
 
 The choir singers flirt, sleep, go out for beer, or study 
 their lines for next day's rehearsal at the theatre. 
 
 And the pretty minister preaches a cup-custard sermon 
 that won't disagree with anybody. 
 
 Do you wonder that I prefer to play chess on Sun- 
 days? 
 
 THEATRICAL. ' ' DEAD-HEADS. ' 
 
 One of the most important Glimpses of Gotham to be 
 had j ust now is that through the opera glass. 
 
 The theatrical, concert, operatic and "nigger"' minstrel 
 business is in full blast, all the places of amusements are 
 crowded, and if we may believe the managers who have 
 been interviewed, with the exception of Max Maretzek, 
 the future is flushed with golden promise. 
 
 As a rule I don't go much to theatres now ; I am a little 
 llate, and it takes a good play to get me into a black coat 
 after dinner and away from tbe comfortable chair where 
 I sit and smoke, and ponder upon what an awfully 
 wicked world this is, and how we ought to struggle and 
 strive to make it a little better. 
 
 But lately I have dropped into two or three Thespian 
 temples on the first nights, and feel more impressed with 
 the fact than ever that while theatres may burn up, or be 
 torn down and managers may go to the devil through the 
 non-appreciation of the public, the noble army of first 
 nighters will alwavs flourish, and the deadhead system 
 will never lose its grip. 
 
 I was at Wallack's, for instance, on the Saturday night 
 when Boucicault presented his Cremorne Garden play to 
 the best families of New York. A play so utterly nasty in 
 some of itssuggestiveness, although funny, that I couldn't 
 enjoy even the humorous parts of it through fear of losing 
 some of my dignity. For all I knew some of the vestrymen 
 or members of the Committee on Poor Red Flannel— I 
 mean Red Flannel for the Poor— might have been present, 
 and I wouldn't have had them see me laugh fcr the 
 world. 
 
 So I sat all through the evening as if it were a dentist's 
 front parlor, and there were only two more visitors to 
 yell " murder," before it came my turn. 
 
 I feel easy in expressing my opinion of the play, be- 
 cause I know it will not conflict with your critics. I met 
 the estimable Marquis there, and we blushed together. 
 We blushed, in fact, several times together. 
 
 But I have nothing to do with either good or bad plays. 
 My purpose is to allude to the sameness of first nights, 
 and to the prevalence of the dead-head custom. 
 
 For ten years past a certain number of club men have 
 been sure to be around on the initial representation of a 
 play. One by one they dropped in on the Saturday night 
 
 I speak of. They always have good seats. Some pay, but 
 others are on the regular list as dead-heads, and although 
 they are willing to stand a bottle of wine after the per- 
 formance, or even purchase a box for a oenefit, the idea 
 of " giving up " for an ordinary night strikes them with 
 a cold horror. 
 
 After a while the management accept their first night 
 demands for tickets, just as they would accept the dumb- 
 ague— k <•., with resignation. You can't shake either 
 them or the chills. There is a little consolation, however, 
 in the reflection that they generally come in full dress, 
 and so give tone to the house. 
 
 These, then, are the first rank of dead-heads, the impu- 
 dent fellows with money who think that their presence is 
 recompense enough. 
 
 After them come the newspaper men and members of 
 the profession. The murnalists can scarcelv be called 
 dead-beads since they have already furnished an equiva- 
 lent by preliminary noticing, and are yet to give a more 
 or less elaborate criticism. 
 
 The profession go in by courtesv, but not by right. 
 Sometimes the management will shut down on them like 
 
 ] a meat axe. 
 
 j I don't mean, of course, that Edwin Booth, or Clara 
 
 i Morris couldn't get into the show for nothing, but in their 
 case they would come it in a high-toned style. They 
 would write the note in their hotel and send it around by 
 
 l a nigger. And what is more they would always ask for a 
 
 j box. 
 
 | It is the fellows who loaf about the lobby and try to 
 
 ! pass the gate on greasy cards and handbills, who are 
 sometimes bounced. 
 
 Well, you've got to draw the line somewhere. If I was 
 giving grand opera at the Academy at $3 a seat, I should 
 kick a little about passing a cannon-ball tosser, or the 
 tattooed Greek. 
 
 I came across that old story the other day, and it's good 
 enough to re-print, since it bears on the subject, about 
 the scng and dance men who were smart enough to get 
 through under difficulties. Here it is : 
 
 While Mr. Schoeffel of the Park Theatre, Philadelphia, 
 was managing Edwin Adams the company stopped one 
 night at Utica, N. Y. After looking after all the local 
 
16 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 newspapers Mr. Schoeffel quietly sat down on free tickets 
 and said that not another one should be issued. Just be- 
 fore the doors were opened Mr. Schoeffel said to Smith, 
 the agent, "Now, George, I'm too well known in this 
 town to take that lower door. You manage that and I'll 
 go up-stairs, where no one will see me; and mind, now, 
 we've got a full house and not a deadhead goes in to- 
 night. Mr. Schoeffel was quietly pulling in the tickets at 
 the balcony door when he saw two young fellows, about 
 the same age and dressed precisely alike, edging up to the 
 door. " HuFo, Cully," said one of them. The manager 
 went on taking tickets. ' Hullo, Cully,'' came again. " I 
 don't know who you are calling to," replied Mr. Schoeffel; 
 " If you mean me, my name is not Cully." "Now, look 
 here, young fellow, don't you give us any taffy; I want to 
 know if you're going to pass two blokes in? " "Two 
 blokes?" said the manager; "no, I'm not going to pass 
 two blokes in." " Whst ! you don't mean to say that you 
 are not going to pass the profesh?" "The what?" 
 "Why, the profesh, young feller, ' and putting his hand 
 on the shoulder of his companion, the two dancers clat- 
 tered off the " Down-among-the-roses ' step. " Well, yes," 
 said the manager; " if I know you, I'll pass you." " Well, 
 I don't suppose you do," the spokesman replied; " we're 
 McGlimgan and McGlanagan." " I don't think I can do 
 anything for you," Mr. Schoeffel said. "Say, young 
 feller," McGhnigan replied, " do you know Mr. Queen, of 
 the New York Clipper?" "Certainly." "Well, do you 
 know that he's a friend of mine, and that if I should 
 write him how you've treated us he'd make it unpleasant 
 for you?" " I don't know," said the manager; "per- 
 haps you had better try." " Well, 1 would if I only knew 
 your name.'' "There's no trouble about that; my name 
 is Schoeffel." The dancer took out a sheet of paper, and 
 putting it against the wall, began to write. " How do 
 you spell it? " The manager seized the paper and wrote 
 in a large, rolling hand, "John B. Schoeffel," and gave it 
 to the dancer. " Now," said the latter, " I'll give you 
 three-quarters of a column in the Clipper." Three minutes 
 later Smith came up-stairs, and, shaking a paper in the 
 manager's face, said, "I thought you weren't going to 
 issue any passes to-night? I sent these fellows up to you, 
 and in ten minutes they came back, threw that pass at 
 me and said that at least the manager of the concern was 
 a gentleman." Schoeffel said, " No, that's my signature; 
 but look at that ' Pass two ' written over it. Does that 
 look like my writing? " 
 
 When a play don't draw in New York, the extent to 
 which the house will be papered is something appalling. 
 And sometimes you will never know it, but keep as 
 steadily imagining that the theatre is doing a tremendous 
 business, and that it won't be long before the manager 
 begins to build rows of brown-stone French plats up-town. 
 And all the time the manager is wondering how he can 
 ever be able to rake together enough to pay salaries on 
 the next Monday. How is it done? It's the easiest thing 
 in the world. 
 
 The agent of the theatre takes a pocketful of seats, so 
 selected that they are by no means bunched, and starts 
 out on a distributing cruise. It is his design to dispose of 
 his deadhead tickets to people of the utmost respectability 
 and social position. He wants the occupants of the stalls 
 to be well dressed, and has no objection to diamonds being 
 worn by the ladies. 
 
 He manages to secure this exclusive clientele without 
 knowing one of them, in the following manner : 
 
 Entering a big store like Lord A Taylor's, he goes to the 
 
 floor-walker and hands linn twenty or thirty seats, the 
 
 best for the walker himself. The man knows what to do. 
 
 When Mrs. De Courcv or Mrs. M^" f naorency roll up to 
 
 the door and saunter into the establishment in quest of 
 lace or gloves, the floor-walker, who is on terms of easv 
 familiarity with all old customers, presents the tickets, 
 after ascertaining that the evening is free. 
 
 That night at dinner old Montmorency and De Courcy 
 are informed that they are to go to the play. The carriage* 
 rattle up to the entrance, and as the deadheads get out 
 and sweep pompously to their gratuitous places the loung- 
 ers become simultaneously impressed with the high-toned 
 character of the audience, and the success of the attrac- 
 tion. 
 
 It is related of Sothern that he obtained his foothold in 
 London by papering the house for two weeks and turning 
 many away. 
 
 Deadheadism is a disease. It belongs to the same fasci- 
 nating category with free-lunches. I know a gentleman 
 of wealth who will pay cab-hire to visit the opening of a 
 new saloon where something to eat and drink can be had 
 for nothing, and it is equally true that once the mania 
 gets its fangs into a theatre-goer, once he has tasted blood 
 he is N. G. for all purposes of profit, so far as the house is 
 concerned. 
 
 You can't call it meanness. When I was dramatic 
 critic of the Missionaries' Beacon ol Light, a paper published 
 many years ago in the Bible House, I had a chum whom 
 I used to take to the theatre. 
 
 He was always intoxicated with delight, (later on in the 
 evening it was rum and molasses) at the prospect bt get- 
 ting something for nothing, and insisted upon my having 
 supper with him in the Old Tom's Chop House, in 
 Thames street, now gone. 
 
 That and the grog between acts, together with the Welsh 
 rarebit and the Scotch ale at the old Shakspeare saloon 
 on Broadway, below Ihirteenth street, before we went 
 home to dream that our dead and gone grandmothers were 
 throwing back somersaults on our stomachs, used to make 
 his dollar and a half seat cost him about $10. 
 
 But he was none the less convinced that he was a devil- 
 ish lucky dog, and that to get ahead of the theatre was 
 about equal to winning f >attle. 
 
 You see the same spiri among railroad deadheads. The 
 man who has been stung by a pass never recovers. If he 
 has to pay for a ticket he is almost mad enough to wish 
 there might be an accident, so that he could get mashed 
 and go in for damages against the company. 
 
 The bill-board and window lithograph tickets have their 
 especial nights, but as with the papers, it is a case of fair 
 exchange with their holders. 
 
 In the country (he pressure is terrible. T. B. Pugh, the 
 veteran mr.nager, tells the following story. I clip itfrom 
 the Philadelphia Timet.: 
 
 " The Fosters, of Pittsburg, were playing at Bucyrus 
 Ohio. Richard III. was announced, and when 8 o'clock 
 came a single man sat solitary and alone in the middle of 
 the orchestra. There was, of course, the usual collection 
 of country youths before the door, and the manager looked 
 into the empty hall and said: 'Come, this won'tdo; we 
 might as well throw open the doors and invite them all 
 in.' The company were called together in the meantime, 
 and. after some discussion, it was decided that the towns- 
 people should not come in free. It would encourage dead- 
 headism, at iho same time establishing adangerous prece- 
 i dentin the town. So the audience of one cho>c an eligible 
 j po ition, ; nd, cocking his feet on the seat in front of him, 
 ' waited for the performance to begin. The curtain was 
 | rung up and the play commenoed. Never did the actors 
 [ do better. The audience applauded vigorously at different 
 points, and at times insisted upon un encore, which the 
 company. Impressed with the Ludicroosneu of the situa- 
 tion, gracefully responded to." 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 17 
 
 There is a very neat idea just gotten out by an enter- 
 prising lager beer man on Fourteenth street. In addition 
 to selling good beer, he furnishes a concert every evening. 
 To obtain an audience he issues regular tickets with 
 " Admission— One Dollar" prominently printed at the 
 bottom of the card. Across the face is stamped in red 
 figures the word " Complimentarj ." 
 
 Now the joke is this, one of course which was not in- 
 tended by the proprietor: You take a handful of these 
 tickets and have them always with you. 
 
 Knowing that you are a newspaper man, Mr. Deadhead 
 on the street, or Mr. Deadhead in the hotel or boarding 
 house, swoops down upon you with: 
 
 "Got any tickets about you ? I'd like to go somewheres 
 to-ni^ht." 
 
 " How are you on concerts?" you ask. 
 
 " Bang-up concerts?" 
 
 "Dollar a ticket." 
 
 That lands him. He eagerly replies: 
 
 44 Certainly. A fine concert is one of the most enjoyable 
 
 entertainments in the world. How many can you spare ?" 
 
 " I'll give you two." 
 
 " Couldn't you make it three ? that's a good fellow. My 
 maiden aunt, a prim old lady, who has money and a dis- 
 eased liver, is on making us a visit. She wouldn't go to 
 the wicked theatre, but a concert " 
 
 So you squeeze out the third ticket. The delighted 
 gentleman rushes up stairs to get his ladies ready. 
 
 Your plan then is to get to the beer saloon in advance, 
 and, concealed behind a post or the harmonicum. calmly 
 await the moment when Mr. Deadhead, Mrs. Deadhead 
 and the aunt with the liver complaint come sailing in. 
 
 The first thing that strikes them will be the Schweitzer 
 lease, and then 
 
 But why continue the picture ? Let us pause here and 
 cipher on how much the aunt will leave the young man 
 when the liver has done its fell work, and the maiden 
 aunt has gone to join the shadowy deadhead audience that 
 crowds the dim theatre of the Future, watching the play 
 that has no last act— the drama of Eternity. 
 
 HOTEL HORRORS. 
 
 I was sitting in the lobby of the Sturtevant House the 
 other night, waiting to hear from the bell-boy who had 
 taken my card to a political friend who had lately arrived 
 from the South, when my mind got running on the Wal- 
 worth tragedy, which, as you know, occurred in this 
 hotel. 
 
 Frank Walworth is now living in the strictest seclusion 
 with his mother in Saratoga, and since she, a most esti- 
 mable woman, sanctioned both at his trial and since, the 
 taking of a father's life by a son, I have no editorial 
 opinion to express on the subject. 
 
 Mansfield Tracy Walworth was a literary gentleman 
 who appears to have been in the habit of abusing his 
 family. This is a peculiarity of some literary gentlemen. 
 In the case of the Walworths, they did not take kindly to 
 it, and young Frank, suffering under the greatest excite- 
 ment, visited New York, put up at the Sturtevant, sent 
 for his father, and in the quarrel which ensued in the 
 room, shot him. 
 
 He was tried, brilliantly defended by Charles O'Conor, 
 convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentenced 
 to imprisonment for life. 
 
 His mind gave way under the affliction, and he was re- 
 moved to the insane asylum, from which he was subse- 
 quently released by gubernatorial clemency. 
 
 While pondering on this case, it suddenly struck me 
 that nearly every metropolitan hotel of any importance 
 has had either its horrible murder or shocking suicide. 
 
 I purpose to write in this sketch of two or three that 
 occur to me now, and may hereafter, if I feel in the gory 
 humor, continue the crimson list. 
 
 A hotel murder that has almost been forgotten, and one 
 that was opulent with all the elements of romance, was 
 the assassination of the beautiful Virginia Stewart, who 
 was shot to death on the s*teps of the Brandreth House, 
 Canal street and Broadway, on the 23rd day of July, 1859, 
 by her lover, Robert C. MacDonald. 
 
 The murderer was a North Carolinian of good family. 
 He was elegant and dressy in his appearance. By suc- 
 cessful cotton speculations he accumulated a large sum 
 
 of money, and when chance threw him in the way of 
 Miss Stewart he was a man of considerable means. 
 
 The passion was a mutual one, and all would have been 
 well, if MacDonald had not taken to drink. Miss Stewart 
 naturally "soured" on him, and when she in the South 
 saw no promise of reform she left her tipsy sweetheart 
 and came to New York. 
 
 MacDonald discovered her flight and determined to fol- 
 low her. He did so. Reaching New York he put up at 
 the Metropolitan Hotel, but frequented the bar a great 
 deal more than his room. Naturally enough he soon ar- 
 rived at a state of delirium, and became the possessor of 
 of an imaginary snake foundry. 
 
 In this delectable condition he roved the streets of the 
 city, searching for his false mistress. 
 
 At that time Taylor's saloon with its pier glasses and 
 gilded columns, was at Broadway and Franklin street. 
 It was the ban ton place of resort for the thirsty and 
 hungry. Staggering in there one day Mr. MacDonald 
 sighted his beautiful quarry, lunching at a table with a 
 lady friend. 
 
 Taking a seat at a table opposite, he called for a bottle 
 of wine, which he drank in two or three bumpers, watch- 
 ing the women attentively all the time. 
 
 When they had finished their lunch, he arose too and 
 followed them to the corner of Broadway and Canal 
 street. 
 
 I here quote from an account of what happened then : 
 
 They turned a corner to go into the Brandreth House, 
 and just then MacDonald stepped up to Miss Stewart and 
 importuned her for an interview. She refused and told 
 him to go away and not annoy her. He then said ex- 
 citedly : 
 
 " I am told you are living with another man. Is that 
 so?" 
 
 No reply save a contemptuous glance, and Miss Stewart 
 turned to go. 
 
 With that MacDonald put his hand in his breast and 
 drew out a Colt's navy revolver. Divining his purpose, 
 Miss Stewart cried aloud for assistance, and ran towards 
 
18 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 the entrance of the hotel. MacDoaald bounded like a 
 panther after her, and, placing the pistol almost against j 
 her head, fired. She fell senseless upon the step, her 
 beautiful hair all dabbled with blood. 
 
 A Mr. E. Van Raust, who was standing there, immedi- 
 ately threw himself upon MacDonald. A deadly combat 
 now ensued for the possession of the pistol, it being evi- 
 dent that the murderer intended to take his own life. As- 
 sistance was finally procured and MacDonald was over- 
 powered and removed to the Tombs. Miss Stewart was 
 taken to a hospital. 
 
 She lingered eight or ten days imagining herself in 
 Richmond. Then she died. 
 
 While in the Tombs MacDonald lived in a regal way, 
 having a colored waiter from the Metropolitan in con- 
 stant attendance upon him. 
 
 In his possession was found the following letter: 
 " Jolm W. Smith, Mobile, Ala.: 
 
 "Dear Sin— I am about to commit that which will 
 astonish you and most of my friends in Mobile. I have 
 left some instructions with Messrs. Simeon Leland & Co. 
 in regard to my body, but have since drawn $300 of the 
 amount I first wanted, leaving $1,500 in their hands, 
 which, after deducting my expenses, will be remitted to 
 you. Affectionately yours forever, Bob. 
 
 " P. S.— And to you who find my body have my trunks 
 opened, and you will see a letter addressed to the Messrs. 
 Leland in regard to the disposition of my remains. Bury 
 me with my beard on. Robt. C. MacDonald." 
 
 He engaged splendid counsel, and boasted that he would 
 never be hanged. 
 
 Among his visitors was a lady who talked through the 
 grated door of his cell. By means of a powerful letter 
 she obtained an interview with him. Undoubtedly she 
 gave him the bottle of Muir's Elixir of Opium with which 
 he committed suicide. 
 
 That was twenty years ago, but the hotel tragedy 
 business has been kept up pretty steadily. It is too warm 
 to recollect some of the old timers, but I will hunt 
 them up. 
 
 The killing of Samuel Adams by John C. Colt was done 
 in the building at the northwest corner of Broadway and 
 Chambers street. It is a clothing store now, and since 
 the murder has been used by Delmonico. It was not a 
 hotel at the time of the dreadful deed— Friday, Sept. 17, 
 1841— but at one time the building had been used for hotel 
 purposes, aad so it comes in the list. 
 
 Colt was a writing master. He also taught bookkeep- 
 ing. He owed Adams a bill for printing, and on that 
 Friday afternoon Adams went to collect it. 
 
 They quarreled, and Adams called Colt a liar. 
 
 The latter picked up a hammer, and in a few moments 
 the printer was as dead as a door nail. 
 
 The choice of weapons would seem to suggest that per- 
 haps Colt mistook him for one. 
 
 The story of the after attempt to escape detection by 
 packing the body m salt and shipping it to New Orleans, 
 the discovery, arrest, trial, conviction and suicide while 
 they were rigging the rope to hang him, are too well 
 known to need repetition. 
 
 If Ned Stokes, wlio was strolling down Broadway on the 
 afternoon of Saturday, Jan. G, 1872, hadn't seen or imag- 
 ined that be saw a pretty woman waving her handker- 
 chief tO him at a parlor window of the Grand Central 
 Hod -l, be might never have crossed the street at that time 
 and place. 
 
 urally ho would not have been at the head of the 
 private taircase Jutt as the boy opened the door to admit 
 • i Jaxneft Flak, Jr. 
 
 And he \n ould not have shot the dazzling operator as he 
 did. 
 
 It was highly probable, however, that the murder would 
 have taken place some where. New York city at that time 
 wasn't big enough to hold Josie Mansfield, Jim Fiskand 
 Stokes all at once. 
 
 It was a moral certainty that Fisk was armed, but the 
 position of the two men gave Stokes the advantage. 
 
 Stokes was just in the act of descending the stair. Seven 
 steps from the street is a platform, and Fisk had reached 
 that when, glancing up, he discovered Stokes. One ac- 
 count says: 
 
 ' ' There was a mutual movement. Stokes leaped swiftly 
 to one side, as if to avoid something, ran his gloved hand into 
 the pocket of his coat, produced a four-barreled revolver 
 and fired, quick as thought, at Fisk. 
 
 The ball struck the Colonel in the abdomen, two inches 
 to the right of the navel and three above it. As soon as he 
 felt the perforation he staggered up against the wall and 
 made the single exclamation, " Oh !" Another flash, 
 another report, and his left arm fell, shattered. He 
 turned to run, staggered and fell. He was carried to room 
 213. Stokes went down stairs and surrendered himself to 
 Mr. Powers, the proprietor. 
 
 We know the rest. 
 
 The last time I heard of the handsome Stokes he was out 
 West engaged in mining speculations. His hair is almost 
 white. 
 
 If the Gilsev House had never been built William Foster 
 might never have committed, on the 26th of April, 1871, 
 the murder for which he was subsequently hanged in the 
 Tombs yard. 
 
 Why is this statement true f 
 
 No Gilsey House and there would have oeen no illumi- 
 nated clock, shining high in the ornamental tower like a 
 painted moon. 
 
 No clock and William Foster, who on the night in 
 question was riding on the front platform of a Broadway 
 car, in which were Avery D. Putnam, Madame Duval and 
 her daughter, would not have alluded to the time piece 
 in some insulting manner, first attracting the attention 
 of the young lady. 
 
 He would not have come in and sat down beside the 
 ladies, making himself generally objectionable. 
 
 Mr. Putnam would not have had cause to remonstrate 
 with him, and then of course the following question 
 would not have been addressed by Foster to the unfortu- 
 nate Mr. Putnam. 
 
 " Say, how far are you going up ?" 
 
 There was no reply to this drunken query. After rock- 
 ing in his seat for a moment and leering at the women 
 Foster added, as if it were the result of reflection upon 
 the matter: 
 
 "Well I'm going as far as you and before you get out 
 I 11 give you hell.'' 
 
 When the car stopped at 46th street, Foster watched 
 his opportunity and coming behind Mr. Putnam with a 
 car-hook crushed in his skull at a single blow. 
 
 Not only was Foster ably defended, but when he was 
 sentenced the most strenuous exertions were made to 
 savo his neck. I remember that a Mrs. Bishop went 
 around the city with a petition to the governor that had 
 about a mile of names to it. 
 
 ned mine, Inn it was the heart and not the reason 
 that dictated the act. If ever a man deserved to bo hanged 
 
 It w as Foster. 
 
 If we cannot go out with ladies in the city of New York 
 without having them insulted and our own lives en- 
 dangered by the attack of drunken beasts in human form, 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 id 
 
 then civilization s indeed a failure, and the Caucasian 
 had better hand tne belt, to the moon-eyed Mongolian. 
 
 I saw Foster hanged and want to call attention again 
 to the unseemly torture to which he was subjected by 
 some clerical ass, who read dreary prayers and inter- 
 minable bits of scripture while the doomed man and 
 everybody else was perishing with the cold. 
 
 The Coleman House has not had its murder, but it can 
 boastof a shooting scrape. " Birdie " Bell, itwill be re- 
 collected, attempted the life there of Washington 
 Nathan. 
 
 The papers were full of romantic accounts, but the 
 transaction never amounted to much. It was .probably 
 a sentimental " tiff," which the young people had no 
 difficulty in arranging. At any rate it never got into the 
 courts. 
 
 Speaking of this incident reminds one of the Nathan 
 murder in Twenty-third street, directly opposite a win- 
 flow of the Fifth avenue Hotel at which Montgomery Blair 
 was sitting at the time. 
 
 The Metropolitan had its recent murder in the death of 
 a policeman at the hands of a maniac boarder to disarm 
 whom the officer entered the room. 
 
 At the Brunswick a young Hollander, rich, with lots of 
 money, in perfect health, committed suicide because he 
 
 fancied some one had insulted him on the voyage from 
 Europe. 
 
 P. S.— Apropos of the Cincinnati affair and my men- 
 tioning Washington Nathan's Coleman House scrape I 
 clip the following from the Sim of Oct. 15th. For the 
 shooting in the Coleman House Justice Murray granted a 
 warrant for Mrs. Barrett's arrest. Soon afterward Mr. 
 Nathan went to Europe, and nothing further was heard of 
 the complaint until yesterday. Washington Nathan then 
 appeared in the Yorkville Police Court and conversed 
 privately with Justice Murray. A summons was made 
 out demanding the presence of Mrs. Barrett, who was liv- 
 ing under the name of Mrs. T. B. Black at 300 East Fifty- 
 third street. Mr. Nathan said that he apprehended per- 
 sonal violence from Mrs. Barrett. The summons were 
 served by Policeman Foley. Mr. Nathan advised him to 
 act carefully, as Mrs. Barrett might use firearms. Mrs. 
 Barrett accepted the summons calmly, and said she would 
 be in court. At 3 p. m. Mr. Nathan and his lawyer, ex- 
 Judge Cardozo, were in Justice Murray's private room. 
 Mrs. Barrett arrived soon afterward. Half an hour later 
 Justice Murray stepped from his room and said: " There 
 has been a strange scene inside. Mrs. Barrett is crying 
 and Mr. Nathan is standing over her. He has given her 
 money. It is all settled. No complaint was taken." 
 
 PRIVATE GAMING ESTABLISHMENTS. 
 
 A friend of mine used to surprise me by the elaborate 
 nature of his dress and the untailing yield of his pocket 
 money. 
 
 It wasn't, of course, a remarkable thing to be well ap- 
 pareled and to always possess a $20 bill; but the singular 
 part of it was that, while enjoying no income, while 
 being in the receipt of no set sum from lawyers and trus- 
 tees, he nevertheless did no work, didn't toil, didn't spin, 
 but laid way over Solomon on suits of clothes, shoes, hats, 
 gloves, canes, etc. 
 
 So I said to him one day in my usual romantic manner: 
 
 "Prithee, my brave boy, how is it that you do this 
 thing? Give me the office. The wink, tip him to me. I 
 would fain the labor give him up, the shovel and the hoe, 
 throw them down." 
 
 So he took me into a place where they sold May wine, a 
 charmingly seductive beverage with strawberries floating 
 about it, and gave me the points. I shall quote his exact 
 words as near as I can recall them: 
 
 "You know," he began, " that I have nice rooms up 
 town, and that no one bothers me in the house. Some of 
 my married gentlemen friends and a few bachelor ac- 
 quaintances like a quietgame of draw-poker occasionally, 
 say one night in a week. They can't play very well at 
 their homes on account of their wives, who always 
 Imagine that when a man bets a dollar on a card, provided 
 there is a brandy decanter near, he is going straight to 
 th< devil. 
 
 " In this dreary desert of despair my rooms loom up as 
 an oasis. I have plenty of liquor. I have cards, and a set 
 us regular red, white and blue chips. So they form a little 
 club, after getting my permission, and on Saturday even- 
 Lnga we play. Owing to the wear and tear of the apart- 
 m< iit— for they all get drunk— and the cost of the rum, I 
 am allowed a certain small percentage of the pools." 
 
 He stopped as if he had finished. I looked up and saw 
 him gazing intently at the ceiling. 
 
 " But that don't account for a life of gorgeous idleness, 
 for going about like an animated fashion plate, and for 
 always being flush." 
 
 "Well, you know, Paul," he added, slowly, "that I 
 never drink anything on such occasions but sherry?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And that I am a pretty good poker player ? Fortune 
 seems to smile on me." 
 
 " Not always." 
 
 "No; but I am tolerably sure of her gracious counte- 
 nance when I have the deal. It's a mere coincidence, of 
 course, but it's a remarkable one." 
 
 The idea3 gained over two or three glasses of May wine 
 explained to me the existence of several other gentlemen 
 whom I knew, and by pursuing the subject I found that 
 there was then— it was only last spring— as there is now, 
 a perfect system of private gambling in this city, which 
 seems an appalling spectacle of sin when considered in 
 the aggregate. 
 
 I do not refer to the clubs. I belong to several of those 
 seductive institutions, and know that the most solid of 
 them are houses of cards. But I allude to private houses, 
 or elegant rooms like those of my friend, where it is possi- 
 ble to hear the rat-tat tat of the roulette ball and the click 
 of the faro checks. In many instances there is no idea of 
 the gentleman who backs the game making a cent out of 
 it. He is content with the natural mathematical advan- 
 tages. Quite frequently, too, the dealer is changed every 
 night. The prime object is to have a den where the tiger 
 can be fought without the noise of the combat reaching 
 the ears of the outside world. 
 
 By special invitation I was present during the summer 
 at one of the sittings. The lady of the house, with her 
 
80 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 children, was at Newport, where the husband couldn't 
 join her on account of having to take off at night an ac- 
 count of stock at the store. At least that is what he wrote 
 in the postscript of one of his letters. 
 
 The players met at dinner, the expense of which was 
 mutually contributed. It was a fine dinner, with at least 
 two quarts of the " widow " to each man. 
 
 In this prime and primed condition we began to play, 
 selecting the library for that purpose. I went in for $10 
 worth of chips, just out of courtesy to the host, and with 
 a sneaking desire, which a man always possesses under 
 such circumstances, to pay for my dinner. 
 
 I knew I had no staying qualities that would compare 
 with those of the jolly old bucks about me, and soon let 
 myself out of the game. 
 
 Then I took aglass of brandy, and getting a book, sought 
 the corner of a luxurious sofa that had been wheeled up 
 near a shaded lamp. 
 
 I fell asleep, and when I awoke the grey of the morning 
 was coming through the windows. The lamps and gas 
 jets, mixed with the daylight, gave a spectral hue to the 
 apartment and to the haggard faces of the men, who, 
 with blood-shot eyes and feverish hands, were still bend- 
 ing over the cards. 
 
 They knocked off at nine o'clock and we had breakfasi. 
 But how different from the dinner. Even the winners 
 were cross and snappy. One young man breakfasted on 
 brandy alone, and left the house hurriedly. 
 
 He had lost $1,500 during the night— his savings for 
 years toward marriage. He had filled up a check on the 
 bank where he kept his account, for the amount, and had 
 then rushed from the house to do what ? 
 
 To commit suicide ? 
 
 No, my friends, not to commit suicide. 
 
 This was a pious young man who had been brought up 
 to believe that it was wicked to take one's life. 
 
 He resolved to bear the burden as best he could. 
 
 What did he do upon emerging from the house that had 
 been the scene of his ruin ? 
 
 He went to a barber's shop, got dosed with bay rum, 
 and then jumping into a coupe, reached the bank just as 
 the paying teller was letting down his little glass window 
 
 That pious young man drew another check for $1,498,76, 
 and got the money. He was married that afternoon. 
 
 But if you want to hear a man inveigh against the evils 
 Of gambling; if you want to listen to an eloquent denun- 
 ciation of the vice, go up to his little Harlem flat and take 
 tea with him. 
 
 No gambling there. 
 
 "There isn't a card in the house," says the wife; "John 
 won't even play ' old maid.' " 
 
 " No, sir," John hotly answers, " it's a terrible mania, 
 and is dangerous in its humblest disguise." 
 
 In the meantime the winner of the $1,500 has still in 
 his possession a check for that amount. 
 
 It is a pretty check, with the vignette of a handsome 
 woman in the corner, and a regulation revenue stamp 
 on it. 
 
 But there is one peculiar thing about it; some one has 
 stamped across the face " no funds." 
 
 Short card games are naturally the mode in private 
 houses, but there are respectable members of society 
 here, who give largely to all charitable purposes, who are 
 so fond of the sport that they have regular faro lay-outs, 
 keno wheels and other expensive machinery. 
 
 I, myself, have satin the parlor of a sugar merchant, 
 who is one of the most responsible men in the business, 
 played keno at 25 cents a card with his wife and daugh- 
 ters, and gentlemen, who, like myself, haO. dropped in for 
 the evening. 
 
 " There can't be any harm in it,can there be, Mr. Prow- 
 ler?" asked of me a pretty miss of some sixteen winters 
 and four Saratoga summers. 
 
 I said not the slightest. It's the correct thing to say. 
 
 " I knew it all along," she continued; " it's too much 
 like ' Lotto ' to be wicked." 
 
 But all the same you see your quarters disappear, and 
 I never knew a person who had gone broke on " keno" 
 derive much consolation from its resemblance to Lotto. 
 
 It's a good game, however, to play when women take a 
 hand. If it is euchre or whist, at so much a corner, the 
 average male player is fool enough in a chivalric sense to 
 let the little dears win. 
 
 But at keno you are safe, because it's a community 
 fighting for a pool. 
 
 It must not be imagined that New York does not possess 
 establishments where ladies can gamble real hard. 
 
 Just as there are dressmaking shops where sherry helps 
 on the tight fit, and sends a woman home with fire in hre 
 eyes and Satan astraddle of her tongue, so there are gam- 
 ing resorts for ladies— for ladies, mind you — exclusively. 
 
 One of them, the most prominent, has been but lately 
 broken up. 
 
 It was a gigantic affair, run by a firm of man milli- 
 ners. 
 
 They did a tremendous business with the best people in 
 town. Stylish turn-outs were always at their doors. 
 
 The rooms up-stairs, over the immense sales and fitting 
 apartments, were fitted up luxuriously and evidently by 
 a female upholsterer with a good eye for color and effect 
 in the drapery and pictures. 
 
 No one could enter these chambers save by a pass-key 
 obtainable down-stairs under the rose. 
 
 There was never any noise. All the servants were wo- 
 men who could be trusted. And there the fair ones gam- 
 bled to their heart's content, playing against each other 
 with a recklessness that you rarely see in men. 
 
 Many a woman has been forced to cancel an order down 
 stairs owing to the unfortunate run of the cards. 
 
 As I said, this place was broken up, and in what I con- 
 sider a mean manner. The scamp of a journalist who 
 made the exposure should have remembered that all 
 work and no play— cards makes the woman a dull girl. 
 
 But he didn't. Having got an inkling of the fact, he 
 saw only the sensation article within his grasp. 
 
 It was of course utterly impossible for him, iu his per- 
 sonality, to obtain any information. 
 
 You might as well attempt to smuggle a steamship 
 stoker into the sub-committee appointed by Sorosis to 
 determine how long a dutiful wife should mourn for a 
 husband who never earned over $5,000 a year. 
 
 So he utilized his sweet-heart. 
 
 She got into the confidence of one of the club, and on one 
 occasion was admitted, under guarantee, to the rooms 
 
 She was a close observer, and had a quick ear. All she 
 heard and saw she gave dead away to the journalistic 
 miscreant, who not only published a full account of the 
 games, the money lost, but gave a list of the names of 
 those who were present. 
 
 Greatgrief I maybe there wasn't trouble in some fam- 
 ilies on Murray Hill ! Husbands began to understand 
 why a costume that used to cost $150 was now worth $500. 
 
 All this is shameful. I do not believe in exposing pel ty 
 foibles of pretty women. Their brutes of husbands 
 play billiards for drinks down town, buy lottery tickets, 
 and belong to draw-poker sociables. Why should they 
 not divert themselves ? 
 
 If I had a wife I would rather she lost my money play- 
 ing cards with a woman than that she should save it by 
 taking luncheon at the expense of a gentleman. 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 21 
 
 And we shouldn't throw stones anyhow. We should 
 remember that no matter how humble our homes may be, 
 there is a good deal of the Crystal Palace about all of 
 them. 
 
 Another species of semi-private gambling is the hotel 
 "racket." 
 
 A man with the capital approaches the proprietor of the 
 house— the one I have in my mind now used to be in 
 Courtland street— and arranges for a couple of rooms. 
 
 " For what purpose ? " 
 
 ' Business purposes "—and they are explained. 
 
 *' I shall have to charge you more than schedule rates." 
 
 " I am willing to pay them." 
 
 Under these circumstances the game is opened. Sales- 
 men stopping at the hotel, and down-town merchants and 
 clerks are the patrons. 
 
 To go into an Ann street, or a Barclay street day-game 
 ts to become a marked man, But to walk into a reputa- 
 ble hotel, and go to the third or fourth floor by elevator is 
 something at which no one can cavil. 
 
 These games frequently do a big business. Many a 
 salesman sent out by a Philadelphia firm to disseminate 
 their patent combination cigar-holder sleeve-button gets 
 no further than this faro layout. 
 
 There he's laid out. 
 
 You will notice, nevertheless, that the backers of those 
 games are generally willing and sometimes anxious to 
 advance enough of the victim's original plunder to enable 
 to get him a hundred miles in some direction or an- 
 other. 
 
 The game in Courtland street was knocked among the 
 sky-scraping kites by a young man losing all he had, 
 even to his head, and then blowing his brains out. 
 
 The proprietor of the hotel thought it was a strange 
 transaction on the part of the young man. 
 
 I fail to see anything strange in it. 
 
 If you have lost your head, what good are the brains ? 
 
 Now, to have a head and no brains is quite a different 
 affair. 
 
 Plenty of men whom we all know are in that predica- 
 ment, and experience not the slightest annoyance. 
 
 The situation is certainly no bar to political prefer- 
 ment and social success, while a man like me, who is all 
 brain, has a difficulty sometimes in negotiating a short 
 loan. 
 
 If you don't believe I'm all brain, come and see the 
 heads I have on me in the morning. 
 
 DIVORCES WITHOUT PUBLICITY. 
 
 In an article which I wrote some time ago I described, 
 it will be remembered, the facility with which people 
 could get married thanks to the ingenuity and enterprise 
 of Emeline. 
 
 You will pardon me. sir. if I pause here a moment to 
 weep Tracing that name has brought the bright eyes, 
 the saucy mouth and bewitching smile before me, and for 
 a moment P. P is not himself. 
 
 There are chords as you know— cords of them, and we 
 must be careful how we do the vibrating. 
 
 You may bo surprised that I so seldom mention my 
 gifted and erratic friend. Ah, if you did but know all. 
 But I cannot lay my heart bare— at least not during the 
 prevalence of a low temperature. The slight misunder- 
 standing between us may yet be arranged, and then you 
 will share with me, through these articles, the wit, the 
 keenness, the pleasing style of that most remarkable 
 woman. 
 
 She promised once to tell me her life, so that I could 
 weave a romance from it for the Gazette. If she only 
 would ! 
 
 But I have stopped long enough for one weep. Au revoir, 
 Emeline. 
 
 I repeat that it is the easiest thing in the world now- 
 adays to get married. There is only one thing easier— to 
 got divorced. 
 
 And you don't have to know anything about it yourself, 
 if you arc the one from whom the divorce is obtained. 
 That is. it is not absolutely necessary. The other party, 
 the one seeking the divorce, man or wife as the case may 
 be, can keep the legal document as a gentle surprise, a 
 nice little arrangement to trot forth when circumstances 
 arc ripe for it. 
 
 It was only a few weeks ago that the papers had the 
 case of a man who obtained a divorce from his wife 
 locked it up in his desk, said nothing about it and lived 
 with her ten years. 
 
 For ten years she was his mistress and didn't know it 1 
 
 Pleasant, isn't it ? And yet it all comes from the extreme 
 facility with which the decree of separation can be ob- 
 tained. If you look carefully through your paper you 
 will find scores of lawyers who advertise in the most fla- 
 grantly public and aboveboard manner that their special- 
 ty is putting asunder those whom God has joined together. 
 
 "Without Publicity" they promise, and it is this 
 " under tho rose " part of the business which brings them 
 so many clients. 
 
 Let us imagine ourselves in the office of a prominent 
 firm down town. They are on Broadway, and have ele 
 gant parlors. Although the law business in its generality 
 is their profession they have in some manner drifted into 
 untying matrimonial knots almost altogether, "without 
 publicity," of course. 
 
 The spirits in the cabinet of the Davenport Brothers do 
 not disentangle more silently the cords binding the 
 mediums than do these gentlemen the silken chains, too 
 frequently turned to gyves of iron, of matrimony. 
 
 While we wait an elegantly dressed lady, closely veiled, 
 enters. The clerk motions her to a seat and vanishes to 
 see if either of the principals is at leisure. He returns to 
 report that Mr. So-and-so will see her immediately, and 
 so she disappears into the luxuriously furnished office set 
 aside for just such tete-a-ietes. 
 
 If we could follow there we would hear the fair one, her 
 beauteous face uncovered now, pour into the confidential 
 ear of the legal luminary a tale of domestic woe, the up- 
 shot of which is that she is tired of her husband and 
 wants a divorce. 
 
 " But on what grounds, madame ?" 
 
 " Ah, sir, I am so unhappy." 
 
 " Is he false to you?" 
 
 " I do not know— I hope so. I fear not. Butcannot yon 
 ascertain?" 
 
 "Certainly; the easiest thing in the world. We'll 
 
23 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM, 
 
 attend to that. Don't you feel the slightest uneasiness on 
 that score, madame." 
 
 "You are so kind." 
 
 " N ot at all. Has he ever beaten you ?" 
 
 " No, sir."' 
 
 " Nor attempted to ?" 
 
 " He once picked up a cologne bottle from the dressing 
 table in a very threatening manner." 
 
 " Ha ! ha I he did, eh ? Made an attempt to dash your 
 brains out "vvith a bottle ?" 
 
 " Sir, I did not say " 
 
 " Madame, it is the same thing." 
 
 The lawyer makes copious notes and then says: 
 
 " Nothing more is required at present. This direct at- 
 tempt upon your life is very satisfactory, and will weigh 
 Avith the judge out in Nevada, if we have to go so far. It 
 maybe possible to find that the monster has a mistress. 
 If that is the case we needn't cross a ferry." 
 
 So she pays tbe retainer fee and goes down to her car- 
 riage. The monster, all this while, is utterly unconscious 
 of the net that fate has commenced to weave about him. 
 
 I may have cited the visit of the lady in a slightly ex- 
 aggerated way, but I mean every word of it in all serious- 
 ness. Just such business calls are made every day. 
 Sometimes it is the husband who is the applicant. 
 
 In either case, where there are no grounds alleged, 
 there is always a desire to be free in order to be at lib- 
 erty to enjoy the society of some one else. A man or 
 woman in the back-ground is doing the prompting. 
 
 This you can gamble on every time. In many instances 
 the woman simply finds it impossible to live longer with 
 her husband. He abuses her, but in one respect resembles 
 "Old Dog Tray." 
 
 He is ever faithful, but never kind. 
 
 These are a tantalizing sort of husband, and it is to fix 
 their flints that the divorce bureaus are established with 
 connections out West with wild-cat juries and judges that 
 would grant anything for five dollars and a drink. 
 
 The first thing to do, however, is to endeavor to get the 
 dead wood on the old man here in New York— to prove 
 him guilty of adultery. If that can be done it is all plain 
 sailing. 
 
 But there are some men who are virtuous simply be- 
 cause they are too " cussed" mean to be otherwise. 
 
 In order to handle this variety the legal firm resort to 
 that branch of tactics known as " putting up a job !" 
 
 One of the firm's agents happens to make the acquaint- 
 ance of the gentleman, who is all unconscious that the 
 wife who poured him out his coffee that morning is digging 
 the ground from under his feet and preparing a mine that 
 v. ill blow him up " among the little stars and all about 
 the moon." 
 
 When they know each other right well the representa- 
 tive of the lawyers proposes an evening about town. Per- 
 haps in an evil moment the old gentleman accepts. The 
 agent has plenty of money and does the champagne act 
 until he thinks it sure to propose dropping around to see 
 some ladies. 
 
 If the game is very wary it is a little supper that is ar- 
 ranged and the ladies happen in. They know their bu.-i- 
 and the one who succeeds in capturing the enemj 
 is sure of a handsome juice from the high-toned law- 
 yers. 
 
 it isn't at all surprising under such circumstances if the 
 obtaining of evidence became a verj easy matter, ah 
 the agent, the spy, has to do, Is to keep his eyes open and 
 take notes. Be knows, also, that if it is necessary he can 
 at any time obtain the affidavit of whatever beauty the 
 poor, deluded victim of the horrid plot eventually deter- 
 mines to lancy. 
 
 j Nice commentary on the legal profession this, and yet 
 every word of it is true. They will sometimes go to still 
 greater lengths and suborn witnesses to swear away a 
 man's character for fidelity when no overt act of adultery 
 was ever committed. 
 
 The divorce must be obtained at all hazards. 
 
 Where the husband is a jolly, good-natured fellow, who 
 goes freely about town, all this evidence business is very 
 much easier. It is here that the special divorce detective 
 gets his lace-work in. 
 
 He does not make the gentleman's acquaintance as in 
 the other case. He simply becomes his shadow. When 
 he starts down town the detective is on the front platform 
 of the same car. He is at the next table in the lunch- 
 room ; he is in a beer saloon opposite the club; he is more 
 faithful in his attentions than the person's real shadow, 
 for there are scientific reasons for that imponderable 
 counterfeit leaving us occasionally for long seasons. 
 
 If there is a screw loose anywhere the detective is sure 
 ' to ascertain it. He is not hasty even then. He waits pa- 
 tiently until facts have been accumulated that will bear 
 but one significance, however skillfully used by the law- 
 yers engaged to fight a dissolving decree. 
 
 What show has a man got when he becomes the objec- 
 tive point of such systematic villainy, for I can call the 
 collusion of the legal profession and the encouragement it 
 gives the applicant by no softer name? Evidently no 
 show. 
 
 He is not aware of the approach of the enemy until he 
 sees his buttresses flying in the air and hears the crash of 
 his falling citadels. 
 
 In France just now they are endeavoring to introduce 
 divorce, which, singularly enough, is not permitted in a 
 countrv whose entire dramatic literature teems with rare 
 opportunities for its proper application. 
 
 And while a little divorce would probably do France 
 good, I think that some restricting limitation should be 
 applied to its wholesale granting in this country. This 
 popping into a railroad car, going out west, becoming a 
 citizen, etc., of another state, and then eventually ob- 
 taining a decree of separation between man and wife, one 
 of the separated parties being too frequently in absolute 
 ignorance of what is going on, is a deplorable instance of 
 the facility with which things can be accomplished in a 
 free country. 
 
 Rather than this system, and the hundreds of specialist 
 lawyers, in New York it breeds, the well-defined and 
 thoroughly understood system qf matrimony o la comm 
 ance of France is much preferable. 
 
 There, for instance, husband and wife, who occupy 
 separate apartments, meet over their breakfast chocolate 
 and the following dialogue ensues •. 
 
 " Bon jour, madame." 
 
 " Bon jour, monsieur." 
 
 " I saw you at the opera last night." 
 
 " Indeed— why did you not come to the box?" 
 
 " It was too crowded. Bytheway, who is that Span- 
 ish-looking gentleman I sec you with so much lately. " 
 
 " He? That is Sewor Ortella Maria Jose Infanta y Agu- 
 illa losEspcranza. lie is just too sweet for anything." 
 
 "So I should Imagine, He is of the complexion of a 
 Chocolate caramel." 
 
 " Oh, yon are jealous." 
 
 " I ? On my honor— no." 
 
 " I also have to ask you a question, monsieur." 
 
 " I listen, madame," 
 
 " 1 saw you dining in the Bois yesterday. You did not 
 have that opera singer with you. Who is the blonde who 
 pleases your fancy now ? " 
 
 11 She is a dauseuse of the grand opera— a premiere." 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 "Keep on, monsieur— you are descending bravely. 
 First it was the director's wife, then the prima donna, 
 now a dancer. Soon it will be a coryphee at five francs 
 a week.*' 
 
 " Now, you are jealous." 
 
 " Not I. It is my interest in you which prompts me to 
 speak. I do not forget that you are my husband." 
 
 " Au recoir, madame." 
 
 " At recoir, monsieur." 
 
 Now, that is the way they talk in a country that has 
 never thought it needed the institution of divorce. 
 
 While conversing on this subject the other day with a 
 young lawyer, who says he wouldn't touch a divorce case 
 of any kind, he told me incidentally that the specialists 
 in the business are not altogether content to wait until 
 clients come to them in the natural order of events. If 
 trade is dull they drum it up, precisely as a patent medi- 
 cine man is sent out by a New York house to introduce 
 the " Famous Shake-no-More " among the ague-stricken 
 people of the far west. 
 
 I laughed at this— it seemed so absurd, but he assured 
 me that such was the case, and proceeded to give me the 
 details. 
 
 " You understand, of course," he said, " that society is 
 not happy in all its honors. All the brown-stone houses 
 have to have new closets put in every year in order to ac- 
 commodate the skeletons. Still many a woman and man, 
 if let alone, would bear her or his connubial burdens 
 
 meekly rather than face the scandal and publicity of a 
 divorce trial. Our special divorce lawyers know tins and 
 so they invade society. They transfer the base of opera- 
 tions to the drawing-rooms. How f By using swell mem- 
 bers of the fashionable world to first find out where there 
 is a canker in the rose, and then to deftly set forth in a 
 perfect Mephistophelian way how divorce is the only 
 cure. Nine-tenths of this delicate diplomatic business is 
 employed in persuading hesitating wives. Husbands 
 could hardly be approached in their own homes with 
 propositions to break them up. Take an impressionable 
 woman, already unhappy, who has once been thinking 
 of divorce, and the case is different. She is clay for the 
 moulder. The serpent whispers of how nice it will be to 
 bank her alimony, tells her lies about the old man, in- 
 duces her to believe that the firm down town will put in 
 no bill if they don't succeed, and so the affair is ar- 
 ranged." 
 
 " And this high-toned guest of the husband who abuses 
 his hospitality to blast his life, what can be his motive 
 for enacting so desplicable a role t " 
 
 " Ten per cent, of the fee paid. It's precisely like pat- 
 ent medicines or boots and shoes." 
 
 " More like boots and shoes." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "Because the individual getting the divorce so fre- 
 quently puts his or her foot in it." 
 
 SOCIETY'S " SWELL-MOB." 
 
 It was my fortune the other day to be present at a 
 police court trial which was held with closed doors— in 
 fact it was more of an examination than a trial— and so 
 the particulars did not get into the newspapers. 
 
 I have no intention either of publishing names and resi- 
 dences, in face of the fact that mercy on one side, and 
 repentance on the other, effected a sensible compromise. 
 I merely take the circumstances as a text for my weekly 
 homily. 
 
 Briefly stated, the case was as follows: A lady belong- 
 ing to that vague and mysterious organization known as 
 our best society had given a party. 
 
 I cannot tell whether it was a " German " or a " Kettle- 
 drum," but I was given to understand that it was a very 
 "tony" affair. 
 
 The house was brilliantly illuminated. An awning 
 stretched from the door to the curb, and there was virgin 
 Turkey carpet covering the muddy pavement, and so al- 
 lowing Beauty's satin slipper to reach the spacious par- 
 lors unboiled. 
 
 "Niggers" stood around like pedestals, directing you 
 to the "gents' cloak room," the "ladies' dressing room," 
 etc., etc. Everybody was there; everybody of course in 
 the exclusive set. I was not. If I remember correctly I 
 was playing pool that night in a German beer shop, eat- 
 ing vile sausages the while, and talking philosophy to the 
 bald-headed proprietor. 
 
 Notwithstanding my absence, which you would natur- 
 ally imagine would be a most serious drawback, the en- 
 tertainment went off with great eclat. 
 
 The usual amount of nonsense was talked, and an ex- 
 
 traordinary quantity of wine, salad, ices and cake was 
 consumed. 
 
 Carriages began to be announced as they had been sum- 
 moned, and then it was discovered that while the dance 
 was in progress in the parlors, and the feeding was going 
 on in the drawing-room, some one had been busy up- 
 stairs ransacking drawers, examining overcoat pockets, 
 and quietly purloining articles of value and portable ob- 
 jects of vrrtu that happened to be about. 
 
 One lady lost a diamond clasp which she had foolishly 
 allowed to remain in her wrap. 
 
 The hostess missed bits of plate and any quantity of 
 jewelry that had been on dressing tables and in easily 
 rifled drawers. 
 
 Nothing could be done then, and nothing was done for 
 some little time, except to place the mystery in the hands 
 of a skillful detective. He worked at the case, and 
 finally ran his man down. 
 
 It was one of the " niggers " of course, you say. 
 
 The thief was nothing of the kind. 
 
 Tie ira-l one of (he a ■ 
 
 A proper, dapper young man of most excellent family. 
 He holds a responsible position in a large concern down 
 town, where the prospective honors are supposed to be a 
 recompense for the rather small salary he has been re- 
 ceiving. 
 
 When he was arrested he confessed everything, and 
 threw himself upon the mercy of those he had 
 robbed. 
 
 It came to light then that he had been doing this sort of 
 thing, with the help of an outsider, for some time, sup- 
 
24 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 plying himself •with spending money by pawning the 
 plunder. 
 
 His mode of operation -was to slip out for an ostensible 
 smoke, -while the festivities were at their heighth, and, 
 carefully watching his opportunities, to ransack the vari. 
 ons rooms. If confronted by any one, he was looking for 
 the smoking room, and " could you kindly tell me where 
 it is? Oh, it's down stairs ! Thank you." 
 
 It is easily seen that under the protection afforded by 
 being one of the invited, this system of thieving could be 
 carried on with the utmost impunity. Servants would 
 get the blame, or it would be put down to some of the 
 men from the caterer's place. 
 
 The detection of this young man opened up the fact 
 that scores of other houses had suffered in just the same 
 way. There are many to whose spoliation he will not 
 confess, stating most emphatically that he had nothing to 
 do with the crimes in those particular instances. Since 
 he has no object in lying, and has been allowed to go scot 
 free out of respect for his family, the natural conclusion 
 is that there are thieves, petty purloiners, among our 
 best people. Heretofore society has always furnished 
 dishonest characters of the awfully swell order. A guar- 
 dian does away with his ward's fortune. A banker nego- 
 tiates his paper when he knows he is on the eve of fail- 
 ure. The president of an insurance company affixes his 
 oath to a false balance sheet. These are all big fish. 
 
 It must be a huge consolation, then, to the regular 
 low-down thief who has done time for stealing a pair of 
 shoes, to know that in the brown-stone world of magni- 
 ficence up-town there are those of his kidney. They 
 wear good clothes, and are curled and perfumed, but they 
 belong to the crooked fraternity all the same, and if jus- 
 tice had its full swing, and every dog got his due, their 
 classic countenances should be among those which make 
 up that wondrous album at headquarters— the Rogues' 
 Gallery. 
 
 After the charge had been withdrawn and the examina- 
 tion ended, I asked those at the court if this sort of thing 
 was rare, and was told that it was by no means an in- 
 frequent occurrence. In one or two instances during the 
 year there was no let up. The cases were taken to court, 
 and there are delicate hands breaking stone at Sing Sing 
 now because they were too dishonestly active under 
 such festive circumstances as I have described. 
 
 Further investigation has shown me that no experienced 
 lady gives a party now without having among her black, 
 coated gentleman guests a regular detective, whose duty 
 it is to look as if he were enjoying himself intensely, and 
 to watch all the others at the same time. 
 
 You can't blame the practice, although it does take the 
 bloom off of hospitality, and makes the amenities of 
 fashionable life a rather ghastly farce. If those you in- 
 vite to your house number among them nun and women 
 with the instincts of foot-pads, it becomes the duty of the 
 entertainer to protect his or her property, and the prop- 
 erty of the guests, at all hazards. 
 
 One of these detectives w r as introduced to me, and I had 
 quite a talk with him upon the subject. It is new work 
 for him, and he is mightily pleased with it. His first 
 capture wa;; a woman, a handsome, accomplished widow, 
 who was in . ited as regularly to every swell affair as they 
 happened. 
 
 This is how he caught her: 
 
 "It was about the first of October," he said, "that a 
 lady living oil Sixty-first street issued cards for a very 
 elegant reception, on the occasion of her daughter's mar- 
 riage. She had been one of the sufferers from the 
 fashionable stealing we have been talking about, and she 
 
 resolved this time that she would set a trap for the 
 mice. 
 
 "So she drove down to our office the day before— I be* 
 long to a private firm of detectives — and asked that some 
 one be detailed at her residence for that evening. 
 
 "I was selected by the head of the firm, who presented 
 me with regular cards of invitation that the high-toned 
 lady had brought with her. I was not a little embar- 
 rassed, you can well imagine, for ten years' knotking 
 about among dangerous characters, and being constantly 
 engaged in putting up jobs on the most brilliant memberf 
 of what we call the ' swell mob,' had rather unfitted vni 
 for contact with members of the upper ten thousand. 
 
 " And I didn't have a dress suit 1 
 
 " But that was easily managed, thanks to a costumer on 
 the Bowery, and when I presented myself at the brown 
 stone mansion at about half-past nine, I flattered myself 
 I was quite the correct thing in my get up. 
 
 " Necktie, kid gloves, suit, boots, all proclaimed me the 
 proper kind of guest. One thing I am certain of; I wasn't 
 half as awkward as some of the gawks about me, and I 
 hadn't been in the parlors ten minutes before I felt per- 
 fectly at my ease. 
 
 " The hostess introduced me as a friend of her late hus- 
 band, and passed me over to a heavy old swell who turned 
 out to be in the grain trade. He got me in the corner, 
 and kept buzzing me for nearly an hour about the crop 
 failures in England, and the immense exporting advan- 
 tage it would be to this country. 
 
 " All this time while I was listening to the aged cove, 
 and trying to do my level best in replying to him, I didn't 
 forget what I had come for. My eyes went up and down 
 the room like a patrolman, studying each face and watch 
 ing keenly if any of the guests disappeared from the 
 rooms, after formally entering them. There was no 
 reason for anticipating any dishonest operation, and my 
 position was looked upon, both by myself and the lady of 
 the house, as a sinecure; but, nevertheless, I could not 
 drive it from my mind that something of a sensational 
 nature would turn up during the course of the evening. 
 
 "And it did. 
 
 " There was a very stylish, vivacious, handsome widow 
 present to whom I had been introduced. It struck me 
 then that she talked too much; that she surrounded her- 
 self with a cloud of conversation which concealed from 
 every one but myself a certain restlessness, which was a 
 sure indication of a project being evolved in her 
 brain. 
 
 "The wedding presents, which were very handsome, 
 were all arranged in a sort of brilliantly illuminated 
 room up-stairs, which, when the survey of them was 
 finished, was left in charge of a faithful negro servant 
 belonging to the establishment. Among the collection 
 was a handsome, rare old point lace fichu. This was 
 very valuable, and in proportion to its size, really the 
 most valuable of all. 
 
 " It was shortly after we entered the refreshment room 
 that the widow complained of feeling ill. A chocolate 
 ice had not agreed with her, and the apartment Avas too 
 hot. She would go into the parlor and rest awhile. The 
 time she chose was when every guest was more or less 
 occupied with the cheerful task of eating and drinking, 
 when all the servauts of the house, excepting the on* 
 guarding the present!, were employed downstairs. 
 
 "I looked steadily at tho lady of the house, and with 
 all the significance that I could command. This waste 
 prepare her for what I was about to say, which was: 
 
 : ' ' nadn't I better take Mrs. a glass of wine?' 
 
 *" Certainly; it is very kind of you,' she replied, ' and 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 25 
 
 tell her I will be there in a moment to see if she needs 
 anything else. ' 
 
 " As I had anticipated, the parlor was empty, and what 
 was more remarkable, the front door was open. 
 
 "I went up the stairs as swiftly and as silently as I 
 could. When I reached the door of the room containing 
 the presents, I detected the odor of chloroform. 
 
 " The door was partially closed. I pushed it open, and 
 it was easily seen from whence the scent came. There 
 6at the darkey insensible in his chair, his head thrown 
 back, his face covered with a handkerchief. The widow 
 was in the act of pocketing the fichu, the position of the 
 two parties in the room clearly showing how she had 
 stolen on the negro unawares. I could have arrested her 
 then, but I had a great curiosity to see what her future 
 movements would be like; so when she made a motion to 
 turn, I stepped closely back in the shadow of the land- 
 ing. She brushed past me, and floated down the stairs 
 like a silken sigh, I after her. 
 
 "All this hadn't taken more than five minutes. In- 
 stead of going straight into the parlor, she passed to the 
 front door, which, as I have said, was open. I crouched 
 down, and not sufficiently in range of vision to see her 
 beckon her coachman, who was, singularly enough, in 
 the neighborhood at so early an hour. He came to the 
 stoop, and she passed him the fichu. 
 
 "Then she entered the parlor again, and when I, in 
 about ten seconds, followed her, she was the most beauti- 
 ful sick woman, lying among the satin cushions of a sofa, 
 that I ever saw. 
 
 " I went to the mantel where I had placed the glass of 
 
 wine, and said, in my most engaging manner, ' Mrs. 
 
 sent me to you with this, and her compliments. Try it; 
 it will do you good.' 
 
 "There was no deceiving her. She saw at once that 
 something terrible had happened. How came the wine 
 to be in the parlor? I must have been there during her 
 absence. Still she did not give herself up to confusion. 
 She shivered a little, and said, ' Is there not a door open 
 somewhere?' 
 
 " ' Yes,' I replied, ' the front door. Since you did not 
 close it just now when you spoke to your coachman, I 
 thought you desired it open. Fresh air is a good thing 
 after chloroform !' 
 
 " This ended it. She looked up at me and swooned. In 
 the meantime the hostess and the guests began to arrive. 
 They crowded about the widow, and I, taking an advan- 
 tage of an opportunity which presented itself, told the 
 lady of the house what had occurred. Just as I did so, 
 a servant discovered his chloroformed companion, and 
 came shouting down the stairs. 
 
 "All was confusion. Four or five other ladies fainted 
 in convenient corners, and in a few minutes the theory 
 was that the establishment had been entered by means of 
 a skeleton key, and that perhaps even now every closet 
 was jammed with burglars and murderers. I know that 
 we had a jolly good search all over the house. The bride 
 was at first terribly annoyed at the loss, but when her 
 mother told her the circumstances, dumb horror and sur- 
 prise took possession of her. 
 
 "If I hadn't been there the plan would have worked 
 beautifully. The front door was opened for three reasons 
 —to communicate with the coachman, to start the theory 
 of a sneak thief, and to have blown away whatever deli- 
 cate traces of chloroform may have clung to the widow's 
 dress. 
 
 " I saw the pretty widow home that night in her own 
 carriage. When we were a block away from the house, I 
 made her get the stolen article from the driver. He was 
 thunderstruck at the request, and was very much worried 
 at my presence. I returned the loot, and that's all there 
 is to the story." 
 
 " Didn't they prosecute her?" 
 
 "No; what was the use. They got the fichu— the fish- 
 hook as I always call it— but they let the fish off. Such 
 things are not stealing among the way up— it's klepto- 
 mania." 
 
 " But the coachman." 
 
 " He wasn't a real coachman, any more than she was a 
 real widow. They were man and wife, but he could work 
 better as coachman." 
 
 " Then, this was their regular business." 
 
 " Been at it for years. I squeezed Mr. Coachman on my 
 own account, and got over one hundred pawn tickets 
 from him, making quite a neat ' spec ' b y offering to re- 
 turn goods to parties if no questions were asked. Alto- 
 gether my first evening among the ' lum-tums ' panned 
 out well." 
 
 BOOK-MAKING AND POOL SELLINGf. 
 
 We all remember " Doc " Underwood, the great Ameri- 
 can pool seller, and it isn't so long ago that the little 
 theatre on Broadway,where they have been giving " Pina- 
 fore " by the Church Choir Company, was the regular 
 pool-room of the late John Morrissey. 
 
 That was in the time when the law allowed or winked 
 at the sport, and when the locality at Broadway and 
 Twenty-eight street was marked by a degree of betting 
 activity which you look for in vain now. 
 
 There is just as much betting going on, however— more, 
 in fact, but the American pool system has gone to the 
 wall— it was known as the auction pool— before the Eng- 
 lish betting book idea. 
 
 I must confess at first that I could hardly get the Eng- 
 lish book, in all its technical language, through my per- 
 ceptive faculties. I am rejoiced to state that I have suc- 
 
 ceeded at last It was in three easy lessons, and I paid a 
 price so steep, per lesson, as to induce me to figuratively 
 wonder when the Metropolitan Soup Kitchens are going 
 to open. 
 
 Each lesson was in the form of a race. I laid " odds," 
 but they hatched nothing. 
 
 Still the man who grumbles at knowledge, however 
 dearly bought, is no philosopher. Therefore I can't com- 
 plain on that score. 
 
 You have doubtless heard about the inexperienced hus- 
 band who came home at the milkman's hour deathly sick, 
 and who, upon being interrogated by his wife, owned up 
 to sixty beers during the night, and laid the sickness to- 
 one Frankfurter sausage. They always did disagree 
 with him. 
 
 Of course vou have heard of this husband. Maybe in 
 
26 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 the amateur theatricals of this life you have played his 
 part. 
 
 To explain the digression: I am an explanatory sick hus- 
 band. I ascribe all my ill luck to the fact that an upright 
 municipal government forced me into a speculation that 
 
 1 didn't understand. 
 
 If I had bought the " field " on the good old American 
 plan, or even invested in the Paris Mutuels, I feel certain 
 that I would be ready now to prove my direct descent 
 from Croesus. 
 
 By the way, did you ever pause in this work-a-day 
 world to ponder a little on those lucky dogs of antiquity? 
 Look at Croesus ! There wasn't enough ink in the world 
 or a rapid enough stylus to enable him to overdraw his 
 bank account. 
 
 There was a man who could have fried lampreys for 
 breakfast every morning. 
 
 And Crichton, who couldn't make a mistake. He was a 
 great gambler, too, and got away with loads of drachma 
 and such like on chariot races. 
 
 The chariot whirls me back to my subject, that of the 
 English betting book and its principles. 
 
 Before I take the reader down town to where all the 
 principal backers have desk room, generally in saloons 
 like Casey's and Thomas's in Barclay street, I will try to 
 explain the English book. 
 
 It is constructed on severe mathematical principles, is 
 nothing more than a lesson in ciphering, and will undoubt- 
 edly become the fashionable form of betting at all such 
 aristocratic tracks as Fordham, Saratoga and Long 
 Branch. 
 
 You will be surprised at the authority to whom I go for 
 facts bearing upon the English betting plan as applied to 
 horse races. He is no less a man than Prof. Richard A. 
 Proctor, B. A., Camb., F. R. A. S., who is now delivering 
 a series of brilliant astronomical lectures in this city. 
 
 I don't know that the professor is good on giving you 
 points, although he could tell to a dot when comets and 
 planets should arrive at the judges' stand, but I think a 
 man with an array of such glittering titles would be dead 
 sure to name the winner twice out of three times. 
 
 Before quoting the description of the booking idea it is 
 necessary to explain that " Camb." does not mean " come 
 and make bets." 
 
 The professor says: " It is in reality a simple matter to 
 understand the betting on races or contests of any kind, 
 yet it is astonishing how seldom those who do not actually 
 bet upon races have any inkling of the meaning of those 
 mysterious columns which indicate the opinion of the bet- 
 ting world respecting the probable result of approaching 
 contests, equine or otherwise. 
 
 " Let us take a few simple cases of ' odds' to begin with 
 and, having mastered the elements of our subject, pro- 
 ceed to see how cases of greater complexity are to be 
 dealt with. 
 
 " Suppose the newspapers informs us that the betting is 
 
 2 to 1 against a certain horse for such and such a race, 
 what inference are we to deduce? To learn this let us 
 conceive a case in which the true odds against a certain 
 event are 2 to 1. Suppose there are three balls in a bag, 
 one being white, the others black. Then if we draw a 
 ball at random it is clear that avo are twice as likel} to 
 draw a black as to draw a white bail. This I 
 
 ■ ised by saying that the odds are 2 to 1 against draw- 
 ing a white ball, or 2 to 1 on— that Is, in favor of— iraw- 
 blackball. This being understood, it follows that 
 
 v. ben the Odds ar" said to be 2 to 1 against a certain borse 
 we arc to infer that, in the opinion of those who have 
 studied the performance of the borse and compared it with 
 that of the other horses engaged in tho race, his chance 
 
 of winning is equivalent to the chance of drawing one 
 particular ball out of a bag of three balls. 
 
 " Observe how this result is obtained. The odds are 2 to 
 1, and the chance of the horse is as that of drawing one 
 ball out of a bag of three— three being the sum of the two 
 numbers 2 and 1. This is the method followed in all such 
 cases. Thus, if the odds against a horse are 7 to 1, we 
 infer that the cognoscenti consider his chance equal to 
 that of drawing one particular ball out of a bag of eight. 
 
 " A similar treatment applies when the odds are not 
 given as so many to one. Thus, if the odds against b. 
 horse are as 5 to 2, we infer that the horse's chance is 
 equal to that of drawing a white ball out of a tag contain- 
 ing five black and two white balls, or seven in all.*' 
 
 Further on the astronomer throws some starlight on a 
 point that would be otherwise murky. He says: "And 
 here a certain nicety in betting has to be mentioned. In 
 running the eye down the list of odds one will often meet 
 such expressions as 10 to 1 against such a horse offered, 
 or 10 to 1 wanted. Now the odds of 10 to 1 taken may be 
 understood to imply that the horse's chance is equivalent 
 to that of drawing a certain ball out of a bag of eleven. 
 But if the odds are offered and not taken we cannot infer 
 this. The offering of the odds implies that the horse's 
 chance is not better than that above mentioned, but the 
 fact that they are not taken implies that the horse's 
 chance is not so good. If no higher odds are offered 
 against the horse we may infer that his chance is very 
 little worse than that mentioned above. Similarly if the 
 odds of 10 to 1 are asked for we infer that the horse's 
 chance is not worse than that of drawing one ball out of 
 eleven. If the odds are not obtained we infer that his 
 chance is better, and if no lower odds are asked for we 
 infer that his chance is very little better." 
 
 I give this explanation, because I take it for granted 
 that once in a while my readers, who are ordinarily the 
 pillars of society and the shining examples of respecta- 
 bility, may feel in a risking mood. I do not wish them 
 to be cajoled into laying any preposterous odds when the 
 business of the moment is the making of a bet. The back- 
 ers are the most agreeable men imaginable. It is very 
 difficult to get talking with them on any event in which 
 you are interested without putting up something, and it 
 is iust as well to know how to put up. 
 
 They write your name down on a pretty colored slip, 
 which they tear from their little book, and carefully in- 
 sert the precise circumstances under which the bet is 
 made. With the information Prof. Proctor has given us 
 it is now possible to experience the sensation understand- 
 ing^-. 
 
 Did you ever notice what fearful odds are sometimes 
 laid? "When Parole went over to England for the first 
 time Mr. Lorillard was fortunate enough to negotiate bets 
 at 40 to 1. As the day for the race drew near this was cut 
 down to 7 to 1, 5 to 1, and 3 to 1. 
 
 During the late walking nuisances I saw one ticket 
 which stated that the holder had put up ?1 against $1,000, 
 the bookmaker giving those odds against one of the dead- 
 beat contestants getting a certain place. As the man 
 COUld hardly remain on the tanbark the bet seemed logi- 
 I cal enough. I bought a ticket at the same odds, jis I 
 always would under any circumstances save the non- 
 possession of a dollar. Lightning has a habil < E not strik- 
 ing twice in the same place, but the man who wouldn't 
 put a dollar on a lightning strike coming loafing along on 
 its former track when $1,000 could be "collared" if it 
 
 did, is no devotee of cham e. 
 
 There are up-town offices, of course, where betting goes 
 on constantly . a good deal oJ it being done by wire. But 
 since horse races, yacht races and base ball matches are 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 27 
 
 generally managed in the day time, it was found neces- 
 sary to open down-town branches in bars and chop- 
 houses. 
 
 -1 man who comes out of his office for a drink and a 
 little lunch is enabled without any trouble to get in on 
 the races, say at Louisville, or the yacht contest up the 
 Sound, or anything anywhere. 
 
 Think of bending over a stupid ledger, and seeing be- 
 tween the lines the fascinating picture of your horse on 
 which you got 15 to 1, coming in ahead of all the others, 
 with his tail straight out and the jockey almost riding be- 
 tween his ears. 
 
 Dost like the picture ? But think of the other chromos 
 on the ledger page— your horse in a ditch, and the jockey 
 coming over to the grand stand on a stretcher. 
 
 If there were not two sides to everything we could have 
 lots of fun, couldn't we? 
 
 This booking game is one that you can play in two ways. 
 You can buy a horse at the long odds offered, or you can 
 open an office yourself and start in to back anything and 
 everything under creation. All that you require is a 
 character for reliability-, a tremendous nerve, and a fac 
 ulty of so doing business that there is no chance of losing 
 anything. This can be done nearly every time by giving 
 just the proper kind of odds to offset a misdirected gene- 
 rosity into which you may have been led at the early 
 stages of the speculation. 
 
 In England it is customary enough to open books for the 
 Derby a year ahead. From that time down to the morn- 
 ing of the race a horse may fluctuate like the price of 
 gold in a panic. Some one circulates a rumor that he has 
 gone amiss in one of his legs. Immediately the book- 
 makers extend their odds against him. When it is dis- 
 covered that it was a mere rumor the figures change 
 again. In all this multifarious figuring it is necessary to 
 naintain a cool, clear head, and to hear always the net 
 result of the bets booked so far ciphered out in the mind. 
 
 All backers do not give the same odds, although they 
 
 are foiced by the pressure of competition to maintain an 
 appearance of uniformity. 
 
 Another peculiarity about the English system is that 
 you don't get your money back if the horses do not start. 
 For that very reason the man who has a chance six 
 months ahead of the date of the event to pick up long 
 odds against ahorse is made a little scary by the reflec- 
 tion that perhaps the brute will be scratched. 
 
 But any of the affairs of this life are equally nncertain. 
 Look at those pretty rowers, Hanlan and Courtney I Is 
 there the slightest moral certainty that they will race on 
 the Potomac? 
 
 Tou can go down in Barclay street now and get odds 
 thai* there will be no race on Dec. 9th. 
 
 And from the same man you can get odds that there will 
 be a race. 
 
 That Hanlan will beat. 
 
 That Courtney will beat. 
 
 You can almost get odds that both will beat. 
 
 Hunt this wide world over and you will find no more 
 accommodating men than the book-makers. Knowing 
 that there is a chance for every anticipated event hap- 
 pening, or not happening, it is their province to accom- 
 modate all who want to bet on the " perhaps " of it. 
 
 Of course races, billiard matches, pigeon shoots and the 
 like are their legitimate field of operation, but they are 
 always willing to go into an outside snap. 
 
 I sincerely believe that it would have been possible the 
 other day, when the Adventists were sitting around in 
 their best bibs and tuckers, waiting for the end of the 
 world, to have obtained from some of the booking frater- 
 nity bets on the occurrence or non-occurrence of the 
 wind-up. 
 
 I don't know though. If the earth's account had been 
 closed, settling the transaction next day would have been 
 a different matter. 
 
 For all we know bets may not be recognized in the bet- 
 ter land. 
 
 RESTAURANTS GOOD AUD BAD. 
 
 A man who can't satisfy the cravings of his intellect in 
 New York city, or find plenty of pabulum for those baser 
 qualities which demand mere recreation, is an individual 
 whom it would be hard to please. 
 
 And equally true is it that the person who cannot break- 
 fast, lunch and dine in this goodly city the year round to 
 his stomach's content, is the one who will be likely to 
 * kick" at the surroundings the morning after his funeral, 
 even if he went straight through to the better of the two 
 stopping places. 
 
 Of course you must have money. That is something 
 that you can't take with you when you leave this vale of 
 tears, and I am very glad that such is ihe case, consider- 
 ing how extremely difficult it is to freeze on to any con- 
 siderable amount unless you become a burglar or a Fall 
 River treasurer in a mule-spinning mill; you can't take it 
 with you, I repeat, but it is very convenient while you 
 tarry here. It buys bread and butter, porter-house steak 
 with mushrooms and other gastronomic combinations 
 which equip you for the battle of life. 
 
 Enjxuwint, as Mrs. General Oilflory would say, that was 
 a pretty tough story told in the courts a week or so ago 
 
 about an old Dutchman who tried to " hangup " a Bowery 
 eating saloon for the price of a pork chop and then lefta 
 linen duster, which he swore contained $16,000, as 
 security. 
 
 That aged German was very foolish. You never hean jf 
 me doing anything like that. I suppose I have worn linen 
 dusters off and on, but principally "on," ever since I was 
 a boy, and I never carried $16,000 around in the pockets 
 of one of them in all that time. It's too " shiftless like," 
 as Aunt Ophelia in Uncle Tom's Cabin would say. 
 
 If I have not already foreshadowed my intention in this 
 paper, I announce it now. I purpose to write of the 
 restaurants of New York and the opportunities presented 
 generally for browsing. 
 
 The New York restaurants, to begin with, are the best 
 in the world. This can be said safely, without the slight- 
 est fear of contradiction. It is the universal testimonial 
 of all foreigners who look kindly upon Epicurus and his 
 teachings. 
 
 They are of the most infinite variety. Every taste can 
 be satisfied. The population of the city is no more cos- 
 mopolite than are its kitchens. I can get frog's legs or 
 
•2s 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 stewed rat as quickly as I can have a chop served. You 
 need only to know where to go if your taste is fantastic. 
 
 The bills of fare suit every purse, I do not care how 
 slender it may be. You can knock a hundred dollar bill 
 into a little loose silver for the waiter at Delmonico's, or 
 you can go in South Fifth avenue or Wooster street and 
 have a dinner in courses for nine cents. 
 
 That's luxury. You can do even better, or worse, ac- 
 cording to the standpoint from which you look at it. 
 There are places on the Bowery and down about the 
 markets where three and five cents will at least appease 
 hunger. And after all that is the fundamental principle 
 of all eating. When it embraces anything else the collat- 
 eral idea is generally based on style. 
 
 It is quite natural that we should all prefer to dine at 
 Delmonico's or the Cafe Brunswick to munching hard 
 rolls and drinking chicory coffee in a shanty saloon, but 
 each experience is good in its place, and no man's life is 
 complete that is not a gamut sweeping the space between 
 the two extremes. If I had been born with a silver spoon 
 in my mouth— and of course I was not, any more than I 
 was born with a $10 gold piece in my vest pocket and had 
 been fed on bon-bons and syllabub all my life— I would not 
 have possessed that varied experience which now makes 
 my quail and glass of wine seem so delicious after the 
 opera. 
 
 On the contrary, I have eaten as extensively as I have 
 traveled, and have frequently been the unhappy owner of 
 an appetite, to possess which a dyspeptic millionaire 
 would give a thousand dollars. It made me unhappy be- 
 cause it attained its full strength and most generous pro- 
 portions when there was nothing to eat. But that was 
 not in this country, and was most certainly not in New 
 York. 
 
 In treating your girl to a lunch after the theatre, where 
 to go to depends a great deal upon the girl. Sometimes 
 you are dreadfully fooled, as I was once. This, however, 
 was in broad day light, and I had met the young lady in 
 Union Square just as I was going to lunch. She was a 
 literary young woman and wrote a great deal I know 
 about moonbeams, and hearts that pine away, and all the 
 rest of that rot. What made my invitation of her, to have 
 a bite of something, necessary, was because I was her 
 agent in the matter of these poems. That is, I was the 
 young man who used to get kicked down the stairs of 
 newspaper offices, and fired out of windows for daring to 
 offer her manuscript and expect money for it. 
 
 She said at first that she was not hungry, that she had 
 had a late breakfast, and as she spoke this way my heart 
 carolled like a bird, for I only had $2, and it was a little 
 uncertain in those days when another bill would hap- 
 pen along. 
 
 But she finally went in to look on— only to look on, mind 
 yon. Tlien .she glanced carelessly over the bill of fare, 
 and said with a theatrical air of astonishment, as if she 
 bad been hunting all over Now York for the article, "Why, 
 they've got partridge ! " 
 
 I remember that the bit of turkey sandwich stuck in my 
 throat, and nearly did the sheriff's act lor me a- I tried 
 to reply in a bantering way, "Have they, indeed ? " 
 
 "Id.i adore partridge," she continued; "I think I'll try 
 a half a one." 
 
 " What's tho use of doing things by hah i s," r answered, 
 wrecklessly, "take a complete low I, have a covey." 
 
 Bntshe took the half— $1,25. If she had taken the en- 
 tire chicken I might have been in state prison now, for 1 
 r<-( ollect that in my mental agony tin- murder of the pro- 
 prietor of the saloon, ».nd the setting Are to the place, 
 ■were but parts of my uluu of escape. 
 
 As a rule the sentimental young woman who writes 
 about moonbeams is equal to four or five flsh-ba'.ls as a 
 side-breakfast dish on Fridays. 
 
 The kind of lady companion when you go out to spend 
 the evening and have to run the lunch gauntlet in getting 
 home, should be like a married friend of mine. Her hus- 
 band was an invalid, rarely went out at night, but was 
 never so happy as when his wife, who was very fond of 
 music and the drama, had an opportunity to attend a 
 performance. 
 
 The escorting duty fell upon a rich young man in splen- 
 did business down town, and the subscriber, who at that 
 time was up to his ears, via five flights of stairs, in attic 
 philosophy. 
 
 I knew that she had been to Delmonico's with the swell, 
 because I had heard it incidentally mentioned, and when 
 my turn came to do the gallant, I rose to the financial 
 occasion onl; r after the most strenuous exertion. But I 
 was fixed, and to all intents and purposes quite as satis- 
 factorily so as if I had been A. T. Stewart. 
 
 I was not allowed, however, to assume the gilt-edged 
 style I had been anticipating. She said when I suggested 
 Delmonico's : 
 
 "No, I'm tired of Delmonico's and I don't like cham- 
 pagne, at least not all the time. Now I am very fond of 
 beer. Let's have beer and oysters; it's much jollier." 
 
 All this, mind you, was done with infinite grace and 
 tact. But these ladies are scarce. I have told the an- 
 ecdote a dozen times to the fair ones I have had out for 
 an evening, but the story never seemed to have the 
 slightest effect. 
 
 The regular French dinners on the UMe d'hote style are 
 very extensively patronized in New York, but I never go 
 to one unless it is to secure a special dish like maccaroni. 
 They take up too much time. I can understand a party, 
 wishing to remain together, putting in hour after hour at 
 one of these restaurants, but just for the mere sake of eat- 
 ing it seems a terrible waste of Tcmpus. The hotels are 
 adopting the plan of giving a dollar dinner to transients. 
 This is done as opposition to the Frenchmen. You may 
 get a better dinner at the hotels, but you miss the boule- 
 vard atmosphere of the other places. I got so thoroughly 
 Parisian by going constantly to a French restaurant in 
 Thirteenth street, that I kept shrugging my shoulders for 
 two months, aud only stopped it then by beiug treated for 
 a nervous affection. 
 
 You certainly have your choice among these French 
 dining places. You can pay $1.50 and you can go to South 
 Fifth avenue and dine for twenty cents, or even for nine, 
 as I said above. There won't be much difference found 
 in the wine, and, so far as company is concerned, it is 
 much more communistic and entertaining in the cheaper 
 cafes. 
 
 A great many beer saloons set regular breakfasts, din- 
 ners and suppers. I am not a great admirer of Teutonic 
 cookery, hut must admit that Frankfurter sausage, hrown 
 bread and beer do not go bad on a winter's evening. I 
 
 nev< r knew what a Frankfurter was made of, and 1 have 
 no desire to bo informed. I know that with horse-radish 
 and mustard it is very appetizing. 
 
 The English chop-house is more a specialty in Brooklyn 
 than here. There is a decided charm about the quaint, 
 ' snuggery *' kind Of a bar, the glistening mugs and tho 
 shining earthenware "tobies" which the waiter brings 
 you full of Coaming ale, while your Welsh rarebit order, 
 steak or chops, as the case may be, is being attended to. 
 When the weather gets real cold these chop-houses be- 
 come real hails ol bewitchery, owing to the insidious 
 effect of w arm drinks. The hot water is brought on in a 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 20 
 
 little jug, the sugar and lemon in a saucer and the Scotch 
 whiskey in a bottle by itself. I am taking it for granted 
 that justice has been done to a good meal and the hot grog 
 is to build you up for the ferry side. There's the great 
 trouble. To be dead sure that you will be braced up for 
 tbe ferry you have some more, and 
 
 Well, there is hardly any use in being too particular. 
 I know one young man who lives at 159th street who left 
 the "Abbey" in Brooklyn after getting primed against 
 the ferry, and they found him next morning in a Coney 
 Island bath-house. 
 
 Outside of these English places Brooklyn is singularly 
 deficient in good restaurants, is worse even than Phila- 
 delphia, where they have the best markets and private 
 tables in the world, but the meanest restaurants to be 
 found anywhere. Their hotel tables are also poor. 
 
 Way down town the dairies, creameries, " dime " res- 
 taurants and pie and milk places abound. Between 12 
 and 3 o'clock these establishments do a rushing trade. 
 They employ pretty girls— fresh, neat, trimly-built young 
 persons— who represent that decent middle class of soci- 
 ety which furnishes the bar-maids in England. Young 
 clerks who go fluttering about these bright-eyed creatures 
 with light-waisted pocketbooks or anything but the most 
 honorable intentions are apt to get seriously fooled. I 
 knew a colony of girls, a regular flock of turtle doves, 
 who had taken three or four rooms in a tenement in Van- 
 dewater street 
 
 The young man who took me around there had made a 
 tremendous error in his calculations— a fact of which I 
 apprised him before he had been in the place ten min- 
 utes. We all drank beer and sang songs, and I must con- 
 fess that these pie and pudding wrestlers were very agree- 
 
 able company, just a trifle more free than the young lady 
 in her ma's parlor, but with an air of business about 
 them and a constant tendency to talk about matrimony, 
 which showed which way the wind was blowing. 
 
 My friend took one of them to the theatre, and nothing 
 but the Cafe Brunswick would suit her. She had all her 
 canvas spread and looked as if she boarded there regu- 
 larly. But she was up all the same the next morning at 5 
 o'clock, slipping into her calico dress and getting ready 
 for the day's campaign in Nassau street. 
 
 All in good time my friend was sued for breach of 
 promise, and was fed for a while from the cuisine of Lud- 
 low street j ail. He weakened there and got out by marry- 
 ing her. This was over a year ago, and he told me 
 no later than yesterday to congratulate him. He is a 
 father. 
 
 Tonjours the milk business ! 
 
 The American slap-dash restaurant, with its fifteen cent 
 meats, is too well known to need description. I never eat 
 in one if I can possibly avoid it. It is too much like a 
 game of base-ball. Neither can I stand up at a bar and 
 grab at things over a man's head, as they do sometimes 
 in the Astor House rotunda. I would rather go over to 
 Park row and try the coffee and cake saloons, institutions 
 that are peculiar to New York. They make an oyster pie 
 there that I am sure is an infringement on the India rub* 
 ber patent. 
 
 But there goes my dinner bell. I must stop. We have 
 I turkey to-night, and I notice that the first served get a 
 better chance to study the succulent peculiarities of the 
 bird than those who come in to find the noble insect look- 
 ing like a Jersey barn with the stuffing knocked out of it. 
 
 A CHRISTMAS DRAMA, 
 
 These are pre-eminently the shopping days, and no 
 study of New York life would be complete that did not 
 embrace a consideration of Gotham's comely matrons 
 and lovely daughters when they are on what might be 
 called the extravagant rampage. 
 
 Between the Thanksgiving turkey and the Christmas 
 bird there is a perceptible holiday flavor in the atmos- 
 phere. Store windows bloom like flower gardens. Paris 
 pours in her novelties. The toy and confectionery busi- 
 nesses assume gigantic proportions, so much so that bon- 
 bons and painted balloons are gradually looked upon as 
 necessities by the unfortunate citizen who has nephews 
 and nieces to remember. 
 
 A stroll along upper Broadway just now shows you that 
 there is no such thing as a lack of money, and that if there 
 ever was a time when people were 
 "Hard up, hard up 
 For want of food and Are, 
 A-tying of their shoes up 
 With little bits of wire," 
 that time has long since been under the daisies. I do not 
 doubt that if we went over on the East side and nosed 
 about among the cellars and damp, reeking rooms of rot- 
 ting rookeries we might discover human beings who need 
 such commonplace holiday goods as bread and meat. 
 
 I have no doubt, either, that a good square meal to them 
 
 would possess all the novelty and unfrequency of a 
 holiday. 
 
 But there is no necessity to wander amid the odors of 
 the far East or West. It is the gladsome money-spending 
 time of the year, and if we haven't any money of our own 
 to sling about, nor any purple-embroidered carriage in 
 which the clerks can toss our packages, we can at least 
 mingle with the throng, flatten our noses against the five 
 hundred dollars' worth of plate glass in the windows, and 
 so catch something of the opulent spirit of the hour. 
 
 The animation of the scene is recompense enough any. 
 how. I often enjoy ten minutes on one of Stewart's 
 corners watching the swell girls getting in and out of 
 their equipages, and noticing the starched flunkeyism of 
 the well-fed and warmly-clad coachmen. The private 
 police at Stewart's are also funny creatures to me. They 
 are so awkward, so solemn and so pretentious in their 
 ungainly uniforms that they suggest the " beef -eaters" at 
 the Tower of London. I imagine they are of the same 
 utility. I have never seen them do anything else than 
 call carriages, open and shut carriage doors and raise and 
 lower umbrellas. These services performed, each one 
 picks out the particular flagstone to which he has become 
 attached and goes on with his imitation of a lamp-post. 
 
 Broadway shopping is the most aristocratic, but in 
 order to enjoy the bustle and activity you must go over on 
 
30 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 the avenues, Sixth and Eighth. Since 1873 these thor- 
 oughfares, taking advantage of the genuine hard times 
 and the difference in the rental of stores as compared 
 with those on Broadway, have developed an enormous 
 business in all articles appertaining to women's wear. It 
 is not de rigeur for the point lace people to shop on a West 
 side avenue, any more than it would he the correct thing 
 for them to get their bonnets in Division street ; but when 
 you can procure the material for a dress in a Sixth avenue 
 shop ten dollars cheaper than the same stuff would cost 
 on Broadway— and there is nothing harder to do than lie 
 about the purchase— it is the most natural thing in the 
 world to find ladies from St. James patronizing store- 
 keepers who began business in St. Giles. 
 
 The whole transaction is no more than a iittle bit of 
 innocent deception. When I used to hire a coupe by the 
 month— I think it was used at night to meet trains at 
 Desbrosses street— I never told people that it wasn't my 
 own trap, and no doubt had I been cross-questioned on the 
 subject I would have imperiled any chances I might have 
 then possessed for becoming a first-class harp player in 
 the next life by coolly asserting that I owned the entire 
 "caboodle." 
 
 I often think that it was only the attenuated and for- 
 lorn condition of the horse which saved me from this sin. 
 Richard III. would have wanted to fall from the offer of 
 his kingdom to two dollars and a half if that steed had 
 been proffered him in the emergency of Bosworth field. 
 
 The shopping that is being done now is of the genuine 
 order. Clerks and salesmen are not exercised in vain. 
 Palpable goods are purchased and genuine bills made out 
 for desperate men to swear over when they are presented. 
 But in how many instances the shopping business of the 
 average New York woman is a fraud, a device to kill time 
 and salesmen at the smallest degree of expense. I once 
 knew a young lady who came very near j oining me matri- 
 monially in starting a poor but highly intellectual branch 
 of the Prowler family. It is not necessary to particular- 
 ize any more than to state that the golden bowl is broken 
 and the dream has faded. She was disposed of at a panic 
 price to a genuine Italian count, who now keeps a barber 
 shop in Chicago. 
 
 She was the "boss" shopper. I have heard her an- 
 nounce at the mutual breakfast table of the Lexington 
 avenue boarding house, where first I saw her, that she 
 had a certain shade of ribbon to match, she wanted just a 
 quarter of a yard, and that it was her intention to devote 
 the forenoon to its purchase. For fear that she might 
 not be able to get through the work unaided, she would 
 press two other Jadies into the service. At 10 o'clock 
 they would sally forth in war paint and feathers and 
 begin the campaign. They always got the ribbon (price, 
 eight cents), and at dinner, during their conversation, we 
 would learn incidentally that they had been in about 
 forty stores and had walked at leastflfteen miles. Women 
 posft M this concentrating power in a remarkable degree. 
 For the moment the acquisition of that bit of ribbon be- 
 as important a question as the Eastern one is just 
 now to England and Russia. 
 
 Three-fourths of the ladies you meet in large dry goods 
 establishments at seasons of the year other than this buy 
 nothing at ah unless their fancy is attracted by accident 
 Lblein marly every store catering for them 
 on a large scale, inasmuch as tin . -II . v i \ mortal thing 
 under the sun with the exception of mowing machines 
 and locomotives. 
 
 1 have (.'one along with some cousins of mine, giddy 
 s-'irls from Hackensack— gone along in the capacity of 
 
 it porter (and at preeenl [amaolighl a porter that 
 there is no mistaking me for "stout") and been thor- 
 
 oughly astonished to notice the few things you can't buy 
 in a pins and needle store. Candies, boots, books, pen- 
 knives, pickles, patent medicines and a wilderness of 
 goods you would never expect to meet under the cir- 
 cumstances stare you in the face at ridiculously low 
 prices. 
 
 They have lunch rooms, where you can refresh, and I 
 seriously contemplate making an offer for the privilege 
 of running drinking bars as an outside attraction. On re • 
 flection I thiuk the bars would be an " inside ' ' attraction. 
 
 When it is possible for the American husband to get 
 drunk under the roof of a store where his wife and 
 daughters are conspiring against his financial well being 
 and peace of mind, then we have, indeed, realized the 
 ideal conception of a free country, and the beneficent 
 effects of our democratic form of government can no 
 further go. 
 
 There is no place so admirable for a rendezvous as the 
 New York stores I have been describing. This is particu- 
 larly so now when the " boom " rages, and an apparently 
 reckless use of money characterizes the hour. What is 
 the logical consequence ? 
 
 Come with me to any one of these bazars. You notice 
 four, five or a dozen young men lounging along the side- 
 walk, admiring the decorations of the windows, and act- 
 ing with elegant listlessness. We lose sight of them for a 
 little while, and take a tour through the store or down the 
 block. Handsome woman that, isn't she? By Jove what 
 style 1 Look at those two pretty girls. Been to school or 
 their music teacher's. Going home now to practice or 
 read a novel by Miss Austen. Are they ? Not much. In 
 ten minutes we meet the handsome women again coming 
 out of her favorite bazar, and with her is one of our ele- 
 gant loungers. Two of the others, later on, go by with 
 our school girls. These are cases we see. How many are 
 there of whose existence we know nothing, know as little 
 in fact as the down-town husband, or hard-working 
 fathers. 
 
 It is absolutely impossible to prevent these meetings, 
 and the system of immorality which springs from them. 
 At the best we can but deplore, as long as New York city 
 possesses so many handsome, well-dressed, idle scoun- 
 drels who seem to have so little difficulty in making these 
 shopping acquaintances, so long will a practice exist 
 which is crowned at the start by the harmless flowers of 
 flirtation, but which, only too surely, bears the dead-sea 
 fruit of remorse. 
 
 Let us imagine a little drama, a Christmas play, which 
 will illustrate this : 
 
 Scene— A Sixth avenue store. 
 
 Time— The present— also 3 r. m. 
 
 Dramatis Pe,so„<r— Handsome married woman. Hand- 
 some man. (Doesn't matter about his marriage, i. <•., not 
 in this play.) 
 
 Sin-:—" But really you ought not to come here so often 
 aeeidt ntaUy. You know / have to come here to shop." 
 
 He—" Certainly I do; that's why I come." 
 
 She—" But people will notice." 
 
 He— "Never fear that; they are too busy with them- 
 selves, and besides, we are so eminently proper." 
 
 She—" Why, of course we are— what should wo bo?" 
 
 Hk— " Friends instead of mero acquaintances." 
 
 Sin.— " Bnt consider how we met— how impudent and 
 horrid you were to follow mo from here and offer to carry 
 my bundles." 
 
 11k— " Never mind that now. It's ancient history. But 
 let UB go and have some lunch. You know you didn't 
 coiiie iii here to buy anything." 
 
 Sin— " I came in to look at that cloak, the $150 one. I 
 dream of it at night." 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 31 
 
 He—" What's the trouble. Price too steep ? " 
 
 She—" It would svamp my husband's business if 1 
 bought that." 
 
 He — " Why not let me present it to yon ? " 
 
 She—" Heavens ! you take my breath away. And why 
 could you?" • 
 
 He—" Simply because it pleases me. Here, miss. (He 
 beckons to saleslady.) You have this lady's address. On 
 Dec. 24th send that cloak to it.' Give me a receipt for the 
 money (Throws down filthy lucre)." 
 
 She—" But my husband— he will wonder ! " 
 
 He—" No, he won't. If he does, tell him it's really in- 
 explicable how they get up these imitations. Then say 
 now here's a cloak I only gave $38 for. It' s every bit as good 
 as one I saw marked $150. Then he'll think what a provi- 
 dent, prudent wife he has. But come ; I have the receipt, 
 let's take the little lunch." 
 
 She— (Soito too ). " But am I prudent? " 
 
 This is only the first act. 
 
 There are thousands of such histrionic stories being told 
 in New York to-day. Next to virtue as a basis of conduct 
 
 among the daughters of Eve comes a love for fine dress- 
 ing. It is not an acquired sin; it is a natural desire. 
 When Poverty is a third condition then Virtue and Fine 
 Dress are always in battle array against each other. 
 
 It is so at least in the big cities; it is especially so in 
 New York. We are not able to be spectators in every in- 
 stance, but the jewel scene in " Faust" is in constant re- 
 hearsal. Never does Mephisto wield so much power over 
 the impecunious as in the holiday shopping time. 
 
 Conservative, law-abiding citizen as I am, I have fre- 
 quently concocted the most gory plots in order to be able 
 to obtain some gem to hang at beauty's ear. 
 
 Imagine then the critical position of beauty herself who- 
 goes shopping with an empty purse, and allows Mephis- 
 topholes to purr in that pink ear as he jingles his gold and 
 she gazes upon the forbidden fruit, whether it be a dia- 
 mond necklace or a silk circular. 
 
 I think I will credit a modest sum to the account in my 
 ledger headed up, " Sisters, cousins, aunts," and do my 
 shopping in the Bowery. 
 
 NEW YORK'S CHRISTMAS DINHER. 
 
 Christmas is not the holiday in New York to the extent 
 that " New Year's" is, but it is thoroughly observed all 
 the same in regard to its gastronomic and other pleasura- 
 ble details. I do not think that the city enthuses as much 
 in the religious direction as it should, and I am afraid the 
 average young man— say the hard-worked clerk, for in- 
 stance— looks upon it as a secular holiday, during which 
 he is expected to eat a great deal of turkey, play consid- 
 erable billiards and punish untold hot drinks. 
 
 In the poetic past I used to get up by candle-light for the 
 sake of attending the services on Christmas morning at 
 this or the other Catholic or High Episcopalian church, 
 where a fine display and good music might be confidently 
 expected. But age is beginning to tell upon Paul Prowler, 
 and that significant fact, considered along with the equal- 
 ly significant circumstance of devoting Christmas Eve to 
 purposes of mild wassail, has militated against the early 
 rising habit. 
 
 It i3 generally the savory sauce of the dinner which 
 greets me when I open my eyes to find that I have a terri- 
 ble " head" on me, and to wonderif the other fellows feel 
 just as bad. 
 
 On such occasions you can exorcise the remorse of 
 Christmas morning by saying, " Never mind; one week 
 more, and then I'll swear off." 
 
 I know that such is always the procedure in my case. 
 
 This church and social holiday comes to all of us this 
 
 year in vastly different guises. There were lots of fellows 
 
 who couldn't conscientiously give thanks on Thanks- 
 
 .' day, and beyond a doubt the city holds at thi3 
 
 Ing an immense horde of miserable being3 who can 
 
 take no comfort in the celebration of December 25th. The 
 
 gentlemen in the Tombs are probably of this ilk, although 
 
 are by no means the worst off. They get a good 
 
 •i.ias dinner and plenty of it. Warden Finn is an 
 
 officer who appreciates the merits of a substantial meal, 
 
 and, Life Mr- Quinn, has the sentimental 
 
 nature which urges him to look afier the stomachs as well 
 
 ;i.s the moral apparatus of his charges. 
 
 It depends, however, in the case of a Tombs prisoner, a 
 good deal upon what he is there for in calculating the 
 pleasure and dyspepsia he may be able to extract from a 
 Christmas dinner. To the utterly callous wretch it 
 doesn't matter. He eats like a hog, and only regrets the 
 absence of the distillery rum to which he has become 
 accustomed, The man of nervous organism, who knows 
 he is guilty of the crime for which he is soon to be tried, 
 can hardly be expected to enjoy the special meal when he 
 reflects upon the infinite possibilities of where he maybe 
 next Christmas. 
 
 And how about the murderer ! There are in the Tombs 
 now several prisoners whose crime can be called by ne 
 milder name than murder. As they look forward to the 
 death of 1879, and the hidden scenes of 1880, it strikes me 
 that the bone upon which they might be gnawing would 
 turn cold in their grasp and the most bounteous dessert 
 lose it piquancy. Still you can't tell. Look at the plow- 
 man's appetite which the average victim of the gallows 
 generally possesses. " After sleeping well for five or six 
 hours the condemned awoke and ate a hearty breakfast of 
 ham and eggs." Such is always in the newspapers. 
 
 Toujour* ham and eggs I There must be some reason for 
 this. It is strange, but it is no more certain that each 
 " nigger " hung down South goes straight to the bosom of 
 Abraham than that the last breakfast of those who are 
 roped into the other world is of ham and eggs. 
 
 But the coming Christmas dinner is a much more pleas- 
 ant subject than a murderer's breakfast. 
 
 All of the missions, schools, and other charitable asso- 
 ciations which begin at the Five Points and seem to crop 
 up everywhere between that section and High Bridge, 
 will celebrate Christmas in the usual way. The children 
 1 will be scrubbed until their little ears and noses are 
 awfully sore, and then, after singing a lot of chilly 
 hymns, they will be set loose upon the provender. 
 
 In the Sailors' Snug Harbor, on Staten Island, and in 
 the city's senile retreats— such as the Home for the Re- 
 formation of Indigent Widows over 90 years of age— there 
 
32 
 
 GLIMPSES OF G OTHAM. 
 
 win be a high oid time. Many gum games will be played 
 upon the turkeys, and, in view of the condition of the 
 teeth of these aged Avards, it is to be hoped the fowls 
 cooked for them will possess few of the attributes charac- 
 terizing the boarding-house turkey. 
 
 I will pass lightly over this portion of the subject. If I 
 choose to put all my money where it will do the -most 
 good for the directors of the "Yellow-Eyed Wild-Cat 
 Mining Company " and so curtail myself that the Christ- 
 mas of 1879 still finds me in the " forlorn hope " that at- 
 tacks the boarding-house turkey, it is purely a matter of 
 private misery, and needs no prying into. 
 
 That is, the subject doesn't. As for the turkey the re- 
 verse is considerably the case. 
 
 The proper spread for the day is what you will 
 probably find in the homes of the men who have been 
 making a million a week lately in Wall street, and by the 
 same token there are more than a few families in New 
 York on that day who will not have even a stereopticon 
 view of a turkey for their Christmas owing to this same 
 Wall street agitation. 
 
 Such families will have "lame ducks" for dinner— a 
 melancholy lay out. 
 
 Better is a good dinner with fine herbs than none at all, 
 and I take it that a Christmas table fixed up with plenty 
 of Kussell Sage would seem appetizing. Jay Gould will 
 probably dine well. Gould suggests "gold," and " gold " 
 suggests "mint." All these magnates need have no 
 worrying fear about being able to collar a square meal. 
 There is scarcely time enough for them to lose so much 
 money as to force them to do the lunch racket. 
 
 This is a very good metropolitan institution , and is quite 
 a lucky idea for the poor, lonely wretch of a boarder who 
 has to experience the dosert island loneliness of his hall 
 bedroom until the mournful dinner-bell rings and sum- 
 mons him to his mathematical share of the popular bird. 
 I refer, of course, to the elegant lunches which the hotels 
 and big bars spread for their guests. If you arrive early 
 at one of these tables you are sure to fare well. They are 
 exquisitely arranged with glittering silver and snowy 
 linen, and really look so pretty that it seems a shame to 
 disturb the picture. It only seems so for half a second. 
 Then you arm yourself with a fork, and while the waiter 
 geta you a bit of turkey or duck you go to spearing pickled 
 oysters. 
 
 The only drawback about the free lunch on Christmas 
 day, outside of making it impossible for a man to eat a 
 set dinner anywhere, is that the leaning your waistcoat 
 against the numerous bars is apt to result in partial or 
 complete intoxication. At least, I have heard so. That, 
 however, is a phase of the question which I, moralist 
 though I be, have nothing to do with. These are the 
 merry holiday times, and I am not going to preach any 
 teetotali-m. 
 
 Christinas is a pretty good day with the theatres, but 
 not so good as Thanksgiving day and by no means as bad 
 as New Year's day. They will all give matinees, and in 
 the surrounding towns for fifty miles around there will 
 he two performances by snap companies that are always 
 made up long in advance. Very few of these ventures 
 fail, and in the majority of instances you will see that 
 real good names are on the programmes. 
 
 I always pity the show people and envy the manager on 
 
 Christmas. He can always be at home in the bosom of 
 own turkey if he want's to. but the players must take the 
 bird on the fly, or in the flies, or on the wing, or in the 
 wings. Anyway so that you get it. I think it would be a 
 jolly good idea to play no pieces on Christmas day save 
 those that were based upon the idea, and I would have it 
 so arranged that the denouement should take place at 
 dinner, a real dinner, no papier mashe affair. An ingeniouc 
 author could serve the fool of the plot with the part that 
 goes over the fence last, while the villain might be 
 swindled out of his dinner entirely. 
 
 Christmas is a more than usually festive day at the 
 clubs, those gorgeous institutions where rich young swells 
 spend money twice over by squandering both cash and 
 time. And we know what old Tempus is. Time is money, 
 and that is the reason itfugits. A clubman is called upon 
 to partake of the extra lunch which wich tho steward has 
 spread, and if he doesn't dip into the champagne and 
 brandy punch he is a renegade. Poor Fechter 1 That was 
 his favorite drink. 
 
 What is Christmas among the starving poor in our 
 reeking realm, for it is a fact that we always have them 
 with us despite flurries in Wall street and business booms. 
 I shudder to think. The Christmas of the poor, as 
 touched by the pen of Dickens, yielded to that wizard 
 some of his best creations. But I do not allude to that 
 kind of poor. I mean the actually starving, always hun- 
 gry, desperate, wicked, wolfish element of our squalid 
 population that hides in cellars, skulks in alleys, and re- 
 fuses, perhaps logically enough, to see any good in a so- 
 ciety which forces them to their condition when all the 
 rest of the world is making merry. 
 
 I shouldn't like to go through Jersey street at midnight 
 on Christmas eve. The appearance of a citizen with the 
 outward semblance of having had something to eat, not to 
 mention the liklihood of his possessing a dollar in his 
 pocket, would be too nmch for the Jersey street people. 
 Taking the time of the visit into consideration they would 
 resent it as an insult, and the visitor would probably fur- 
 nish the mincemeat for the next day's pie. 
 
 It is natural for the poor to feel more desperate than 
 usual about the holiday times. I do. There isn't a Christ- 
 mas or a New Year's that doesn't inspire me with some- 
 thing of the sensations of a pirate. This comes from hav- 
 ing neither money nor a contented spirit, which they say 
 is the same thing if not a better article. Well and good, 
 it may be so, but if I had a cart-load of contentment just 
 now I'd willingly supply the neighborhood at so much a 
 bushel. 
 
 Christmas after all is the day for the little ones. It be- 
 longs to them. Candies, bon-bons, cake, fairy stories and 
 pantomimes should characterize it chiefly. Santa Claus 
 is a reality up to a certain age, and it is a good idea that 
 he is. W T e lose the charming superstitious of adolescence 
 quite soon enough. Personally, I regretted sadly at the 
 time the discovery of the fact that there was no such gen- 
 tleman as the one whom I fondly believed enjoyed his 
 yearly sleigh-ride over the roofs and preferred coming 
 down the chimney to any other way of entering the 
 house. 
 
 I shall hang up my stockings all the same. 
 
 It may bring luck and obviate the necessity of my hang- 
 ing up the bar-t>» ,lH er on the corner. 
 
A LADY WHO WANTS MONEY, 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 HEW YEAR'S CALLS. 
 
 I notice that there has been the usual row in the news- 
 papers about the young ladies having wine on New Year's 
 day. 
 
 And I expect to notice on New Year's day the usual I 
 amount of drawing-room drunkenness, diUetante debauch- I 
 ery and fashionable fuddling. 
 
 The institution of making and receiving New Year's I 
 callr i3 one which New York has inherited from its good, J 
 old Dutch ancestry, and precisely as it is true that it will 
 never fall into desuetude, so is it true that the temperance 
 table will never become very fashionable. The ministers 
 may preach, and total abstinence papers may shriek 
 annually in cold water articles, but the custom of drink- 
 ing a glass of wine beside the cradle of the baby year is so 
 deep-seated that it is scarcely probable it will be done 
 away with under the pressure of any purely reformatory 
 movement. 
 
 And, besides, why should it be abolished ? This talk of 
 many a young man getting his first drink from Beauty's 
 hand in a Fifth avenue parlor while making a New Year's 
 call, and then rushing swiftly to a drunkard's grave, is 
 all rot. 
 
 That kind of young man will get his first drink and do 
 the drunkard's grave business with commendable rapidity 
 by merely utilizing the saloon advantages to be found on 
 every side. He need-never step into a parlor where the 
 refining influence of woman is to be met with, and ten to 
 one, if he exists at all, he is the kind of sottish calf that 
 drinks himself into the jim-jams by one spree, and then 
 jumps out of the window to spike himself upon the area 
 railings below. 
 
 The New Year's table is spread for gentlemen by ladies, 
 and it is expected that a man calling himself a gentleman 
 will know how to deport himself at it. I have made New 
 Year's calls for many years, and have never seen an 
 instance where what was drunk put one beyond the extra 
 vivacious and merry point. It is undeniably true that 
 some very young men do get drunk. But then they can 
 scarcely be called gentlemen, and their behavior must not 
 be cited in an argument against the ladies offering cham- 
 pagne and sherry along with the cold turkey and the 
 salads. 
 
 They would get drunk at the hotels and bars anyhow, 
 the only difference being that the intoxicating agents 
 would not be near so good as those to be met with in the 
 parlors of society. 
 
 I tike it that this will be a very brilliant New Year's. 
 It should be. For some time past we have had rather 
 doleful ones, and it is now that we should break the spell 
 and sail into 1880 with the determination to make it a ! 
 banner year of prosperity. I will admit thatmysensa- ' 
 tions on January 2nd, at about 7 a. m., may be of such a | 
 rueful nature as to make it impossible for me to see any- 
 thing but breakers ahead, but that will be merely a sample ! 
 of private woe, easily removed by the judicious use of 
 eognac and Delatour's soda, which can have no effect i 
 Dpon the improvement in the general outlook. By con- 
 lulting the cards that I have already received I find that 
 Borne ladies who have been clubbing together at one table 
 lor a few years back are going to receive independently 
 
 this time. That augurs well. It means that the down- 
 town business of the old man is looking up. 
 
 I have seen in my time some gorgeous tables, and if I 
 slap into my dress suit on Thursday next to make calls I 
 anticipate a repetition of the festive magnificence. On 
 my list are the names of two or three hmafide teetotal 
 people. There will be no wine there, and no one will ex- 
 pect any. And what a swinish idea it is, anyhow, to 
 think that getting a drink is the chief end of this beauti- 
 ful custom. I take more pleasure in meeting the ladies. 
 My next pleasure is a salad, which I get at a particular 
 house. In fact, I attend to all details of eating and drink- 
 ing at this one table, exercising only my esthetic qualities 
 at other places I may visit. 
 
 New York's belles certainly do present a stunning sight 
 when arrayed for the reception of New York's young men 
 on New Year's day. I remember last New Year's day that 
 I called in Madison avenue upon a lady whose costume 
 was simply superb, only, as I thought then, it wasn't all 
 there. But it was; every inch that had been intended 
 was in the dress. I didn't object to the semi-nudity of the 
 exhibition, but I thought of SamuelJohnson when he told 
 Garrick: " Davy, I sha'n'tcome behind the scenes at your 
 theatre any more. The silk stockings and white bosoms 
 of your actresses excite my amatory propensities and 
 render me unfit for work on the dictionary." 
 
 If the ministers want to howl about social misconduct 
 on New Year's day let them preach against respectable 
 married ladies and young women who expect to be wives 
 dressing so decolleU that a half-fuddled fast young man 
 about town might fall into the natural mistake of forget- 
 ting where he was. 
 
 In fact, I don't know but what the ladies of the demi- 
 monde on dress, or rather undress, occasions are a little 
 more severe. They can afford to be, just as the married 
 woman, safe in her position, can afford some of the 
 artistic freedom of the painter's model. 
 
 Speaking of women in whose bright lexicon of youth 
 there is no such word as virtue, reminds me that New 
 Year's day is made much of by the most stylish and popu- 
 lar of that class. I have seen tables spread in haunts of 
 gilded vice that outshone in splendor any to be found on 
 Fifth avenue. The collation, the linen, the silver, the 
 wine, the servants and all the other details were furnish- 
 ed on that scale of reckless magnificence always assumed 
 by such people. 
 
 Here it is the order of the day to get drunk, or rather 
 drunker, since the visitors all come late, and half of them 
 wouldn't call at all if looking upon the wine when it was 
 red had not simultaneously inflamed their wanton quali- 
 ties and unseated their judgment. 
 
 Let us go further down the ladder and see how the lower 
 strata of New York city observe its greatest holiday. We 
 are now in the proper field for the workmen of Dr. Crosby 
 and the Society for the Suppression of Vice. 
 
 Take the barrooms, for instance. Every one of them 
 of any pretensions to style has a New Year's table in the 
 saloon or a room up-stairs. I shall always remember 
 what a jolly time I had in a Third avenne house last year. 
 The table was in the second story, front, and mi ^o 
 
34 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 ample and so crowded with dishes and bottles that the 
 guests ate and drank only by using that dexterity neces- 
 sary in a steamer stateroom when five or six attempt to 
 toss off a " bon-voyage " glass at once. 
 
 I was introduced all around, and, being put forward as 
 something vague in the newspaporial and book line, found 
 myself suddenly raised to the position of special guest, 
 even eclipsing the claims to that distinction put forward 
 by an ex-alderman, who had a very red face and most 
 tremendous appetite. 
 
 We drank hot whiskey principally, and the men did 
 not hesitate to smoke cigars. You can imagine the con- 
 dition in which the atmosphere was in in a little while. 
 Owing to the cloud of smoke that rested upon the table 
 it was as much as I could do to keep the buxom landlady 
 located. She seemed to float o'er the scene like a vol- 
 uptuous fairy. 
 
 The narrow stairs were crowded with drinkers from 
 the bar below, who were being sent to the wife by the 
 husband in shoals. Under all these circumstances the 
 affair would have passed off pleasantly enough if some 
 one hadn't introduced the subject of politics. 
 
 My red-faced alderman, glass in one hand and turkey 
 bone in the other, was on his unsteady legs in a moment. 
 It took about another moment for a man near the door to 
 call the alderman a liar. 
 
 The glass Avent first in the direction of the offender, 
 then the turkey bone, then a decanter, etc. I didn't take 
 notes at the time, but it seems to me that the alderman 
 got on the table, which was a sort of barricade, and tried 
 to crawl over it. Some one pulled the table-cloth vio- 
 lently off, alderman and all, and, the fight becoming gen- 
 eral, the air appeared to me to be literally packed with 
 flying tumblers, bottles, jars of oysters, and other mis- 
 siles. 
 
 The bottle was taken up on the stairs and communi- 
 cated itself to the barroom. Seriously I was uncom- 
 fortable, although I had suffered nothing more dangerous 
 than a scalp wound, due to my being in the way of a 
 winged tumbler. 
 
 It was then that by the masterly move of crawling 
 under the table I reached madame, who was as much in 
 a corner as it was possible. 
 
 I asked her how I could extricate her from her warm 
 position, and it was then she thought of reaching a bath- 
 room by a door against which the table had rested. It 
 didn't now, because it was upside down. The brawlers 
 were nearly all on the landing and stairs, with the police 
 in the possession of the barroom. 
 
 We reached the bath-room, but as it gave upon the 
 short hall where the stairs were it was clear she couldn't 
 go out just yet. 
 
 The situation was embarrassing, I knew the proprietor 
 was jealous, and there was no mistake about his being 
 drunk. 
 
 The window remained. Recommending Mrs. to 
 
 take a bath and compose herself, and seeing to it that I 
 had firmly locked and bolted the door through which we 
 came, I got out of the bath-room window on to a shed 
 and jumped into the back yard of the saloon. 
 
 To meet with what fate ? 
 
 To be collared by srpohceman, who was posted there, 
 and taken to the station house. Several of the New Year's 
 callers were already on hand when I entered, among 
 them the ex-alderman, who had preferred a charge of 
 deadly assault against some one evidently not present. 
 
 The alderman was most assuredly a pitiable sight. He 
 had a black eye, some of his hair was scraped off, and 
 there was a pickled oyster entangled in his left beard. 
 
 The moment his fish-like eye fell upon me he said, tri- 
 umphantly, to the sergeant : 
 
 "There he is. That's the viper that said I was n. g. 
 and hit me with the cruet stand." 
 
 If I had suddenly been in collision with an iceberg I 
 could not have been more astonished. 
 
 "Looks like it, too," remarked the sergeant. "Evi- 
 dently an old hand." 
 
 I didn't say a word, except to answer that I was born 
 here, could read and write, etc., and then " for crime un- 
 known I went to my dungeon cell." 
 
 Of course, it was all right when the Captain came in, 
 and I got home shortly after dark, rather preferring the 
 gloom, in fact. 
 
 This secret has lain in my breast all through the year 
 that is now having its last round with old Father Time, 
 and I would not have told it save as a warning to my 
 readers. 
 
 It is perhaps better to confine yourself to legitimate 
 calling. If you must visit the gin dealers avoid the 
 saloons with political proclivities, and do not drink too 
 much hot whiskey. 
 
 And never allow yourself to be double-banked in a 
 corner of a little second story front room. 
 
 In closing let me give my readers a few rules for ob- 
 servance in calling : 
 
 No. 1. Engineer it to have some swell friend invite you 
 to a seat in his carriage. By doing this you avoid being 
 struck with a small-pox hack, and besides you visit all 
 his friends, who will send you cards next year. 
 
 2. Get ninety-cent gloves, and about five pairs. Yo» 
 always show a good hand then, as you can put them on 
 between houses. 
 
 3. Say "yes" promptly when the people who have no 
 wine visible ask you faintly to have a glass. You may 
 not get any wine, but it's fun. 
 
 4. If you run across a fellow who is soft on one of the 
 ladies you have seen during the day tell him that his 
 rival has been there hours, and you think has sent for his 
 trunk. 
 
 5. Take your worst umbrella along if it rains or snows, 
 but never leave a house without an umbrella. 
 
 6. Tell all the jealous married women that you have 
 just left their husbands at So-and-so's, naming a rich 
 widow who is reported as being fast. 
 
 7. Don't mix your drinks, but get comfortably full on 
 good champagne. 
 
 8. Don't leave money in your overcoat, and remember 
 where you put your overshoes. 
 
 By so doing you will pass the " Happy New Year," 
 which Paul Prowler, Esq., now wishes you. 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 35 
 
 PEOPLE WHO LIVE BY THEIR WITS. 
 
 There isn't a city in the world more densely infested 
 with the social parasites called 'card fortune tellers" 
 than New York. 
 
 Their style, their names, residences and characteristics 
 generally have changed since poor Doesticks wrote his 
 'Witches," but they exist in sufficient quantities to 
 fleece the rural and the unwary generally, to trade upon 
 the weak spots in human nature, which they have studied 
 as closely as Balzac, and to make for themselves a very 
 decent living. 
 
 Take up a morning paper, the Herald especially. Under 
 the heads of 'Astrology" and "Fortune Telling" you 
 will find scores of advertisements, in which the adver- 
 tisements profess to cast your horoscope, to show you 
 your future wife or husband, and all for the remarkably 
 cheap sum of fifty cents, ladies a quarter. 
 
 I could never understand the economical distinction 
 made in favor of the ladies. It is probably based on the 
 fact that they believe a great deal more readily than the 
 others, and that they are more frequent customers. 
 
 I am sure that if I didn't like the first twenty-five cent 
 fortune told me I would go again and to another shop. 
 Bv perseverance and a liberal outlay of quarters it is 
 possible to strike a " hummer." 
 
 It seems strange that these men and women should 
 flourish in an age so enlightened as this and in a city 
 which possesses the focussed civilization of the day, but 
 it is true. I know personally one woman and one man 
 who do nothing else for a living, and who have confided 
 in me that customers are never scarce. But what is the 
 use of speculating on such idiosyncrasies of fifty and 
 twenty-five cent shrimps when a gilded whale like Com- 
 modore v'anderbilt frequently ran his business on the pre- 
 dictions of soothsayers, and was altogether as super- 
 stitious as a sailor. 
 
 There are two kinds of the lower class of fortune tell- 
 ers—those who still stick to Egyptian mummery and 
 come the red curtain and black velvet gown over you, and 
 the other, more modern, whose office is very little differ- 
 ent from that of a real estate firm, and who go about the 
 business in a cold-blooded manner. Both styles take. 
 The hysterical women and servant girls generally prefer 
 the people with the strange names and the outlandish 
 garb. It seems more like the genuine astrological affair, 
 and is certainly more for the money. 
 
 There are two or three of these mystery shops in 
 Bleecker street. The one I know is in Bedford street. I 
 have frequently been a concealed witness of a seance and 
 have helped drink the beer into which the money was 
 immediately turned when the woman— it is more fre 
 quently a woman— was gone. 
 
 If it wasn't that these poor wretches actually believe 
 the fanfaronade of taffy served up to them, that they are 
 so dumb or superstitious that they cannot see that the 
 whole system is conducted on the stale principle of telling 
 every card in the pack after you have become possessed 
 of a knowledge of one— if it wasn't for this which makes 
 taking their money a species of revenge wreaked upon 
 them for being so stupid— I could laugh when I am behind 
 the Bedford street curtains. 
 
 But laughter is impossible in the face of genuine tears 
 
 and the quavering voice in which the dead are asked 
 after. When it is a light-headed girl, who is anxious 
 about her future lord, the case is different. 
 
 Mr. Charles Foster is at the head of all fortune tellers 
 in this country. He charges $5, and his statements are 
 as remarkable and startling, done as they are without 
 any pretence of side-show business, as the drivellings of 
 the Bleecker and Bedford street astrologers are puerile 
 and transparent. 
 
 I do not pretend to speak of him critically, and have in- 
 troduced him simply to make the magic line complete. 
 He has always more work than he can attend to, and is 
 especially sought after by ladies. As many swell car- 
 riages have halted at his door as ever lined the curb at 
 Grace church, and in many instances the equipages are 
 the same. He gave me a setting once, and I shall never 
 forget what he said to me : 
 
 " You must remember everything I say, young man, 
 because I shall be in a trance, and will retain nothing of 
 what passes from the spirit world to you through me." 
 
 Then he took off his coat— for the day was very warm- 
 lit a twenty -five cent cigar, and began. 
 
 What he told me doesn't matter now. It was nothing 
 to smile at, I can assure you. What I want to do is to call 
 attention to the peculiarities of his trance. 
 
 His cigar happening to go out he lit it with a fresh 
 match, and then went on. Some one wrapped at the 
 door. He excused himself and attended to the business, 
 which I think had something to do with dinner, after 
 which we descended into Hades again. All this in a 
 trance 1 I think he was still in the trance when he pro- 
 duced a decanter and gave me as good a glass of brandy as 
 I ever tasted. 
 
 I can understand the success of such people, but when 
 it comes to the shuffling of a greasy pack of cards by the 
 coarse, red, fat fingers of an east side seress, who ekes 
 out her financial requirements by taking in washing, per- 
 haps, I am willing to confess that I am puzzled ; but as 
 long as people won't sit thirteen at table or undertake a 
 new business on Friday, the half and quarter dollars will 
 continue to flow into the purses of these operators from 
 those of their dupes. 
 
 I could explain all the card swindles, spirit photograph- 
 ing and all the rest of the damned nonsense, if it waB at 
 all necessary. It isn't. The peculiar class making up 
 the patrons of the astrologers are beyond the reacli of 
 reason. They have Napoleon's dream book in their bu- 
 reau drawers, and they are are as much sunk in super- 
 stition of the absurd sort as are the Vaudoo negroes of 
 New Orleans. 
 
 Another source of revenue for those who are smart 
 enough to coin money out of the supernatural is the 
 spiritualistic seance. The reader will at first think I mean 
 shows given in halls by regular professors. Not at all. 
 The people to whom I refer are ordinary citizens in the 
 humbler classes, who have discovered suddenly that they 
 are "mediums." As soon as it is positively established 
 that an Indian maiden in the spirit land has selected 
 them as a speaking trumpet, then the vocation in which 
 they are jngaged is dropped, and all their resources are 
 turned toward a cabinet show. 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 I have been to many, but the one in Grand street, run 
 by a Mrs. Wilson, I think, is perhaps just the biggestfraud 
 of them all. You pay 25 cents to sit on a hard chair, be- 
 tween two long-haired disciples, and you are expected to 
 believe that Mrs. Wilson, who disappeared in the cabinet 
 is still tied to her chair, and that the very hideous look- 
 ing gentleman, with the black beard, who tells us through 
 the opening in the door how he was drowned in Lake 
 Michigan forty years ago, is really "Uncle Billy," and 
 aot Mrs. Wilson with a mask and whiskers. 
 
 If there is any movement on the part of one of the doubt- 
 ers to get at Uncle Billy, he is immediately squelched, 
 and if the spirit of criticism is too active, why the hus- 
 band of the " mejum," or some one else declares that the 
 spirits cannot work save where there is perfect har- 
 mony. 
 
 That means translated— " we can not continue to im- 
 pose upon you unless you sit perfectly still and believe 
 all we say." 
 
 Wednesday and Saturday evenings these seances 
 flourish all over the city. The price is generally 25 cents, 
 but there are cheaper entertainments for 10 cents. An 
 inferior kind of angel is used at these. 
 
 I know a man and his wife, she being the "medium," 
 who give cabinet entertainments at the houses of the 
 rich, just as the "Punch and Judy" man does, and for 
 that matter just as Sarah Bernhardt recites or models be- 
 fore a drawing-room audience, or Nilsson sings, for so 
 much a night. 
 
 This preeminently the proper racket to strike. No one 
 in the Fifth avenue parlor is rude enough to interfere, the 
 parlor is always big enough to make the experiment a 
 tolerable safe one, and the whole affair is only looked 
 upon as an agreeable way of passing the time. A magic 
 lantern is just as good. 
 
 It is the cosmopolitan character of New York city which 
 makes all this aberration, if I can so define it, possible. 
 We have every religion under the sun practised in 
 Gotham. The Koran and Veda books are read here as regu" 
 larly as in the Orient, and I have seen with my civilized 
 and christian optics the temple of Joss in the Chinese 
 quarter at a time when a Chatham square cigar mer- 
 chant was at his prayers. 
 
 I am not particularly acquainted with all its 
 ramifications, but the Chinese religion con 
 tains the act of prayer reduced to a 
 beautiful system. They are painted on fire-cracker paper, 
 and are sold by a man who makes prayers a specialty. 
 When you feel a little wicked, or are conscious of any 
 sensation which calls for prayer as an antidote, you go to 
 the Joss church in Baxter street, and burn one or two of 
 these slips. Certainly nothing could be more simple. 
 
 The Lascars also have their club room in that locality, 
 and observe faithfully their religious devotions. There are 
 by no means as many of them in the city as there are 
 Chinese, but there are still enough to make a colony. 
 
 Travelling in Baxter street takes me " Five Points " out 
 of my way. 
 
 Let us return. The most magnificent attempt ever mads 
 
 to introduce a magico-religion into this peculiarly sus- 
 ceptible town was that made by Mme. Blavatsky and Col 
 Olcott. 
 
 These two are now in India, riding around on elephant* 
 and otherwise disporting themselves. The madame had 
 elegant apartments up-town, fitted up with gloomy mag. 
 niflcence. She used to hold seances there, and succeeded 
 so well in making converts to the religion of Buddha that 
 1 believe she was enabled to form a regular church oi 
 society previous to her departure. As expounded by 
 Mme. Blavatsky there is something solid and attractive in 
 the Buddha faith, and if I should change, it would be t& 
 become one of her disciples. 
 
 Do not be surprised then if I should come down to the 
 office sometime, wearing a black skull-cap, and a chinta 
 night-gown with snakes worked all over it. 
 
 Why, you naturally ask, would so conservative a ma* 
 as our Mr. Prowler, give up the faith of his childhood? 
 
 I'll tell you. All the other religions promise no felicity 
 of an absorbing nature until after death. If Mme. Blav- 
 atsky has been correctly reported she has made a wonder^ 
 ful discovery, the utilization of which means fortune iq 
 this world in a very little while. 
 
 The secret is this— she can dematerialize articles, waft 
 them to some objective point, and then by simple exer- 
 cise of will, it being all the same whether she is one or a 
 thousand miles away, she can cause the object to assume 
 its original form and value. 
 
 Mind that, its value, for therein lies the applica- 
 tion. 
 
 So far she has succeeded, so the story runs, with nottt 
 ing but kid gloves. That's enough for me. Mme. Blavat* 
 sky is said to have sent a pa^ by the magic method from 
 Bombay to London. 
 
 When I have learned to do this, and perhaps if I am a 
 good Budlhist I may be able to handle lace and silk um- 
 brellas also, I will have no need to consult any of the 
 fortune tellers. 
 
 I will open a shop in Paris, and one in New York. By 
 the use of my supernatural power I'll send enough kid 
 gloves over here at Paris prices to break the market; a 
 sufficient quantity of silk umbrellas to enable every 
 young man to possess an elegant article to " put up," and 
 lace to that extent that every back kitchen will have 
 some brand floating at the windows. 
 
 In the meantime the custom house officials will gradu 
 ally commit suicide one by one, or go to the asylum for 
 the hopelessly insane. 
 
 The only cloud in the sky is that I don't believe the 
 madame can do anything of the sort. She is a fraud, just 
 as the Bleecker street women are, the only difference 
 being her noble birth, her magnificent style, and her in- 
 tellect. 
 
 Col. Olcott is either a dupe, or he stands in with her. 
 
 He was certainly fooled grandly by the Eddy family 
 of Vermont, a member of which, I see by the papers, can't 
 go out, because one night not long since a drunken visito'' 
 kicked the materialized spirit on the nose. 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 37 
 
 r MKK MCD WOMKET WHO DEAL IK FANCY COSTUMES. 
 
 The business of letting out costumes— and that reminds 
 me that the last one I tried to wear needed considerable 
 letting out— has its peculiar seasons, just as other voca- 
 tions have. 
 
 We are now in the ball period of our metropolitan exist- 
 ence, and as the dealer in fantastic habits skips about 
 among his tinseled stock he feels like crying, " On with 
 the dance I" It is just at present that he makes money, 
 or tries to, at least, passing the rest of the year as best he 
 can, buoyed up by the same hope which animates a 
 watering-place hotel keeper. 
 
 He is something like such an individual in several of 
 his characteristics; as, for instance, his charges. He en- 
 deavors to come as near getting for one night's use of a 
 domino or dress the price that either would bring, if sold, 
 asispossible. What is the consequence? He is continu- 
 ally selling his entire stock and getting it back for 
 nothing. This fact throws some light also upon his ability 
 to skim along so well in the summer. 
 
 There are costumers and costumcrs. Men like Lanou- 
 ettc, who furnish the theatres with the dresses for this or 
 that entire play, are at the top of the heap. They have 
 always lots of dresses to hire, but their principal business 
 is to manufacture and sell, out and out. All society ladies 
 number one or more elegant fancy dresses among their 
 toilette collection, and should be capable at any moment 
 flf accepting an invitation to a public fancy dress ball or a 
 private masquerade without the slightest embarrassment 
 or anxiety as to what should be worn. 
 
 No real bon-ton lady ever hires a grotesque ball dress. 
 You never know, you know, what horrid creature may 
 have worn a costume that is loaned, and to tell the truth 
 my lady is right. You hardly do ever know, you know. 
 
 I irragine that the confessions of a fancy ball dress 
 would be racy reading. What a pity they can't talk. 
 
 The humbler class of costumers are over on the East 
 River avenues, Second avenue especially, and are also to 
 be found along the Bowery and on Third avenue. They 
 have the second floor, as a rule, and in one of its windows 
 they stick their sign, a sort of political club transparency 
 affair, with the picture of an unhealthy young courtier on 
 one tide, waiting for a shepherdess with a red nose to 
 come around the corner and join him. 
 
 When you get up stairs you find an old woman who is 
 deaf, a short counter, and a lot of pawn-shop shelving 
 with bundles on them. In the next room there are four 
 or five girls working away at new suits made out of old. 
 By the judicious use of red velvet, ribbons and laces to 
 match, with a liberal allowance of spangles, you can 
 make a king's royal rig into a bull-fighter's magnificent 
 "get-up," or into anything else for that matter. 
 
 There is a sameness about the stock of these people 
 which is simply disgusting. Vivandieres, muleteers, 
 kings, queens, shepherds, fat boys, French courtiers, Pad- 
 dies, Dutchmen, Indians, etc., etc., are the constantly 
 recurring features. 
 
 This year there is a run on " Pinafore," and no fancy 
 \s\\ will be comDlete without Little Buttercup, Josephine, 
 ,'ir Joseph, Dick Deadeye, and the remainder of that 
 
 Why is the opera of " Pinafore " like the poor, and, itf 
 some cases, the very poor ? 
 
 Because it is always with us. The costumers will keep 
 its melodious story before the public long after it haf 
 ceased to be enacted upon the stage, and in years to come, 
 when I who write and you who read these lines have been 
 treated like bottles of champagne to the extent of being 
 put on ice— the only difference being that the champagne 
 will possess all the life — costumers will bring down fancy 
 suits, spread them upon the counter, and then say: 
 
 " There's a good Sir Joseph Porter, K. C. B., sir, and at 
 for the lady, what could be more charming than this 
 Josephine?" 
 
 " But who was Sir Joseph, and what Josephine is iy 
 
 "Ah, there you have me. You know I inherited this 
 story and stock from my grandfather, and the names I 
 have just mentioned are on the tickets. Luckily I have 8 
 sort of historical catalogue. I may be able to get some 
 information from it." 
 
 Whereupon the costumer of the future will read asfoh 
 lows: "These are characters in a musical work called 
 ' Pinafore,' written by a Mr. Gilbert, of Sullivan street. It 
 ran at twenty New York theatres at once, and during its 
 career all the lunatic asylums had to be provided with 
 extra wings to accommodate the patients made mad by 
 hearing the tunes. The ultimate consequence was that it 
 became a paradox, for although successful it was heartily 
 damned all around. Men became frenzied when their 
 fellows whistled or hummed its tui f es, and citizens were 
 wont to fall upon and rend each other in their excess of 
 rage. At last the government interfered, and imposed the 
 penalty of death upon all transgressors. Mr. Gilbert was 
 to have been hanged, but escaped by showing that he had 
 been changed at birth." 
 
 So much for the costumer yet to be heard from. His 
 cousin of to-day is a practical chap, utterly unmoved by 
 his romantic surroundings. This absence of poetry in the 
 composition of a hirer of fancy suits often struck me 
 when I tried to analyze his character and ascertain the 
 motives which led to the choice of business. All that I 
 have met possess no more sentiment than a soap-boiler. 
 
 I suppose that in the majority of instances the men and 
 women who take to the trade are former attaches of the 
 theatres. Possibly a grizzled costumer I know was once 
 an actor himself, and began with his own wardrobe as 
 the nucleus of the rather extensive stock he now pos- 
 sesses. It was he who told me the following story. I will 
 put it in my own words: 
 
 About ten years ago a young man climbed up to his 
 place in Forsyth street and asked to be shown some hand- 
 some dominos for ladies. He selected an elegant mouse- 
 colored one, lined with white satin, and got a pale blue 
 silk mask additionally. 
 
 It was just at dusk. Being the costliest domino in his 
 lot, the costumer asked for a deposit of money to insure 
 its return. The young man willingly complied, and paid 
 for it in advance. There was no ball that night, and the 
 dealer supposed, of course, that it was to be worn at a 
 private party. 
 
 Next morning, at about 10 o'clock, a veiled woman 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 came into the shop and asked if a young man, describing 
 the one in question accurately, had dealt there the night 
 previous. 
 
 It's part of the business to lie, and my old acquaintance 
 experienced no trouble in unblushingly remarking that 
 no such person had been in the place. 
 
 " I only wanted to see if he had asked you to deny his 
 visit," she said, scornfully, " for he was here, he did deal 
 with you, and I now return the goods. You can keep any 
 deposit he may have left." 
 
 Saying which she slammed a small bundle upon the 
 counter and left. The old man was thoroughly dazed at 
 the sudden turn in the conversation, at his discomfiture 
 when he thought he was very smart with his innocent 
 prevarication, and at the visit generally of a woman 
 of whom he could remember nothing beyond her eyes 
 burning like coals back of her veil. 
 
 When he recovered his senses he found himself holding 
 the bundle in his hand. He undid it. 
 
 The mask was red, with blood, and the domino had ten 
 Crimson slashes across the breast. 
 
 He still has that costume j ust as it reached him. There 
 was no murder reported, and he did not hand it over to 
 the police. But he does not loan it. It embodies the one 
 mystery of his life, the telling of which never tires him. 
 
 It is hoped that this dancing season, between now and 
 Lent, will be as brilliant as the flurry about Christmas 
 and the revival in trade give us a right to expect. It has 
 been noticable that of late years the so-called masque- 
 rades grew meaner and meaner in their grotesque display. 
 This came from the young men about town largely attend- 
 ing each fancy dress ball with simply a nose and a 
 domino. In order to make the floor gay Clodoche troupes 
 of grotesque dancers had to be hired, and even their 
 antics failed to stir the guests upon the floor to any degree 
 of enthusiasm. 
 
 If I am to believe those costumers upon whom I called, 
 while writing something; about masked balls was upon 
 my mind, the business " boom " will extend even to their 
 out-of-the-way trade. As a matter of fact I notice that 
 several societies that have never done such a thing before 
 announce the bal a la masque. We may confidently expect, 
 then, Terpsichorean festivals at the Academy, Irving 
 Hall, and at the Madison Square Garden which will recall 
 both the Gotham attempts of ten years ago and the genuine 
 article as witnessed in Paris. 
 
 The great trouble is with the police, who have been 
 stupid enough during the last few seasons to obtrude their 
 uniformed presence upon the floor for the purpose of pre- 
 venting any can-can exhibition. 
 
 This is simply absurd. The can-can is never vulgar ex- 
 cept when danced by women in long dresses, and it can 
 never hope to reach the licentious effect, under any cir- 
 cumstances, which is so easily obtainable by the waltz. 
 
 I am bound to say, however, that I consider masquerade 
 balls immoral institutions. This is more so after the 
 supper hour than before. When a fantastically dressed 
 woman, who has just eaten a few delicious birds and 
 washed them down with champagne, reaches the waxed 
 floor a^riin and is caught in the whirl of the most demoral- 
 izing bovffe music, there comes between her and her ideas 
 of propriety a gauze-like curtain, and ten to one she is 
 more lenient to mankind generally, and to her especial 
 escort in particular, than she was before the In n !i. 
 
 Property people at the theatres have control Of :mv 
 quantity of glittering rubbish, and they soinetr:i- turn 
 an honest penny by loaning a suit here and thereto a 
 particular trioud, \ gn .>. man] ■ onomical pleasure- 
 
 seekers make their own suits, and some of the most gro 
 tesque have to be constructed in that way. I trouble 
 costumes very little, being content to £0 in full dress 
 under a domino that cost me 80c. five years ago. I have 
 also a black silk mask that I bought about fifteen years 
 back, and through its eye-holes I have witnessed a vast 
 amount of folly, fun, debauch, immorality, remorse, and 
 all the other elements which go to make up a mammoth 
 hop of the fancy pattern. 
 
 The costumers do not depend by any means upon these 
 big dances. If they did they would certainly starve to 
 death. All the Social Clubs and Tea-Rose Assemblies, 
 coteries of young thugs and murderers of whom I have 
 written already in the Gazette, must give their annual 
 masquerade ball in the winter, just as they give a 
 drunken, head-smashing excursion to Iona Island or Far 
 Kockaway in the summer. 
 
 They have their costumer, and some of the dresses he 
 turns out do credit to his taste. These fellows all aspire 
 to silk stockings and small swords, and such a lot of 
 French courtiers, with close-cropped hair and prison 
 faces, can never be seen outside of Walhalla or Pythagorac 
 Halls. 
 
 Then there are any quantity of private masquerades. 
 The patrons of these are furnished largely by the cos- 
 tumers, as are the members of the various amateur 
 theatrical associations who give a performance at a place 
 like Terrace Garden Theatre, and then a ball after. 
 
 The country for miles around is furnished with fancy 
 dresses by New York costumers. Sometimes they fit out 
 "snap " theatrical organizations, but it is an awful risk. 
 Many a Claude Melnotte or a Romeo has been forced to 
 spout his dress in order to get home, and when such is the 
 case, or where the trunks have been seized by a rapacious 
 landlord, the costumer is sure to bid farewell to every 
 suit, and wipe his weeping eyes. 
 
 Colonel Mapleson, of " Her Majesty's," owns his own 
 costumes. When the troupe go over to Brooklyn to sing, 
 the huge boxes that have to be taken along remind one of 
 the moving of an army baggage train. 
 
 All the opera-bouffe dresses in this country are owned 
 by Maurice Grau, and whether he produces the operas 
 himself or not, it is he who furnishes the grotesque rigs 
 in which the heroes and heroines of Offenbach and Le- 
 cocq are wont to array themselves. 
 
 I will tell you, as I close, why I never go to a ball in full 
 fancy dress. 
 
 I was very young and tender when I attended a mas- 
 querade disguised as a Sicilian bandit. I danced, I ate, I 
 drank, I had a jolly time. It must have been 4 o'clock in 
 the morning when I got to my boarding house in Seventh 
 avenue. 
 
 Then I discovered that my room had been entered, as 
 had several, my trunk rifled and every article of clothing 
 stolen save a linen suit. This was in February. 
 
 For one solid week I was a Sicilian bandit, imprisoned 
 in my room. It took my tailor a day to decide whethei 
 he could trust me, and six more to make a suit from my 
 old measurement. I couldn't send the bandit suit home, 
 because there might have been a Are, and I wanted some- 
 thing to escape in. Better a Sicilian bandit in February 
 than a Zulu. The consequence was that my hire of the 
 fancy clothes was in excess of the price of my new ones* 
 and " Inn 1 did throw off the gay robber mien and appear 
 in civilization once more it was with the intention of get- 
 tint; even somehow if 1 had to eominit murder. 
 
 Time has mellowed the transaction, but not altered my 
 decision. No more bandits in mine. 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 39 
 
 ♦ CHILDREN OF CRIME. 
 
 A close observance of the times as mirrored in the 
 doings of the police and other courts has convinced me 
 that the small boy, our street gamin, our New York " kid," 
 who is unlike any other adolescent specimen of humani- 
 ty under the sun, is rather distinguishing himself. 
 
 He has always been hard to manage, has been the ter- 
 ror and annoyance of the police, but of late he has taken 
 a spurt and surrounded himself with the romance of 
 positive wickedness to such a degree that grey-headed 
 philanthropy wipes its gold rimmed glasses and says 
 "Bless my soul," while justice finds her ante-rooms as- 
 suming the character of a reformatory nursery. 
 
 Last week, two boys, whose united ages make the sum 
 of nineteen years, overtook a little girl in Division street, 
 as she was on her way to make some purchases at the 
 store where her mother dealt. The subsequent legal in- 
 vestigations revealed the fact that these budding foot- 
 pads had become acquainted in some way with the pro- 
 posed sortie to the store, and arranged their plans 
 accordingly. 
 
 While one held the little girl the other forced her to 
 give up the thirty-two cents which constituted the booty. 
 Then the highwayboys fled. But they did not long 
 enjoy their ill gotten gains. The police were put upon 
 their track, and with nine cents still in their possession 
 the lads were apprehended in Pike street rioting with a 
 mince-pie. 
 
 In conversation with a court officer, while the goose of 
 these marauders was being properly cooked in the cuisine 
 of justice, I learned that there has been a perfect epi- 
 demic of boyish misdeeds lately, and that the petty 
 calendars are crowded with juvenile names. This set me 
 to thinking and investigating, and the result has been 
 that I am firmly convinced there exist in New York city 
 to-day regularly organized " gangs," not of " hood- 
 lums," or the half-grown ruffians who are the chief 
 element of excitement in summer Sunday excursions, 
 but of positive babes, of children who are popularly sup- 
 posed to be at school, or at home, when on the contrary 
 they are becoming "Artful Dodgers," and "Charley 
 Bateses" as fast as a southern nigger's mule eats oats 
 when he gets a chance. 
 
 Cases like that of Pomeroy, the Boston boy with the 
 white eye, I do not include in the consideration of the 
 subject I have chosen for this paper. Such a phenome- 
 non belongs to the realms of psychology and medical in- 
 vestigation. Pomeroy's purpose wag merely to inflict 
 torture upon lads smaller than himself, but the objective 
 point of the New York street waif is plunder. 
 
 The most astonishing thing about it all is the organism 
 displayed. In their rules and regulations, their blood- 
 curdling oaths, and direful vows of vengeance, we see the 
 nucleus of the structure of the savage barbarism which 
 finally overthrew the resplendant civilization of Rome, 
 and which cheerfully upholds me iu my theory that all 
 boys are without any moral sense whatever, and are 
 possessed of a positive tendency to the merciless nature 
 of the Fiji Islanders. 
 
 Why, there is a six-year-old youngster in our house 
 whose mother thinks is so much of an angel that she has 
 to anchor him to the earth with hob-nailed shoes. Said 
 ■hoes are capable of making a most tremendous noise, 
 but nothing to the din the angel extracts from the celes- 
 
 tial pastime of hammering the back fence with a club— 
 (Introduced to show natural desire for hideous din.) 
 
 The poor cat, which has been forced to assume the 
 character of tiger, or bear, or lion, just according to the 
 fancy which dominates the angel when he invites two 
 boys next door to a grand hunt, agrees with me that a 
 Ute Indian is a much better individual than the angel in 
 all respects. If a Ute Indian could only carry out the 
 mother's idea, and make our angel an angel In all truth, 
 I am positive that I would be very much obliged to him 
 and I think I can speak for the cat. 
 
 This may seem a digression, but it is not. It is merely 
 an example I have used to throw light upon my statement 
 that all boys are inclined to be bad. I do not exclude 
 myself. I remember, very distinctly, that it was with 
 great reluctance my family persuaded me from being a 
 gambler, one of those high-toned fellows with black 
 moustaches, " shiny " silk hats, and a flood cf diamond 
 glory for shirt-front, who don't get up until 3 p.m., 
 and who always smell of the barber-shop. If I am not 
 much mistaken, an inability to manage the deep-black 
 moustache had as much to do with my abstention from 
 this particular vocation of sin as all the moral suasion 
 and theological argument brought to bear upon me. 
 
 Pernicious literature is a great deal to blame for this 
 sudden irruption of criminals, and for their having any 
 idea of cohesiveness. We all remember the gentlemam 
 who was flred upon twice in Mott Haven by a would-be 
 murderer but sixteen years old. It was about a year and 
 a half ago, and the boy is in jail still I believe. I saw 
 him in the Tombs, and was struck then with the hardness 
 of feature, the lack of remorse, and the positive glorifica- 
 tion in the dastardly deed which characterized him. 
 He confessed that he got his first gory ideas from one of 
 the boys' papers, and that he had no difficulty in sur- 
 rounding himself with followers once he had mapped out 
 the roseate life of crime they were to lead, and had 
 drawn up brass-bound rules and regulations that should 
 ensure method in their work, 
 
 He had attempted the murder because he wanted 
 money to transport his school-boy guerrillas to the 
 boundless plains of the west, for it was there the blood- 
 stained heroes of his beloved romances had flourished, 
 and, in a great many instances died with their boots on; 
 a commendable idea in case it should so happen that 
 Charon's batteau were out of order, and a fellow had to 
 get out and wade. 
 
 This gang had a cave resdezvous most ingeniously and 
 comfortably arranged. There they all ate roast potatoes 
 and such other food as pirates, road-agents, highwaymen, 
 " moonshiners," and ho like more or less desirable mem- 
 bers of society get their fighting courage up on, and there 
 the captain, who had renounced a good home, and sisters, 
 cousins and aunts, beyond reproach, slept and abided 
 continually. 
 
 That was an isolated case. I had no idea then of the 
 existence of coteries of young thieves who ply their 
 trade with consummate daring, and in every way give an 
 imitation in little of those desperate burglars and sec- 
 tional gangs of outlaws ready for any crime with which 
 New York is infested. 
 
 But these youthfnl coteries do exist in great numbers. 
 I have investigated the subject, and know of all I write. 
 
40 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 The frequency of the appearance of their members in 
 court has already attracted the attention of our magis- 
 trates, while the students of political economy find them- 
 selves confronted with a new problem. Those who 
 occupy the positions of leaders are naturally bad and 
 have generally had some experience in the House of 
 Refuge, the Catholic Protectory, and like institutions. 
 They use argument in a boy's way, and so bring over to 
 their banner the nice little lads who had advanced no 
 further in a wild and irregular life than is implied in 
 sleeping awa3 r from home on top of newspaper boilers. 
 This, it must be understood, when it can be indulged in, is 
 considered a very nobby thing in the line of dissipation. 
 
 The dens of these human rats are difficult to find. In 
 the summer time there are any quantity of hiding places 
 arranged under the wharves where stolen articles can be 
 secreted. These somewhat Venetian chambers are also 
 used as places of refuge from the police who interfere 
 with their swimming business. But in weather like this 
 it is generally the loft of a stable, or the cellar of some 
 near tenement, that is selected as a club-room. Eight in 
 the Five Points I came across a colony who had bur- 
 rowed in the side of a cellar excavation, and were philo- 
 sophically taking all chances of the pavement on which 
 people were constantly walking, caving in on them. They 
 had a fire and had made the place habitable by carpet- 
 ing it, and putting up planks against the damp earth. I 
 was taken there by a bootblack who occupied the posi- 
 tion of courier between the camp and the outside world. 
 The three or four freckled, bold boys I saw were smoking 
 clay pipes and playing cards. In the innocence of my 
 heart I attempted to guy them, and asked the boy with 
 the most freckles and the vilest pipe why, since civilize 
 tion had been given up apparently, they didn't go out and 
 fight the Indians. 
 
 There was a general laugh at this, and then I learned 
 by continuing the conversation, that although they had 
 no desire personally to abandon New York for such vicissi- 
 tudes of the ensanguined plain as must necessarily attach 
 to getting away with the Utes, the Piutes, Mince-Piuters, 
 and all the rest of them, they were constantly on the look- 
 out for thikrural youth who, in squads of two or three, 
 were almost daily appearing at our ferries, armed with 
 Mexican horse-pistols and about two dollars stolen money 
 each, and en route for whatever place it is in the west 
 where they kill Indians. 
 
 These lads become the prey of the city gangs. They (the 
 New Yorkers) either rob them in an easy, confidence way, 
 or they fall upon them in true buccaneer style, and leave 
 them with two black eyes they didn't possess, and minus 
 certain property they did. Perhaps it is to this wise war- 
 ring of the gamins that the Indians owe the delay in their 
 extermination 1 
 
 The markets are great stamping grounds for the boy- 
 thieves. They will take anything, and are so quick and 
 adroit that if they fail to escape detection they are toler- 
 ably sure to avoid arrest. 
 
 It would be impossible to catalogue the various ingeni- 
 ous ways in which they pilfer. They steal clothing from the 
 lines upon which it is strung out to dry; they levy upon 
 the sample display of grocers' and other green venders; 
 they pillage from the market basketof the staggering red- 
 faced boarding-bone* mistreat m i Uc laboriously plods to 
 her home; they fllch parcels from the coupes and car- 
 riages of Shopping ladies; they arc here, there and every- 
 where, Ubiquitous, animated not so much by the copy- 
 book aphorism that " Honesty is (lie best policy," as the 
 more serious declaration that the " Lord helps those who 
 help themselves." 
 
 One enterprising youth, but twelve years old, had made 
 
 for himself an American District Telegi-api. suit, ov rather 
 he retained one that he had had while in the employ of. 
 the company. His plan of operation was to go into a 
 store, or broker's office, and ask them if they had nof 
 rung the bell for a messenger. Then on his way out he 
 would trust to chancs opportunities for picking up little 
 odds and ends, and in not a few instances he would be en- 
 trusted with a parcel by some ova in the establishment 
 who thought the boy might as well be utilized while he 
 was tbere. The career of this lad was short-lived. 
 
 Another instance which I observed in my study of the 
 situation shows how desperate the little villains are and 
 how they arc willing to run all sorts of romantic risks 
 after the manner of Claude Duval, and " Sixteen-Strin& 
 Jack." 
 
 A good little office boy was sent to the post-office for 
 about twenty dollars worth of stamps. Three of our in- 
 fantile footpads encountered him on his return going 
 through Exchange court, and without more ado they 
 went through him to the extent of the stamps. It is not 
 generally known, but there is a man in a cellar in Nassau 
 street who deals in postage stamps, only American ones, 
 buying them at a discount as a "fence" takes "swag." 
 He asks no questions. The people who bring stamps to 
 him are generally boys a:id young clerks. In a vast 
 establishment where the daily correspondence is im- 
 mense the loss of five or evea ten dollars worth of stamps 
 in a few days is scarcely £»it and if the thief sticks to the 
 business industrious'iy the ultimate amount of the em- 
 bezzlement, at the time of detection say, is sure to be 
 large. Our young friends constantly keep applying for 
 positions as they are advertised, each band being sure to 
 possess some lad of innocent face and quick intelligence 
 who would be apt to strike the fancy of the firm in ques- 
 tion. Both his salary and his stealings are supposed to be 
 turned into the common purse. 
 
 So far this suddenly discovered and growing evil has 
 been confined to such conservative lines as petit larceny 
 and picayune highway robbery. The babies have not yet 
 undertaken to murder people as they have in Paris,where 
 the institution of boyish banditti has long flourished. It 
 was only a few weeks ago that the government tried some 
 eight or ten children, the ringleader of whom was but 
 fourteen years old, for murdering a woman who kept a 
 baker-shop in one of the Parisian suburbs. Only two did 
 the killing, but the police apprehended the whole party. 
 Their constitution and by-laws were something terrible. 
 The document had been written in a swaggering way and 
 by some one who was fond of gore. Death was the pen- 
 alty for everything in the fault line. The whole trial was 
 intensely sensational and developed the fact that the first 
 thought of the club was engendered by reading some of 
 the criminal stories written by authors like Montepin and 
 Qaboriau. 
 
 Very irequently an adult brain guides the operations of 
 the young rascals. I am speaking now of New York, and 
 I base my remarks on what Libby O'Brien, the young 
 queen of sneak thieves, told me herself in the Mulberry 
 Street Station-House one morning I chanced to drop in. 
 She said that a certain woman, who had served the state 
 on several occasions, first instructed her in the art of flit- 
 ting through buildings, as the bee does from rose to rose, 
 but with less honeyed intentions. 
 
 There were Ave or six other girls in this hag's employ. 
 She paid them so much a week, and took possession of all 
 the goods. Libby, however, possesses an enterprising 
 mind of her own, and when she got to understand the 
 rudiments of her calling, she saw no reason why she 
 should not strike out for herself , and she did with the 
 most lucrative results. 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 41 
 
 It was she, also, who told me that nearly ail the little 
 apple and orange girls who make daily rounds of down- 
 town offices were thieves. The girls have their places of 
 meeting as well as the boys, are quite as adroit in their 
 peculations, and as wicked every way. I write out Miss 
 O'Brien's statement to show that both sexes are repre- 
 sented in this army of " infantry " that is marching so 
 steadily to the jails as a more or less permanent place of 
 residence. 
 
 The picture that I have drawn is not a cheerful one. It 
 makes one shudder to think that such things are possible 
 
 in a city like New York, whose educational and reform- 
 ing facilities are so ample. That it will be looked into by 
 philanthropists who make such matters a study, I have 
 no doubt. 
 
 If we had more Shepherds like Mr. Cowlev, to whose 
 care all such children might be relegated, there would be 
 no need for the exercise of either philanthropy or legisla- 
 tion. The problem would solve itself. 
 
 How? 
 
 The dear, good man would starve them to death. 
 
 A KEY TO MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES. 
 
 Some years ago I was in Philadelphia, and on the even- 
 ing of my departure, having nothing to do and desiring 
 to kill time until about 11 o'clock when it would be in 
 order to 6tart for the midnight train at the New York 
 depot, I went into a variety show on Chestnut street. 
 
 It was a very good show, but only a most infinitesimal 
 bit of the programme has to do with this article, and that 
 was where two song-and-dance men were indulging in 
 gags and conundrums. 
 
 Said one to the other— "Jimmy, what's a grass widow?" 
 
 He answered promptly—" A woman whose husband has 
 gone to New York." 
 
 The howl of applause that this raised seemed to indi- 
 cate that such disappearances were not uncommon in the 
 matrimonial annals of the City of Brotherly Love, and as 
 long as I staid in the smoking-car that night I devoted 
 my time to wondering whether any of my rather glum 
 fellow-passengers had been making grass widows by the 
 purchase of their railroad tickets. 
 
 This anecdote came to me the other day as I was read- 
 ing about the Fricke case, it leading me in turn to a re- 
 flection upon the immense number of missing people this 
 city is capable of producing. The latter sentence seems 
 rampant with a "bull," for in the majority of instances 
 neither the city, nor the city's police can produce the 
 missing people, and in order to be ultra-elegant we will 
 say that New York affords a grander field for mysterious 
 disappearances than any other city in the Union. 
 
 You can't stay lost in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wash- 
 ington, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans or San Fran- 
 cisco. 
 
 Here the potentiality of seclusion is unfathomable. (1 
 can hear my readers say, "get a gun.") 
 
 I feel quite certain that men like " Red Leary" so 
 thoroughly appreciate this fact that they never think 
 about visiting foreign climes until it suits their own 
 royal convenience. 
 
 According to one of the sensational accounts published 
 at the time Tweed used to calmly sit upon the porch of 
 his villa, back of the Jersey Highlands, and while the 
 hum of the vast metropolis came to his ears, he would 
 read the circumstantial accounts of his escape, and see 
 in the illustrated journals, faithful pictorial representa- 
 tions of how he stood on such a wharf, muffled to the 
 chin, of how he put his ponderosity on the thwart of a 
 small boat, which placed him on board a " low, rakish 
 Khooner," etc., etc. 
 
 The missing people that we never hear of are in the 
 vast majority. The poor cannot afford to advertise or 
 
 offer rewards, and although the police are conscien- 
 tiously supposed to keep a sharp lookout for all reported 
 cases, still it is undeniable that the zest with which 
 search is prosecuted depends in a great measure upon the 
 importance of the missing person. 
 
 They looked for Oakey Hall. We all looked for him. I 
 don't recall a case equal to his in the amount of earnest 
 enthusiasm it created. 
 
 And then to find him walking in a London park with a 
 lady who wore a green veil and had a mole on her 
 neck. 
 
 Mr. Hall's disappearance was much like that of Red- 
 path, the Lyceum manager. He walked down town and 
 that was the last of him. There was a rumor published 
 that he turned up in San Francisco, hut I never saw it 
 verified. 
 
 Mr. Fricke's case is certainly a very queer one, both as 
 regards the gloom shrouding, at this writing, a portion of 
 the time he was missing but was not in the water, and 
 the cool manner in which the rest of the family look upon 
 the eircumstance. I have received this impression that 
 the sons consider that a great deal of fuss is being made 
 about nothing. 
 
 Many of these missing mysteries, could they only be 
 fathomed, would furnish a strange and startling pano- 
 ramic display of New York life and death. 
 
 Take the instance of a well-to-do merchant from 
 some western city who about a year ago left his up-town 
 hotel to go to the theatre, and turned up two or three 
 weeks after at the Morgue. 
 
 That is all we know— the Alpha and Omega. All the rest 
 is the hardest kind of Greek to us. But let FaF.cy take 
 her brush and paint some pictures, not many, only a few 
 that will answer both for this occasion and hundreds 
 like it. 
 
 First Picture— Broadway. He has got out of the " bus " 
 and has bought a cigar, as it is too early yet to go to the 
 play. So he saunters along leisurely, smoking his fra- 
 grant weed, and wondering how his wife is getting along 
 at home. 
 
 Second Picture— " Nice evening." This is given in a 
 silver tone, the speaker being right at his elbow. He 
 looks down. They are opposite a lamp-post, and he sees 
 such a pretty face, such snapping black eyes, such rich, 
 red lips, all apparent through the glamour of a most en- 
 chanting smile. While this observation is being taken 
 the young woman has put her kidded hand through his 
 arm, repeating, " a nice evening." It is a nice evening, 
 and the merchant, being conscious of a wicked thrill. 
 
42 
 
 GLIMPSES OF G OTHAM. 
 
 says, " Certainly it is, and a nice girl too."' She smiles, 
 and squeezes his arm just a little. That settles it— he is 
 gone. 
 
 Third Picture— A saloon where there are many girls like 
 the one in this story, sitting about at the tables, some 
 with male companions, and some disconsolately alone. 
 Our merchant has been ordering wine and showing his 
 money. Just as the waiter draws the cork of a fresh 
 bottle a young man comes in from the street and saun- 
 ters carelessly along between the tables as if he were 
 looking for some one. So he is, it is for the girl with the 
 black eyes and red lips. He sees her. There is a flash of 
 intelligence between them. He goes out, and the mer- 
 chant tosses oft his glass and unsteadily refills from the 
 bottle. 
 
 Fourth Picture— A darkened room. There is a noise. It 
 is not at the door. Being repeated it awakens a man who 
 is in the bed. He is alone, and seems surprised at that 
 fact. He is more surprised when a gleam of light comes 
 throug a panel that has been slid open right back of the 
 chair where he had thrown his clothes. And still more 
 surprised when the young man who walked into the 
 saloon while he was drinking the wine that had befogged 
 him, comes through the panel and proceeds to rifle his 
 pockets. Our merchant springs from the bed. The two 
 men grapple and reel about the room, while the pretty 
 girl the merchant met on Broadway puts down the 
 candle she had been holding and suddenly disappears. 
 Quicker than I can write it there is another bully on the 
 scene, armed with a black-jack. He watches his chance 
 and strikes the stranger on the back of the head, felling 
 him like an ox. 
 
 Fifth Picture— After the completion of the robbery it is 
 suddenly discovered that the man is dead, he having 
 already been stabbed by our first friend, who was rapidly 
 being worsted, when the other scoundrel came to com- 
 plete the job with the skull-crushing " billy." The body 
 is stripped and old clothes put upon it. Both men look 
 out at the night. It is dark, and the river is but four 
 short blocks away. But how to get him there. The girl 
 speaks up, and calls attention to a Ash-vendor's acquaint- 
 ance whose stable is in the rear. It is about his time to har- 
 ness up for his morning trip to Peck Slip. He will 
 probably loan his wagon for fifteen minutes. 
 
 Sixth Picture— The two men on the first wagon talk 
 cheerily to each other as they rattle towards the wharves, 
 and the policemen seeing them go by simply falls to 
 speculating upon fish. He may be pondering upon the 
 possibility of his good wife having some nicely broiled 
 shad, with hot rolls and fresh butter, and good coffee for 
 his breakfast. 
 
 Seventh Picture— From the darkness shrouding the end 
 of a wharf, so littered with wood and old refuse iron, 
 that it is difficult to make one's way upon it, comes the 
 sound of a splash. Then there is silence, and presently, 
 as if fashioned out of the gloom, a man appears at the 
 street and leaps nimbly into a fish-vendor's wagon, which 
 now, that the work is over, is driven somewhat cir- 
 cuitously to its impatient owner, who pockets the $5 bill, 
 asks no questions, and starts down town on his legiti- 
 mate trade. Before he puts his shining piles of fish in, 
 however, he washes the wagon out. There is blood upon 
 the bottom. 
 
 Eighth and last Picture— The bloated, disfigured, swollen 
 corpse at the morgue. It is the merchant, who, on that 
 evening he started from the hotel, had done much better 
 had he resisted black eyes and red lipsand none to the pin . 
 
 Insane people have a constant mania for eluding their 
 keepers and putting their relations to the expense of ad- 
 vertising them minutely in the newspapers. 
 
 This was a favorite amusement with Dr. Ayer, the 
 celebrated pill and Cherry Pectoral millionaire, who for 
 many years before his death was not sound in his head. 
 He would make his way to New York somehow, and in 
 some instances it was weeks before the doctor would be 
 discovered in a more or less dilapidated condition, but 
 cheerful and happy. 
 
 The very latest case of disappearance that has some 
 thing whimsical about it, is that of the young man who 
 applied at Jefferson Market to be locked up as a vagrant. 
 At the same time he was worth from forty to fifty thou- 
 sand dollars and his lawyers were scouring the city for 
 him to pay him some accrued inierest. While thej- were 
 searching he was working hard in the kitchen of the jail 
 manufacturing soup, an operation which I understand 
 is his strongest accomplishment. 
 
 I can make a pretty good article of soup, but fifty 
 thousand dollars is a little beyond me. Still it must be 
 borne in mind that good soup is made from good " stock," 
 and fifty vhousand dollars worth is a fair starter. 
 
 Women and young girls of an hysterical tendency have 
 a great mania for disappearing. Examine the records up 
 at Police Headquarters and you will be surprised at the 
 number of straying damsels reported by their agonized 
 relatives. Some are found, some come home and are 
 frequently unable to state where they have been, and 
 others never turn up at all. 
 
 There are procuresses in this city who are as active 
 and energetic in plying their nefarious trade as any 
 person in a legitimate line of business. These women, 
 generally middle-aged and prepossessing in appearance, 
 are always well dressed, and of the most engaging 
 manners. 
 
 They meet a pretty girl on the street, in one of the big 
 stores, at the matinee, or where you will, and get in con- 
 versation with her. She is flattered, cajoled, made much 
 of, lied to, and finally persuaded to go home justfora 
 moment with her most recent friend. 
 
 In either case the idea is to get her compromised in 
 some manner, or better still to make her drunk. The 
 rest is very easy, and she becomes one of the "missing " 
 in the most natural manner in the world. 1 am not ex- 
 aggerating and am quite aware that I am writing of New 
 York city, and in the nineteenth century. -There are 
 elegant prison pens here from which escape is impossi- 
 ble, where the victims of procuresses are kept, constant- 
 ly assailed by temptation, until escape is no longer de- 
 sired. It has been but a little over two months since 
 all the police of Liverpool and London were employed in 
 tracing the whereabouts of a respectable, highly culti- 
 vated, beautiful young Liverpool girl, who left her home 
 one afternoon to pay a few petty tradesmen's bills, and 
 to make several calls. She took a short cut through a 
 disreputable part of the city and that was the last seen or 
 heard of her until she was discovered in London, 
 
 At the request of her family her story was never made 
 public, but the community was given to understand that 
 it was horrible in the extreme. It isn't necessary to go 
 among Italian or Sicilian mountain fastnesses in order to 
 he kidnapped. It can be done to perfection in any of the 
 great cities of civilizatiou. 
 
 Crime produces many missing men. The bank-teller 
 who sees that the jig is up, the receiver who has mis- 
 managed his trust and doesn't want to face the auditing 
 Committee, and all people of that kidney, drop from the 
 surface of events as if driven under by ft spile-driver. 
 They are heard from eventually in Canada, or London, 
 
 or Brazil. More trouble is taken ordinarily to find this 
 
 variety of the "missing" than any others. The great 
 fault with them is that they don't keep quiet in their re- 
 
GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM. 
 
 43 
 
 treats, and it isn't long before they " sail the ocean blue" 
 for this, their native land, in custody of special detec- 
 tives sent after them. See the case of Cooper, now doing 
 five years in an English jail for forgery. He swindled 
 the United States Government out of $50,000 by forging a 
 paymaster's name to a lot of warrants, served five years 
 in Cherry Hill prison, Philadelphia, for that, and then, 
 on emerging into the sunlight of liberty settled down as 
 a stock broker in San Francisco. 
 
 He levanted from San Francisco with quite a fortune 
 realized from hypothecated bonds, and became a "miss- 
 ing man." In vain the police scoured this and other 
 countries for him. "Wherever he was he was quiet as the 
 grave. But it couldn't last. The active brain must be 
 employed, the forger's pen was rusting. A new career 
 of crime was inaugurated in London, in one of whose 
 suburban hamlets Cooper was living in magnificent style, 
 He is a rascal of the romantic type and used disguises. 
 The inevitable slip-up came at last, and he was put away 
 lor five years, with San Francisco to be heard from then. 
 
 Young men who signify their intentions of getting mar- 
 ried frequently astonish everyone and mortify the bride 
 terribly by never putting in an appearance at the cere- 
 mony, after all has been arranged, minister engaged, 
 cards for a wedding breakfast sent out, and every other 
 detail attended to. Sometimes they have a theory for such 
 conduct, but more frequently they can give no explana- 
 tion. Just like that Mr. Allan of Baltimore, who has at 
 last come home to bis distressed family and gone to bed. 
 
 All the explanation he had to make was that he had 
 been overworked and felt he must go somewhere. He 
 got as far as New Orleans, Speaking of the bridal disap- 
 pearances I see in a recent newspaper that the latest one 
 was where the young lady lit out on the wings of the 
 morning. She was au agricultural damsel, and was 
 wooed and won by a steady young man belonging to the 
 same Hudson river town. When the wedding day ap- 
 proached she began to ponder the question deeply. 
 New York city was to her a vast lode-stone, offering a 
 life of constant gayety and sensation. What would her 
 brown-fisted lover offer? A farm-house, with all its 
 humdrum duties, such as feeding the pigs and chickens 
 and getting the cows out of the corn. She decided not to 
 get married, but to visit New York instead. 
 
 When the police found her she was selling candy, dis- 
 pensing taffy, in a Grand street confectionery store at a 
 salary of $5 a week. She refused to go home, and the 
 gentle farmer will have to look elsewhere for a gude 
 wife. 
 
 The champion missing boy is undoubtedly Charley 
 Ross. The amount of being missed that he has gone 
 through with is something enormous. No one can equal 
 him, and he takes the belt. 
 
 The champion missing merchant is A. T. Stewart. One 
 would naturally think that when a man was dead, and 
 had had the square thing done by him in the way of a 
 funeral, he would remain where he was planted. 
 I But not so with A . T. He also takes the belt. 
 
GITY CHARACTERS 
 
CITY CHARACTERS. 
 
 45 
 
 THE MM ABOUT TOWU. 
 
 In nearly every city you will find a fair representation 
 of what they call the gilded youth in Pans, bat the 
 variety in New York is the only genuine sample of the 
 article on this side of the Atlantic. 
 
 This is principally because New York is more like Paris 
 than London, where the stupid " Crutch and Toothpick" 
 gang are supposed to represent the class in male society 
 whose members have nothing to do but to rise at noon, 
 pass through a perfumed bath to the barber, and so to the 
 " Eow," to dinner, to the theatre, and finally to Evans's 
 supper rooms, or some faster place, where the night is 
 given up to a heavy carouse. 
 
 I have found that the Parisian sport is as much too 
 light as the English swell is too heavy. One drinks sugar 
 and water and the other swills port when champagne is 
 impossible. The drinks are therefore fair indications of 
 their characters. When you want an idler with snap, a 
 butterfly with some virility, you must come to New York 
 and study the " Young Man About Town," whose picture 
 I shall proceed to give in a few free strokes. • 
 
 He is entirely different from what he used to be, having 
 progressed with the city, and become faster and faster as 
 the rapid-transit ideas were evoked. In 1853 "Ik Mar- 
 vel " wrote of him as follows : 
 
 " With his fellows he will affect a sporting turn ; ho will 
 read the Spirit oj the Times, he will have a sporting-jacket 
 made with a world of pockets, and will sometimes take 
 it with him on a trip to a summer watering place; but 
 only wears it occasionally of a morning, when he is sure 
 no sportsmen are by; he will stuff a pocket with pressed 
 Regalias and regret that game is so scarce. He discourses, 
 too, about trout-fishing, and Alfred's tackle, very much 
 as one of the falsettos in the papal choir might talk of 
 deeds of gallantry." 
 
 This, you see, is a sketch of a mild-mannered individual, 
 fond of dress and adulation. My " Man About Town " a 
 fellow of enterprise, whose whole object is to keep up a 
 perpetual round of excitement while he's awake, and to 
 be considered a regular trump by the actresses, ballet 
 girls, and the ladies who think that half a world is better 
 than none, whose pictures adorn his walls. 
 
 He has rooms down-town— that is in the neighborhood 
 of the theatres, and they are genuine curiosity-shops. In 
 these apartments he gives dinners to his lady friends. 
 They are more frequently midnight suppers that last until 
 the conservative people next door are getting ready for 
 breakfast. 
 
 When I was much younger than I am now I was roped 
 into taking rooms with a thorough good fellow who 
 aspired to be considered one of the gilded youth. The 
 apartments were in a club-house, of which we were both 
 pillars, and the presence in the basement of a French res- 
 taurant, presided over by a gentleman who still believed 
 in human nature, made everything pleasant. 
 
 When we had no money we simply signed a bit of paper 
 and the Monsieur jabbed it on a file. Eventually he got 
 two cents a pound for them at a place in Ann street. 
 
 But this is wandering from what I intended to say, 
 which is that it would be impossible for me to give any 
 better idea of the" Man About Town " when he is at home 
 and a host than by describing a supper we gave to a party 
 
 of ladies and gentlemen who were professionally engaged 
 at the time in an East side variety show. 
 
 One of them did something with cannon balls, and as he 
 was way down on the bill— just before the pantomime 
 which closed it — our table was spread at eleven o'clock, 
 and at half-past eleven we were discussing the soup. 
 
 I remember how lively we all were, and yet subdued, as 
 if we were on our good behavior. A female clog-dancer 
 ate her vermicelli with the delicate grace of a queen, and 
 the cannon ball man seemed scarcely able to lift his glass. 
 
 But this diffidence all wore off under the influence of 
 the wines and stronger liquors of which we had an abun- 
 dant store, and when we had been two hours at the table, 
 and about on the last lap, the hilarity was plainly notiae- 
 able, as I was subsequently informed, at the next corner. 
 
 There was a French lady present— one who stood on her 
 toes and tried to kick the chandelier while dancing — and 
 although she did not favor us with any Terpsichorean 
 performances of that nature, she consented to sing some 
 songs of La Belle France. They were of the kind you hear 
 at the Cafe des Ambassadeurs in the Champs Elyseex, and will 
 not be found as specimens of poetry in the French text- 
 books of any young ladies' college. 
 
 At least I hope not. 
 
 We all laughed immensely, and, after more wine, the 
 French girl's brother, a contortionist, did a lot of turning, 
 twisting and tying himself into knots on top of the piano. 
 That also was very amusing, but must have proved rather' 
 confusing to the digestive machinery, which was con- 
 stantly being put upside down. 
 
 The contortionist, however, didn't seem to mind it, and 
 so it must have been all right. 
 
 During these little performances my friend and myself, 
 in duty bound, kept the conversation up to fever heat, anxj 
 finally succeeded in inducing the young women, one ol 
 whom had brought her dog along, to embark upon a series 
 of more or less scandalous green-room revelations, the 
 memory of which makes my modest ink turn red as a 
 write. 
 
 We all smoked cigarettes. The French dancer taught me 
 how to roll them with one hand, and then, after two or 
 three more drinks, began to cry— in French— and tell me 
 how the cannon ball man, her husband, beat her and 
 threw her about. 
 
 He utilized her as a Home Gymnasium. No family 
 should be without one. 
 
 But it was all sunshine in a minute. Down on the floor 
 were the " Bouncing Brothers of Barcelona," balancing 
 each other on their chins and noses. It was all very 
 well until one of the " Bouncing Brothers " came down 
 with a rush and knocked the French clock on the mantle 
 out of time. 
 
 Then we concluded that a little piano music wouldn't 
 be a bad idea. On such occasions I notice that the com- 
 pany invariably become maudlin. We certainly did, 
 singing such songs as, " We parted by the river, and our 
 dream of love is o'er," and " Under the willow my little 
 one sleeps." 
 
 This last mournful ballad made the women weep, and 
 while they were at it the men tackled the brandy decan- 
 ter again. 
 
46 
 
 CITY CHARACTERS. 
 
 So the night wore on. 
 them off. 
 
 It was daybreak, when we saw 
 
 I have been thus particular in describing the otherwise 
 insignificant occasion because it is a fair sample of the 
 "Man about Town " spending his nights. It was anything 
 to kill time and add to the flash reputation he seemed so 
 anxious to acquire. 
 
 This ambition extended to his clothes which were al- 
 ways a little different in cut and texture from other 
 peoples, and to his hat*. Luminous neckties helped out 
 the idea. 
 
 When he appeared at the theatre, young men just start- 
 ing in the life of the city would say: " Who's that?" and 
 be told that that was the famons Harry So-and-So, or 
 Willie What's-his-Name. Then would follow a minute 
 description of his rooms and a glowing account of the 
 orgies had there. 
 
 One who leads an exolusively frivolous life cannot | of cards. 
 
 avoid becoming a perfect slave to the habits he contracted 
 so easily. 
 
 The Goddess of Pleasure becomes a Demon of Despair, 
 a haunting Nemesis who cannot be driven away. 
 
 I have seen my " Man about Town" reduced to the 
 verge of insanity because the city was stupid and there 
 was nothing on hand for the evening— no leg piece at the 
 theatre, no body to capture for dinner, nothing to go see 
 anywhere. 
 
 He never thought of a book, a pair of slippers, a softly 
 shaded lamp, a nice cigar, and — quiet. 
 
 When, on an occasion like the one referred to, I have 
 positively refused to budge out of the house, he has gone 
 down into the ca/t, on the vague chance of being intro- 
 duced to some French girl, and remained there half the 
 night drinking bad wiue and playing with a greasy pack 
 
 THE COIxIxEGE STUDEHT. 
 
 New York city is fortunately not a college town, 
 although we possess an admirable institution in " Colum- 
 bia," and a rather useless and expensive one in the "Free 
 College I" 
 
 And I am very glad that this city, in which I have the 
 honor and felicity to reside, is not an Oxford, Cambridge, 
 Harvard or Princeton on a grand scale. 
 
 Particularly Princeton, whose riotous students you em- 
 balmed pictorially last week. 
 
 The reason that I rest serene under the absence of col- 
 leges is because I consider the average student a cad of 
 the first water, and a prig that can't be excelled. 
 
 Not that there are not hosts of noble, manly fellows in 
 college. There are hundreds of them. But I maintain all 
 the same that the typical student, the one who obtrudes 
 himself into notice, and is therefore the character I am 
 sketching, is generally a young man with a fuzzy mus- 
 tache, an impudent manner, and a most objectionable 
 person altogether. 
 
 I never run across him without wishing to sprinkle him 
 with salt, or have him soused in a surf bath. 
 
 No wonder they call a part of the students " Fresh- 
 men !" Most of them are fresher than the unborn egg. 
 
 The constant presence in New York of the college 
 student, and especially his very extensive appearance 
 about the May commencement days, make him a fit sitter 
 before our metropolitan camera. 
 
 He is generally a very loud-talking young man, who 
 would have you believe that he leads an awfully fast and 
 rakish sort of life on the sly— a rose-colored existence of 
 which the faculty do not dream. 
 
 His dress Is inclined to be nobby, and in general deport- 
 ment, when strolling through the city, he may be likened 
 to a curb-stone broker at a dog-fight in a stable loft. 
 
 The cane he carries is a veritablo club, and is exten- 
 sively used, according to the student, in midnight en- 
 counters with policemen and hack-drivers. 
 
 ThflM classes of society the student seems to be slowly 
 but urclj removing from the face of the earth. 
 
 Where fam or a dozen of the young men are out on a lark 
 together they certainly do make Borne howl. About mid- 
 
 night they are full of beer up to their downy chins, and 
 then they begin to yell, and sing college songs, and 'Rah I 
 'Rah ! 'Rah ! which is an intellectual whoop, much in- 
 dulged in at boat races and the like gatherings. 
 
 They get arrested, of course, and locked up, but are 
 generally let off with a light fine and a reprimand on ac- 
 count of their youth, and the necessity that exists for 
 their getting back to class. 
 
 I have seen these young men, who by their very posi- 
 tion are supposed to be gentlemen, link arms until they 
 have covered the entire pavement, and then march up 
 Broadway singing one of their idiotic songs and crowding 
 ladies and gentlemen into the gutter. 
 
 " Oh, they are only students having some fun," is what 
 is charitably said. 
 I call them blackguards making asses of themselves. 
 They are alwaye offensive when there are a number of 
 them together, the object being to have what they call a 
 good time. 
 
 When the Count Joannes was disporting himself at the 
 Lyceum Theatre I remember that whole rows of seats 
 were taken by college boys, who behaved in the most 
 scandalous manner. They were arrested eventually for 
 even excelling the gallery in buffoonery and obscenity. 
 
 We all know what the Princeton pets are when they get 
 to sampling Trenton beer. 
 
 What is the secret of all this? Why shouldn't college 
 boys behave like gentlemen when they are outside the 
 walls and away from their campus? It is a mystery. I 
 only know that they are nearly always impudent, boor- 
 ish and infernal nuisances generally. 
 
 If ever I leave anything to a college, it will bo a fund to 
 establish a department in which deportment shall be 
 taught. It might have some effect in lessening the num- 
 ber of these well-dressed Zulus. 
 
 I sometimes think that the hazing practice, and the 
 system of making the younger students " fag" for the 
 others have something to do with producing a rode of 
 manners that would disgrace a Comanche village. 
 
 nave you ever been in a small town where delegations 
 from a dozen colleges have come to witness a boat race? 
 
CITY CHARACTERS. 
 
 J7 
 
 you can rest assured that some college student has been 
 given an assignment 
 
 My observation induces me to believe that the medical 
 students are the best fellows of the entire kidney. They 
 are manlier, and don't have bo much blank nonsense 
 about them. 
 
 I shall never forget one time in Philadelphia, ever so 
 many years ago, when at his earnest invitation, I visited 
 a young medical friend in the dissecting-room. 
 
 A lot of jolly dogs were carving and cutting another lot 
 of perhaps jollier dogs who were dead. They were drink- 
 ing beer and eating crackers and cheese at the same time, 
 i. e., the live jolly dogs were. 
 
 " Come here, Lynx,'' said my friend, " here's a beauti- 
 ful subject. I already owned the left leg and head, and 
 I've just won the entire 'stiff' at dominoes. Come and 
 see me touch up some of the abdominal muscles." 
 
 It was a terrible ordeal, but I looked on. Nature has its 
 limit of endurance, however. Even a Lynx will some- 
 times weaken. 
 
 When my Esculapian friend, who was wild with en- 
 thusiasm, turned to me and said: "Here, colonel, just 
 grab that flap, won't you ?" I knew that it was time to 
 go. 
 
 I felt sure of it, and I did go. How I reached the street 
 I never knew, but I know that about a half hour after- 
 wards a very pale gentleman, holding his handkerchief 
 to his mouth, went into a corner saloon and asked feebly 
 for brandy. 
 
 This experience, of course, was long anterior to my be- 
 coming familiar with the field of carnage. 
 
 P. S.— None of my remarks with reference to drinkinj? 
 and midnight carousals apply to Divinity students. They 
 generally keep a bottle in the closet. 
 
 If you haven't, gentle reader, do a kindness to your 
 nerves by never going, and proceed to the .'one and silent 
 tomb ignorant of the experiment, satisfied with my state- 
 ment that at 2 x. x. in the morning after the race, such a 
 town is as fair a sample of the Fourth Ward of Hell, if 
 there is such a place, as you can well imagine. 
 
 And yet these frisky young people are those who are 
 expected to be prominent in all the intellectual walks of 
 life. Undoubtedly the colleges turn out some of our best 
 men. I am not regarding them now as having arrived 
 at years of discretion. It is the student in the callow, 
 vealy state that we are digesting, and like all "bob" 
 veal he is hard to digest. 
 
 On commencement day he is particularly grand. His 
 Sisters, cousins, etc., send him an express wagonload of 
 flowers, and with one hand in his bosom, and the other 
 waveu toward the chandelier he tells us how the ancient 
 Roman lived, and what was really the cause, as ascer- 
 tained by him, of their decay. 
 
 That night he gets drunk, very drunk, disgracefully 
 drunk, and generally manages to float around the city in 
 a dress coat and a pair of white kids for about a week. 
 
 Then he sobers up and selects his pursuit in life. 
 
 There is always a certain proportion of the young gen- 
 tlemen who feel sure that they are born journalists. 
 They see the difficulties under which the country is stag- 
 gering and they are convinced an editorial from them 
 would fix things all right. 
 
 This class iuvade Park Row and Printing House Square. 
 The Tribune is never without a utility force of twenty of 
 them. 
 
 When you read that " the empyream was lit up last 
 night by vast masses of corruscating splendor," which is 
 the beginning of an article on the burning of a car stable, 
 
 THE COACHMAU. 
 
 When I first came to New York in the early part of this 
 century, and strode up Broadway with the usual shilling 
 In my pocket with which all great men begin life. I par- 
 ticularly admired the sleek and comfortable coachmen 
 whom I saw sitting en the boxes of their carriages. 
 
 This admiration was purely a physical one, and was 
 closely connected with a period of starvation, which I 
 foresaw must befall me when that shilling was gone. 
 
 I was not disappointed. As near as 1 can remember the 
 shilling accomplished the possession of two or three mut- 
 ton pies, and then evanesced. When hunger really did 
 attack my adolescent vitals, these well-fed Jehus excited 
 my admiration more than ever, and, as I gazed upon their 
 fat chops and swelling paunches, I came to the con- 
 clusion that the softest, cosiest berth in all this world of 
 work was that of a liveried coachman to a swell New 
 York family. 
 
 Don't misunderstand me; I do not allude to any seedy, 
 bloated night hawk cabdriver, but to the blue-coated, and 
 brass-buttoned, snuff-colored and gold-laced gentlemen of 
 the whip, who wear corduroys disappearing in boots 
 with buff tops, and whose shining silk hats have pin- 
 wheel rosette at their sides. 
 
 They toil not, and I am sure they have no acquaintance 
 with the first principles of mule spinning, despite their 
 
 knowledge of horses, but Solomon in all his glory never 
 had to get up like one of these. 
 
 If he did, if the old gentleman of Mormon proclivities 
 ever turned out with a long blue coat with brass buttons 
 and a whip, both profane and sacred history have failed 
 to record the fact. 
 
 In those distant days to which I first alluded, the city 
 coachman was not looked upon as one of the family. He 
 was to all intents and purposes, a servant,and when he was 
 not in the stable you could find him in the kitchen. The 
 cock and he generally fell in love and married, although he 
 was not averse to forming a matrimonial alliance with the 
 chambermaid, if he ascertained that she had some sav- 
 ings in the bank. His life was a perfectly blameless one, 
 and was not disturbed by any romantic fancies. 
 
 But how is it now ? If we may believe the stories fur- 
 nished us by the newspapers of the country, the coach- 
 man of the period is marrying the young lady of the 
 epoch at a most remarkable rate. It has ceased, in fact, 
 to become a matter of surprise, and those fond papas who 
 do not want their daughters disposed of in thisway.either 
 secure a Milesian with red hair, scrub nose, freckled wife 
 and seven children, or give up keeping a stable altogether. 
 
 So when I read of a dashing whip eloping with some 
 languishing blonde or sparkling brunette, in true New 
 
48 
 
 CITY CHARACTERS. 
 
 York Ledger style, my admiration for the craft becomes 
 all the stronger. 
 
 They demonstrate that like all other driving fellows 
 they know how to get along in the world. 
 
 It has never been ascertained why maidens of high de- 
 gree look so kindly upon the men of horses. This is a 
 deep social problem which I mean to study out ono of 
 these days. 
 
 You never 'hear of them' falling in love with the 
 gardener, or the man who makes the fires, but it is al- 
 ways the coachman, and sometimes a negro coachman, 
 too, who kindles the flame of love in their hearts. I have 
 an idea that the liveried heroes give them an inordinate 
 amount of "taffy," telling them perhaps of their good 
 family and how misfortune has made it necessary for 
 them to give up their own four-in-hand and handle the 
 reins for some one else. 
 
 You get a good-looking young fellow, neat and cleanly 
 shaven, pouring this sort of thing into the pink sea-shell 
 ear of Julia as he drives her slowly through the park, and 
 the consequences are nearly always amatory. He is like 
 Vice in the couplet. She first endures, then pities, and 
 then embraces. 
 
 No one can blame him for giving up the halter for the 
 altar, the bridle existence for the bridal tour. He has 
 nothing to lose and everything to gain going in double 
 harness. If the old man relents, he becomes a happy 
 groom ; if the old man holds out he is no better or worse 
 off than a young man ought to be with a pretty wife. 
 
 When she becomes a little sulky he can console himself 
 by the reflection that it's his phaeton, and that no man 
 gets through matrimonial life without hitches. 
 
 Since fifty years ago the coachman has become more 
 important in another respect. You can't shoot him now 
 with impunity. The case of the bank teller at Montclair 
 is proof of this. The Grand Jury have found a true bill 
 against him, and he will have to stand a trial for murder 
 in that most uncomfortable state under such circum 
 stances— New Jersey. 
 
 Every man has his trials, but if ever I have one for 
 
 murder, I pray that my man will bo sensiblo enough to 
 live, up to the moment of the tragedy, in some state where 
 you stand a reasonable chance of acquittal. That reminds 
 me that you very seldom hear of a coachman committing 
 a murder. Farm hands, hostlers, and gentlemen of that 
 kidney figure in the annals of crimson crime, but it is not 
 often that the net of Justice catches the hero of this 
 sketch, I lay it to his peaceful, placid life, and the moral 
 rumination ho has a chance to indulge in while waiting, 
 stiff as a plaster-of-Paris image, upon his box for his 
 people to come out of Stewart's, or Grace Church, as the 
 case may be. 
 
 Some coachmen never leave the box, or move, or wink 
 while they are on it. But I don't like them. I prefer the 
 more sociable fellows who get down to stretch their legs 
 once in a while, and who disappear in the corner tavern 
 for a nip to keep out the cold. These jolly dogs will get 
 together on the sunny side of the street and swap stories. 
 They know all about Mrs. A.'s sudden departure for 
 Europe, and why she went, and can tell you the cause of 
 Mr. B. having to do away with his own establishment and 
 hire a coupe by the month from the coachman. 
 
 If ever I start a scandalous paper in which the secrets 
 of society shall bo dressed up like important cable news 
 I am going to rnako friends with all the coachmen. They 
 are absorbents of family secrets, and what they don't 
 know they can readily obtain from the cook or the up- 
 stairs maid. 
 
 In nearly all the prominent divorce suits, both in this 
 country and abroad, the coachman has played an impor- v 
 tant part as witness. It has been he who has too fre- • 
 quently driven madame along the road of ruin, and his 
 story has always been interesting. Of what good is a . 
 close carriage if the coachman is communicative! Some 
 high-toned ladies have found this out when it was too late. 
 
 In this city the coachman has his club, his mutual pro- 
 tective association, and his annual dance. In summer he 
 is at the watering places. lie is always well-housed, well- 
 dressed, well-fed, and, whether he marries the cook or 
 his young mistress, he Li a lucky dog. 
 
 THE BARBER. 
 
 He may be a Rooshian, or a Frenchman, or a Prooshian 
 and he very frequently is an I-tal-ian, but it's greatly to 
 the credit of the Anglo-Saxon race that you very rarely 
 find him an American. My particular, personal barber is 
 a German. His name is Gohr. Appropriate name I If 
 you don't believe me, go and hire him to shave you. 
 
 Not being a blood-thirsty Lynx, I hate Gohr. But, loathe 
 him as I may, I may not leave him. In a moment of fatal 
 weakness I bought a shaving cup from him, and became 
 his vassal. It stands on the third shelf, second box 
 from t!io glass. My name is on it, Lynx in the chain of 
 my serfdom which I long to break, but dare not. 
 
 WhyT 
 
 Whisper I There Is a sausage shop next door, and I have 
 not forgotten Sweeny Todd I 
 
 I once tried tho experiment. I had been spending the 
 night with u friend in the gin trade, and felt courageous. 
 Didn't caro n schiedam for any barber in fact. lie was 
 whetting his razor as if it had been a broadaxo when I re- 
 marked : 
 
 " I say, Gohr." 
 
 " Yes, sir; say away." 
 
 " I've been thinking of leaving you." 
 
 " Of what, sir?" 
 
 There was tho gleam of roused ferocity in his eye. My 
 heart began to crawl towards my boots, and I wished I 
 had taken another of those sclnedams before I came down 
 town. 
 
 " I am going to move out of town." 
 
 " Where to, sir?" 
 
 " Oh, only to Newark. But still, you see, I won't be 
 able " 
 
 " Oh, not at all, sir. Now that tho elevated road is 
 running, all you have to do is jump into a car, and here 
 j on are; and a pleasant ride into the bargain. Don't you 
 see?" 
 
 The sunlight flashed on his razor blado, and his fingers 
 dabbled the lather on my neck right over the carotid. I 
 couldn't help seeing, under the circumstances, and all I 
 could say was: 
 
CITY CHARACTERS. 
 
 4!) 
 
 " I never thought of that, to be sure." 
 
 If I had only said Chicago now, or San Francisco I But 
 then he -would probably have objected to my leaving town 
 at all. Anyhaw, the attempt was a failure. And worse 
 than that he Tnade me buy seven dollars' worth of hair 
 tonic, cosmetiques and the like, on the plea that I would 
 need them on Sundays when 1 couldn't come to town. I 
 gave them to an Italian bootblack at the next corner. I 
 fancy he imagined that the cosmetique was candy, for he 
 was eating it when I saw him last. 
 
 It must not be supposed that, because I am now the 
 hand-slave, so to speak, of Gohr and of the cup, that he is 
 the only barber I have met in my wanderings. My ex- 
 perience has been an extensive one, as my scars will tes- 
 tify. I have been flayed by so many nationalities that, 
 to use a vulgarism, I have come to the conclusion that 
 the business of dcpilitation is a universal skin. I only 
 need to be scalped now to have my practical knowledge 
 of the barberous craft complete. 
 
 This suggests a theory. It is asserted that the gentle 
 savages, who are now keeping our troops busy being 
 killed among the Colorado hills are led by numerous 
 renegades, whose deadly ferocity can only take its rise 
 out of some great real or fancied wrongs. May they not 
 be barbers, ruined by the five-cent-shave movement, and 
 maddened by deep draughts of bay rum, which customere 
 have refused to be lured into paying extra for? It would 
 not be a bad idea to catch one and vivisect him. The 
 mysteries of the barber's mind might then be solved. 
 
 We might learn then why he always insists upon talking 
 when you want to ruminate, and why he never, by any 
 chance, talks the commonest kind of sense. We might 
 also find out why his breath so invariably smells of Hun- 
 ter's Point, thinly disguised with Florida water or hair 
 oil. We might ascertain, too, why he is always eating 
 suspicious lunches when you are in a hurry, and why he 
 always licks his fingers, wipes them on his hair and then 
 oommences to rub the lather into your jaw with them. 
 The minor facts that he always shaves you so close that 
 you suffer from a rash, that he blinds you with bay rum, 
 pomades you till you reek like a candle factory, and in- 
 variably crops your hair when you only want it to be 
 trimmed, are explicable on the grounds of a naturally ma- 
 lignant spirit. But why does he always try to sell you 
 bill-board tickets when he knows you wouldn't go to ths 
 theatre if you had a box, and why is he such an infernal 
 liar? 
 
 Tour hair may be as black as a raven's wing or the 
 record of a Tammany politician, and anchored to your 
 scalp like a Brooklyn bridge tower, but he will swear to 
 you that it is turning white at a six-days-go-as-you-please 
 gait, and commencing to fall out by the peck- Offer to 
 let him lift you out of the chair by it and he will only 
 smile sadly and shake his head, as if to sa3\ " Poor, be 
 sotted soul ! You'll find out different in the course of fifty 
 years or so." 
 
 It is a significant fact that you always find a barber 
 shaves himself. He knows too much to let anybody else 
 do it for him. I was acquainted with one barber who 
 always used to gash me at a certain spot on my left cheek. 
 I noticed that everybody else who came under his razor 
 suffered the same disfigurement. One day chance ex- 
 plained it to me. I saw him shaving himself. There was 
 a mol« on his left cheek which he cut every time he 
 reaped himself. The gashes he dispensed to us were in 
 retaliation. 
 
 It was this barber who used to shave the bald-headed 
 man. That personage wis a stout, elderly gentleman, 
 who had no more hair on his head than could be dis 
 covered with a microscope on a cobblestone. Yet, the 
 
 barber had persuaded him that by having his head shaved 
 regularly he could produce a fresh growth fiat would be 
 a credit to a Circassian girl. He would come in of a hot 
 afternoon, sink into a chair with a grunt and go to sleep. 
 Then the barber would lather his head with great sym- 
 metry and care, go over it once with the back of his razor 
 and charge him a quarter for the job. 
 
 ; I once went into a barber shop in Bleecker street to get 
 shaved. It was a barber shop of the African persuasion, 
 
 I do ;vn six steps in a cellar that smelled of mould. A thin 
 growth of fungus clung to the ceiling, and the walls were 
 clammy with a faint greenish slime. A back door which 
 
 i seemed to open on the bottomless pit permitted a eircula- 
 
 ' tion of air that would have made an Exquimaux shudder. 
 
 1 On the walls were portraits of Hicks, the pirate, and 
 other celebrities. There was a rickety stand with two 
 
 ' mirrors and a lot of cups labelled "Friendship's Gift," 
 
 ! " When This You See, Remember Me," " Forget Me Not," 
 
 I and the like. I shall never forget them. I never saw 
 dirtier china in my life. 
 
 I The barber was a mulatto with a squint. He chewed 
 tobacco copiously, with a noise like a cow munching hay. 
 He jammed me down in a chair, shoved my head so far 
 back or. the rest that I felt my windpipe splitting across, 
 and draped my manly bosom with a towel which looked 
 as if he bad been using it as a handkerchief. Then he be- 
 gan to talk to hi3 assistant, who was snipping pieces from 
 the ear of a victim who wanted his hair cut. The victim, 
 
 ; happily for himself, was drunk. He took his wounds for 
 mosquito bites, and every time a fragment of his person 
 joined the ensanguined heap on the floor he would slap his 
 bleeding face and grunt: 
 
 : " Umph ! Damn them skeeters ! Hurry up, boss, or 
 they won't leave enough of me to swear by." 
 
 ' I was about to suggest decapitation as the shortest cut 
 to the end the assistant was drawing at, when my turn 
 came. The barber made a sweep over my face that almost 
 pulled my backbone out, and asked: 
 " How you like de razor, boss?" 
 " Good enough," I said; " only hurry up." 
 "It ort to be good anyways," said the barber, shaving a 
 sandwich off my other cheek. " It am de boss razor, 
 shuah." 
 "Indeed 1" 
 
 , "Yes, sah. I don't want no better razor dan dis yer one, 
 I done tell yer now. Yer see dat speck dar, boss?" 
 
 I The speck was a red rust smear that made my blood run 
 
 : cold. 
 
 " Well, sah, dat war Jim Jonsing. He'm dead now. An' 
 
 [ yer see dat one?" 
 
 ]* I did. 
 
 " Dat war Sam Smiff. Julius ! wha' de debbil ebber 
 come ob Sam Smiff?" 
 " He'm round yit, walkin' on crutches." 
 
 J My barber chuckled in demoniac glee. " Dey ginerally 
 
 I does want crutches or coffins," he said. " Well, sah, dis 
 yer nick here war Jim Peters. I done tole him: 'Jim,' 
 
 , says I, 'yer luff dat gal lone or I cut youah heart out.' 
 
 j ' Yer cut nuffln,' he says. ' Drap dat razor, or I bricks 
 
 I youah brain3 out !' Dat war 'nuff fo' me, sah. I gin him 
 
 I one gash, an' " 
 
 I A howl of anguish interrupted the thrilling recital. 
 
 ! Julius had become so interested in the narrative that he 
 had commenced to cut the inebriated customer's nose off. 
 When I gained the street my barber and his assistant 
 were as busy as mince meat choppers, and I fancied a 
 voice called from the dark doorway: 
 
 " Hurry up, now I The oven's red hot, and if we don't 
 have them pies ready when the wagongets round, there'll 
 be hell to pay and nothing to pay it with." 
 
 "Will you have bay rum,~'r?" The barber was shak- 
 ing me by the shouldar. I h id been asleep. 
 
50 
 
 CITY CHA RA CTERS. 
 
 THE CORONER. 
 
 Most cities have only one coroner, and there's where 
 New York has the "bulge " on them if I may drop for a 
 moment into the frivolous language of the young men with 
 whom I am thrown in daily contact. 
 
 We are rich in coroners, we revel in them, and if a sud- 
 den and mysteriously made corpse can't be sat upon 
 properly in this place, it can't be done anywhere. 
 
 The coroner's is a peculiar office and one that I never 
 envied in all my ambitious political dreams. I am per- 
 fectly willing to serve either party in the Custom House, 
 if there is no hard work to be done, or will give up all 
 social ties and go abroad to inspect foreign consulships— 
 but to be called in to view the remains of the murdered, 
 the accidentally killed, the fellows fished from the river, 
 the suicides— bah 1 
 
 And yet it is a necessary office, and very luckily one 
 that will always fascinate and attract a sufficient number 
 of patriots to prevent the dread possibility of its ever 
 being vacant. 
 
 I have known a good many in my time, and 1 have found 
 that despite their calling, they generally possess a fund 
 of humor that surprises 3'ou. 
 
 It is rather grim humor, to be sure, but all humor can't 
 be light and volatile. It has its degrees of ponderousness 
 precisely as other things have. 
 
 I shall never forget one time in an Indiana town when 
 the coroner and myself— at that time I was collecting 
 items for a provincial paper— started to hold an inquest 
 upon a baby that had been found on a door-step. 
 
 It was a very little baby, and so four men did for the 
 jury. The law required more, perhaps, but as there was 
 no one to claim the child, and the town had to bury it, 
 there was quite enough expense clustering about the inci- 
 dent without going into a fabulous waste of time. 
 
 Such a pretty little baby, lying in its tiny coffin, it 
 seemed a child of wax, with its eyes closed like sensitive 
 flowers that had gone to sleep. 
 
 The inquest was held, the necessary papers made out, 
 the coroner's fee and those of the jurymen attended to, and 
 then the official and I, with the little box under his arm, 
 started for that part of the place where both his office 
 and that of the newspaper were. 
 
 I don't know why inquests should always be held in 
 taverns— but they are— any more than I know why every 
 body connected with an autopsy or an inquest arc willing 
 to take a drink on the slightest provocation; but they are. 
 
 This inquest had been held in a tavern, and the coroner 
 was slightly mixed. Uonesty compels mo to state that 
 I too had been looking upon the wine without caring 
 whether it was white or red. It was Bourbon wine, and, 
 as near u I remember, of a pale amber. 
 
 At any rate wo stopped at two or three places, and then 
 we had to sit down to rest, and then we stopped again. 
 
 Suddenly the coroner said: 
 
 " We've lost the baby 1" 
 
 And we had. The little box, scarce two feet long, which 
 had been wrapped up in a newspaper, was gone. 
 
 Have you ever gone back over the day's adventures of 
 an umbrella to see where you could possibly have left it ? 
 Well, we did that with reference to the baby. 
 
 Was it this saloon T Had it been that one t Slowly the 
 
 trail was worked back, blazing our way as we went, and 
 finally success crowned our efforts. A good-natured Boni- 
 face had the package, as he called it, stowed away under 
 his safe. 
 
 " I'm tired, coroner," I ejaculated when the excitement 
 was over, and I sank into the only chair in the bar. 
 
 " But what'll I sit on, Lynxy ?" said the official. 
 
 " That is good," cried out mine host. " Here's a coroner 
 with nothing to sit on !" 
 
 "By Jove," whispered my friend, " I'll sit on the baby." 
 
 And so he did, for the second time, holding an inquest 
 in the bar for the sake of getting a chair. Luckily, none 
 of our former jurymen were present. More papers were 
 made out, more fees charged up, and next morning my 
 journal had a prettily pathetic account of how in one day 
 the indefatigable coroner had been called upon to hold an 
 inquest in the cases of two bah s left in out-of-the-way 
 places by their heartless parents, who were either crimi- 
 nally responsible for their death or too poor to bury them. 
 No traces of violence, however, I added, were found upou 
 their bodies. 
 
 On the strength of this our editor pitched into the im- 
 morality of the age, and called upon the legislature to 
 change the name of the place to either Sodom or Gomor- 
 rah, since it was clearly drifting toward a brimstone 
 destruction. 
 
 The coroner and I were intimate lor years after, and 
 when he alluded to the circumstance he always said: 
 
 " Didn't we have fun, though ?" 
 
 I have introduced this cheerful little anecdote to show 
 you his idea of humor. 
 
 The coroner's office in New York is at the corner of Mul- 
 berry and Houston streets. It is utterly inadequate in 
 size for its purposes, and the sooner suitable apartments 
 are prepared for inquests the better all around. 
 
 When the Mrs. Hull inquest was held it was found that 
 the room was useless. One in Police Headquarters had to 
 be obtained. 
 
 There are a host of clerks attached to the department, 
 and each coroner has a physician whose business it is to 
 examine scientifically into the causes of the deaths they 
 are called upon to investigate. Thephysieians also preside 
 at those gay gatherings called autopsies. If the spirit can 
 look down upon the clay it has left it must feel aAvfully 
 cut up sometimes at the manner in which the remains 
 are treated. 
 
 The New York coroners and their physicians have their 
 carriages, and are so enabled to move about the city with 
 rapidity when the dread despatch requiring their pre- 
 sence is received. 
 
 In a great many instances they are met by a fierce op- 
 position on the part of the family of the deceased, who 
 will go to the extent of lying at a tremendous rate in 
 order to avoid the scandal and publicity of an inquest. 
 
 This is particularly so with swell people, one of whose 
 connections suddenly shoots himself or herself, or takes 
 poison. There are hundreds of instances every year in 
 this city where the public hears of just such irregular 
 transactions. 
 
 The family are aided in the deception only too fre- 
 quently by their private physician who gives a certificate 
 
CITY CHARACTERS. 
 
 51 
 
 twisting the genuine facts to sait the purposes of con- 
 cealment. 
 
 Some rural coroners are very energetic. They sit in the 
 corner grocery eating crackers out of the free barrel and 
 employ scouts to hunt up cases. 
 
 I do not believe that story, however, of the young man 
 who on being elected to the position opened the ball by 
 holding an inquest on the village cemetery and sending in 
 a lump-bill his fees. 
 
 Still such political corruption would be possible under 
 a " ring." In Tweed's time there was nothing to prevent 
 
 the coroners holding inquests on the statues in the Park, 
 or the pictures in the governor's room of the City Hall. 
 
 In Pennsylvania there is a place where four cross-roads 
 mark and separate as many counties, and it was there 
 that the most obliging man that ever lived met his death. 
 
 He was aeronaut, an un-Wise one. When his balloon 
 was a mile high he fell out, but with unerring precision 
 he struck the centre of the crossing lines and splashed 
 into four counties. 
 
 Making four inquests necessary. 
 
 And four coroners happy. 
 
 THE LUNCH FIEND. 
 
 The lunch fiend is always a man who has seen better 
 days. It is true that he has seen them a long while ago, 
 but the genuineness of the apparition cannot be impugned. 
 
 You can tell that by the way he puts mustard on abitof 
 cheese, or uses his spoon in adding the warm bean soup to 
 the forces of his somewhat gaunt composition. 
 
 True gentility is noticeable in every movement; while 
 watching him you are sure that you behold the wreck of 
 a former gorgeous life, and there steals over you that 
 peculiar sensation which you experience in Greece when 
 you stand among the moonlit pillars of some famous ruin. 
 
 Not that there is any moonshine about the lunch fiend. 
 He is a practical man, and terribly in earnest. 
 
 The particular fiend whom I wish to describe, and in 
 whom I have taken a sort of proprietary interest, is met 
 whenever business or pleasure calls me through the drink- 
 ing places of Nassau street, Beekman street and Park row. 
 
 He is tall and cadaverous, reminding one of Don Quixote 
 in a particularly hard-up condition. 
 
 His seedy black coat, which shines like an octogenarian 
 fish, is buttoned close to the throat. Sometimes it is 
 pinned. His battered hat always has the semblance of 
 having been brushed a long time the wrong way, the mis- 
 take having been rectified partially by a liberal applica- 
 tion of melted butter or stove polish. 
 
 He manages to cling to an eye-glass, fastened about his 
 neck by a piece of black cord strongly reminiscent of a 
 shoe string, and when in conversation with you upon 
 national politics, or some kindred subject, this eye-glass 
 is twirled with all the grace of the days when he had no 
 further use for its aid than to see if the bank-notes he re- 
 ceived in change were good. 
 
 My gentle fiend is always poor in the matter of shoes, 
 but there is noticeable an attempt at polishing them 
 which again bespeaks the gentleman in distress. 
 
 When I enter a place where he la I find him perusing 
 the newspaper. He is a great reader, quite a literary per- 
 son in fact, and he would as lief miss the drawing of the 
 soup or stew lottery of each saloon he visits as not keep 
 posted on the affairs of the day. 
 
 By knowing all about the massacre of the English at Ca 
 bul he is cock-sure of an invite from the Tom-gin Londoner 
 who comes in promptly at twelve o'clock, and his ac- 
 quaintance with the circumstance of the death of Baron 
 Rothschild actually induced the proprietor of a Chatham 
 street clothing emporium to stand a beer. The Israelitish 
 gentleman went back to his emporium, it is true, and 
 marked up the price of an overcoat ten cents, but with 
 that we have nothing to do. 
 
 At eleven o'clock lunch is ready. The fiend does not 
 make any hasty or undignified move. He calmly reads on 
 
 as if oblivious to the fact. But he is not. After the first 
 hungry battalion has retired from the attack he rises to 
 his feet, saunters toward the door, ai.d then turns in an 
 easy, careless way always denoting the man whose time 
 is his own. 
 
 It is then that he espies the lunch as if now for the first 
 time, and he goes up to inspect it with the slow but steady 
 step of death. 
 
 In another moment he is toying over a piece of bread 
 and trifling with his soup. As the result of the toying 
 and the trifling both disappear completely. 
 
 Now he is ready for the second place on the list, where 
 they have beef stew. In the soup saloon he is sometimes 
 dealt out the lunch when he hasn't played in at the bar, 
 but when the savory stew is dispensed a rigid code is 
 maintained. 
 
 It becomes necessary then to obtain either five cents or 
 to run across an angel. Both angels and half -dimes are 
 scarce in this work-a-day world, especially when you 
 want them. It is sometimes so rough in this particular 
 with my friend that even on the coldest days he is forced 
 to contemplate the warm and smoky stew disappearing 
 down the throats of those about him without his even 
 being able to manage a plateful himself. 
 
 Was the position of Tautalus any worse than this? I 
 feel sure that it was not. By a singular combination of 
 disastrous circumstances this always happens when the 
 stew that he likes best is the programme of the day, the 
 mountainous mutton stew, with the red carrots casting a 
 luminous glow over it. 
 
 But let us imagine the lunch fiend under happier au- 
 spices. Behold him, then, with a plate of the steaming 
 compound in his hand ! 
 
 Let him be ever so hungry and he will not forget the 
 genteel style of eating. Others may gulp and bolt, but 
 you can never lell that the lunch fiend is really enjoying 
 the dish before him. And yet, God help him, the misera- 
 ble repast may be his breakfast, dinner and supper com- 
 bined. 
 
 He harpoons the bits of potato lazily and pursues the 
 pieces of meat in a diUetante style which means that he is 
 really doing wrong in spoiling his appetite for dinner. 
 He never fails to create this impression, and the more 
 lunches he succeeds in coralling, the better and more nat- 
 urally he can act the role. 
 
 The lunch harvest has to be reaped between about 
 1 a. m. and 2 p. m. There is no more until a hot midnight 
 lunch is served in some down-town places. 
 
 When the dishes and soup-tureens are taken away the 
 fiend disappears. He is really a part of the idea, and he 
 becomes strangely out of place the moment all traces of 
 
53 
 
 CHAR A CTERS. 
 
 the repast are removed and the saloon settles down to a 
 strictly gin trade. 
 
 Where does he go? Let us follow him as he shambles 
 down Frankfort street, and so find a miserable tenement 
 in Rose street, one of whose wretched garret rooms he 
 inhabits. 
 
 On the dirty window-sill are ranged bits of bread and 
 cubes of cheese. He adds to this stock as he comes in, 
 and contemplates it with complacency, and then throws 
 himself upon the sickening apology for a bed. 
 
 This is the home of the lunch fiend. Fetid, clammy 
 and close in the clam-chowder time of summer; biting 
 cold, dreary and damp in the bean-soup days of winter. 
 
 Here he lives with remorse, rats and vermin, dreaming 
 
 I over his shattered past like a child contemplating a vase 
 it had broken. 
 Every day he issues forth to obtain his food, the coat 
 j buttoned tight to the chin, the eye-glass twirling, the silk 
 hat shining in the sun. He is an actor there playing his 
 little part. It is hard work sometimes, and but scanty 
 prizes are won. Still, taking one day with another, he 
 fares not so badly. The saloons are his club, he has the 
 papers, he is sure of lunch and a reasonable quantity of 
 rum. 
 
 Some morning a busy, bustling man comes to inquire 
 for him of the Dutch landlady. He don't speak of the 
 fiend by name, but want's to knows where the body is. 
 It's his first and last visitor— the coroner 
 
 THE BROADWAY STAGE DRIVER. 
 
 It is a curious fact, but none the less true, that a Broad- 
 way stage driver is built on entirely different principles 
 from those used in the construction of the rest of man- 
 kind. 
 
 When a cannon ball strikes me, as it frequently has in 
 my warlike career, it tears its way among flesh, nerves 
 and muscle. Aimed at the stage driver, the cannon ball 
 would be baffled; it would impinge upon the surface of 
 the semblance of humanity, but would hastily glide off 
 in a tangentical line of disgust. 
 
 Why ? Because the driver in question is constructed of 
 boiler iron, whalebone and tanned leather. Every year's 
 experience and exposure only serve to harden his frame. 
 When at last death beckons him from his box seat, he 
 quietly throws his lines across the horses, and without 
 suffering any illness, but merely dying of old age, he 
 passes to that shadowy land where it is his day off all the 
 time. 
 
 Although there are no statistics to consult, I take it that 
 the average age of a well-seasoned stage driver is about 
 two hundred years. I know that a great many I have 
 ridden with have Riven me personal reminiscences of 
 famous people whom they could not possibly have known 
 unless such was the case. Methuselah was evidently in 
 the "buss" line, which readily explains the green old 
 age to which he attained. There may, indeed, have been 
 omnibi (how's that?) at an earlier stage even than his. 
 Do we not read that Adam and Eve were driven from the 
 Oarden of Eden ? 
 
 The stage driver has generally been at the business a9 
 man and boy all his life. If you should take him from 
 hia seat and lock hnn up in a sandal wood box for ten 
 years, he would still smell like a horse blanket at the ex- 
 piration of that period of time. Although there may be 
 epochs in his career when he sat between the spider- 
 spoked wheels of a trotting sulky, and thereby achieved 
 the reputation of being a fast driver, still his actions 
 have always been of a conservative order, and he has 
 never ceased to advocate the maintenance of a stable 
 government. 
 
 I dearly love to ride alongside of these old curmud- 
 geons, and listen to their stories of the past. There is 
 scarcely one on the Broadway lines— I am not speaking 
 of the young drivers— who does not remember Walt Whit- 
 man and the eccentric freak which took possession of 
 him when he drove a Fulton Ferry stage for several 
 
 weeks. He gave it up to continue the writing of poetry, 
 and therebj , in my humble estimation, spoiled a very 
 good driver to make an indifferent poet. 
 
 This may sound like sacrilege, but I can't help it. I 
 have frequently seen catalogues of hardware stores tLat 
 possessed as much rythm and poetical fancy as are to be 
 found in some of the effusions of the author of " Leaves 
 of Grass." 
 
 But perhaps he became a stage driver in order to foster 
 the divine gift. Victor Hugo never misses his daily ride 
 on top of one of the busses that ply up and down the 
 boulevards, and has admitted that he composes there. 
 The elevation, the untrammelled view and the fresh air, 
 so different from that inside, undoubtedly do combine to 
 produce an agreeable acceleration of spirits. If it is a 
 lovely spring morning, with the sun tooling his golden 
 " drag ■' across the wastes of blue o'erhead, and the birds 
 are singing in the trees of the various parks, you are 
 dead sure to enthuse to the extent of tipping his " nibs " 
 a quarter, and becoming extraordinarily interested in his 
 daily life. 
 
 How much does he get? How long does he drive? 
 When did he first begin? Does he like it? These and a 
 thousand other questions you ask the jehu, and as his re- 
 plies indicate as hard a life as you would wish your dear- 
 est enemy to lead, you become terribly indignant at the 
 ill arranged condition of society which permits such out- 
 rages, and resolve to write a scathing letter to the news- 
 papers on the subject. But you never do. 
 
 We also sound the driver on the Slawson box idea. The 
 old man is bitterly opposed to the box and the money- 
 package system which it inaugurated. Not that there 
 was ever the stage driver who knocked down a cent' 
 Only that the great change Implied in the box means less 
 change implied in the driver. This is ;i rather paradoxi- 
 cal statement, and I myself must confess that I don't 
 quite understand it, but there is no denying the fact that 
 all these honest whips flourished exceedingly up to the 
 time when smarty Slawson sold his invention to the vari- 
 ous companies. Then they commenced to complain of 
 hard times. 
 
 In bad weather the driver has the top of the 'bus all to 
 himself. It is then, on days when the snow swirls about 
 him, and the whips of the wind that lash his tace are 
 tipped with hail, th;it his peculiar composition of boiler 
 iron, whalebone and tanned leather stands him in good 
 
CITY CHARACTERS. 
 
 53 
 
 stead. With four plunging horses to manage, and fingers 
 benumbed with the biting cold, driving a 'bus through 
 the crowded Broadway becomes a task reauiring at once 
 the delicate perception of the fencing master and the 
 hardihood of an Aleutian seal fisher. It is no wonder 
 that when he gets down at the stables he goes straight to 
 the nearest saloon and tosses off a tumblerful of rye. An 
 ordinary mortal could not survive the oraeal of more 
 than one trip on the top of a Broadway 'bus during a mid- 
 winter storm 
 
 A stage driver who has not handled horses for at least 
 forty years is of no account. The old boys look upon him 
 as a green nand, and are never surprised when they hear 
 that one of these novices has lost a wheel, or been badly 
 damaged on the port bow by a truck. The driver with 
 whom I am most intimately acquainted belongs to the 
 Twenty-Third street and Ninth avenue line, and I remem- 
 ber that when riding with him one morning last May, be 
 spoke very hitterly about the discharge of an old stager, 
 a friend of his, and the substitution of a horse-car driver 
 whose experience even in that ignoble field had extended 
 over twelve years only. 
 
 My friend resembles the elder teller in the multiplicity 
 of the the coats he wears during the inclement weather. 
 I asked him once if he did it to imitate Weller. 
 
 "Whose Weller?" he replied. 
 
 " He was a famous driver,"* I answered. 
 
 "Never heard of him. Guess he must have belonged 
 on the Fourth avenue line. Xever drove a stage from 
 our place anyhow. " ' 
 
 When the Coaching Club parades, the Broadway 
 
 drivers, and especially those who go up Fifth avenue, 
 never fail to samte Col. Delancey Kane and the rest of 
 the heavy swells who handle the reins j ust f or fun. It is 
 recognized at once that all drivers belong to a common 
 fraternity, the difference being simply in finely gradu- 
 ated degrees. They do not salute Col. Delancey Kane on 
 account of his wealth and social position, but simply be- 
 cause he knows how to drive and handle the whip grace- 
 fully. 
 
 These omnibus drivers have a mutual benefit associa- 
 tion which looks after them when they are sick. This 
 rarely occurs, however. Horrible as the life is in its 
 lengths of hours upon the box, in its absolute dearth of 
 times for proper rest and recreation, the men seem to be 
 accustomed to it, and to bear its rigors with the utmost 
 ease. 
 
 It has no future. What the driver is to-day he will be, 
 if alive, twenty years from now. There is no chance to 
 save money, or to lay up anything more substantial than 
 an umbrella for that inevitable rainy day which glowers 
 before all of us. 
 
 It is only a question of time when the stage lines will 
 be abolished. Let us trust that they will last as long as 
 the present generation of drivers, for I can conceive no 
 more sad spectacle than one of them out of work. 
 
 In the meantime, when you ride on top, do the correct 
 thing, and utterly ignore the existence of the Slawson 
 box. By so doing you show yourself to be a person of 
 spirit: and if you should run connter to the interests of 
 the company, why that is their lookout, not yours. 
 
 THE BANK CLERK. 
 
 In the clerking world the bank clerk ia the aristocrat, j 
 I have made a careful study of hi:a, beir.^' particularly 
 favored once by living in a house where it was possible to 
 compare him wi:h a dry goods tosser, and it required but 
 the space of a dinner hour to see that one was " fine cut " 
 and the other " plug." 
 
 The bank clerk lives constantly in an atmosphere of 
 luxury. The men he meets during the day are monied 
 individuals, from the millionaire notch down. If he is in 
 the cash department he handles greenbacks so constantly 
 that the bills passing through his hands actually lose 
 their monetary value, and become to him as so much 
 merchandise. 
 
 His work is light and he is well paid for it. The situa- 
 tion is a life one if he behaves himself, and as the old 
 roosters drop from their stools into their coffins he ad- 
 vances along the line of promotion. 
 
 No wonder, then, that he is so many karats finer than 
 the miserable beings who decorate Broadway windows 
 ■with dry goods, or lug bolts of cloths about from early 
 morning until candle-light, and all for a salary that is a 
 premium on dishonesty. 
 
 I am never surprised when I read about a clerk in one of 
 the Grand street stores, for instance, being detected in 
 stealing si k or any other trifle. Many of them are mar- 
 ried, and since the highest salary paid to the rank and file 
 would hardly keep a man and a dog respectably, the prob- 
 lem of supporting a family on it is one that is tragically 
 ridiculous. 
 
 Now our natty bank clerk labors under none of these 
 disadvantages. When he steals— and I regret to state that 
 there have been such instances placed upon record— it is 
 generally to cover up a flyer that he has been having in 
 Wall street. He shoots a second golden barbed arrow in 
 order to find the first. 
 
 In his leisure hours the bank clerk is a great society or 
 sporting man, just as his fancy determines. He lives up 
 town in a first-class boarding house. He is very particular 
 about his dress, generally wearing the English style of 
 clothes which the brokers affect. If ne is not calling apon 
 the ladies in the evening he is at the theatre, or in some 
 billiard hall where he has a private cue. Too frequently 
 he doesn't get home until very late, and where this hap- 
 pens it is necessary for him to have a couple of brandies 
 and soda in the morning before he can get his hand in 
 steady writing trim. 
 
 I must not be understood as representing a young man 
 fond of fast life in limited doses and holding him forth as 
 a specimen of the fraternity. Every New York bank 
 clerk is not necessarily fond of beer and billiards any 
 more than every treasurer of a Fall River mill is an 
 honest man. But the conservative, respectable, always 
 home-to-dinner sort have not come my way much, and 
 I can only speak of the bank clerk as I have found Him. 
 
 In two or three instances I have known tellers and book- 
 keepers who would suddenly be seized with a most in- 
 tense desire to go to Europe and gaze upon the monu- 
 mental memoranda of antiquity; and th°re have been 
 
54 
 
 CITY CHARACTERS. 
 
 others, whom I have met, whose greatest ambition at the 
 time In question was to get to Canada and see whether 
 the Governor-General was running the Dominion in a 
 way that would please Mrs. Victoria. 
 
 By a singular coincidence the accounts of these gentle- 
 men would be found mixed. 
 
 A pure case of tangled threads among the gold. Yes; 
 and among the silver and the greenbacks and negotiable 
 securities. 
 
 The harsh, outside world calls this stealing, but it is not 
 so looked upon by the banking fraternity. It's an "ir- 
 regularity" at the worst. In a few rare cases punishment 
 is meted out, but in the majority of instances the diffi- 
 culty is smoothed over by partial restitution, and the 
 sponge of compromise wipes out all record of the crime. 
 
 See how nicely the teller of the latest robbed bank kept 
 an exact account of the balances he bled, in order to 
 allow his outside "pal ' ' to overdraw. He had it all down 
 in a neat, little book, even to the pennies. The bank, no 
 doubt, felt very grateful over this evidence of care, which 
 saved them the expense of an expert. 
 
 When these young men do begin to speculate on Wall 
 street with the funds of the institution they do it in an 
 elegant manner and on the wholesale plan. False balance 
 sheets, doctored accounts, hypothecation of bonds— these 
 are the instruments of their security while the operations 
 are in progress. When it gets too warm, or when the 
 time draws near for the government examiner from 
 Washington to put in an appearance, then they begin to 
 study up the climate of Canada or to invest in European 
 guide-books. 
 
 Out in the mining towns of the West there is many a 
 bank clerk wearing a woollen shirt, drinking, shooting, 
 
 gambling with the rest of them, who used to be a pink of 
 perfection in dress as he stood behind the glass barrier in 
 the down-town bank. 
 
 "What brought you here, Charley ? " I asked one of them 
 I met in Colorado some years ago. "Tell me her name.'' 
 
 I felt sure tbat it was a woman scrape because my 
 friend was a most decided beau, and had more elegant 
 womena doring him than would be necessary for the 
 Sultan's harem. 
 
 " 'Twasn't a petticoat,'" he answered. "I simply went 
 in to declare a bigger dividend than the bank could, and 
 it kind of broke me up. Let's liquor." 
 
 Women, however are the cause of the ruin of ninety 
 per cent, of confidential clerks, whether employed in 
 banks or breweries, who go astray. I do not mean sweet- 
 j hearts upon whom presents are lavished, or wives who 
 are allowed to indulge their dressing tastes to the most 
 extravagant degree. The feminines I have in view are 
 the shady creatures who must be established in grand 
 style, who look unon money as a necessity, and who will 
 fly to another cage the moment the gold wears from the 
 bars of the one in which they are. 
 
 A young man in the Tombs, he was a bank clerk, con- 
 fessed to me that his girl had been the cause of his down- 
 fall. 
 
 "She ordered me to raise money somehow," he said, 
 "and I tried to." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "I raised a hundred-dollar check to a thousand, and 
 here lam." 
 
 Moral— Raise up a bank check in the way it should not 
 go, and there will generally be trouble. 
 
 THE BOLD MILITIAMAN. 
 
 Although all ray tendencies are naturally of a war-like | 
 complexion— to that degree, indeed, that I would sooner j 
 smell gunpowder than live near a Williamsburgh oil re- j 
 finery— still I never gushed much over the militia. 
 
 I recognize the importance of the institution, of course, 
 and no one is more enthusiastic than myself when there 
 is a review being held and the splendid " 7th " comes 
 swinging down Broadway, with the ladies waving hand- 
 kerchiefs from store windows and hotel balconies, and 
 the Flemings of the police clubbing, jabbing and poking 
 those who unfortunately occupy the" front line of spec- 
 tators. 
 
 It is needless for me to state that I was a constant 
 visitor at the 7th's Armory Fair. My martial form loomed 
 up among other warriors to an embarrassing point of 
 notoriety, and in the evening I wore all my Mexican and 
 Seminole decorations. I flatter myself that the impres- 
 Bion I created among the fair sex can be qualified by no 
 other adjective than " stunning." 
 
 That is the night they roped me into six raffles, or draw- 
 ings. I wanted a meerschaum pipe, and I succeeded in 
 Winning a blue satin pin-cushion. 
 
 It has always Im hi BO W Ltb DM in thislife; I never loved 
 a dear gazelle, and, in fact, I wouldn't have one of them 
 about to cheer me with its coal-black eye, or to perform 
 any other service, and so I can't use that somewhat trite 
 quotation to express disappointment; but I never sighed 
 
 figuratively for a meerschaum that it didn't turn into a 
 pin-cushion. 
 
 My experience was a contribution to the success of the 
 fair and I do not begrudge it. There remains now the 
 difficult problem of presenting this pin-cushion to some 
 young woman in a manner at once so polite and yet dis- 
 tant that she may not detect in it any amatory intent 
 either immediate or prospective. 
 
 Perhaps my dislike for the militia had its origin in 
 rooming once with a yoang man who had drilling musters 
 and roll-calls on the brain. This was a good while ago, 
 before I had won my own spurs on the genuine tented 
 field. Scott's tactics were j ust being superseded by Har- 
 dee's, and I was forced to listen to explanations touching 
 the differences to be noticed in the drill details. The 
 position of the little finger in Its relation to the seam of 
 the pantaloons always struck mo then as something on 
 which the fate of battles, and consequently that of 
 nations, must naturally depend, so profuse were the 
 directions in the book touching such positions. 
 
 But it wasn't all this nunutiju that ennuinl me. Too 
 much drilling is naturally a bore, but I stood it manfully. 
 It was w hen the .\ oung warrior came home drunk, which 
 was every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and insisted 
 upon getting into bed with n»e " accoutred as he was," 
 bayonet and all, that I kicked. His continually borrow- 
 ing my white trousers on inspection days and bringing 
 
CITY CHARACTERS. 
 
 55 
 
 just as he had sounded the signal for a charge upon the 
 enemy I 
 
 Jim Fisk was a colonel, but when the draft riots hap- 
 pened, he found that his exalted position didn't enable 
 him to get over back-yard fences any faster than if he 
 had been a mere private. 
 
 It's very nice, also, to go down Broadway at the head of 
 your regiment, but even then all a man's joy may be dissi- 
 pated by his horse. Better far to own your horse and ac- 
 custom him to the circumstances of war, but every one 
 can't do that, and when it comes to trying to make a 
 hired Second avenue car steed assume the gait of a 
 trooper's charger the result is not always satisfactory. 
 
 It's better, however, than being astride of a milkman's 
 Rosinaute, for they want to dash down every street that 
 forms a part of their daily route. 
 
 There is one advantage about being a militiaman that 
 mustn't be overlooked. All the handsome young fellows 
 are great favorites with the ladies. I found it to be the 
 case when I was young, and even now when I dress up to 
 go to the annual dinner of the 1812 veterans— but no mat- 
 ter. There is something in the military idea which par- 
 ticularly suits the feminine mind. In the opera of "La 
 Grande Duchesse ' this adoration is beautifully expressed 
 by the instantaneous admiration conceived for Fritz by 
 the Duchesse. It's very nice to be that kind of a soldier. 
 
 The conservative, peacable element is a strong one in 
 the community and must be respected. There are Quaker 
 societies who wish our army reduced, and you see how 
 elegantly it is being done by the Ute and other Indians. 
 
 Bobby Burns, the poet, was opposed to all soldiering. 
 Do you not remember that verse : 
 
 " Let those who wish to go to war. 
 Give me my peace and plenty— 
 I'd rather be the life of one, 
 Than be the death of twenty." 
 
 I am afraid that Bobby was very industrious in^ living 
 up to the principles of these lines. 
 
 them home to me with mud up to the waist — a pure waste 
 of mud— was also annoying. 
 
 Then his conversation. Like all men with a hobby, he 
 became a nuisance. The squad, the company, the regi- 
 ment, were never-failing subjects for his martial mono- 
 iogue. The sudden coming to the house of a young lady 
 who had a brother in the navy was hailed with delight. 
 We looked upon the circumstance as an antidote for the 
 military poison, and so applied it. Everything became 
 nautical, much to our militiaman's intense disgust. The 
 young ladies sang " A Life on the Ocean 'Wave,'* and I 
 went to the extravagance of doing the hornpipe for them 
 in the most approved foc'st'le style. 
 
 I don't wish anyone to understand that I am decrying 
 the militia system. I consider the National Guard of the 
 State of New York an institution of which to be proud, 
 while the drill experience of the armory is undeniably 
 a good thing physically for our hollow-breasted, narrow- 
 chested young men, whose chief exercise during the day 
 would appear to consist in hopping from one high stool 
 to another, not exactly like the chamois, because there 
 are no stools in the Alps for the chamois to hoop on, but 
 in their general style. It gives the young guardsman an 
 erect attitude and an idea of discipline which is in itself 
 a valuable acquisition. I merely meant in my seemingly 
 derogatory remarks to express my own sentiments on the 
 subject. Having waded in blood I naturally long for a 
 life of peace. Knowing what it was to serve and com- 
 mand, I now appreciate the most untrammelled liberty. 
 If I belonged to a regiment i would be paying fines con- 
 tinually, and would be robbed of the pleasure of sitting in 
 the windows with the pretty girls and watching the gal- 
 lant fellows go by. 
 
 I wouldn't mind being a colonel, but even the pomp and 
 glory of that position are only maintained at an immense 
 expense. It is a very responsible position, too. You are 
 answerable for the conduct of your men. Think of the 
 embarrassing attitudejn which Colonel Charles Spencer 
 would be placed should a loaded brewery wagon pass by 
 
 THE THEATRICAL PRESS AGENT. 
 
 The press agent of a show or a star Is as different from 
 himself in both instances, when working in the city and 
 "on the road " respectively, as if he were two human 
 beings, a sort of adjustable Siamese twins, for instance. 
 
 In the rural districts getting newspaper notices for the 
 attraction he represents is comparatively easy work. The 
 most influential provincial journals will have no hesi- 
 tancy in printing the most complimentary paragraphs 
 provided the agent does the correct thing in the waj - of 
 drinks, cigars and tickets. 
 
 And of course the agent does the correct thing. That's 
 what he is there for. The " local " editor climbs to his 
 sanctum, full of his native rum, and cheerfully mentions 
 that the genial Mr. Blank paid them the compliment of a 
 visit yesterday and unfolded the scheme of the circus, or 
 theat.ical combination, as the case may be, which is 
 shortly to honor the town with a visit. Then the editor 
 becomes eloquent, and hopes that every man and woman 
 in the place will look upon the purchase of a ticket for the 
 entertainment as a duty but a trifle less sacred than send- 
 ing in back subscriptions and the formation of newspapo- 
 rial clubs for the future. 
 
 This is the granger way, and it works elegantly every- 
 where save at Salt Lake City. Poor Artemus Ward used 
 to say that after the editors and their families got seated 
 there were only about four 25-cent chairs left for the pay- 
 ing public. 
 
 In a big city like New York the duties of the theatrical 
 press agent become more varied and more difficult. There 
 is a certain amount of hack noticing which the theatres 
 expect and get in a perfectly legitimate way. Taking the 
 advertisements into consideration, it is a fair case of 
 quid pro q»o. But to work up a fancy sensation, to crea-.c 
 a stir, to warm a dying idea into fitful brilliancy— these 
 are the problems which engross the minds of the inge- 
 nious gentlemen whose duty it is, no matter how crowded 
 the papers may be with startling locals or important cable 
 dispatches, to inform the reading world that the eminent 
 tragedian, the champion conjurer or the five-legged horse 
 is each in his or its way on exhibition at the well known, 
 etc., where every evening and on Saturday afternoons, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Some theatrical stars have a monotonous way of being 
 advertised. The little dodge of Clara Morris is to have 
 
56 
 
 CITY CHARACTERS. 
 
 her horse run away. When that is a bit stale she throws 
 open her bedroom doors and lets the entire world know 
 how sick she is. I do not think that her agent is a person 
 of good taste. 
 
 One of the most threadbare devices resorted to by agents 
 in order to keep the names of histrionic people before the 
 world is the published announcement of the theft of their 
 jewels. If we believed every story of this kind we would 
 have to credit the show world with the possession of more 
 gems than are to be found in Golconda and the South 
 African fields combined. 
 
 One of Mapleson's prima's— Mile. Ambre — has been 
 puffed exceedingly, both as the possessor of fabulously 
 valuable diamonds and as the ex-mistrcss of the King of 
 Holland. I have seen her. The diamonds are all there, 
 but she isn't. I do not think the King of Holland a person 
 very difficult to suit. 
 
 Gerster can't come to this country owing to the fact 
 that she doesn't want the baby rocked in the cradle of 
 the deep, and immediately the press agent starts down to 
 Park row to work up Marimon, who is coming over in her 
 stead. We are told how often she was seasick, and what 
 dreams of shipwreck dire troubled the slumbers of her 
 French maid. All this is high art, and with people of im- 
 portance like pnmas it is not difficult to get the gossip in 
 the papers. People like to read these things. 
 
 Now puffing an electric eel or an educated pig is quite a 
 different affair. The king at this sort of business is Mr. 
 " Tody " Hamilton. He actually revels in forcing an un- 
 attraction before the people, and is never so high-spirited 
 as when the obtaining of one line even seems an impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 It was he who educated the oysters at the Aquarium to 
 follow him all about the building, and not in the form of 
 a box stew either. That was wonderful enough, and at- 
 tracted crowds, but when he induced them to whistle 
 tunes and had scientists there from all over and two or 
 three blocks further still to study the phenomenon while 
 the operatic notices were cut down in the dailies to make 
 room for the oysters, he accomplished his masterpiece of 
 agitation. 
 
 I never heard them whistle, but then I was never there 
 on a day when the temperature was just right. Mr. 
 Hamilton's oysters were very like the spirits you meet at 
 25 cent seances in Grand street. They wouldn't perform 
 under disturbing circumstances. 
 
 The press-agent is continually writing manifold notices 
 
 or cooking up novel forms of advertisements, but still he 
 can always spare time, if it's with a newspaper man, to 
 play a game of billiards or take a drink. Properly man- 
 aged shows allow him a fund for down-town expenses. 
 No one is bribed, no vulgar business promises are made 
 one way or the other, but the rosy reflex of an agreeable 
 hour spent with an entertaining gentleman, and they are 
 all entertaining, is often the light by which a generous 
 notice is given that otherwise would have remained un- 
 penned. 
 
 All critics are not the pirates that Mr. Boucicault, the 
 monumental literary footpad of the world, would have 
 you believe, and they frequently do what the press-agent 
 desires, simply as the evolution of a kindlj- nature, stirred 
 to the deed by the recent contact with the agent. 
 
 It is absolutely necessary to be a successful agent that 
 one should lie faster than any horse in the stable of Mr. 
 Bonner can trot, and the lie must be told with great 
 sauvity. 
 
 "Didn't get those tickets! You surprise me. I put 
 them up in an envelope, addressed them, and gave them 
 to the boy myself." 
 
 That's what he says on the spur of the moment when 
 you remind him of an utterly forgotten promise. Other 
 tickets come post-haste, with a note stating that although 
 the boy was the only support of a widowed mother, who 
 had been guilt3 r of the baby act on nine other occasions, 
 you had discharged him after forcing a confession from 
 him that he had sold your tickets to a speculator. 
 
 You know the agent well, and do not feel worried about 
 the widowed mother and her starving brood. 
 
 All systematic agents keep scrap-books in which printed 
 notices of the play or curiosity are entered. Arranging 
 these notices is quite an art. The Daily Rollimj-Pin, for 
 instance, says : 
 
 " Perhaps the worst play ever written was produced last 
 night by the Booby Troupe. As we yawned in our seat 
 over its blatant nonsense *"d stupid situations we sighed 
 for the good old days of the drama, when a play possessed 
 sterling merit, logical action, and witty dialogue." 
 
 Now in saving this notice you dou't want to greedy 
 with it. You simply paste in : 
 
 " Sterling merit, logical action, and witty dialogue."— 
 Daily Rollimj-Pin. 
 
 This is the correct and only way. I have been an agent 
 myself, and understand the extraction of honey from 
 galL 
 
 THE PAWNBROKER. 
 
 At this time of the year the pawnbroker is a very handy 
 relative. Y<m are absolutely nothing without money, and 
 it is he who is only too willing to turn, us Mr. Midas used 
 to do, any of your temporal possessions into gold. 
 
 Not so willing as he used to be. The loaning trade hasn't 
 made many advances lately. People have become so 
 thoroughly broke that the per centage of chance of their 
 ever turning up to redeem pledged articles has steadily 
 decreased, and the capitalist of the three golden balls has 
 not been slow to appreciate the situation. 
 
 His principal trade is his interest, and ?o philanthropic 
 is the pawnbroker, despite the horrid things that have 
 
 been said of him, that he much prefers to have prosperity 
 so fall upon you as to enable you to take out whatsoever 
 yon may have Intrusted to his care. Still the revival of 
 trade hai had its effect in making the business brisk. It 
 is generally so, anyhow, at this tune of the year. Ducats 
 are a necessity, and if the chess problem of life can be 
 brought any nearer a satisfactory Solution by the sacrifice 
 involved in a " pawn,'' it is bound to be done. 
 
 Many estimable citizens who have a Mack of tickets in 
 the deepest recesses of their attenuated pocketbooks pro- 
 fess to look upon the entire system of pledging household 
 and personal goods as a disreputable one. I do not 
 
CITY CHAR A CTERS. 
 
 57 
 
 None of the Lynxes do. At this very moment there re- 
 poses in a Second avenue establishmentof advanced ideas 
 one of my most magnificent uniforms. Let me see— who 
 was it I cut down in that suit? It was the tailor— $80 to 
 to $60, and I remember that the fight was terrific. 
 
 But why is my martial cloak and all the rest of it in 
 the pawn shop? Is it because I needed money? No. 
 Those military garments are there to be taken care of. 
 When myself and the other warriors meet for a dinner I 
 get them out. The occasion passed, in they go. In this 
 way the pawnbroker becomes to me a valet who takes 
 care of my clothes. It gives me more room in my humble 
 apartment for brain expansion and the handling of my 
 health lift. 
 
 Originally the pawnbrokers came from Italy, and that 
 accounts for there being so many in Mulberry street and 
 all through the Italian quarter. The precise significance 
 of the three ball game they play with you has never been 
 explained. It is popularly considered as an exemplifica- 
 tion of the fact that it is two to one that the capitalist 
 will get the advantage of you. I cannot vouch for this. 
 
 There are many of the Hebrew children turning the 
 nimble sixpence as pawnbrokers. In each instance the 
 method of conducting business is precisely the same. 
 Say the article is a watch, upon which you want $15. 
 
 The man behind the counter will begin to shake his 
 head before you get in the door at all. That means he is 
 up to your little tricks, and is well aware that you intend 
 to endeavor to gouge him in some way. 
 
 When you take the watch out of your pocket the pawn- 
 broker groans. This suspicious attitude of his is contag- 
 ious, and vou really begin to feel that you are a thief, say 
 a thief trying to get over " a fence." 
 
 He picks up the watch deprecatinglv, groaning more 
 and more, and really becoming sq miserable that sym- 
 pathy is excited for him. He must be ill. The rolling of 
 the eyes and the uplifted hands indicate pain in the 
 6tomach. But it isn't anything of the kind. It's a pan- 
 tomimic expression of an affection of the money chest. 
 
 14 Oh 1 Mein Gott in Himmel, vot you vant on this 
 vatch ?" 
 
 " Fifteen dollars !" 
 
 M Mosish 1 Mosish 1 Koomm sie hier— quick Mosish. He 
 vants fifteen dollars !" 
 
 Mosish falls down in a fit, and is dragged into the next 
 room. He has been sickly since his birth and any sudden 
 shock upsets him. 
 
 " I tell you vat it is," the pawnbroker finally remarks, 
 " I give you one dollar, seventy-five." And he groans all 
 the time he makes out the ticket. 
 
 This is the regular style with one kind of pawnbrokers. 
 Of course, they vary. 
 
 It isn't always necessary to have a store when you set 
 up for a pawnbroker. If you prefer it you can just go 
 around through the citv, quietly, in a social way, ar- 
 ranging business during an afternoon's call, and leading 
 altogether a more agreeable life than the man of the shop. 
 
 Many ladies patronize these peripatetic lenders of coin, 
 the articles pledged being jewels generally. They also 
 catch the servant girls and coachmen for small transac- 
 tions. 
 
 Israelites do not monopolize the trade in New York by 
 any means. There are a great many English and Irish in 
 the business, and a few Yankees. It is a vocation, how- 
 ever, which seems to particularly suit the German Jew 
 character. They have the penetrating glance which tells 
 them at once how much they would be warranted in ad- 
 vancing upon a certain article. When they have settled 
 this in their mind they offer one half, and have the other 
 as a margin to fight over. 
 
 The shoddy pawnbrokers— the " fences "—they are the 
 ones who make money in that irregularly fast way known 
 as hand over fist. Being constantly aware of the fact 
 that they are liable to be visited by the police at any mo- 
 ment they give their villainous customers but little. A 
 set of silver that may have cost a murder, diamonds got- 
 ten at night in residences— all such goods are eagerly 
 taken but the burglar gets a beggarly amount. 
 
 The transaction once accomplished the "fence" loses 
 no time in getting rid of traceable stuff. Gold ornaments 
 are melted down and all dangerous goods are run off for 
 distant negotiation by agents. 
 
 There is no question about the cheek of the pawnbroker. 
 He will offer you the price of an oyster stew for 
 a hundred dollar pin, and frequently gets badly 
 "stuck" with "paste." When you get ahead of a 
 pawnbroker you want to put the date in red chalk on a 
 fence and then ask some one to help you celebrate the 
 glorious event. 
 
 The most monumental instance of the pawnbroker's 
 cheek was that afforded by the Boston dealer who re- 
 luctantly gave up Mrs. Hull's jewelry, upon which he had 
 paid her murderer, Chastine Cox, some money, and then 
 put in a plea for a share of the reward. 
 
 The laws regulating pawnbrokers differ in different 
 localities. In New York you have a year in which to re- 
 deem or renew, but in Philadelphia, for instance, it is a 
 question of four months. 
 
 It was ignorance of this fact which made it possible for 
 me, many years ago, to lose a watch which had been pre- 
 sented to me by the gentlemen of the office in which I had 
 been temporarily engaged, the gift expressing either 
 their joy or sorrow at my leaving. 
 
 It was beautifully inscribed with my name, etc., and so 
 elegant altogether that I deemed it too valuable to carry 
 during a season in which pickpockets were flourishing 
 alarmingly. 
 
 So I temporarily intrusted it to the guardianship of a 
 gentleman whose name was either Isaacs or Nathan 
 thinking I had a year to contemplate it in a position of 
 absolute security. 
 
 It was a good " going " watch and was " gone " at the 
 end of four months. 
 
68 
 
 CITY CHAR A CTERS. 
 
 THE REFORMED YOUNG MAE. 
 
 This is the only time I can sketch him at short range, 
 for during the new year that is about to dawn upon us he 
 generally melts into the ranks of ordinary mortals and 
 becomes lost as a distinctive character. 
 
 He is in our house, is the very youth in fact, I gave some 
 good advice to about political bets. It was yesterday 
 morning that he came to me as I was enjoying my cigar 
 in what our landlady calls the conservatory, although it 
 seems to me to be a particularly dirty extension-room de- 
 voted to a couple of tubs, two broken croquet mallets and 
 a flower pot, and said : 
 
 " Colonel, I want to confide in you.'' 
 
 "Ah, ha, my boy," I replied, acknowledging his mili- 
 tary salute, " you have come to the right place. I am a 
 perfect mine of confidences even at the present moment. 
 Buried here," and I tapped my chest, " are state secrets 
 the exposure of which would shake this country to its 
 center, while the New York Safe Deposit Company is as 
 nothing, when compared with me as a fiduciary agent 
 and repository of individual experiences. Go on my boy." 
 
 He paused awhile, as he naturally would under this 
 shot, and then said : 
 
 "You may have noticed that I have been drunk ever 
 since Christmas." 
 
 I told him that such was the privilege of a gentleman, 
 and that I had not noticed it. In fact part of the week 
 there had been storms all along the coast in my case, and 
 on this morning in question the sea was squally. 
 
 " I did it more or less deliberately," he went on to say, 
 " because I am going to swear off." 
 
 " No more beer, eh ? " 
 
 " No beer, gin, whisky or anything of that nature. 
 Only cider." 
 
 "Did you ever live long on cider?'* 
 
 " No— I have generally taken it as an element of the 
 drink called a "stone fence.' " 
 
 " But you have never grappled with the cider pure and 
 unadulterated?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Nor seen the stomach of the dead man opened by the 
 coroner? " 
 
 "What dead man? 
 
 "The cider drinker. You must know, my dear boy, 
 that the sudden stoppage of the use of fiery liquids and a 
 rush to cider is a reformatory experiment the result of 
 which you cannot certainly calculate. You must go slow, 
 my dear boy. You want to begin on very hard cider and 
 gradually work down to the temperance article. Then 
 you're all right." 
 
 Mr thanked me ever so much for this advice, and then 
 continued : 
 
 " I am going to reform also in money matters." 
 
 " You don't mean to say that you are going to give up 
 the practice of having any money ? " 
 
 I asked this question with peculiar emphasis. The 
 young man owes me a draw -poker debt of $7.50. 
 
 " oil, no— nothing like that. But I want some system, 
 I am going to Iniy B little book, and put down every item 
 of daily expense, just like Benjamin Franklin." 
 
 " You will keep a diary ? " 
 
 " I have bMO thinking of that too. I am going to buy a 
 pretty one for about six dollars, and precisely at mid- 
 night, when the old year shivers into the graveyard of the 
 lit-ekec'. — " 
 
 1 ' Come, young man, hold on a little. Have you had a 
 drink this morning ? " 
 
 " I've had two brandy cock-tails." 
 
 " That explains it. Goon." 
 
 " I mean I'll write my inmost thoughts, and all the 
 doings of the day. It will be a good thing to refer to in 
 after years." 
 
 " Have you ever kept a diary? " 
 
 " This is my virgin effort." 
 
 " And you never reformed before ? " 
 
 " I can't say that I have, but the sad and solemn mem. 
 ories of the dissipated past come up before one at this 
 time of the year, and the deeper nature of man " 
 
 I ins'.inctively moved over to a reasonable proximity 
 to one of the croquet mallets. When you are talking to a 
 young man who has had two brandy cock-tails before 
 breakfast, and he becomes poetical over his approaching 
 reformation you can't be too careful. These reformers 
 are peculiar. 
 
 " Y'ou will cultivate the mind also," I suggested— " no 
 more billiards, no bowling alley over in Fourth street? " 
 
 " No, sir— I have already had my name sent in to the 
 Pythagoras Debating Club of the Eastern Star Temper- 
 ance Lodge, No. 486, and I'm to speak next week on the 
 negative side of the question, ' Isn't it about time the 
 Czar of Russia took a tumble.' That is not the exact lan- 
 guage, but it covers the idea." 
 
 He told me of various other reforms he intends inaugu- 
 rating and then asked my advice on the entire subject. 
 I went in heavy on the high moral and came the stage 
 uncle magnificently, and when he left ine he was 
 strengthened in all his good resolves. 
 
 At this writing there are about one hundred thousand 
 young men who are going to imitate my young friend, 
 and turn over a new leaf. They will all be turned simul- 
 taneously and the noise they will make will sound like a 
 tempest roaring through a forest. 
 
 But will the reformed young men, the cider brigade, be 
 about Jan. 15th? I sincerely hope that each one will 
 still be drinking cider, keeping account of daily expenses 
 and writing up his little diary. But an experience of 
 many years leads me to the dismal prognostication that 
 eight-tenths of them will back-slide, and go on just as 
 they did before. 
 
 I have reformed myself every New Y'ear's day since I 
 was twenty years old, and I intend to do it again this 
 time. The only difference between now and when I was 
 much younger is that my reformation fades away about 
 noon Jan, 1st. 
 
 No, my dear young readers, believe an old man when 
 he states that New Y'ear's reformations are not worth a 
 continental, whatever that is. 
 
 If the reformation does not come from the soul inde- 
 pendent of the date of the day when it is put in practice, 
 it is not a genuine article. 
 
 I shall go to watch meeting on next Wednesday even- 
 in;,', and I shall roll into bed with an idea that I am about 
 to revolutionize my entire life. I may even buy a diary, 
 but before the work is over I will be using it as a scrap- 
 book, will be taking my " constitutional " as usual, and 
 will be too busy with what matters 1880 may have for 
 me to consider to experience even the faintest twinge of 
 remorse at my fall from «race. 
 
NEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 59 
 
 HARRY HILL'S. 
 
 Seeing a great city after the lamp-lighter has gone his 
 rounds has always heen a favorite amusement with those 
 sportsmen who combine a keen desire to hunt the elephant 
 with a natural disinclination to wander away from the 
 comforts of home. 
 
 Most fortunately for them a species of elephant has 
 heen evolved by the construction of such places as New 
 York, London and Paris, whose pursuit is always quite as 
 expensive as the search after the quadruped whose tusks 
 were invented so that we should have material out of 
 which to manufacture billiard balls, faro checks and other 
 articles of reriu and vice. 
 
 Being "an old rounder" I can also testify that the 
 quest of the metropolitan elephant is as exciting as that of 
 his African or Asiatic counterpart, and frequently more 
 dangei ous. 
 
 In the series of sketches which I propose to write for the 
 Gazette I will take the reader in a leisurely way through 
 the entire city, meeting him in imagination each week as 
 old Trinity marks midnight, and leaving him at such hour 
 as shall warrant his getting home in time to save his 
 reputation. 
 
 We shall probably cross the trail of that theological 
 straddle-bug, the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, who came 
 over here with a Brooklyn dark lantern which he pro- 
 ceeded to flash into New York slums, and if we do I war- 
 rant that we shall find things entirely different from the 
 way he says he saw them, forcing us to one of three con- 
 clusions, each of them irreverent— (1) that the Tabernacle 
 .minister knows how to lie; (2) that they were buying him 
 taffy all the time; (3) that he was drunk. 
 
 We will begin with Harry Hill's place, or " 'Arry 'Ill's, '> 
 as he is called by his cockney friends. 
 
 There isn't a better known man in the United States 
 than Mr. Hill, nor a place anywhere in this or the old 
 country like the one he not only keeps but personal.y 
 conducts at Houston and Crosby streets. 
 
 Midnight, then, at Harry Hill's I 
 
 It is just the best time, perhaps, of all times to see this 
 famous resort at its red-hottest. 
 
 All the young swells who have been taking country 
 cousins around to the legitimate and illegitimate theatres, 
 and all the commercial travelers in charge of junior part- 
 ners of the various business establishments, are now mak- 
 ing their way to this combination of both theatre and 
 dance-house. 
 
 We buy our tickets— twenty-flve cents apiece— at a 
 little window down stairs and pass upward to where the 
 shouts of laughter and thunders of applause proclaim that 
 an amusing song or farcical " nigger " sketch is in pro- 
 gress. 
 
 The room is all ablaze with light and heavy with smoke. 
 The stage is occupied by a young lady in a wig the color 
 of "yellow-jack molasses candy," and a pair of pink 
 tights. 
 
 Her cheeks blaze with excitement and paint, while 
 each energetic gesture accompanying the topical song she 
 is sin-zing displays her bosom lavishly. She does not 
 mind this, however, and since we are all gentlemen, if 
 we are out for a lark, no one notices it. 
 
 When the song is finished there is a chance to look 
 about. There is a gallery overhead and a wine room to 
 one side. There is also a long lunch counter piled high 
 
 with pigs' feet, cold cuts, pies, etc., etc. You can also get 
 piping hot coffee and tea. 
 
 At our table sit two young men, who are certainly from 
 the countrv. In fact, a glance over the room will show 
 you that the tiller of the soil, the driver of the oxen and 
 the hoer of the tubercle are out in force. 
 
 Singularly enough Harry Hill's is more discussed and 
 made more of in the country than anywhere else. 
 
 There isn't a young man who comes up to "York" to 
 spend his little sum laid aside for that purpose but takes 
 Harry's in just at sure as later on he gets taken in by 
 some Dutch siren on the Bowery. 
 
 And when he gets back to Rushville or Punkton and 
 the gang assemble down at the depot to see the freight 
 train come in, he tells such glowing stories of the place 
 that those of his listeners who have not yet had such a 
 sensational experience dream all night of the account, 
 and never rest until they, too, have gone, and seen, and 
 conquered. 
 
 These two at our table, if they tell all they experienced, 
 will have to speak of the two young ladies in seal-skin 
 sacques that show never a trace of having been in a 
 pawn shop all summer, who sidle down beside them like 
 little birds going to roost. 
 
 " Won't you buy me a drink, dear ?" says one. 
 
 "You'll treat me, pet, wen't you?" remarks the other, 
 and without waiting to discuss the matter further the 
 beautiful creature waves one of the waiter girls, who are 
 flitting about like bees, to the table. 
 
 Of course, Punkton is equal to the emergency, even to 
 standing a treat for the plump little woman who brings 
 on the beverages. 
 
 Then the representatives of rurality and the two seal- 
 skin sacques, who live in furnished rooms on Crosby 
 street, get very sociable, indeed. I notice, during the 
 evening, that they keep the plump waitress busy, and 
 at about 2 :30 a. m. the four depart together in a rather 
 tipsy but orderly condition. 
 
 That is the great charm about Harry Hill's place. 
 There is nothing vulgar or obscene said on the stage, and 
 no disorderly conduct is permitted. No one can be robbed 
 there. 
 
 He has a very miscellaneous audience, and the women 
 of the streets are welcome as long as they behave them- 
 selves. But so they are at the " Alhambra " in London. 
 They may concoct all sorts of villainous schemes while in 
 Harry Hill's, but the watch and pocketbook of the granger 
 are safe while he remains there. • 
 
 "Order please, gentlemen," shouts a major-domo. 
 " Take your partner-j for a quadrille," 
 
 There is an open space at the head of the stairs where 
 the dancing is done. On the walls are signs reading, 
 " Gentlemen will please not smoke while dancing 1" " No 
 lovers wanted !'' and embodying other terse statements. 
 
 The orchestra strikes up and the quadrille begins. These 
 girls dance very nicely, gliding through the figures with 
 genuine grace. 
 
 Suddenly there is a crash and a table is upset. One man 
 has struck another in a quarrel about a girl. 
 
 In any other place this would be quite a little scrim- 
 mage. Glasses would be thrown about, and the audience 
 put in a panic. 
 
 But not at Harry Hill's. That ubiquitous gentleman, 
 
60 
 
 NEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 who has the frame of a pugilist in constant training and 
 a grasp of iron, has already seized the man at fault, and 
 conducted him to the stairs, which he finds it to his ad- 
 vantage to descend. 
 
 The dancers hardly pause, and the orchestra goes on 
 merrily,while the superintendent shouts, "Order, please," 
 and the guests settle back in their seats. 
 
 These little disturbances occur more or less frequently, 
 but like tropical squalls are soon over. 
 
 We are certainly in for them to-night. See that hand- 
 some girl over there under the gallery larruping that 
 rather intoxicated blonde with her silk umbrella, and using 
 language which cannot be printed. 
 
 It's all about a lover, who borrowed the diamond ring 
 of the tall woman and loaned it to the other. The dis- 
 covery has just been made. 
 
 " Where did you get that ring? " 
 
 " Prettv Jimmy gave it to me." 
 
 "You're a liar." 
 
 And then the af ray. 
 
 Mr. Ilill is again on hand. " Ladies, ladies!" he says, 
 "Hi ham hastonished. Come, now, kiss and make up, 
 and both hof you give Pretty Jimmy the shake." 
 
 All this time the performance on the stage has been in 
 progress. But as it becomes later, and the audience gets 
 outside of increasing quantities of stimulants no one pays 
 any attention to the histrionic performance. 
 
 We sit back out of the way and carelessly watch the 
 busy scene. A group of gamblers, elegantly dressed and 
 flashing with diamonds, come up the stairs, and ask for 
 'Arry. 
 I Soon he is with them at a table, drinking champagne 
 and discussing a combination pool scheme that they have 
 come to propose to him. 
 
 There's old Uncle Bill Tovee, watching with delight 
 somebody's " chicken," and some one's "mouse," slog- 
 ging each other on the stage. 
 
 That's a minister going down stairs, and the man h( 
 brushes by as the latter comes up, is a big dry -goods mer- 
 chant. 
 
 Two gents with new mown heads and pocket handker 
 chiefs about their throats drop in to ask 'Arry if he'l 
 " 'old the poodle for a scrapping match in 'Oboken." 
 
 And so it goes on. Drinking, dancing, smoking, charnn; 
 and having a glorious night of it, according to hew yoi 
 view such matters, until it is time for us to go. 
 
 The air of the room gives one a headache, and the coo! 
 breeze of the street, as we pass over to an all-night house 
 for a toby of ale and a golden buck, is very refreshing. 
 
 Then I tell you Mr. Hill is a man of considerable for 
 tune, that his reputation for business integrity is of the 
 best, that he has a nice country place near Flushing and 
 that no deserving individual, in genuine distress, ever 
 went to him in vain. 
 
 A PROMENADE OK SIXTH AYEHUE. 
 
 Sixth avenue is now the Haymarket of New York. All 
 it needs is a big, brilliant theatre like the Alharabra in 
 Leicester square, to turn out its gorgeous crowd of ladies 
 f?) and their attendant swells to make the picture com- 
 plete. 
 
 It is true that we would still be without the broughams 
 owned by the beauteous blondes, dainty carriages in pink 
 and blue upholstery, that follow their owners up and 
 down t!ie square until such time as a tipsy duke, or a 
 newly-returned East Indian, or a flash American shall 
 have been caught in the meshes of the golden hair, or 
 stabbed by the coal-black eye of some " Skittles " or 
 " Formosa." 
 
 Then it is away to the St. John's wood, or whatever 
 outskirt place or pretty villa madame may have selected 
 for her home. 
 
 The consequence is that Sixth avenue, lacking sucb 
 luxurious tints, is not by any means as elegant a picture 
 ■ as t!ie Haymarket. But it makes it up in liveliness, in a 
 shameless bravado that is shocking to the sensibilities of 
 decent men and women who are forced to take that 
 thoroughfare late at night, say on returning from the 
 theatre or a party. 
 
 In fact, the avenue has become so notorious that repu 
 table citizens, who are posted as to its midnight peculiari 
 ties, much prefer the partial security of the street car. 
 
 ■ ncy cannot go a-foot in Sixth avenue at night, in 
 i'i it portion of it, to be more explicit, which blazes be- 
 tween 14th street and Sfith street. 
 
 Kut we ore not fastidious and panoplied with a con- 
 sciousness of ourown Integrity, and 1 >< >i< 1 1 \- turn from i nil 
 street into Sixth avenue, and commence oar northward 
 
 stroll just as the thousands of clocks in the vast city 
 begin to strike the midnight hour. 
 
 Only a few moments ago we were in Eighth avenue, 
 and more recently still in " Seventh." What a contrast! 
 The other two were as silent and as eminently proper 
 as the tomb when compared with this noisy, babbling 
 road, with its demon trains crashing by overhead, leav- 
 ing a kaleidoscopic flash behind, a«d its throng of pedes- 
 trians continually passing and repassing the brilliantly 
 illuminated shops. 
 
 The first thing to attract attention is the number of 
 young girls, the unfortunates, who brazenly ply their 
 calling iu the best advertised police precinct in the city. 
 
 They are loudly dressed; gay feathers stream from 
 their rakish hats, and their high-heeled boots make con- 
 stant music upon the pavement as they walk. In the 
 glare of the lamps you detect the rouge, the enamel, and 
 the dark penciling at the corners of the eyes. 
 
 These women are natural actresses. They know just 
 where abandon on the street should stop. Many are 
 French; cannot speak a word of English except "you 
 treat me," " goddam " and " fife dollar." 
 
 In fact, it is only a step to Paris. Wo turn off into a 
 narrow street less than a block long, between Sixth avenue 
 and Broadway, and wo are at a famous drinking and 
 dining saloon known as the " French Madame's." 
 
 She used to keep a taUt d'hote in Sixth avenue, near 
 Twenty- Fourth street. She still sets a dollar dinner, and a 
 very good one it is. 
 
 At all the tables you will find girls whom you have seen 
 on the avenue, Or W ill meet again before the morn begins 
 to blush for the follies of the night 
 
NEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 01 
 
 They drink, absinthe, ponies of cognac, and smoke 
 cigarettes. That pretty black-eyed girl is showing her 
 cavalier how the delicate paper should be rolled. We 
 order black coffee, and look on. Here comes the ma- 
 dame. 
 
 " Bon soir, messieurs," and she goes to her desk to dive 
 into her accounts. 
 
 All is quiet and decorous here. For noise, bustle and 
 fighting we must go back to the American saloons on the 
 avenue. There are supper rooms up-stairs at the 'ma- 
 dame's, 1 ' more private. Three young men and as many 
 stylishly-dressed women get from two carriages at the 
 door and ascend to these apartments. 
 
 Shortly after, Antoine is seen taking up an ice bucket 
 with three quart bottles of " the widow " rapidly becom- 
 ing frappe in its embrace. They are going to begin on a 
 pint a-p^ece. 
 
 Just as we rise to go, there come from above sounds of 
 laughter, of riotous merriment, and then the chandeliers 
 tremble, and the glasses jingle upon the tables. Our fes- 
 tive friends are dancing. We overhear Antoine tell 
 madame that they are doing the " can-can '' like mad. 
 
 Madame is excited. " Mon Dieu !" she exclaims, "it 
 ees varee veeked— it ees too early in the evening !" 
 
 " More wine for up-stairs, Antoine .' More wine I" 
 
 She looks pacified. The can-can is not so bad after 
 all. 
 
 On the avenue proper there are favorite drinking sa- 
 loons and oyster houses whose clientele are the birds of the 
 night. 
 
 The "Strand" and "Star and Garter" are sample 
 places. There used to be an all-night house called " The 
 London," but it is no more. In resorts like the " Strand," 
 you see the rough, intoxicated elements of Sixth avenue. 
 Girls lounge about in the midst of the smoke, do not hesi- 
 tate to sit on the laps of gentlemen, and are always ready 
 for one of the foaming glasses of beer which are pyra- 
 midally carried about by the ubiquitous waiters. 
 
 There are many young men here being ruined. While 
 we look on an episode occurs that illuminates the whole 
 subject as a flash of lishtning does a gloomy wood. 
 
 At one of the tables has been sitting with two girls of 
 the town a handsome boy of about eighteen years. The 
 rose of health is still on his cheek, and although the gin 
 and water that he has been drinking have given his eyes 
 
 a false lustre, you can easily see that he hasn't gone far 
 on the road. His vital organs are healthy. How about 
 his moral tone ? 
 
 Directly back of him sits a silent and apparently ab- 
 stracted individual who has gone to such depths in a 
 brown study that the glass of beer before him is as yet 
 untasted, although it has been there ten minutes. 
 
 The youth gives the waiter a twenty-dollar bill, and his 
 companions exchange glances. Just as the proprietor 
 thrusts it into the drawer, the detective, for the ab- 
 stracted man was none other, reaches over the bar, utters 
 a few words, and takes the note to examine it. 
 
 His suspicions are correct. It is a marked bill, marked 
 that day in the down-town office where the unfortunate 
 boy is employed. 
 
 It is quite a tableau when tha arrest is made. He turns 
 pale as a ghost, and then goes out with an attempt at 
 bravery and carelessness that is pitiable to behold. 
 
 As for the women, in ten minutes they are drinking 
 more beer at the expense of some one else. 
 
 At about 2 a. m. the avenue is not so crowded as at mid- 
 night, but its life is more intense. The old " Argyle 
 Rooms," "Cremorne " and "Buckingham" have vomited 
 forth their crowds of dancers. Tbey flood the oyster 
 saloons and fill beer shops with the rustle of silken 
 skirts. 
 
 In one beer saloon a negro band is in full blast. When 
 they stop to pass around the hand, a tipsy young woman, 
 bantered to it by her companions, goes to the piano and 
 sings " In the Sweet Bye-and-Bye." 
 
 It is a strange, sad scene. She is handsome, but unde- 
 niably drunk. Her hair is dishevelled. As she sings, 
 being at the maudlin state of drinking, the song over- 
 masters her with its pathos, and she breaks off abruptly 
 to begin to cry. 
 
 At this the "lovers," petty gamblers and "strikers," 
 generally break into a coarse laugh. 
 
 The poor girl falls sobbing with her head on the table, 
 robbed even of the sympathy of her drunken companions, 
 while the " nrrger " band squares matters with the audi 
 enco by giving " I've Just Been Down to the Club, Dear." 
 
 Although it is time to go home— you can always tell 
 that when they refuse to tap a fresh keg— we have by no 
 means exhausted Sixth avenue. 
 
 Au revoir then until we resume its exploration 
 
 ON THE BLAZING BOWERY. 
 
 We will pay obeisance to that variety which is the 
 spice of life, and not continue our Sixth avenue prome- 
 nade to-night. 
 
 Although, as I have said, itis a rare, richmine of metro- 
 politan sensationalism, we did but graze its surface, and 
 yet we saw a good deal of the vice and vagaries of our 
 fellow-beings. 
 
 Next week, or the next, we will return to these pre- 
 serves and flush more game. But to-night I where shall 
 we goT 
 
 What say you to the Bowery? It is one of New York's 
 representative streets, and is always interesting. Broad- 
 way ! Fifth avenue I the Bowery / — those are terms 
 familiar to thousands who have never seen America. 
 
 The Bowery it shall be. Crossing Broadway at Eighth 
 
 street we notice that that monster thoroughfare is in a 
 doze. Nothing is heard but the rattle of the wheels of 
 the last stages as they forge along with their blinking 
 lights. Cabmen lay around the Sinclair House and " Mike 
 Murray's" place, and scan the street up and down with 
 the fond idea of catching a " drunk," or some one who has 
 conceived the plan of making a night of it. Broadway 
 below Fourteenth street is dead after midnight. We leave 
 it willingly and turn into the Bowery around the corner of 
 the Cooper Union. 
 
 It is another city. The first block we see is nothing but 
 a string of gin-mills, with a bank and a drug store thrown 
 in to break the monotony. The cellars are eating houses 
 —all-night places, whose lights stream up to mix in 
 splendor with those radiating from the bars. 
 
02 
 
 NEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 Let us go in to one of the first so-called hotels that we 
 meet We will have beer; always beer or Rhine wine in 
 these places. This establishment never closes its eyes. 
 The young man behind the bar is as fresh as a daisy, and 
 should be, because he has just come on. But what trade 
 do they have? Plenty of trade. The men in the Tompkins 
 Market must have their periodical drinks; so must the 
 policeman. Up to 2 o'clock in the morning the business 
 is but a continuation of that of the day. Between 2 and 5 
 o'clock the early workers, dealers in newspapers, young 
 men who went to bed at midnight, hot with rum, and 
 couldn't sleep— they come in for their drams. 
 
 On a couple of chairs, heads sprawled upon the beer- 
 stained tables, are customers who could no more go home 
 than fly. The bar-tender shakes snores and drunks out of 
 them and returns disgusted to his work. 
 
 Suddenly the bell at the side door rings. Were we out- 
 side we would see a gentleman and lady standing in the 
 entry. The lady has her veil down, altho' the precaution 
 is unnecessary, since the gas is turned so low that it seems 
 *a mere speck of red in the luridly tinted globe. 
 
 By the operation of an electric bell, manipulated on the 
 platform up-stairs, the door flies open. The couple enter 
 and ascend to the first landing, where, in an ante-room 
 filled with bottles and dishes, stands a servant who knows 
 his business. He is a combination of politeness, suavity 
 and silence. 
 The couple desire a supper room. 
 " Certainly. Step this way." 
 
 And he glides down a long hall, filled with the murmur 
 of conversation from rooms on either side, until he comes 
 to No. 10. There is the flash of a match, and a neat apart- 
 ment; furnished with table, chairs and a lounge, is re- 
 vealed. 
 
 We don't see any of this, but we hear the order for oys- 
 ters, salad and a bottle of wine, which are consumed in 
 No. 10. [sometimes the wine has a marvelous effect upon 
 the silent, timid, hesitating woman who was so closely 
 veiled at the street door. She talks in a loud voice; she 
 sings. It is not the strangest thing in the world even for 
 the couple in the adjoining snpper room to join in the 
 fun and eventually to propose making it all one party. 
 
 In this very house that I am describing such a thing oc- 
 curred but recentl} 7 and with the most unlooked-for re- 
 sults. Both ladies were under the influence of drink, or 
 it would not have happened. Their voices, in the pre- 
 liminary conversation, were husky, thick, unrecognizable 
 to each other. 
 
 But not so their faces when the invitation to coalesce 
 was accepted and one tipsy couple burst into the supper 
 room of the other. 
 
 "My God, Fanny ! " 
 
 "Vim here ! Hattie ! '' 
 
 Imagine the scene. These two, respectable(!), married 
 
 ladies, discovering each other in situations which make 
 the life of such plays as "Champagne and Oysters," "For- 
 bidden Fruit," ani the like. 
 
 The frozen attitude of astonishment, the bottles and 
 glasses, the bewilderment of the gentlemen, and the final 
 compromise and treaty of war over more wine. 
 
 As we go down the Bowery becomes a succession of 
 beer gardens, huge, brilliantly illuminated places, with 
 an army of waiters, and a stage at one end on which ap- 
 pear variety actors. The dramatic part of the bill is not 
 j of a very high order, but we don't expect it to be. 
 
 Let us sit here. The waiter plants down two glasses of 
 beer and waits for the money. There is no disgusting for- 
 mality of asking you what you want in these places. 
 Beer is a fixed fact. 
 
 Who is that young lady in the seal-skin sacque who has 
 just sank into a seat ahead of us, only to be surrounded 
 by about six fast-looking young men, who almost fight in 
 their eagerness to treat her ? 
 
 "Make it a schooner, Max," she says to the waiter in a 
 tone of easy familiarity; "I'm as thirsty as the devil." 
 Then she unbuttons her seal-skin, leans back, puts her 
 feet on a chair opposite, and wipes the perspiration and 
 paint from her hard, brazened face. 
 "Who is she Max? " "Her ? oh, she's the gal the man 
 ' chucks the knives at. Want to know her ? " "No, thank 
 
 you." 
 | So we are in the society of a beer garden queen. She is 
 holding her regular court. Her knife-thrower is on in 
 the pantomime, and she has to wait for him. 
 
 The running of the cars all night keeps the Bowery alive. 
 Some of those that come down from Harlem have regular 
 gangs of pirates on board, drunken men and women who 
 fight, throw the conductor and driver off, sma.-h the win- 
 dows, and yell murder. This is especially so in the sum- 
 mer time when moonlight picnics are in full blast. I 
 would as leave be on a slave ship, where the crew all 
 wear red shirts, as ride in some of the Bowery streetcars 
 in the hours along towards morning. 
 
 Approaching Chatham square the Bowery becomes 
 more degraded. It has any quantity of all-night saloons 
 in cellars, which are veritable entrances to Hades. 
 Look at the painted, gaudily-be-ribboned hag, cajoling the 
 honest sailor, who is very drunk, into entering one of 
 these hells. 
 
 He stumbles against the door, behind whose crimson 
 curtain the gas blazes, and as it is burst open, we see a 
 monstrous, bloated woman in the bar, and live or six be- 
 dizened females in tawdry Turkish costumes, making 
 love to as many drunken individuals, while a young man 
 in a red neck-tie bangs away at the piano. 
 
 The door closes. Our sailor friend is swallowed up. It 
 were better for him had he been wrecked at sea, and 
 landed on a desert island. 
 
 TRYING TO SNARE A SOILD DOYK 
 
 Sixth avenue, after midnight, has often been the scene 
 of litte dramas, with the pavement as the sta^re and the 
 street lamp the substitute for footlights, which excel in 
 pathos, in power, in the deep, quick insight they give 
 into the depths of degradation to which it is possible for 
 tinman beings to descend, which far excel, I repeat, the 
 carefully constructed stories told at the theatres. 
 
 I have one to speak of now. It is the story of a father 
 foiled in his attempt to reclaim his daughter from a life 
 of shame. This oase is by no means an isolated one. If 
 you watch the newspapers closely you will frequently 
 find it duplicated in all its sad details. 
 
 It was between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth 
 streets, and about 1 o'clock in the morning. The avenue 
 
NEW YORK'S GAS- LIT LIFE. 
 
 08 
 
 was very brilliant. The dancing places had sent out 
 squads of richly dressed habitues to swell the promenading 
 throng, already a rather pretentious one. 
 
 Two couples were approaching each other. One con- 
 sisted of an elderly gentleman, erect and dignified in his 
 bearing, but showing to-night the traces of extreme agita- 
 tion. The one with him was an officer of the police in 
 civilian's dress. As they walked along the old gentleman 
 kept peering into the bold, painted faces of the girls who 
 passed him, and each time he did it I noticed that disap- 
 pointment and pleasure were equally represented in the 
 expression of his countenance. 
 
 He was afraid to find what he was so anxiously looking 
 for. 
 
 Nearer and nearer the two couples came. Fate had 
 arranged it for them to meet. 
 
 The other two were a young man and a bright, pretty 
 girl. He was the regular flaneur of Sixth avenue, a trifle 
 less rowdyish than the swell of the Bowery, and not quite 
 nobby enough for a Broadway or Fifth avenue sportsman. 
 He was dressed in a loud style, wore his immaculately 
 brushed hat a little to one side and swaggered, rather 
 than walked. The girl occupied one of his arms. With 
 the other hand he kept twirling his mustache, or arrang- 
 ing his hair, which was redolent of bay rum. 
 
 The young woman was still very pretty, was fresh and 
 sparkling even. At times she would seem to shrink back 
 when the bolder women passed her, to actually recoil at 
 their language, but in another moment she would laugh 
 merrily at something her companion said and strive to 
 force upon herself a gayety to suit the scene. 
 
 It was just as she had succeeded in arriving at a 
 bravado state that the four people met. 
 
 The officer looked first at the young girl when the old 
 gentleman signalled to halt, and then at the man by her 
 side. 
 
 The father gazed upon his child and stretched his 
 hands out to her, while the tears came to his eyes and his 
 voice quavered so with long-suppressed emotion that he 
 could hardly utter the words : 
 
 "Come, Lucy, come to your father. All will be for- 
 given, my child. Come with me home, where your 
 mother, your heart-broken mother, awaits you." 
 
 She had shrunk back, and clasped both her arms about 
 the one of the scoundrel upon which she had been lean- 
 ing. Her form trembled, and she could not speak. Her 
 escort whispered something in her ear. The officer re- 
 mained passive, stern, immobile. It was not yet his time 
 to act. Finally he spoke. 
 
 "Well, young lady, what is your decision? Will you go 
 quietly with your father to the home you have been de- 
 coyed from by such as the man you are with now, or shall 
 I use the authority I possess and arrest you?" 
 
 At this statement the young man whispered to the girl 
 again. 
 
 " You leave her alone," the officer said. "She is old 
 enough to decide." 
 
 " I was just telling her," the fellow answered with a 
 sneer, " that she was old enough to resist kidnapping." 
 
 "You villain 1" exclaimed the father, raising his cane 
 and stepping forward, "would you stand between that 
 girl and both her temporal and eternal welfare ?" 
 
 "Softly, Mr. ," the officer interrupted; "there is 
 
 no use wasting words on one of these creatures. If it 
 wasn't for the unfortunate girls of Sixth avenue and 
 other streets they would starve." 
 
 " I guess they pay the police something, too, don't 
 they?" the young man answered. 
 
 No attention was paid to this sally. Once more the 
 officer said to the girl : 
 
 " Will you go with your father ?" 
 
 " No, I won't," she answered, assuming a hardihood in 
 tone and manner that half a glance showed to be thor- 
 oughly foreign to her nature. 
 
 " Then I will arrest you." 
 
 As the officer spoke he advanced and laid his hand upon 
 her shoulder. Then, turning to her companion, he 
 said : 
 
 " I would advise you to disappear. You can do nothing 
 around here except interfere with me, and I don't want 
 to be put to the disgusting necessity of taking you in. 
 Some of the other young women will see to it that you 
 get your usual quantity of rum." 
 
 The young woman resisted at first, and then became 
 mildly hysterical. The father insisted upon a carriage. 
 I knew the precinct to which they would go and so has- 
 tened there, anxious to see another act in the play. 
 
 In the station-house she displayed a sullen resistance to 
 all influences working for her good. She positively re- 
 fused to her home with her father, and still she was old 
 enough to act as her own guardian, it was easy to see 
 what the result would be in the courts. The father plead 
 again, the tears coursing down his cheeks. She stood at 
 the end of the desk, as cold, as beautiful as ice. The fresh 
 young face seemed to have turned to carved stone. The 
 officer who made the arrest on a regular issued warrant, 
 lit a cigar and smoked it with positive enjoyment. The 
 sergeant in charge wrote in his blotter with the imper- 
 turbability of a shipping clerk. It was a peculiar scene. 
 The gas-jets flared on the group, and penetrated to a mur- 
 ky corridor beyond, where in one of the cells an intoxi- 
 cated woman raved and swore in a manner to make the 
 blood of a pirate turn cold. 
 
 I sat back against the wall in one of the chairs, and 
 wondered how long it would be before the handsome 
 woman at the desk, the one who had but just started on 
 the downward path, would arrive at that stage of degra- 
 dation. 
 
 There is nothing but herself to stop her. It has already 
 been tested in the courts. She is her own mistress and 
 can become that of whom she chooses. 
 
 And so the play of the night ended. Exit a strong,, 
 broken-hearted man to his carriage, while the young girl 
 is shown to a cell. The bolt shoots into its socket, and it 
 is all over. 
 
 Whether the court scene, yet to be played, makes or 
 mars her, will depend upon herself. 
 
 P. S.— I took the trouble to drop in at Jefferson Market 
 next day and obtain information enough for this para- 
 graph. Her mother and younger sister were with the 
 father at the hearing. She coldly refused to have any 
 thing to do with them. Naturally she was discharged, 
 and Sixth avenue claims her again. I should like to know 
 the romance of this ruined life. 
 
64 
 
 XEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 PULlLIHG a disorderly house. 
 
 I am free to confess that when an official friend of mine 
 extended an invitation to me to be piesent one night last 
 week a I the pulling of a disorderly house just off Sixth 
 avenue, the brilliant artery whose midnight pulsations 
 are at fever heat, that I accepted with a feeling akin to 
 that of positive pleasure. 
 
 Although the pictures which I knew would be unrolled 
 before me constituted a familiar pantomime, still there is 
 a recurrent excitement about a police raid which makes 
 it always a fresh sensation. 
 
 We must not forget either the charm of novelty. Admir- 
 able as our H. P.'s are— are they not called the finest force 
 in the world ?— they do not indulge in raids to that extent 
 where it would become a monotonous proceeding. There 
 was extraordinary reason, of course, but I did not ask it. 
 I went on the " Pinafore " principle of "never mind the 
 why or wherefore," and now that the affair is over I am 
 no wiser as to its animus than I was before. And 
 why should I be? Am I not told that my mission 
 is to bag picturesque folly as it flies, and that in wan- 
 dering through New York at the hour when graveyards 
 gape and yawn as the Ohio resurrectionist slingshis spade 
 on the coffin and scores a trick, I shall regard the artistic 
 side of every situation before considering the moral ? 
 
 It was certainly in this mood that I met the ten or 
 twelve men detailed for the raid. They were in citizens' 
 clothing, and looked more like one of Talmage's sub-slum 
 committees than anything else I could think of. Our ren- 
 dezvous was at a street corner unprovided with a lamp, 
 and as I advanced to grasp the hand of the chief I could 
 ret for the life cf me disassociate the trip with a Guy 
 Fawkes gunpowder expedition. I was introduced in a 
 whispered way, and then given in charge of an officer 
 •K-hose business it was to enter the house legitimately, if 
 it were possible, with me as a companion. 
 
 The others, each man knowing his portion of the detail, 
 seemed to disappear as if by magic. We were alone. 
 
 It wasn't far to the. spotted establishment, and when we 
 arrived there the abundant hilarity prevailing demon- 
 strated that no note of warning had been sounded. As I 
 afterwards learned, from a conversation on the subject,it 
 was the tendency which this particular mansion had to 
 tarn night into day, and allow the sun to gaze in on orgies 
 which had made the pale moon blush; it was this indus- 
 try in the particular realm of vice that had actuated 
 people in the neighborhood to make the complaint. 
 
 A good deal of wickedness can be stood, when it is quiet. 
 I don't care if the man in the room next to me is a coiner 
 or counterfeit note engraver, provided he follows his 
 opposition-to-the-government profession in a silent way. 
 But as soon as the casting of a bad five-cent piece destroys 
 my morning nap, then I will complain to the authorities. 
 
 The officer rang the door bell. The door was opened a 
 little ways by a negress, and with the rattling of a chain 
 as an accompaniment It had been determined upon be- 
 tween us thjt wo should look a little drunk. I did my 
 bait, and am sure that I must have looked a good deal im- 
 becile, sufficiently so to induce the portress to believe 
 • that I was harmless at any rate. I even think that my 
 Vacant countenance did the officer good service, acting as 
 a recommendation. 
 
 At any rate we were admitted. 
 
 " Show the gentlemen into the little room, Ellen," came 
 from some one elsewhere. " There is a party who wishes 
 to go out." 
 
 In the room we went, and heard the unsteady steps of 
 two or three men as they passed into the street. Lucky 
 dogs ! Thev were escaping the doom of the rest. Their 
 desire not to be seen stamped them at once as those who 
 had gilt-edged positions of respectability to maintain in 
 in the day-time. This is a sad world, my masters. 
 
 And now we are in the parlor. A perfect blaze of light, 
 a swathe of warm coloring upon the walls where the 
 pictures hung. The communicating rooms were fur- 
 nished magnificently, albeit in the vulgar, rococo style 
 that you read about in the long accounts of the sale by 
 auction in Paris of the books, furniture and articles de 
 vertu of some successful woman of the half-world, who 
 has either gone to Nice for her health or entered a convent. 
 
 Three or four young men lounged about. Six or eight 
 girls, with their golden twists of Pompadoured hair, en- 
 gaged them in vapid conversation. One sang a senti- 
 mental ballad at the piano. 
 
 To conceal any embarrassment that might exist, 
 although I will give my companion credit for suggesting 
 the Police Department no more than he did a cathedral, 
 we ordered a bottle of wine— Hoboken champagne, im- 
 ported on the James Fisk, Jr., and sold at $5 the bottle. 
 The colored woman brought it. 
 
 " Where's madame?" asked my friend. 
 
 "Who wants her?" 
 
 This question located Madame in a pretty pink boudoir 
 at the end of the hall, where she was reclining on a sofa 
 reading a novel. 
 
 The gentlemen just came in want you to take a glass of 
 wine," answered the servant. 
 
 " I certainly would be ungracious not to accept such an 
 invitation," she replied, as the stiff rustling of her 
 starched skirts declared her getting up. 
 
 " I hate, however," she went on, coming into the parlor, 
 "to give up my book. The charming devil of a hero had 
 just escaped from the myrmidons of the law, and " 
 
 We heard a whistle, and the bell rang violently. It was 
 the merest coincidence, but she grasped the situation im- 
 mediately. 
 
 "Gentlemen and ladies," the officer said, "consider 
 yourself under arrest." 
 
 He threw back his coat and showed his shield. 
 
 The landlady, who had been all smiles, turned to a fury 
 in an instant. 
 
 " Devil I brute !" she almost shrieked, and she threw 
 the glass, wine and all, at the officer's head. Then she 
 essayed to escape. There was a crash of glass in the con- 
 servatory, two men had entered in that way. At a signal 
 from my friend I opened the front door, and the others 
 swarmed into the hall. Madame was still a tigress, but 
 a tigress at bay. 
 
 During this time it was brilliant chaos in the parlor. 
 Some of the ladies screamed, and one of the men showed 
 fight. The chief knocked him hown with his reversed 
 revolver. He turned out to be the regular bully of the 
 place, very efficient in dealing with a drunken boy on a 
 birthday spree but hardly equal to the emergency just 
 then. 
 
THE DYING BURGLAR. 
 
NEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 65 
 
 T he visiting men were utterly crestfallen. One bad at 
 tempted escape by a back window, but the movement 
 was futile. An officer was there. Officers were every- 
 where. The approach to the building had been as care- 
 fully executed, as it had been planned. For the nonce the 
 brilliantly lit apartments were a series of mouse traps. 
 
 One of the most amusing features of the evening's ex- 
 perience was the discovery of a gentleman sound asleep 
 on one of the sofas in madame'sroom. He had fallen 
 early in the evening before the battery of bottles, had 
 gene to sleep in fancied security, and was awakened to 
 find himself in the hands of the police. I wish I could de- 
 scribe the bewilderment of his countenance as he sat up 
 upon the lounge and insisted upon another drink. This 
 bewilderment became inexpressibly absurd when he saw 
 the young women all dressed for the street, and watched 
 the vindictive way in which the proprietress was putting 
 on her bonnet. 
 
 Nothing came of this case, at least nothing that showed 
 upon the surface. It was probably a visit of discipline, 
 a warning. The male visitors were let go at the station 
 
 with a reprimand, inasmuch as no specific charge wa£ 
 made against them, while madame was required to fur- 
 nish financial security for her appearance at court. She 
 had no difficulty in doing that, and when the business 
 was transacted, she and her brood were allowed to go 
 their way. The house has been so quiet since, you might 
 imagine a sexton lived there. 
 
 As the now gay and dtbonnair throng passed out the col- 
 ored woman came up to me and said : 
 
 "Who pays for that bottle of wine? 1 " 
 
 Madame heard the remark. 
 
 " Never mind the wine," she exclaimed, "the gentle- 
 men's company was recompense enough. I have to thank 
 them for infusing life into an otherwise stupid night." 
 
 As these words were uttered, she flashed one glance 
 upon my companion in the visit and myself that con- 
 tained as many daggers as you would probably find in an 
 Italian wholesale hardware store. Then she swept 
 proudly to the door, rustling and roaring like a silken 
 tornado. 
 
 ADVENTURES IE WATER STREET, 
 
 Dr. Elisha Harris, late Registrar of Vital Statistics in 
 this city, and now Secretary of the Prison Association of 
 New York, made a special study of mysterious cases of 
 supposed suicide for years, and in a conversation with 
 the writer declared his belief that a large proportion of 
 the cases of mysterious deaths that go on the records of 
 the city as suicides were really skillf ully planned murders 
 by gangs of men and women who make murder and rob- 
 bery a business. 
 
 Along the streets bordering upon the river, or in adja- 
 cent streets, such as Water and Cherry, are located many 
 vile hells. 
 
 Investigations made in a very large number of cases 
 where bodies have been found floating in the water 
 showed that the victims were last seen alive in the com- 
 pany of female frequenters of these hells of the metropolis 
 or in the dance-houses. In most cases of this kind no 
 valuables of any account were found upon the remains 
 and rarely any external injuries were developed in a 
 post-mortem. 
 
 These facts led Dr. Harris to the conclusion that many, 
 if not all, had been inveigled into the low resorts by 
 women, where they were drugged to death by some subtle 
 poison administered in liquors, and then, in the silent 
 hours of the night, the inanimate body, after being 
 stripped of money and valuables, would be carried by the 
 male murderers to an adjacent dock and quietly dumped 
 into the river. In due time the remains would be carried 
 to the surface and found by a boatman or the river police. 
 The deadly drug had left no tell-tale mark. The police 
 would investigate, and that was the end of the matter. 
 
 .So impressed was I with the conclusions arrived at by 
 
 Dr. Harris that T communicated with a personal friend on 
 
 the detective force my suspicions that a certain house in 
 
 Water street, which I had occasion to pass as late as 2 
 
 a. m. daily, was a den of thieves of this class. He readily 
 
 m ted to join me in an effort to discover something 
 
 positive regarding the place, wliich was a resort of aban- 
 
 I women, sailors and countrymen, with a bar 
 
 led. 
 
 One night at 11:30, dressed and disguised as Jersey 
 
 countrymen, Detective T. and I entered the main room on 
 
 the floor even with the street. In it were four or five 
 
 half-drunken women and half-a-dozen sailors. In one 
 
 | corner was a small bar, presided over by a villainous- 
 
 , looking, pock-marked ex-convict, and in another corner 
 
 | was a fiddler playing for the dancers. We spent money 
 
 freely in treating all hands, talked about the price of 
 
 country " truck " and the best market in which to sell, 
 
 and promised to go around nextday after we had sold our 
 
 produce and have a good time all around, remarking that 
 
 we wanted the fiddler, so we could have a dance. 
 
 The convict boss of this den chuckled at the proposition 
 a.id readily assented to the further proposition that-no 
 
 sailor fellers " should be admitted while we were guests, 
 as we weren't used to " thar rough ways, 5 ' and wanted to 
 have "a clear swarth all to ourselves." 
 
 A little before noon on the following day, well dis- 
 guised, we entered the resort. But two women and the 
 proprietor were there, and an air of quietude— in striking 
 contrast to the boisterous secret of the previous night- 
 pervaded the place. » 
 
 Each of us had provided ourselves with a sponge, hid- 
 den away inside of our coat-sleeves, and, as we had pre- 
 viously arranged to drink nothing but " pony" glasses of 
 wine, it was an easy matter by a dexterous movement to 
 deposit the contents, after taking it from the glass, into 
 the sponges. My companion drank freely, or at least ap- 
 peared to drink, displayed considerable money, and after 
 the fiddler had been sent for and the doors were locked, 
 indulged in several waltzes " between drinks." 
 
 An hour was thus passed, when, to all appearances, the 
 " Jersey farmers " were " pretty well fuddled," so well 
 had we simulated intoxicated men. 
 
 As our object was to see more of the premises we offered 
 no resistance when the women urged us to retire to a rear 
 room. There more drinks were called for, and in half an 
 hour we were both apparently unconscious in a dragg< <1 
 and drunken stupor. The women retired fro.n tlie room, 
 which was dimly lighted by the kerosene lamp, and we 
 
66 
 
 NEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFK 
 
 were left side by side on a mattress in one corner for 
 some time. There was a peculiar taste to the wine that 
 satisfied us it contained a drug. 
 
 In a little while " Big Charley," the boss, returned with 
 one of the women, who passed as his wife, and, stooping 
 over us, he remarked: "I'm blowed, Hanna. 1 * if /hem 
 fellers isn't good game. Now you hold the doo- .1' iioid 
 the light, an' the fiddler an' me'll soon ' .way till 
 
 night. They're well salted, and we^ - .^u at mid- 
 night, when all's still." 
 
 The fiddler was called, and we, limp a^ ^ip^ jrently in- 
 sensible, were carried down a rickety stairway to a sub- 
 cellar and quietly deposited on the floor, which was of 
 stone. Our entertainers retired, leaving the lamp burn- 
 ing dimly. 
 
 My detective friend got up and cautiously explored the 
 place. 
 
 I confess I was not pleased with his report. 
 
 On one side he found a blind door leading into a dark 
 passage-way, which, from the sound of running water, 
 he supposed to be one of the city sewers, through which 
 they carried their victims. I was so alarmed that I sug- 
 gested we had seen enough, but he was inexorable. 
 
 "Lot us see the end," he said. " We are well armed ; 
 we're enough for them. Why if I only showed my shield 
 they'd beat a retreat. Keep quiet and watch me." 
 
 We did not wait long in suspense. "Charley" and his 
 woman entered. 
 
 The former examined us critically, and, turning to the 
 woman, said : " You go up and tend bar, if any one drops 
 iu ; send Lize down to watch the clodhoppers, and have 
 her pour a little more of the " stuff" down 'em in half an 
 hour. I must now go over the river and get Bob to come 
 over and help me plant 'em after we close in the morn- 
 in'.» 
 
 Again we were alone. 
 
 The detective whispered his plans to me, and a few min- 
 utes later the woman Lize came down with a bottle in her 
 hand, and, sitting down on the only chair in the cellar, 
 engaged in the occupation of knitting. 
 
 Half an hour must have passed— to me it seemed two 
 oours— when the woman picked the bottle up from a 
 melf and walked deliberately over to our corner. With 
 closed eyes I felt her warm hand on my forehead; then 
 die turned my head over, faeo upward, and forcing open 
 ny mouth when my companion, with a quick movement, 
 Jirew himself overhand drawing a pistol, hissed, "Ah, 
 
 Lize ! I've got you 1 Now open your head, and I'll blow 
 it off your lousy body I See this shield ? Ha ! ha ! trapped 
 at last, eh?" 
 
 So sudden was the thing done that the woman crouched 
 down quietly, as the detective threw off a wig, and she 
 identified him as one who had twice arrested her for 
 shoplifting. 
 
 To be brief, the woman " Lize made a clean breast " of 
 the fact that sailors and countrymen were drugged and 
 taken to the sub-cellar, where they were visited by " Big 
 Charley," his wife and two men. 
 
 What disposition was made of the victims she never 
 knew, or professed to know not. The officer promised 
 her protection if she would aid him in solving the mys- 
 tery of the removal of the drugged victims who might 
 visit the place in future, at the same time warning her 
 that he would have her watched, and it would be useless 
 for her to attempt to flee the city. It was also arranged 
 that when the sub-cellar again had an occupant she was 
 to find means to hang a white cloth from the front win- 
 dow as a signal, and at all events to meet him at a place 
 appointed a week hence. She then released us through a 
 side door. 
 
 Daily the house was watched— no signal. The try sting 
 time arrived, and Lize came not. Over another week 
 passed without other news of the woman. It was sup- 
 posed she had escaped the detective's vigilance. 
 
 Reading a description of the body of a drowned woman 
 found at Fort Hamilton, the detective believed it was 
 Lize. He went there and recognized her as the Water 
 street woman. 
 
 The detective always maintained that he believed " Big 
 Charley " and his gang, suspecting Lize of treachery, had 
 murdered her and thrown her body into the river. 
 
 Shortly after this, my friend, who still had the house 
 under surveillance, became insane, and a few months 
 later died. 
 
 The Water street den has been demolished to make way 
 for the Brooklyn bridge, and the inmates are scattered. 
 Yet I still firmly believe that Dr. Harris was right, and 
 that there still exists in this city, under the very eyes of 
 the police, one or more organized gangs whose business 
 is the inveigling of strangers into suspicious places, the 
 robbing of their persons and the consignment of their 
 bodies to the waters of the rivers and harbor. 
 
 Where is the Vidocq who will fathom the secrets of 
 these malefactors? 
 
 A THIEVES' TAVERN. 
 
 1 shall not write the street nor the number of the house 
 
 •i the street where the thieves' tavern is in which [spent 
 
 •ling last week, passing the midnight line, in fact, 
 
 nd never rising to leave until a disreputable clock lie- 
 ind the bar— a timepiece with a badfaoi — announced 
 
 Oat it was about the hour \s Ion Peter's Cochin < 'hina 
 joster raised all that row in Jerusalem. 
 it wouldn't be fair in me to publish the (Thereabouts of 
 ie place. I was the guest ol the thlevea*or rather oi the 
 
 lind proprietor of the saloon; and although m\ bring 
 
 mi. -t, and n, y never having been " crooked " or " done 
 
 in,-" was slightly againsl me, i was treated with Bucb 
 
 . i and deference that I would be a desplo* 
 
 indeed to repay the courtesy which made the 
 
 experience possible by "squealing" on those I met. 
 
 1 believe that they call It " squealing." I heard a good 
 deal "I Slang that night, but it has changed so of late years 
 that it is difficult to understand their jargon. 
 
 1 went down a flight of stone steps illuminated feebly 
 1 ;. a lamp, and when I pushed the door open I found my- 
 self in an ordinary liar-room, with sanded floor, a short 
 
 counter and five or six tables, about which as many young 
 men urn- sitting, two at cards and the others engaged in 
 s conversation which ceased v. hen I entered. I looked 
 
 ha>til\ around for a J OUng thie! w ho had come to me with 
 astorj , t sin.' Sing horrors, and who had promised to 
 meet me at 11:80. 
 It was 1 1 A3, and he was not present. 
 
NEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 " Who's that?" said the short, thick-set, blind proprie- 
 tor, leaning over his bar as his abnormally acute ears de- 
 tected the presence of a stranger. 
 
 As he spoke one of the young men rose, sauntered to the 
 door and went out quietly. 
 
 The situation was an awkward one. I was considered 
 either a spy or a stranger. In any event I was fair game. 
 So I spoke out boldly, telling them in as many words 
 that I was a "literary cuss,'' and that I had an appoint- 
 ment with " Box-Stew Charley." Then I asked the house 
 to drink. Another young man silently disappeared and 
 brought back the first one, who had assumed the position 
 and duties of a sentinel. 
 
 It wasn't long before my friend arrived, and then we 
 were all en rapport. He told them that I was acquainted 
 with the character of the rendezvous, that I was a gentle- 
 man despite the fact of my never having been in jail, and 
 that thej' could talk unreservedly before me. 
 
 Which I am certain they proceeded to do in a most 
 agreeable manner. Charley, having been the latest up 
 the river, was naturally the chief spokesman. He was 
 eagerly questioned as to how this and that was getting 
 along. He had plenty of messages to deliver, one especial- 
 ly from a burglar to his wife. 
 
 "I told her to be here at midnight," said a red-headed 
 youth who had been instructed to acquaint the woman 
 with the circumstance of Charley's arrival within the 
 realms of ordinary society. 
 
 " And here she is," said the blind man. " I know Kate's 
 step." 
 
 A pretty woman and elegantly dressed, may it please 
 you, this wife of a honsebre; .s bade good 
 
 evening, and had a smile for every one until her eyes 
 rested on me. Th< i 1 a look of keen inquiry. 
 
 No one spoke, but Borne one must have reassured her 
 facially that everything wasO. K .for she sank uncon- 
 cernedly into a chair, and said she didn't mind if she did 
 have a wet of gin. : n.-and 
 
 particularly Whitechapcl. 
 
 "Jim's all right," said Charlev, " and sends his love, of 
 course. He expects you up en next visiting day. And 
 there's an order for the 'kit' of tools lie hail made in 
 Canada. I'm to have them, and the plan of that house in 
 110th street. If I do the thing, you're to divvy." 
 
 " All right, Charley," the pretty woman replied. " I'll 
 send them here." 
 
 This little bit of business disposed of, we all drifted into 
 the most agreeable conversation, which was shortly in- 
 terrupted by the arrival of an excited young man. It was 
 telegraphed to him instantly, also, that I was not in the 
 way. 
 
 " I've got ' Big Moll ' in a coach around the corner. She's 
 lust over from the Kings County Jail, and she wants her 
 sparklers.' Pop, you've got 'em, she says." 
 
 "Yes, I've got 'em, and she owes twenty-two dollars 
 bar hill on them," the old man growled. 
 
 "Don't you be afraid about the* sugar;' she's fixed. I 
 came in to see if the coast was clear. She mustn't meet 
 Patsy or she'll put a knife in him." 
 
 "He's in the hospital," one of the party remarked, 
 "getting his legs in condition to stand up for trial in the 
 .' Sessions." 
 
 With this satisfactory information regarding the doleful 
 whereabouts of Patsy, the courier of " Big Moll" depart- 
 
 ed, and soon returned with that lady herself. She proved 
 to be a big, bold, dashing woman, showing no traces of re- 
 cent prison life. She was also dressed expensively, and 
 was slightly drunk. Pulling out a roll of bills from her 
 bosom, she insisted upon all of us standing up to the bar 
 and indulging in champagne, which we drank out of tum- 
 blers. Jim's wife, who had been missing no tricks while 
 the gin bottle circulated, was also made very merry by 
 the champagne. 
 
 The diamond earrings and breastpin were produced on 
 liquidation of the old bill, and adjusted in Moll's ears and 
 at her throat by the other woman. She insisted upon hav- 
 ing a looking-glass hunted up so that she could survey her 
 magnificence, which seemed to give her infinite satisfae 
 tion. It was like a scene from the "Beggars' Opera.'' 
 The old man held the glass, Moll swaggered before it, and 
 all the rest of us, tumblers in hand, grouped ourselves 
 about the central figure. I didn't feel precisely like a 
 footpad, but the sensation was a strange one. Where did 
 she get her money so soon ? How about the j ewels ? These 
 questions I asked " Box-Stew Charley." 
 
 " Moll always has money," he answered, " or knows 
 where to go and get a hundred or so at any time. She's on 
 a little drunk now, celebrating her release after doing ten 
 months, but she's a sharp business woman all the same, 
 and when she s flush she puts some by. The diamonds 
 were given to her by a man who's dead now. They were 
 stolen in Paris." 
 
 " What is the lady's particular line ?" 
 
 "Shehasn'tany unless it's shoplifting, at which she's 
 very 'fly.' But she can't do much in New York. They 
 know her. She travels a good deal, is a kind of roper-in 
 for diamond sharps, and big jobs like that." 
 
 A long, low whistle. Instantly the blind man turned 
 
 down the gas, and we sat in gloom. Some one descended 
 
 ■ sand knocked significantly at the door, which 
 
 had been locked after Moll's arrival and out of deference 
 
 to the lateness of the hour. 
 
 A conversation between the boss and the one outside, a 
 conversation which I could not follow, took place, and 
 then the newcomer was admitted. It was something im- 
 portant and mysterious at the same time. There was 
 silence after a short talk, and I could hear the retreating 
 footsteps of the man outside. Tho door remained open, 
 for the cold wind blew in perceptibly. Footsteps return- 
 Log. They came down toward the saloon as if it were one 
 man leading another. Such in fact was the case, for when 
 they had entered, the door had been securely barred, and 
 the light turned up slightly, we saw that two men had 
 been added to the company. 
 
 One was deathly pale, and on his shirt front was an area 
 of crimson stain which located a gun-shot wound. His 
 companion put him into a chair and asked for brandy. 
 
 I saw that this was a case which explained itself, and I 
 did not ask about it. Some one had been shot in the com- 
 mission of a crime and had escaped. 
 
 When I left, both Jim's wife and "Big Moll " were 
 doing all they could to stanch the flow of blood with their 
 lace handkerchiefs against the arriral of a doctor who 
 had been sent for. 
 
 "And do you have a physician and surgeon?" 1 whis- 
 pered to Charley. 
 
 " Couldn't do without one. He's a good one, too. Did 
 three years for malpractice." 
 
f,s 
 
 NEW YORK'S QAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 FIYE CENT LODGING HOUSES. 
 
 It was my good, bad, or indifferent fortune once to sit 
 up -with a friend all night in a cheap lodging house in 
 London. We did it out of the merest curiosity and would 
 not have been there even to gratify that curiosity had 
 not the proprietor, Mr. Jno. White, who euphinistically 
 called his den " The Workingmen's Retreat," been under 
 obligations to my companion. 
 
 Mr. White's place was called in the slang of the thieves 
 and coster mongers who frequented it, a " thripenny 
 doss,"' the word "doss" being gypsy talk for bed. The 
 experience was a very peculiar one, such an experience 
 which one seldom cares to repeat, except in the line of 
 duty. All night long we beheld the spectacle of drunken 
 men and women staggering into the place, slamming 
 down their three coppers with an oath and then reeling 
 to whatever questionable pallet John White chose to 
 allot them. 
 
 But repulsive as the place was my memory reproduces 
 it as a Fifth Avenue Hotel in comparison with the estab- 
 lishment which your artist and myself investigated a few 
 nights back, one of those nights with a snappish cold 
 spirit abroad that prevented much luxury attaching itself 
 to slumbering in an alley or cart. 
 
 Cherry street boasts the possession of the particular 
 five cent lodging crib under consideration. Cherry 
 street has a good many of them, but I think that the one 
 we decided upon is the most unique. 
 
 I will back the landladj' against the proprietor or pro- 
 prietress of any of the others for being the most pictur- 
 esquely bestial woman in the business. As she sat just 
 inside the door of the sleeping room— it was not in the 
 cellar but gave upon the rough, cobble stones of a filthy 
 court in the rear of a tenement— with the sickly rays of a 
 red lamp fastened at the window streaming upon her, I 
 thought of some huge, bloated spider, surcharged with 
 blood to bursting, and possessing the most ravenous of 
 maws. 
 
 Bhe expected us. I had once done a little reporting for 
 a morning paper, and had been forced to visit her hotel 
 in quest of particulars regarding a society woman who, 
 being born in opulence, educated and married in social 
 pride, had passed through the lurid phases of illict love 
 and had gin to be found dead one winter morning in this ] 
 wretched room. 
 
 I recalled the circumstance to her when I visited her 
 in the day tunc to arrange lor a midnight seance. Bhe re- 
 membered me, and although she could not understand 
 why two human beings should deliberately seek her 
 Ln w inch to spend an hour or so, still Bhe 
 Consented, and even went to the trouble of borrowing two 
 
 from one of the families in the tenement. 
 "Y( ■ the spider, "you won't want to Bit 
 
 dnw a anj where in here, although I do try to be verv par 
 ticular; it isn't safe." 
 
 [ ai.-o ordered some gin for the old lady from the dia 
 
 tiii« ry on the street, and repeated the operation when we 
 
 ibis bad the effect of making her mellow. 
 
 Mrs. Olump, for suoh is her name, owns but ten beds, 
 
 or ton tattered ma mtfed along the wall, and 
 
 - by allow- 
 i" than three to one mattri i— . it is easy to calcu- 
 
 late that her night's revenue is but one dollar and a half. 
 But the dormitory is never closed. As the lodgers stagger 
 out in the morning others stagger in. No one ever comes 
 to Mrs. Clump's until he or she is dead drunk, and the 
 
 ime of the visit depends upon whether the lodger does 
 her boozing by day or night. 
 
 There were about a dozen in the room when we called. 
 It was awful close, and a pauperish looking fire in a stove 
 made the atmosphere sickening. She noticed our pale 
 faces and opened the door slightly. This precaution and a 
 generous swig of brandy from a private flask enabled us 
 to keep up the tone of the stomach. 
 
 Of the twelve lodgers already in three were women. 
 They lay in horrid dishabille, two of them upon their 
 backs, their mouths open, and an expression of gutter 
 sottishness upon their faces. The other one was curled 
 in a ragged lump, her knees reaching her frowsy head. 
 Suddenly she screamed in her sleep— a regular blood-curd- 
 ler too— and striking out wildly hit a man in the mouth 
 who lay next her. As we subsequently learned it was her 
 husband. 
 
 The brute sprang half up with an oath and turning 
 quickly took her by the throat while with his other band 
 he struck her a sounding blow. But only one. Mrs. 
 Clump seized a club at the side of her chair and deliber- 
 ately knocked him down upon his bed with it Then 
 standing over the human dog, still brandishing her agent 
 of domestic peace, she said : 
 
 " No one knows it better than me. Bill Welch, that you 
 will be hung yet for killing that woman, but you sttan t do 
 it here. You touch her again, and I'll get one of the gen- 
 tlemen to go for the police." 
 
 He looked up with a fierce scowl penetrating his matted 
 hair, glared a moment upon us, and fell back into his in- 
 ebriated stupor. The wife was already asleep, and none 
 of the others had stirred. 
 
 " I've got another lodger," said Mrs. (Hump, resuming 
 her seat, " like the one one that died here, you know." 
 She was addressing me and referring to the past, I 
 nodded. 
 
 " She is going precisely the same way, and I think she 
 started the same; she comes in about 1 o'clock, always 
 drunk, sometimes merry, sometimes wicked and full of 
 fight. She doesn't sleep on these common mattresses, but 
 gives me ten cents for the one behind that screen." She 
 pointed to an alcove at whoso entrance floated a curtain. 
 
 "And where is your home, Mrs. Glumpf " I asked. 
 
 " I have a lloor in a street up-town. I only stay here at 
 nights. In the day time my son runs the place." 
 
 Business becomes brisk suddenly. Old bums, shivering, 
 hardly able to stand or bold themselves together, came 
 through the glare of the red lamp, tossed their niekle or 
 
 rallied their pennies upon tbe little table on which 
 glimmered Mrs. Glump'S candle, and after a vacant si a n 
 at two strangers, who "ere apparently possessed of no 
 Intention of going to sleep on the premises, fell like bags 
 
 Of meal upon the vermin-infected beds and dropped into 
 
 " Here she comes- here comes Sarah 1" said Mrs. • ;. , in 
 a cautionary waj . and as she spoke b young woman who 
 had crossed the courtyard with a song upon her lips, 
 
< 4 + 
 
XEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 69 
 
 staggered into the place, and straightened in a moment 
 when she saw that visitors from the outside world were 
 present. 
 
 "It's only two friends of mine, Sarah," said Mrs. G., 
 " two gentlemen I used to know in England. Go on with 
 your song." 
 
 " I will if they stand treat," she said, " and they'll have 
 to hurrv; Mike's about shutting up." 
 
 I took out a coin, and held it indefinitely toward them 
 both. 
 
 ' I'll go for it," she said, " and there's no change, mind 
 you." Saying which she opened the door and disap- 
 peared. 
 
 'While she is after the gin I will state that this Anonyma 
 is not handsome now, but she has been. She is notrefined 
 now, but there still remains something of the grace of 
 the drawing-room in her movements yet. As she put 
 down the bottle on the table on her return and pocketed 
 my change, I thought of Sarah Bernhardt selling cups of 
 tea in the French Fair in London. 
 
 ! She took a terrible drink, as did Mrs. Glump, for that 
 I matter, and then began to sing in a mild, rambling way, 
 'When other lips, and other hearts." All at once she 
 ceased, and began an address, pointing, gesticulating 
 fiercely, and mouthing some lines from a play. I knew 
 what was coming; so did Mrs. Glump. Just as her eyes 
 set in the paroxysm of delirium tremens, and the froth 
 came upon her lips, while the distortion of despair passed 
 over her countenance as she cowered with her face in her 
 hands, the lodging-house keeper caught her. and threw 
 her upon a mattrass. 
 
 At her suggestion I ran around to Oak street, and got 
 police aid. 
 
 In twenty minutes Sarah, the "unknown," her shapely 
 arms in a straight jacket, rolled upon the floor of a padded 
 cell, and talked gibberish to the ceiling. 
 
 This was enough for us, I was sick at soul and stomach, 
 and never relished the cool air so much as when I reached 
 it after bidding Mrs. Glump good night. 
 
 LIFE ALONG THE WHARVES. 
 
 Along the river front to-night I How black and forbid 
 ding the water seems, and what a gloomy, sullen plash it 
 has as it swirls by the end of the wharf and gurgles among 
 the slimy spiles and posts. It always seems to me that 
 the rivers, both the East and North, change their entire 
 character when the gloaming comes and the many-colored 
 lights begin to hover over the murky waves like so many 
 fantastic insects in a realm of diablerie. In daytime the 
 sunlight kisses the stream until it breaks into a million 
 smiles of merry radiance. It dances on its way so the sea, 
 whose monotonous croon of welcome the roar of the great 
 city drowns. 
 
 But at night the liver becomes sinister. It reflects the 
 character of the spectral shadows who pull the phantom 
 boati in and out of darksome slips, and so noiselessly that 
 they are upon you, have glided by and are gone, before 
 you have half realized the fact of their existence. 
 
 It is these craft that the police patrol keep an eye of 
 guardianship upon. 
 
 The dark lantern of the law's uniformed representatives 
 frequently transform sinlo a Whitehall boat pulled by two 
 villainous-looking wretches what to the unpracticed eye 
 seemed but a shadow. Then it devolves upon the gentle- 
 men in the dogskin caps and pea-jackets to unfold the pur- 
 poses of their aquatic prowling. 
 
 No particularly honest man selects midnight, and after, 
 as ih» time for a purely pleasure trip upon the water. In 
 ntnr cases out of ten all moving row-boats upon the rivers 
 at night, barring the police craft, contain thieves who 
 become murderers when the occasion demands with the 
 celerity with which the modern fakir turns a rabbit into 
 a nosegay. 
 
 They board the canal-boats, sloops, schooners and other 
 
 lying at anchor and in fancied security, the object 
 
 to pick up rope, bits of chain and anything else that 
 
 can be cashed by the junk dealer. If the captain or mate 
 
 deeping below overhears them, it takes but two or three 
 
 muffled strokes to shoot the robbers' boat into the safety 
 
 afforded by the darkness. If the thieves have no time to 
 
 it is a d^perate struggle with pistols and 
 
 knives. There isn't a night that flies over New York like 
 
 ablack-plumagedbird of ill-omen that doesn't chronicle 
 one or more of these desperate encounters. There is 
 scarcely a day that the Morgue does not receive some 
 beaten and battered corpse, carried hither and thither by 
 restless tides until recognition is impossible, whose 
 wounds speak eloquently of a midnight murder. It is 
 only a very small percentage of these outrages that are 
 ever classed among the solved mysteries of the metropolis. 
 
 It isn't a comfortable sensation, standing on the end of 
 a pier at midnight, I must admit The neighborhood 
 selected by me for the beginning of this tramp is by no 
 means the most inviting in the city. We are on the North 
 River front at about Thirtieth street, and are walking 
 down toward the Twenty-third street ferry. Huge piles 
 of lumber and stone are on the piers. Lumber .yards and 
 gas-houses alternate with blocks of tenement houses, 
 whose corner saloons in some instances keep open all 
 night. The men met in these bars are a peculiar set. 
 They look furtively at you and stop talking when you 
 enter t There isn't one of them that couldn't put you in a 
 boat now and land you, say at a special dock in Comma- 
 nipaw, without making the slightest error in calculation. 
 These are sea-gulls that fly at night, and every inch of the 
 river is known to them. Standing here on the string-piece 
 and looking out upon the murmuring waste, I begin to get 
 cold bcth from the searching wind, which gets inside 
 your overcoat in true pickpocket style, and the thought 
 that I have been followed from the saloon. 
 
 A knock on the head, a quick rifling of pockets, and a 
 plunge— such are frequently the skeleton outlines of many 
 a marine drama. Let us go on to Twenty-third street, 
 where the civilization of the bob-tailed car is to be found. 
 
 What is the excitement in the ferry house ? Men are 
 running to and fro, and catching the fever, we run also. 
 A young girl attempted suicide ! Have they got her ! 
 Yes; that which they are putting upon the floor— tha 
 damp, sodden bundle— that is she. A lantern's light i 
 thrown in her face as the usual remedial processes arv. 
 resorted to, and we see a pretty girl, with face so pale, so 
 wan now, and eyelids, with their long lashes, closed over 
 eyes that are sunken far in the head. The yellow hair is 
 
XEW TORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 matted, twisted, tangled. In the torn dress that shows 
 the white shoulder we see the red-line made by the boat- 
 hook. 
 
 How did she do it? It was the work of a second. The 
 boat had just left the slip, that same boat now midway in 
 the stream, when she rushed to the rear chain, stumbled 
 over it, regained her feet, ?aid something which the man 
 who started to seize her could not understand, and was 
 gone. 
 
 She is reviving. A flush of pink, like a flower amid 
 snow, warms her cheeks, and the eye-lids quiver. Poor 
 thing ! She tried hard to leave a world of sin and suffer- 
 ing, but she has been baffled. The boat-hook and the 
 hastily summoned doctor have defeated her purpose. In 
 the morning she will be fined by the magistrate for acting 
 in defiance of the law. 
 
 There are economical suicides, patronizing the river 
 front, who do not go to the extravagance of a ferry fare. 
 They spring from the end of a wharf. There is one pier 
 near Roosevelt street, East River, that is quite a fashion- 
 able resort for the frail, miserable women of the neigh- 
 borhood, who drink the bad rum of the cellar dives until 
 the ashes of their brain are in a lurid blaze again, and 
 then with feverish haste, handicapped by unsteady step, 
 they stagger to the river. There is always an officer there 
 to lead them back and put them either in a station house 
 cell or in some haunt where a putrid, swinish sleep robs 
 them of the spasmodic energy of suicidal purpose. 
 
 I actually think it is a mistake to save these people. 
 Female denizens of the down-town East River front— I 
 mean those scorbutic specimens whose pimples and rib- 
 bons are noticeable at half open cellar doors on fine after- 
 noons—are lost to everything. There is no reform, either 
 
 physical or moral, possible, and " making a hole in the 
 drink," as the sailors put it, appears to me to be as neat a 
 thing as they can do. 
 
 But let us go back to the North River for a moment. We 
 are down-town now, below Canal street, and have the 
 good luck to stumble upon a garbage scow being loaded. 
 It is a really picturesque scene. Kuge ianterns and flam- 
 beaux throw light upon the carts on the wharf, the scow 
 in the river, and the brown-skinned :talians, bending \o 
 their work with hooks and bags, who are everywhere. 
 j Young women, with huge hoops of gold at their ears, ami 
 i wearing flaming kerchiefs about their necks, assist in the 
 i ghoulish picture. 
 
 j Although the river front is carefmly patrolled, it is a 
 i favorite stamping ground for footpads. Approaches to 
 the Williamsburgh ferry are particularly infested. 
 " Help 1 Help I Police! Murder! - ' are not infrequent 
 ; sounds of blood-curdling import during the night. We car. 
 ; imagine what nas occurred. The citizen held under the 
 i throat by one ruffian, while the pockets are turned inside 
 j out by others. It is a matter of about a minute. The job 
 done, the thieves and assassins Bee, up dark alleys 
 through tenement houses and over familiar fences, while 
 the police find the stunned and bleeding victim too inco- 
 herent to intelligibly relate his grievance. Many of the 
 sloops and canal-boats are haunts of the lawless, all the 
 gin-mills are run on neutral principles, junk dealers are 
 frequently "femes,'' ami too often the policemen along 
 shore find it convenient not to interfere with these little 
 operations of the lovers of darkness. What we need Is the 
 electric light along both edges of the city, and further 
 than that, we need steam launches for the river patrol. 
 
 STATION-HOUSE SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 Although I have seen a great deal of condensed life in 
 New York, I never knew that an entire night spent in the 
 or table reception room of a station-house would pan 
 out so well in the matter of sensatienalism and grotesque 
 incidents, until I sat up with a sergeant friend of mine for 
 e purpose Of Obtaining material for tlys article. 
 
 m now convinced that at no moment is New York un- 
 interesting. It is only necessary to know where to look 
 for romance to find it in regular bonanzas. 
 Tour brigandish-looking artist was on time at the ren- 
 iis, and behind the fragrance and the ruddy tips of 
 two good cigars we strolled toward the green lights of the 
 station, balefully throwing an unholy light across the 
 street, and suggesting to my Imaginative companion the 
 emerald eyes of a sea serpent. 
 
 All was quiet, snog and orderly as we lilted hack In the 
 chairs to which the sergeant b Lgned us, and gave our- 
 up to the calm waiting f<>r developments. It was 
 not long to wait. 
 
 I AS first developmei.t was an old man, a very old man, 
 an exceedingly drunk and terribly dirty old man. 
 
 Lrick'sday bat was mashed In, who bad mud In bia 
 
 hair ami lime in nil whiskers, and who presented alto 
 
 _■• tin-r the appearance of having some from Minnesota on 
 
 ' i "blizzard."' 
 
 M Drunk and disorderly, " said th< ol Lhi.n 
 
 climbing a Third avenue elevated railroad pillar. He said 
 he always rea< bed bis room by way of the fire-escape 
 when he came home late." 
 
 The ancient gentleman said not a word to all this, lie 
 blinked at the lights, at the sergeant, at us, and at the 
 officer like an evicted owl. They led him quietly away 
 
 Perhaps live minutes had elapsed, perhaps ten, but at 
 any rate it seemed but a short space of time between this 
 tit and one a great deal more tragic. The doorman 
 of the corridor on which the cells open was suddenly 
 heard running and jingling across the stone Boor, while 
 an officer rushed in from the rear to tell the sergeant that 
 the woman In So. i had committed BUiclde. 
 
 We ail sprang to our feet, the officer remaining In 
 charge of the room, and sought the cell Thegas-jetin 
 Hi, hall, which was directly opposite the door, and th< 
 lantern which the keeper had placed on the damp fiagsot 
 Hi, cell, enabled us to see him clearly as be was m ■■,.. 
 of cutting dow n the body. Bhe had maoe a rope with her 
 
 Lned it to be, fell into his arms 
 
 he ivily, like a sack of m< aL Be knelt upon the floor and 
 
 i for his lantern, flooding the somewhat swollen 
 
 Ith its light She was not dead; far from it. ■ 
 
 irning life were already visible, and before the 
 
 been m at tor arrived she was n 
 
NEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 71 
 
 ered sufficiently to stand upon her feet in the cell, her 
 wild eyes flashing, her hair floating about her stalwart 
 shoulders, and in that attitude to damn to eternal perdi- 
 tion the man who had cut her down and all who had 
 assisted in her resuscitation. 
 
 "Now that you've brought me back to this hell of a 
 world," she went on in a blood-curdling way, " there isn't 
 one of you man enough to get me a drink of whisky." 
 
 There was a good deal of the grimmest kind of philoso- 
 phy in the remark. I mentioned this view of the case to 
 the sergeant, and although such things should not be told, 
 I think that Maggie (her name) got the nectar she so much 
 desired. 
 
 The doorman had discovered her attempt by the merest 
 accident. He had heard her kick away the stool, or what- 
 ever it was she stood upon, and he recognized the familiar 
 sound. 
 
 " Why, Lord bless you," he said, " 'tain't no uncommon 
 thing. They're at it all the time, and they always cut up 
 that way after you cut them down." 
 
 This was the doorman's little joke, 
 
 " Now, here is something," said the sergeant, about half 
 an hour after, as we heard a commotion in the street. 
 Ihe doors were flung wide open, and four officers brought 
 in a groaning man on a stretcher. He was covered with 
 a bloody sheet. Two other officers dragged in his assassin, 
 hatless, almost coatless, from whose head the blood had 
 been streaming. He looked as if he had thoroughly de- 
 served the clubbing which he had evidentlj' received. At 
 first I imagined it a genuine murder, but it was only a 
 severe stabbing case following a row in a corner liquor 
 saloon. 
 
 The New York Hospital sent an ambulance in response 
 to a telegraphic call, and after some preliminary medical 
 attention had been paid the injured individual he was 
 driven away, while his assailant, still defiant, still sug- 
 gesting the wild beast and man in his yawping, barbaric 
 locked up. The crowd inside and out silently 
 dispersed. 
 
 The next to enter was a little, nervous woman, dressed, 
 in black. Her face was pinched and wan. Furrows and 
 tightly drawn lines ran across the places on her cheeks 
 where once, no doubt, the roses and lilies of health 
 mingled i'i their pink and white beauty. 
 
 " Well, my good woman, what is it?" 
 
 II r voice trembled. ,k I wish to knew, sir, if my hus- 
 band is here." 
 
 " What's your husband's name?" 
 
 " John Carr. He's gone since Saturday." 
 
 " Describe him." 
 
 She did so, minutely— photographed him, in fact. 
 
 "I haven't seen or heard of any such person, ma'am. 
 Have you been to the Morgue ?" 
 
 Here she burst out crying, answering through her sobs: 
 " I went this afternoon, but I came away without ringing 
 the bell." 
 
 "And why?" 
 
 " I was afraid to." 
 
 She went out into the night, into the glare of the green 
 lamps, with her faded shawl athered up and pressed to 
 her face. 
 
 There were many ordinary " bums," " drunks and dis- 
 orderlies," men and women, brought in during the night. 
 A respectable-looking gentleman, who struck me as being 
 a seedy clergyman, applied for lodging. II was a rainv, 
 disagreeable night, and he looked as if he had been hauled 
 out of a pond. At about 3 o'clock we were rewarded by 
 the arrival of a shoal of fantastics, masqueraders, who 
 had been fighting among themselves on their return from 
 a ball. 
 
 There was Bombastes Furioso charging a Spanish 
 courtier with " smashin' " him in the nose. The courtier 
 retorted that his noble friend had drawn his sword on 
 him. 
 
 There were three or four ladies in the party, as well as 
 some other high-toned dukes, dons and kings, who had 
 come along to contribute testimony and see the affair out. 
 The ladies were Indian princesses, a vivandiere, and a 
 " Little Buttercup." They had all been drinking, and the 
 rain had so soaked their fine feathers that they were in 
 reality the most comical group 1 had ever seen. 
 
 There was nothing very serious done to the Furiosc 
 nose, and since they showed a disposition all around to 
 make it Hp, the courtier was discharged. The fracas had 
 occurred in a street car. 
 
 A young girl found wandering about aimlessly and ask- 
 ing for the Boston depot, although she could give no satis- 
 factory account of why she left Boston; a brace of bur- 
 glars caught in a Bowery store; a sprinkling of " bums," 
 and finally a young man in* full dress, who had driven of! 
 with a milkman's wagon, "just for a lark, you know," 
 constituted the rest of the arrivals during our vigil. 
 
 " Some nights," said the sergeant, " it's not so stupid." 
 
 Stupid I 
 
 WHAT A HACKMAN SEES. 
 
 I know a very nice fellow who drives a hack for a liv- 
 ing. It is his own vehicle, and lie naturally takes a pride 
 in it, as he does in his horses, which are always neatly 
 
 It is his own choice that he works at night instead of 
 daytime. !!•• i- something of a student of human charac- 
 ter like myself, and he avers that the pursuit of the occu- 
 pation is much more entertaining at night than in the 
 garish, vulgar day. 
 
 And then again he makes more. There is always some 
 trieity about people who take carriages after mid- 
 Bight, which is just as apt to find expression in a liberal j 
 system of payment as in any other manner. 
 
 I must be very careful to explain that my hackman, 
 with whom I have just had along talk, must not be con- 
 founded with those disreputable fellows who stand in 
 with burglars. He is an honest whip, and during all the 
 time that I have known and hired him I have detected 
 nothing wrong in his character. I first made his ac- 
 quaintance when there was an all-night eating and drink- 
 ing saloon in the basement at Clinton place and Broad- 
 way. His hask stood outside. 
 
 He knows all about the disreputable members of his 
 fraternity, however, and has told me many a story of 
 their collusion with thieves. The burglar has frequently 
 escaped owing to a hack being in a dark alley ready for 
 
79 
 
 NEW YORK'S GAS-LIT LIFE. 
 
 him to jump into and bid defiance to the pursuing police. 
 There was a case about two years ago where a rubber got 
 away successfully with his swag owing to fleet horses, 
 and amused himself furthermore by firing a revolver 
 through the back window at the policemen. 
 
 The Jehu of my acquaintance haunts the railroad fer- 
 ries, and generally gets a fare. One of the most myste- 
 rious that he ever had he picked up at Desbrosses street 
 at 4 o'clock in the morning. She was a young girl from 
 Philadelphia who took his carriage and told him to drive 
 anywhere until daybreak. She had no baggage. 
 
 "'But it is cold and damp. Miss. Had you not better 
 stop at a hotel, or with some friends?' I asked her. 
 
 " She looked at me sadly— my eye, but she was pretty— 
 and said: ' I have no friends. Drive till the sun rises. I 
 will pay you. ' 
 
 " So I did. I remember that it was down near the Bat- 
 tery I had gotten to by sun-up. It was a Spring morningi 
 and the birds were singing, while the waves in the bay 
 bad just begun to glisten. I got down and looked in. She 
 was dead ! stone dead, with the revolver still in her hand 
 and a purplish hole in her temple. She had so arranged 
 a shawl and her handkerchief that the blood had not 
 soiled my carriage a bit. If it had I would not have been 
 ruined, for she had pinned a $50 note to the lace of the 
 coach, with a penciled line on a piece of paper, saying it 
 was for me." 
 
 " And what did you do ?" 
 
 " I drove her to the Morgue, wondering all the while how 
 I never heard the report of the revolver. She must have 
 done it during the clatter made by some market wagons 
 from Long Island that I got mixed up with. After leav- 
 ing the body I informed the police. Nothing was found 
 upon her, and the chief of police in Philadelphia could 
 get no trace. They buried her up the river." 
 
 Cabby tells curious tales about the balls at the Academy. 
 He says that he is frequently told by the gentleman, after 
 the iady is assisted into the vehicle, to drive up to Central 
 Park at a walk. He has then been requested to drive to 
 High Bridge, or anywhere else. Sometimes on these oc 
 casions the most violent scenes take place, and one night 
 the woman screamed to him for assistance. It was at a 
 lonely place on the Kingsbridge road, and about 3 a. m. 
 Hi- halted his horses, jumped down and opened the door 
 the young woman, who was costumed as a page beneath a 
 
 pink domino and mask, springing out almost into his 
 arms, begging him to protect her. 
 
 " That I certainly would. I then asked what was the 
 matter, but got no satisfaction. She cried and he laughed. 
 It was easy to surmise, however. I ordered him from the 
 carriage, and then put her back, she telling me where to 
 go. I left him standing in the road in his full dress suit, 
 calmly smoking a cigarette ! The lady lived in a swell 
 house near the Windsor. She made me come around the 
 next day and gave me $10, although I had been paid for 
 the night's work by the Lothario in the dress suit." 
 
 " Have you ne\ er gotten in trouble about these myste- 
 rious night fares?" 
 
 " Once only. A young man picked me up on Broadway 
 and took me way over to Hoboken. We stopped at a house 
 from which a young woman, all muffled up, and so weak 
 that she had to be carried, was brought out. I suspected 
 something wrong then, but I was younger than I am new 
 and the night was wasted, and I resolved to stick it ouv. 
 They had me drive to a place in Grand street— a disrepu- 
 table-looking house, with a light burning in the second- 
 story window. I got a glimpse of the young woman's face 
 as the young man and an old lady helped her out. It was 
 pale as death. She turned her head, and seemed to look 
 right at me as if asking for aid. An old wretch in a skull- 
 cap came to the door with a lamp. 
 
 " It was an abortion case, of course. The girl died, and 
 when they advertised for the hackman I drove down and 
 gave myself up. I believe that? the old man got ten years. 
 The young one jumped the town, and I never heard of his 
 being caught." 
 
 He old me a great many more curious things; how an 
 old gray-bearded man took him at Courtlandt street ferry 
 once, and it was a young, smooth-faced fellow who got 
 out at the Grand Central Depot, where he had been told 
 to go. 
 
 On another occasion a veiled lady, carrying a baby, 
 hired him to catch the. midnight Washington express. He 
 caught it, but when he opened the door the woman was 
 missing, and the baby, tucked up in a corner, was all that 
 remained, lie turned it over to the police. The woman 
 must have jumped out while he was going at fall speed. 
 In the case of the old man, my cabby thinks he was a 
 criminal, fleeing from justice, who used the cab as a 
 dressing-room in Wh* r 'i to remove his disguise. 
 
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