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NEW YORK 
 
 by 
 
 Sunlight and Gaslight. 
 
 A WORK DESCRIPTIVE OF THE 
 
 GREAT AMERICAN METROPOLIS. 
 
 ITS HIGH AND LOW LIFE ; ITS SPLENDORS AND MISERIES ; ITS VIRTUES 
 AND VICES; ITS GORGEOUS PALACES AND DARK HOMES OF 
 POVERTY AND CRIME; ITS PUBLIC MEN, POLITI- 
 CIANS, ADVENTURERS J ITS CHARITIES, 
 FRAUDS, MYSTERIES, ETC., ETC. 
 
 BY JAMES D. McCABE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "PARIS BY SUNLIGHT AND GASLIGHT," " PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE WORLD 
 "CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES," " CROSS AND CROWN," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH FINE FULL-PAGE AND OTHER ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 JONES BROTHERS AND COMPANY: 
 
 CINCINNATI, PHILADELPHIA, CHICAGO, KANSAS CITY. 
 
 J. M. Olcott, Indianapolis; J. C. Chilton & Co., Detroit; 
 T. N. James & Co., St. Louis; W. H. McClain, Des Moines. 
 
. m h 
 
 I ma a) 
 
 Copyright by 
 DOUGLASS BROTHERS. 
 1SS1. 
 
 t 
 
 COLLINS, PKLNTEK. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 What Paris is to the Frenchman, or London to the Briton, New 
 York is to the American. It is not only the Great Metropolis of 
 the New World, but it is the chief attraction upon this continent, 
 the great centre to which our people resort for business and plea- 
 sure, and as such, is a source of never-failing interest. 
 
 This being the case, it is natural that every American should de- 
 sire to visit New York, to see the city for himself, behold its beau- 
 ties, its wonderful sights, and participate in the pleasures which are 
 to be enjoyed only in the Metropolis. Thousands avail themselves 
 of this privilege every year ; but the great mass of our people know 
 our chief city only by the descriptions of their friends, and the brief 
 accounts of its sights and scenes which occur from time to time in 
 the newspapers of the day. Even those who visit the city bring 
 away but a superficial knowledge of it, as to know New York re- 
 quires years of constant study and investigation. Strangers see only 
 the surface ; they cannot penetrate into its inner life, and examine 
 the countless influences at work every day in shaping the destiny 
 of the beautiful city. Few, even of the residents of the Metropolis, 
 have either the time or the means for such investigations. Few 
 have a correct idea of the terrible romance and hard reality of the 
 daily lives of a vast portion of the dwellers in New York, or of the 
 splendor and luxury of the wealthier classes. 
 
 One of the chief characteristics of New York is the rapidity with 
 which changes occur in it. Those who were familiar with the city 
 in the past will find it new to them now. The march of progress 
 and improvement presses on with giant strides, and the city of 
 to-day is widely separated from the city of a few years ago. Only 
 one who has devoted himself to watching its onward career, either 
 in prosperity and magnificence or in misery and crime, can form 
 any idea of the magnitude and character of the wonderful changes 
 of the past ten years. 
 
 The volume now offered to the reader aims to be a faithful and 
 graphic picture of the New York of to-day, and to give, in life-like 
 
 iii 
 
IV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 colors, views of its magnificent streets and buildings, its busy, 
 bustling crowds, its rushing elevated trains, its countless sights, its 
 romance, its mystery, its nobler and better efforts in the cause of 
 humanity, its dark crimes, and terrible tragedies. In short, the 
 work endeavors to hold up to the reader a faithful mirror, in which 
 shall pass all the varied scenes that transpire in New York, by sun- 
 light and by gaslight. To those who have seen the great city, the 
 work is offered as a means of recalling some of the pleasantest ex- 
 periences of their lives ; while to the still larger class who have 
 never enjoyed this pleasure, it is hoped that it will be the medium 
 of their acquiring an intimate acquaintance with New York in the 
 quiet of their own homes, and without the expense or fatigue of a 
 journey. 
 
 This volume is not a work of fiction, but a narrative of well au- 
 thenticated, though often startling facts. The darker sides of New 
 York life are shown in their true colors, and without any effort to 
 tone them down. Foul blots are to be found upon the life of the 
 great city. Sin, vice, crime and shame are terrible realities there, 
 and they have been presented here as they actually exist. 
 
 Throughout the work, the aim of the author has been to warn 
 those who wish to see for themselves the darker side of city life, of 
 the dangers attending such undertakings. A man who seeks the 
 haunts of vice and crime in New York takes his life in his hand, ex- 
 poses himself to dangers of the most real kind, and deserves all the 
 harm that may come to him in his quest of knowledge. Enough is 
 told in this volume to satisfy legitimate curiosity, and to convince 
 the reader that the only path of safety in New York is to avoid all 
 places of doubtful repute. The city is bright and beautiful enough 
 to occupy all one's time with its wonderful sights and innocent plea- 
 sures. To venture under the shadow, is to court danger in all its forms. 
 No matter how " wise in his own conceit " a stranger may be, he is 
 but a child in the hands of the disreputable classes of the great city. 
 
 In the preparation of this work the author has drawn freely upon 
 his own experience, the result of a long and intimate acquaintance 
 with all the various phases of New York life. He ventures to hope 
 that those who are familiar with the subject will recognize the truth- 
 fulness of the statements made, and that the book may prove a 
 source of pleasure and profit to all who may honor it with a perusal. 
 
 November ist, 1881. J. D. m'c. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FAGS 
 
 BARTHOLDI'S STATUE, "LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD," 
 (Frontispiece) 
 
 EVENING POST BUILDING (Full Page) 42 
 
 ODD FELLOWS' HALL 44 
 
 NEW YORK LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY'S BUILDING 45 
 
 DOMESTIC SEWING MACHINE BUILDING (Full Page) 47 
 
 TRIBUNE BUILDING 4 8 
 
 STAATS ZEITUNG BUILDING 49 
 
 GRAND CENTRAL DEPOT (Full Page) to face 6i 
 
 PAVONIA DOCKS, JERSEY CITY (Full Page) 90 
 
 BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF NEW YORK (Full Page) 93 
 
 BROADWAY, LOOKING NORTH FROM EXCHANGE PLACE 136 
 
 MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE BUILDING 138 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CHURCH (Full Page) 139 
 
 BROADWAY, AT THE POST OFFICE (Full Page) 141 
 
 LORD AND TAYLOR'S DRY GOODS STORE (Full Page) 150 
 
 SWELL TURNOUT ON FIFTH AVENUE (Full Page) 172 
 
 METROPOLITAN ELEVATED RAILWAY STATION, SIXTH AVENUE AND 
 
 TWENTY-THIRD STREET (Full Page) to face 179 
 
 ELEVATED RAILROAD, CHATHAM SQUARE (Full Page) to face 183 
 
 COENTIES SUP (Full Page) to face 191 
 
 THE THIRD AVENUE RAILROAD DEPOT 241 
 
 MASONIC TEMPLE, SIXTH AVENUE AND TWENTY-THIRD STREET 252 
 
 METROPOLITAN ELEVATED RAILROAD, SIXTH AVENUE AND FOUR- 
 TEENTH STREET (Full Page) to face 255 
 
 COACHING DAY IN CENTRAL PARK (Full Page) 263 
 
 COOPER INSTITUTE AND ELEVATED RAILROAD, THIRD AVENUE (Full 
 
 Page) « to face 267 
 
 "PLEASE GIVE ME A PENNY" 271 
 
 SCENE ON WEST STREET (Full Page) 279 
 
 CITY HALL AND PARK (Full Page) to face 297 
 
 UNITED STATES SUB-TREASURY 299 
 
 CUSTOM HOUSE 301 
 
 CUSTOM HOUSE INSPECTION (Full Page) 303 
 
 STEINWAY HALL 307 
 
 COOPER UNION 309 
 
 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN 312 
 
 GRAND CENTRAL DEPOT, FRONT VIEW (Full Page) 317 
 
 A VETERAN CALLER AT WORK (Full Page) 325 
 
 A CALLER WHO HAS HAD TOO MUCH PUNCH 327 
 
 NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE 335 
 
 BELL TELEPHONE EXCHANGE (Full Page) to face 351 
 
 CUNARD STEAMSHIP "GALLIA" 361 
 
 SOUND STEAMER BRISTOL (Full Page) to face 361 
 
 GRAND SALOON, SOUND STEAMER (Full Page) 363 
 
 COURTLANDT AND LIBERTY STREET FERRIES (Full Page) to face 367 
 
 AN ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE FOILED (Full Page) to face 397 
 
\ 
 
 VI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAVONIA AND ERIE RAILWAY FERRY (Full Page) 405 
 
 THE TOMBS 410 
 
 SCENE IN A POLICE COURT (Full Page) to/ace 417 
 
 LUDLOW STREET JAII 419 
 
 UNION SQUARE, AT FOURTEENTH STREET (Full Page) to/ace 427 
 
 MADISON SQUARE (Full Page) 429 
 
 VIEW OF THE LAKE FROM THE TERRACE 451 
 
 THE LOWER TERRACE IN CENTRAL PARK 453 
 
 BRIDGE ACROSS THE LAKE (Full Page) 455 
 
 THE OBELISK (Full Page) 463 
 
 TRINITY CHURCH (Full Page) 471 
 
 A FANCY BALL AT THE BUCKINGHAM PALACE (Full Page) to face 481 
 
 A WATER STREET DANCE HOUSE (Full Page) 491 
 
 JAY GOULD 497 
 
 THE SIXTY-NINTH REGIMENT ARMORY 499 
 
 THE SEVENTH REGIMENT ARMORY 502 
 
 WM. H. VANDERBILT 503 
 
 RIVER PIRATES ESCAPING FROM THE POLICE (Full Page) 519 
 
 CREEDMOOR RIFLE RANGE 528 
 
 TOO MUCH RUM (Full Page) 531 
 
 HENRY BERGH (Full Page) 535 
 
 BROOKLYN BRIDGE AND EAST RIVER (Full Page) 538 
 
 SCENE IN A BROADWAY GAMBLING HALL 544 
 
 LOW CLASS GAMBLING DEN 547 
 
 THE TUNNEL UNDER THE HUDSON RIVER 554 
 
 A. T. STEWART & CO.'S RETAIL STORE (Full Page) 557 
 
 TENEMENT HOUSE IN BAXTER STREET (Full Page) to face 561 
 
 JERRY M'AULEY 564 
 
 MRS. M'AULEY 567 
 
 BOOTH'S THEATRE (Full Page) 575 
 
 GRAND OPERA HOUSE 576 
 
 THE HOMES OF THE POOR (Full Page) 582 
 
 SCENE IN THE CHINESE QUARTERS (Full Page) to face 585 
 
 SHANTIES IN EIGHTH AVENUE (Full Page; 587 
 
 HOSPITAL FOR CATS (Full Page) to face 591 
 
 THE EVENING MAIL BUILDING 600 
 
 CHEMICAL FIRE ENGINE 606 
 
 NEW YORK FIREMEN RESCUING A CHILD FROM THE FLAMES 611 
 
 HARRY U. ILLS (Full Page) 613 
 
 HON. JOHN KELLY 617 
 
 REV. HENRY C. POTTER, D.D 622 
 
 REV. JOHN C. HALL, D.D 625 
 
 REV. THOS. ARMITAGE, D.D 626 
 
 REV. W. M. TAYLOR. D.D 627 
 
 REV. ROBT. COLLYER. D.D 628 
 
 ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL (Full Page) 632 
 
 THE OLD BOWERY THEATRE 640 
 
 ST. NICHOLAS HOTEL 646 
 
 METROPOLITAN HOTEL <M7 
 
 GRAND CENTRAL HOTEL 649 
 
 THE TRAMP'S BATH 653 
 
 BEER TRAMPS 654 
 
 EMIGRANTS LANDING AT CASTLE GARDEN (Full Page) to face 661 
 
 SCENE IN FULTON MARKET DURING THE WATERMELON SEASON (Full 
 
 Page) to face 665 
 
 HIGH BRIDGE 669 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE GREAT METROPOLIS. 
 
 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF NEW YORK CITY— LOCATION— NATURAL ADVANTAGES — COMMERCIAL 
 ADVANTAGES — THE STREETS — BUILDINGS — CLIMATE — HEALTHFULNESS — MORTALITY — RAPID 
 GROWTH OF THE CITY — LOFTY BUILDINGS — DESCRIPTION OF THE MOST NOTED AND THE 
 HIGHEST STRUCTURES IN THE CITY — REASONS FOR BUILDING SO HIGH — LAND CHEAP UP 
 STAIRS 33 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK. 
 
 POPULATION OF NEW YORK IN 1870— THE STATE CENSUS OF 1875— WHAT CHANGES IT SHOWED— POPU- 
 LATION IN 1880 POPULATION AFFECTED BY THE IMPROVEMENTS IN THE LOWER PART OF THE 
 
 CITY — THE MOST DENSELY SETTLED PART OF NEW YORK — THE FLOATING POPULATION — 
 STRANGERS IN NEW YORK — FOREIGN DISTRICTS — COSMOPOLITAN CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE 
 — CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW YORKERS — LACK OF PUBLIC SPIRIT — INDIFFERENCE TO POLITI- 
 CAL AFFAIRS — THE RESULT — THE RACE FOR WEALTH — HOW BUSINESS IS DONE IN NEW YORK — 
 WEARING OUT BODY AND SOUL — A PHILOSOPHICAL MERCHANT — A NEW COMER'S IMPRESSIONS 
 — LIVING TOO FAST — NO CHANCE FOR LAGGARDS — HOW SUCCESS IS WON — MERIT THE TEST — 
 
 NEW YORK FROM A MORAL POINT OF VIEW — ITS CHARITIES AND BENEVOLENCE TOLERATION 
 
 OF OPINIONS AND BELIEFS — MENTAL CULTURE OF THE PEOPLE — WHAT IT COSTS TO LIVE IN 
 NEW YORK — THE RICH AND THE MIDDLE CLASSES — NEW YORK AS A PLACE OF RESIDENCE — 
 ATTACHMENT OF THE PEOPLE TO THE CITY 51 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE GROWTH OF NEW YORK. 
 
 RAPID GROWTH OF NEW YORK DURING THE PAST THIRTY-FIVE YEARS — THE FLUSH TIMES AFTER 
 THE WAR — EFFECTS OF THE PANIC OF 1873 — A MOMENTARY CHECK — RETURN OF PROS- 
 PERITY — PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE — INCREASE IN BUILDING OPERATIONS — HOW REAL 
 ESTATE APPRECIATES IN VALUE— THE SECRET OF THE GREAT INCREASE OF WEALTH IN NEW 
 YORK — FUTURE CENTRES OF POPULATION— WHAT NEW YORK WILL BE FIFTY YEARS HENCE — 
 A GRAND DESTINY 65 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE HARBOR OF NEW YORK. 
 
 NATURAL ADVANTAGES OF THE HARBOR— THE OUTER AND INNER BAYS— -EXCURSIONS— A TRIP 
 DOWN THE HARBOR — SCENES ALONG THE ROUTE — THE SHIPPING — THROUGH THE INNER BAY 
 —GOVERNOR'S ISLAND — BEDLOE'S AND ELLIS* ISLANDS— BARTHOLDl'S STATUE— LIBERTY 
 ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD — THE KILL VAN KULL — STATEN ISLAND — THE NARROWS — THE 
 FORTIFICATIONS — THE OUTER BAY— QUARANTINE— CONEY ISLAND — SCENES IN THE LOWER 
 BAY— SANDY HOOK— OUT TO SEA— BACK TO NEW YORK 88 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 SANDY HOOK. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF "THE HOOK " — A NOTED LANDMARK— A SANDY W A STE — TH E COVE— THE BEACH 
 — THE LIGHT-SHIPS — THE LIFE SAVING STATION — SANDY HOOK LIGHTHOUSE — ITS HISTORY 
 — THE KEEPER'S HOUSE — WRECKS — IN THE LIGHT-TOWER — A GRAND VIEW — OCEAN CEME- 
 TERY — THE FORTIFICATIONS — TESTING THE HEAVY GUNS — THE NORTH LIGHT — THE SYRENS 
 — THE TELEGRAPH STATION 104 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE NEVERSINK HIGHLANDS. 
 
 SITUATION OF THE HIGHLANDS— THE SHREWSBURY RIVER— RED BANK ORIGIN OF THE NAME 
 
 OF THE HIGHLANDS — AS SEEN FROM THE SEA — THE LIGHT TOWERS — A MAGNIFICENT LIGHT 
 — VIEW FROM THE TOWER— THE PICTURES IN THE LENSES— A GLIMPSE OF FAIRY LAND. II3 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT— THE MAYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMEN— THE COM- 
 MISSIONERS — DESCRIPTION OF THE VARIOUS MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENTS— POWERS OF OFFI- 
 CIALS — THE COURTS — POLICE JUSTICES — THE MEN BY WHOM NEW YORK IS GOVERNED — RESPON- 
 SIBILITY OF THE BETTER CLASSES— FROM THE GROG SHOP TO CIVIL POWER — WHO THE LEAD- 
 ERS ARE — THE " BOSS" — THE RING — HOW BOSS TWEED MAINTAINED His' POWER — SPASMODIC 
 EFFORTS AT REFORM — MULHOOLYISM IN NEW YORK — AN INSIDE VIEW OF MUNICIPAL POLITICS 
 
 — THE SLAVE OF THE RING LOOKING OUT FOR THE " BOYS " — THE INTERESTS OF THE CITY 
 
 NEGLECTED — THE POPULAR WILL DEFIED BY THE RING. "8 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 BROADWAY. 
 
 7ARLY HISTORY OF BROADWAY — UNDER THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH RULE— PRIMITIVE NAME OF 
 
 THE STREET — IT COMMENCES TO GROW — THE GREAT FIRE OF 1 776— THE BROADWAY OF TO- 
 DAY — APPEARANCE OF THE STREET — A STROLL ON BROADWAY — THE LOWER STREET — 
 TRINITY CHURCH— THE INSURANCE COMPANIES — THE TELEGRAPH WIRES — MAGNIFICENT 
 BUILDINGS — SCENE FROM THE POST-OFFICE — A BROADWAY JAM — LOWER BROADWAY BY 
 NIGHT— CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VARIOUS PORTIONS OF THE STREET— VIEW FROM CANAL 
 STREET — THE HOTELS — AMONG THE PUBLISHERS — " STEWART'S " — GRACE CHURCH — 
 BROADWAY AT UNION SQUARE— THE NARROWEST PART — MADISON SQUARE — A GRAND SIGHT- 
 UPPER BROADWAY — A STREET OF MARBLE — THE GREAT HOTELS— THE CENTRAL PARR- 
 REACHED— STREET CARS AND OMNIBUSES— THE NIGHT LIFE OF BROADWAY— SCENES ON THE 
 STREET — THE STREET WALKERS — THE ELECTRIC LIGHT — THE MIDNIGHT HOUR — BUSINESS 
 ON BROADWAY. *34 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE BROADWAY STAGES. 
 
 POPULARITY OF THIS MODE OF CONVEYANCE — A *CHEAP PLEASURE — DESCRIPTION OF THE VARI- 
 OUS LINES — THE STAGES AS REGARDS COMFORT— THE OUTSIDE SEATS—" KNOCKING DOWN 
 IN BY-GONE DAYS"— THE PATENT CASH BOX SYSTEM— THE M SPOTTERS "—A NIGHT RIDE 
 WITH JEHU— THE " BOSS " ON THE WATCH— MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS— SKILL OF THE STAGE 
 DRIVERS — A STAGE DRIVER PHOTOGRAPHED — SUFFERINGS OF THE DRIVERS— UPS AND DOWNS 
 OF THE CRAFT— THE MUTUAL BENEFIT ASSOCIATION I 57 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 PIFTH AVENUE THE CENTRE OF FASHION AND WEALTH— DESCRIPTION OF THE STREET — A 
 GRAND PANORAMA— LOWER FIFTH AVENUE— ENCROACHMENTS OF BUSINESS— FOURTEENTH 
 
 STREET — THE " SWALLOW TAIL" DEMOCRACY — AMONG THE PIANO MAKERS CHICKERING 
 
 HALL CHURCHES CLUBS AND ART GALLERIES— TWENTY-THIRD STREET— DELMONICO'S— 
 
 THE ASTOR RESIDENCES— STEWART'S MARBLE PALACE A REGION OF BROWN STONE UPPER 
 
 FIFTH AVENUE — THE HOTELS — THE CATHEDRAL THE VANDERBILT MANSIONS — ALONG 
 
 THE CENTRAL PARK— THE LENOX LIBRARY— THE FIFTH AVENUE MANSIONS— HOMES OF 
 
 WEALTH AND LUXURY— HOW THEY ARE FITTED UP— FIFTH AVENUE ON NEW YEAR'S NIGHT 
 
 LIFE IN FIFTH AVENUE — THE WHIRL OF DISSIPATION— WHAT IT COSTS— THE STRUGGLE FOR 
 
 SHOW THE M NEWLY RICH "—DARK SIDE OF FIFTH AVENUE LIFE THE SKELETONS FIFTH 
 
 AVENUE HUSBANDS AND WIVES — THE CHILDREN "ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS." 165 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 THE ELEVATED RAILROADS. 
 
 INCONVENIENCES OF OLD-STYLE TRAVEL — PLANS FOR RAPID TRANSIT — THE FIRST ELEVATED 
 
 RAILROAD — THE PRESENT SYSTEM — THE METROPOLITAN AND NEW YORK ELEVATED ROADS 
 
 THE MANHATTAN COMPANY— DESCRIPTION OF THE ROADS— HOW THEY ARE BUILT— MODE OF 
 OPERATIONS — STATIONS — EMPLOYEES— RAPID TRAINS — ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM — ITS 
 
 DRAWBACKS — IMMENSE TRAFFIC — RESULTS OF THE ELEVATED SYSTEM RAPID GROWTH OF 
 
 THE UPPER PART OF THE CITY — A RIDE ON THE ELEVATED RAILROADS — THE NIGHT TRAINS 
 FROM THE BATTERY TO HARLEM BY NIGHT I78 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 THE VARIOUS CLASSES OF SOCIETY — THE BEST OF ALL — THE "OLD KNICKERBOCKERS*' — A HEAVY 
 
 SET OF SWELLS — RICHES AND CULTURE COMBINED THE NEWLY RICH — THE CONTROLLING 
 
 ELEMENT — HOW SHODDY GETS INTO SOCIETY — THE POWER OF MONEY FASHIONABLE SNOB- 
 BERY — FROM THE TENEMENT HOUSE TO THE FIFTH AVENUE MANSION — MANIA FOR COATS 
 OF ARMS — HOW BOSS TWEED WAS VICTIMIZED — SUDDEN APPEARANCES AND DISAPPEAR- 
 ANCES IN SOCIETY " RICHES HAVE WINGS " — A FAILURE AND A TRIUMPH WHAT IT COSTS 
 
 MONEY THE ONE THING NEEDFUL — EXTRAVAGANCE OF NEW YORK SOCIETY LOVE OF DRESS 
 
 A FASHIONABLE LADY'S WARDROBE — FOLLIES OF THE MEN PASSION FOR THE LEG BUSI- 
 NESS FASHIONABLE ENTERTAINMENTS — THE END OF EXTRAVAGANT CAREERS — THE SKELE- 
 TONS SOMETIMES COME OUT OF THEIR CLOSETS —FASHIONABLE BALLS AND PARTIES — HOW 
 
 THEY ARE GIVEN INVITATIONS BALL ROOM SCENES — THE SUPPERS — A SWELL CONVERSATION 
 
 FASHIONABLE THIEVES — AN ARISTOCRATIC SNEAK THIEF HOW A BROKER KEPT HIS PLACE 
 
 IN SOCIETY — A DETECTIVE'S EXPERIENCE IN FASHIONABLE LIFE — THE PRETTY WIDOW AND 
 THE LACES— FASHIONABLE RECEPTIONS— WEDDINGS IN HIGH LIFE ARRANGED ON A PECU- 
 NIARY BASIS — MONEY THE ATTRACTION HOW HEARTS ARE BOUGHT AND SOLD THE WED- 
 DING FESTIVITIES — GUARDING THE BRIDAL PRESENTS WHAT IT ALL COSTS — FASHIONABLE 
 
 DEATH — ONLY THE RICH CAN AFFORD TO DIE IN NEW YORK COST OF A FASHIONABLE 
 
 FUNERAL — INTERESTING DETAILS I95 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 THE STREET RAILWAYS. 
 
 ■3HE PRESENT STREET-RAILWAY SYSTEM — IMMENSE BUSINESS DONE BY THE SURFACE ROADS — 
 EXPENSES AND RECEIPTS — HOW THE ELEVATED ROADS HAVE AFFECTED THE HORSE RAIL- 
 WAYS — DISCOMFORTS OF THE STREET CARS — THE CONDUCTORS AND DRIVERS — STORY OF A 
 CONDUCTOR'S LOT — HARD WORK AND POOR PAY — KNOCKING DOWN — HOW IT IS DONE — BEAT- 
 ING THE BELL-PUNCH 238 
 
X 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 SIXTH AVENUE. 
 
 RAPID ADVANCE OF SIXTH AVF.NUE IN PROSPERITY — DESCRIPTION OF THE STREET — THE LOWER 
 PORTION — THE TENEMENT HOUSES — FRENCH FLATS — THE ELEVATED RAILROAD AND ITS 
 STATIONS — A BUSY SCENE — SIXTH-AVENUE STORES — "MACEY's" — THE JEFFERSON MARKET 
 POLICE COURT — BOOTH'S THEATRE — THE MASONIC TEMPLE — " THE TABERNACLE" — SIXTH 
 AVENUE BY NIGHT— A CHANGE OF SCENE— THE STREET-WALKERS— BRAZEN VICE— THE 
 FRENCH WOMEN — SNARING A VICTIM — SHAMEFUL SCENES ON THE AVENUE — THE STREET A 
 TERROR TO DECENT PEOPLE — THE ROUGHS — SIXTH-AVENUE OYSTER HOUSES AND BEER SA- 
 LOONS—SCENE IN A FLASH SALOON— A YOUTHFUL CRIMINAL — THE DETECTIVE'S PRIZE — 
 SIXTH AVENUE AFTER MIDNIGHT— A DRUNKEN SINGER — " IN THE SWEET BYE-AND-BYB " — 
 NO EFFORT MADE TO CHECK THE EVIL 250 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 COACHING DAY. 
 
 MEMORIES OF BYGONE DAYS — STAGE COACHING IN FORMER YEARS — REVIVAL OF COACHING IN NEW 
 
 YORK — COLONEL KANE'S ENTERPRISE — THE " TALLY HO " A HANDSOME SUCCESS — SOCIETY 
 
 ADOPTS COACHING AS THE" CORRECT THING " — THECOACHING CLUB ORGANIZED— COACHING 
 DAY— THE ANNUAL PARADE— A BRILLIANT SIGHT 258 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 THE STREETS OF NEW YORK. 
 
 MADISON AVENUE — MILES OF BROWN STONE — PARK AVENUE — LEXINGTON AVENUE — THIRTY- 
 FOURTH AND FIFTY-SEVENTH STREETS — MAGNIFICENT RESIDENCES THIRD AVENUE THE 
 
 GREAT HIGHWAY OF THE EAST SIDE— EIGHTH AVENUE THE SMALL TRADERS' PARADISE — THE 
 SATURDAY NIGHT MARKET — TWENTY-THIRD AND FOURTEENTH STREETS — DISAPPEARANCE OF 
 
 LANDMARKS CHANGES IN THE CHARACTER OF THE STREETS — A GLANCE AT TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 STREET TO-DAY — "THE BEGGARS* PARADISE "—STREET CHARACTERS— A YOUNG IMPOSTOR- 
 KICKED FROM A HORSE CAR INTO A HOME — BLEECKER STREET — LIFE IN BOHEMIA — A STREET 
 
 WHERE NO QUESTIONS ARE ASKED — GRAND STREET — CHATHAM STREET THE CHILDREN OF 
 
 ISRAEL AND THEIR WAYS — FULTON STREET — NASSAU STREET — A CROWDED NEIGHBORHOOD — 
 PECULIARITIES OF THE STREET — PINE STREET — AMONG THE MONEYED MEN — WEST AND 
 SOUTH STREETS— ALONG THE WATER SIDE— BUSY SCENES 265 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 DIVORCES WITHOUT PUBLICITY. 
 
 QUEER ADVERTISEMENTS — THE "DIVORCE RING " — ITS FIELD OF OPERATIONS — THE DIVORCE 
 LAWYER — WHO HE IS — HEADQUARTERS OF THE MEMBERS OF THE RING SCENE IN A LAW- 
 YER'S OFFICE A RICH CLIENT " OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE AND ON WITH THE NEW" — A 
 
 CHARACTERISTIC CASE—" THE EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD TO GET A DIVORCE"— WEST- 
 ERN DIVORCES — HOW A MERCHANT MADE A MISTRESS OF HIS WIFE— WHO ARE THE CLIENTS 
 —COST OF A DIVORCE— HOW IT IS MANAGED— THE REFEREE SYSTEM— SPOTTING A HUSBAND- 
 MANUFACTURING EVIDENCE — THE " OLD MAN " ENTRAPPED — PROFESSIONAL WITNESSES — 
 THE DIVORCE LAWYER'S SYSTEM OF DRUMMING UP BUSINESS— DIRTY WORK FOR TEN PER 
 CENT. — SERVING A SUMMONS — A MOCKERY OF JUSTICE — POWER OF THE RING — THE COURTS 
 AND BAR AFRAID TO BREAK IT UP 281 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK. 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR CHRISTMAS — HOLIDAY APPEARANCE OF THE CITY — STREET SCENES — BUSINESS 
 BOOMING- — SCENES IN THE CITY BY NIGHT — A NOVEL SIGHT ON THE ELEVATED RAILROAD 
 TRAINS — BUSY TIMES IN THE MARKETS — THE TURKEYS — TRINITY CHIMES — MIDNIGHT SER- 
 VICES — CHRISTMAS DAY — HOW IT IS OBSERVED IN NEW YORK — CHRISTMAS WITH THE POOR- 
 
 290 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XI 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 
 
 THE CITY HALL — THE GOVERNOR'S ROOM — THE COUNTY COURT HOUSE — REMINISCENCES OF THE 
 " TWEED KING" — THE HALL OF RECORDS — THE UNITED STATES SUB-TREASURY — THE GREAT 
 
 VAULTS — HOW UNCLE SAM'S MONEY IS GUARDED — THE ASSAY OFFICE THE CUSTOM HOUSE — 
 
 A NOBLE EDIFICE — THE BUSINESS OF THE PORT OF NEW YORK DUTIES OF OFFICIALS— THE 
 
 BARGE OFFICE — PASSING THROUGH THE CUSTOM HOUSE CUSTOM HOUSE BROKERS TAM- 
 MANY HALL THE TAMMANY SOCIETY — POLITICAL ORGANIZATION "BOSS KELLY " — THE 
 
 COOPER UNION — WORK OF THE INSTITUTION — THE BIBLE HOUSE — A GREAT WORK DONE — THE 
 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN — HOW THE SCHOOLS ARE CONDUCTED ANNUAL EXHIBI- 
 TIONS — THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION BUILDING — THE LECTURE ROOM — A 
 REFUGE FOR YOUNG MEN — THE GRAND CENTRAL RAILROAD DEPOT — INTERNAL ARRANGE- 
 MENTS—THE CAR HOUSE— THE FOURTH AVENUE TUNNELS. 296 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 NEW YEAR'S CALLS. 
 
 new York's great festal day — preparations for new year's day — the hair-dressers' 
 rounds reception cards — how they are issued — joint receptions the card-bas- 
 ket and its meaning — ladies' toilets — a chance for reform — the first callers— 
 
 the veterans — advantages of a list — scenes toward nightfall — too much punch 
 
 mrs. b.'s reception — a sweet finale — new year in the kitchen — how the saloons, 
 celebrate the day — refreshments and punch for all — new york with a head- 
 ache— ladies' day. 320 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 AMONG THE BULLS AND BEARS OF WALL STREET. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF WALL STREET — VALUE OF REAL ESTATE — ENORMOUS RENTS — ORIGIN OF THE 
 
 NAME OF THE STREET — NOTABLE BUILDINGS — TRANSACTIONS OF THE STREET THE SCENE 
 
 AT NOON — THE STOCK EXCHANGE— THE LONG ROOM — OUTSIDE DEALERS — THE REGULAR 
 
 BOARD — HOW BUSINESS IS CONDUCTED IN THE EXCHANGE THE VICE-PRESIDENT — RULES OK 
 
 THE EXCHANGE GOOD FAITH EXACTED OF ITS MEMBERS — THE GOVERNMENT BOARD 
 
 CHARACTERISTIC SCENES — THE VAULTS AND THEIR TREASURES — THE TELEGRAPH INSTRU- 
 MENTS — THE "TICKERS" — LIFE OF A STOCK BROKER — SPORTS OF THE EXCHANGE — THE 
 
 CLEARING HOUSE AND ITS OPERATIONS CURBSTONE BROKERS — RECKLESS TRANSACTIONS 
 
 STOCK SPECULATIONS — BUYING AND SELLING ON COMMISSION — UNCERTAINTIES OF THE 
 STREET— HOW FORTUNES ARE MADE AND LOST ON WALL STREET— STOCK GAMBLING— WHO 
 
 ARE THE SPECULATORS A DARING BROKER — " BLACK FRIDAY " — HOW AN OPERATOR WA? 
 
 RUINED STOCK SWINDLERS — SHARPERS IN WALL STREET — THE COMBINATION SYSTEM — A 
 
 BAREFACED SWINDLE — ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT — HOW BOGUS OPERATORS 
 FLEECE UNSUSPECTING CUSTOMERS — AN INSIDE VIEW OF THE COMBINATION SYSTEM- 
 ENORMOUS PROFITS — THE SWINDLE EXPOSED — A WARNING TO WOULD-BE SPECULATORS. 330 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 ALONG THE WHARVES. 
 
 WRETCHED CHARACTER OF THE WHARVES — PLAN FOR A NEW SYSTEM — THE NORTH RIVER 
 FRONT — THE RAILROAD PIERS— THE FERRY HOUSES— THE FOREIGN STEAMSHIPS — THE 
 FLOATING PALACES OF THE HUDSON AND LONG ISLAND SOUND — THE BETHEL — THE BOAT 
 STORES — THE GRAIN ELEVATORS — THE EAST RIVER FRONT — SAILING VESSELS — THE SHIP 
 YARDS — THE DRY DOCKS — THE CANAL BOATS— SCENES ON BOARD — THE FRUIT TRADE — THE 
 FISH MARKET— SCENES ALONG THE WHARVES— ACCIDENTS— TH E RESCUE STATION?— THE 
 VOLUNTEER LIFE-SAVING CORPS—" NAN, THE LIFE SAVER." 360 
 
Xll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 POLICE. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE NEW YORK POLICE FORCE— THE OLD TIME POLICEMEN — " OLD HAYES " — 
 
 INCREASE OF CRIME — GEORGE W. MATSELL — THE FIRST REGULAR. POLICE FORCE — OPPOSITION 
 
 TO IT — THE METROPOLITAN POLICE FORCE ORGANIZED THE MUNICIPAL POLICE — POLICE 
 
 HEADQUARTERS — THE COMMISSIONERS — SUPERINTENDENT WALLING — THE SUBORDINATE 
 OFFICERS — THE PATROLMEN — QUALIFICATIONS OF A POLICEMAN — THE BROADWAY SQUAD — 
 DUTIES OF THE FORCE— OMNIPRESENCE OF THE POLICE— POWER OVER THE ROUGHS— DAN- 
 GERS OF A POLICEMAN'S LIFE— DARING EXFLOITS OF CAPTAINS WILLIAMS AND ALLAIRE- 
 FIGHTING A MOB — FEAR OF THE " LOCUSTS "—UNIFORM OF THE FORCE — HOW THE CITY IS 
 
 PATROLLED — HOURS OF DUTY — A SINGULAR POLICEMAN — HOW PETE JOINED THE FORCE 
 
 HIS SERVICES — ARRESTS— THE STATION HOUSES— INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS— THE "BUM- 
 MERS* ROOMS " — HOW VAGRANTS ARE LODGED — THE SERGEANT IN CHARGE — A NIGHT IN A 
 POLICE STATION— A FEMALE TRAMP—" DRUNK AND DISORDERLY '' — A CASE OF DISTRESS — A 
 FRUITLESS ERRAND — A NEW WAY TO GET HOME AT NIGHT — SEARCH FOR A MISSING HUSBAND 
 — A POLITICAL ROW — YOUNG BLOODS ON A LARK — COSTLY FUN — A WOULD-BE-SUICIDE — 
 BROUGHT BACK FROM THE GRAVE — A JOLLY TRAMP — A GHASTLY SPECTACLE — MASKERS IN A 
 
 STATION HOUSE THE MOUNTED POLICE— A SENSIBLE HORSE— THE HARBOR POLICE— A HARD 
 
 LIFE — PROVISION FOR DISABLED POLICEMEN AND THEIR FAMILIES 368 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 FERRIES. 
 
 new York's only means of communication with the main land — number of ferries — 
 
 the ferry boats — crossing in a fog annoyances of ferry travel the ferry 
 
 houses — a moonlight ride on a ferry boat — a suicide — accidents. . . . 404 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 THE PRISONS OF NEW YORK. 
 
 THE TOMBS — DESCRIPTION OF THE BUILDING — THE INTERIOR — THE " BRIDGE OF SIGHS" — 
 PLACE OF EXECUTION — THE MALE PRISON — THE CELLS — THE WOMEN'S PRISON — THE 
 "BUMMERS' HALL" — THE WARDEN'S OFFICE — THE " SWELL CELLS" — THE BOYS* PRISON — 
 RELIGIOUS SERVICES — GOVERNMENT OF THE TOMBS — WARDEN FINN — THE MATRON — A 
 PRISON OF DETENTION — NOTED ESCAPES FROM THE TOMES — " BLACK MARIA " — THE 
 POLICE COURT— HOW PRISONERS ARE DISPOSED OF— THE COURT OF SPECIAL SESSIONS — 
 
 THE "TOMBS SHYSTERS" LUDLOW STREET JAIL THE SHERIFF'S PRISON — IMPRISONMENT 
 
 FOR DEBT — CAPTIVE MILITIAMEN — FEDERAL PRISONERS — EXTORTIONS PRACTICED UPON 
 
 PRISONERS — HOW THE DEPUTY SHERIFFS BLEED THEIR VICTIMS 409 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 PUBLIC SQUARES. 
 
 THE BATTERY PARK— ITS HISTORY— THE BATTERY IN OLD TIMES— ITS PRESENT CONDITION— A 
 DELIGHTFUL BREATHING PLACE — THE BARGE OFFICE — THE BOWLING GREEN — THE CITY 
 HALL PARK— TOMPKINS SQUARE— SQUANDERING THE PUBLIC FUNDS — A FINE PARK RUINED— 
 
 WASHINGTON SQUARE UNION SQUARE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS — THE " SLAVE MARKET" 
 
 — STU YVES ANT SQUARE — MADISON SQUARE — A DELIGHTFUL PLEASURE-GROUND — MAGNIFI- 
 CENT SURROUNDINGS — GRAM MERCY PARK — RESERVOIR SQUARE — MOUNT MORRIS SQUARE — 
 MORNINGSIDE PARK — F.IVBRSIDE PARK. 422 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 THE PAWNBROKERS AND THEIR WAYS. 
 
 I-HH SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS LAWS RESPECTING PAWNBROKERS HOW LICENSES ARE ISSUED 
 
 DISREGARD OF THE LAW BY THE PAWNBROKERS SOURCES OF PROFIT— EXCESSIVE INTEREST 
 
 STORAGE CHARGES SALES OF UNREDEEMED GOODS WHO ARE THE PAWNBROKERS — THE 
 
 JEWS — A DISHONEST CLASS — SUCKING THE LIFE-BLOOD OF THE POOR — HOW CUSTOMERS ARE 
 
 SWINDLED CHARACTERISTIC SCENE IN A PAWN SHOP THE JEWS 1 ONE PER CENT.— AN INSIDE 
 
 VIEW OF THE BUSINESS— DRUMMING UP CUSTOM 432 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 THE CENTRAL PARK. 
 
 PLANS FOR A GRAND PARK — CHOICE OF A SITE — THE PARK COMMISSION ORGANIZED— DIFFICUL- 
 TIES IN THE WAY THE WORK BEGUN — THE RESULT THE CENTRAL PARK OF TO-DAY — COST 
 
 OF THE PARK THE UPPER AND LOWER PARKS — THE ENTRANCES THE POND THE OLD 
 
 ARSENAL THE MENAGERIE THE METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATORY THE BALL GROUND — 
 
 THE DAIRY — AMUSEMENTS FOR CHILDREN — THE GREEN THE SHEEPFOLD THE SEVENTH 
 
 REGIMENT STATUE STATUEOF WEBSTER — THE MARBLE ARCH — THE MALL STATUES ON THE 
 
 MALL — THE PLAZA THE VINE-COVERED WALK THE ARCADE — THE TERRACE THE ESPLAN- 
 ADE— THE BETH ESD A FOUNTAIN THE LAKE — BOATING SKATING SCENES THE CONSERVA- 
 TORY WATER THE RAMBLE — THE CAVE THE BELVEDERE THE CROTON RESERVOIRS THE 
 
 UPPER PARK HARLEM BEER THE OLD POWDER HOUSE THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF 
 
 ART — THE DI CESNOLA COLLECTION — THE OBELISK — A VENERABLE RELIC OF THE ANCIENT 
 WORLD — THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY — THE TRANSVERSE ROADS A TRI- 
 UMPH OF ENGINEERING — THE PARK COMMISSION — THE POLICE REGULATIONS— PARK TRAFFIC. 
 
 • 440 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 TRINITY CHURCH. 
 
 "OLD TRINITY" — THE THREE CHURCHES— DESCRIPTION OF TRINITY CHURCH — THE INTERIOR — » 
 THE ALTAR AND REREDOS — THE WINDOWS — THE SERVICES — FINE MUSIC — DAILY SIGHTS IN 
 
 TRINITY — THE SPIRE THE CHIMES — VIEW FROM THE SPIRE — THE CHURCHYARD — NOTED 
 
 TOMBS — TRINITY PARISH — THE CHAPELS — WEALTH OF THE PARISH — ITS NOBLE WORK. 469 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 THE LOST SISTERHOOD. 
 
 PREVALENCE OF PROSTITUTION IN NEW YORK — POLICE STATISTICS — FIRST-CLASS HOUSES— 
 
 THE PROPRIETRESS — THE INMATES THE ARISTOCRACY OF SHAME THE VISITORS — 
 
 VISITS OF MARRIED MEN — AVERAGE LIFE OF A FASHIONABLE PROSTITUTE THE NEXT 
 
 STEP THE SECOND-CLASS HOUSES — TERRORS OF THESE PLACES THE GREENE STREE1 
 
 BAGNIOS GOING DOWN INTO THE DEPTHS THE NEXT STEP THE WATER STREET HELLS 
 
 — AVERAGE LIFE OF A PROSTITUTE — " THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH" — HOW YOUNG GIRLS 
 ARE TEMPTED INTO SIN— EFFORTS TO SAVE AN ERRING DAUGHTER — THE STREET WALK* 
 ERS— THE PANEL HOUSES — HOW MEN ARE ROBBED AND MURDERED IN THESE HOUSES — 
 
 THE CONCERT SALOONS THE WAITER GIRLS THE DANCE HALLS — THE " BUCKINGHAM" 
 
 THE "CREMORNE" — BUCKINGHAM BALLS — ASSIGNATION HOUSES — PERSONALS — THE MID- 
 NIGHT MISSION — REFORMATORY ESTABLISHMENTS — ABORTIONISTS — THE WICKEDEST 
 WOMAN IN NEW YORK. 474 
 
XIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 JAY GOULD. 
 
 EARLY LIFE OP THE GREAT FINANCIER — PERSONAL APPEARANCE — KNOWLEDGE OF LAW — 
 
 ENTERS THE ERIE ROAD— BLACK FRIDAY— HOW GOULD CAME OUT OF IT— A SHREWD 
 GAME IN "ERIE" — HIS WEALTH — ATTACKED IN WALL STREET — HIS METHOD OF OPER- 
 ATING 496 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 THE NATIONAL GUARD. 
 
 THE FIRST DIVISION— ITS ORGANIZATION— HOW ARMED — APPROPRIATIONS BY THE CITY — 
 PRIVATE EXPENSES — THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF — EFFICIENCY OF THE TROOPS — PAST 
 SERVICES OF THE FORCE — OVERAWING THE MOB — PUTTING DOWN RIOTS — A REINFORCE- 
 MENT TO THE POLICE — DISCIPLINE— THE ARMORIES — THE SEVENTH REGIMENT ARMORY — 
 PARADES 499 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT. 
 
 THE RICHEST MAN IN NEW YORK — EARLY LIFE — BECOMES A FARMER — ENTERS THE RAILROAD 
 WORLD — BECOMES VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK CENTRAL SYSTEM — SUCCEEDS THE 
 OLD COMMODORE — THE VANDERBILT PALACES — LOVE OF FAST HORSES. . . 503 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 CRIME IN NEW YORK. 
 
 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS — THEIR NUMBERS — THE THIEVES— SUPERINTENDENT WALLING*S DE- 
 SCRIPTION OF THEM— THE THIEF LANGUAGE— GRADES OF THIEVES — BURGLARS— BANK ROB- 
 BERS SNEAK THIEVES CONFIDENCE MEN HOW THEY OPERATE THE PICKPOCKETS — 
 
 WHERE THEY COME FROM — THE ROGUES' GALLERY — THE RIVER THIEVES— DARING CRIMES 
 — THE FENCES— HOW STOLEN GOODS ARE DISPOSED OF— TRICKS OF THB FENCES— THE 
 ROUGHS— BLACKMAILERS — HOW THEY FLEECE THEIR VICTIMS 506 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 CREEDMOOR. 
 
 THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA — THE CREEDMOOR RANGE — THE GROUNDS 
 — THE TARG'ETS — SHOOTING MATCHES — NATIONAL GUARD PRACTICE — AMATEUR MARKS- 
 MEN. 527 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 BAR-ROOMS. 
 
 ARRESTS FOR DRUNKENNESS AND DISORDER — NUMBER OF LICENSED BAR-ROOMS — THE DRINK- 
 ING CAPACITY OF WALL STREET — AMOUNT OF BEER DRANK — THE LARGEST BAR IN THB 
 WORLD AN ENORMOUS BUSINESS IN RUM HIGH RENTS ASKED FOR BAR-ROOMS — THE ALL- 
 NIGHT HOUSES — THE BUCKET-SHOPS — GREAT AMOUNT OF DRUNKENNESS — WOMEN AS 
 DRINKERS — WHERE THEY GET THEIR LIQUOR. 53° 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XV 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 HENRY BERGH. 
 
 THE FRIEND OF THE BRUTE CREATION— ESTABLISHMENT OF THE " SOCIETY FOR THE PRE- 
 VENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS " — WORK OF MR. BERGH— HOW HE BECAME A TERROR 
 TO TWO-LEGGED BRUTES — A NOBLE RECORD. 534 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 THE EAST RIVER BRIDGE. 
 
 TRAVEL AND TRAFFIC BETWEEN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN— THE FERRIES— PLANS FOR A 
 
 BRIDGE — THE WORK BEGUN — THE GREAT BRIDGE THE TOWERS — THE BRIDGE PROPER 
 
 — THE CENTRAL SPAN — THE CABLES— THE ANCHORAGES— THE APPROACHES— PLANS FOR 
 TRAVEL ACROSS THE BRIDGE 537 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 GAMBLERS AND THEIR WAYS. 
 
 LAWS AGAINST GAMBLING — NUMBER OF GAMBLERS IN THE CITY — THE FARO BANKS — FIRST- 
 CLASS ESTABLISHMENTS — SPLENDID VICE — THE BROADWAY HELLS THE SKIN GAME — 
 
 DANGERS OF SUCH PLACES — THE DAY HOUSES POOL-SELLINC- TRICKS OF POOL-SELLERS 
 
 — LOTTERIES— HOW THEY ARE CONDUCTED— POLICY DEALING — AN INSIDE VIEW OF THE 
 
 GAME 542 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 THE HUDSON RIVER TUNNEL. 
 
 A DARING UNDERTAKING — THE WORK BEGUN — ACCIDENTS — DESCRIPTION OF THE TUNNELS — 
 THE PROPOSED DEPOT IN NEW YORK — PROSPECTS OF THE SCHEME. . . . 553 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 FASHIONABLE SHOPPING. 
 
 fashionable stores — handsome goods — the fixed-price system — detectives on the 
 watch — "Stewart's" — enormous transactions there 556 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 TENEMENT HOUSES. 
 
 density of population IN NEW YORK— number of tenement houses and inhabitants 
 
 — CAUSES OF LIVING IN TENEMENT HOUSES — HIGH RENTS — HOMES OF THE WORKING 
 CLASS— HOPES FOR THE FUTURE— VARIETIES OF TENEMENT HOUSES — A SPECIMEN— CLOSE 
 PACKING — RENTS OF APARTMENTS — EVILS OF THE SYSTEM 559 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 JERRY McAULEY's MISSION. 
 
 WATER STREET — THE MISSION ITS SUCCESS — JERRY M'AULEY — THE REFORMED THIEF — MRS. 
 
 M'AULEY — THE PRAYER-MEETINGS — THE AUDIENCE — JERRY M'AULEY'S METHODS A SCENE 
 
 AT A PRAYER-MEETING— A WONDERFUL WORK. 563 
 
XVI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 METROPOLITAN AMUSEMENTS. 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL THEATRES— METROPOLITAN AUDIENCES— EXPENSES OF A FIRST-CLASS THEATRE 
 — SALARIES OF ACTORS — PRODUCTION OF NEW PLAYS— LONG RUNS — " BOOTH'S " THEATRE 
 A MODEL ESTABLISHMENT — THE GRAND OPERA HOUSE — " WALLACK'S " — " THE UNION 
 SQUARE " — " daly's " — THE academy of MUSIC — VARIETY THEATRES — THE grand 
 DUKE'S THEATRE— NEGRO MINSTRELS— CONCERTS— LECTURES. . . . . SJ\ 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 LIFE UNDER THE SHADOW. 
 
 POVERTY IN NEW YORK — THE DESERVING POOR — SAD SCENES — "RAGPICKERS* ROW " — HOW 
 THE RAGPICKERS LIVE — AN ITALIAN COLONY — SOUR BEER — DRUNKENNESS IN " RAGPICK- 
 ERS* ROW " BOTTLE ALLEY — A RELIC OF THE FIVE POINTS — A WRETCHED QUARTER — 
 
 THE DWELLINGS OF POVERTY — THE CELLARS — LIFE BELOW GROUND — BAXTER STREET — 
 THE CHINESE QUARTER — A HOSPITAL FOR CATS 581 
 
 CHAPTER XL VI. 
 THE METROPOLITAN PRESS. 
 
 THE DAILY NEWSPAPERS — HOW THE LEADING JOURNALS ARE CONDUCTED — THE VARIOUS DE- 
 PARTMENTS — PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE — EDITORS* SALARIES — THE " NEW YORK HERALD*' 
 
 THE HERALD OFFICE — JAMES GORDON BENNETT — CIRCULATION OF " THE HERALD " 
 
 THE TRIBUNE " THE TALL TOWER*' WHITELAW REID PROFITS OF "THE TRIBUNE " 
 
 "THE TIMES," THE LEADING REPUBLICAN JOURNAL — "THE SUN," A LIVELY PAPER — 
 CHARLES A. DANA — PROFITS OF "THE SUN " — THE EVENING PAPERS— WEEKLIES — MAGA- 
 ZINES 592 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 THE METROPOLITAN FIRE DEPARTMENT — FIREMAN'S HALL — THE BOARD OF FIRE COMMIS- 
 SIONERS DIVISIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT THE FORCE — UNIFORM THE ENGINE-HOUSES 
 
 — INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS — THE ENGINES — THE HORSES— HOW THEY ARE TRAINED — 
 THE SIGNAL TOWERS — THE ALARM BOXES— FIRE DISTRICTS — THE FORCE ON DUTY — SCENES 
 AT A FIRE — THE INSURANCE PATROL AND ITS DUTIES — THE " FIRE DEPARTMENT RELIEF 
 FUND*' — LIFE OF A NEW YORK FIREMAN — HEROIC DEEDS 002 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIIL 
 HARRY HILL'S. 
 
 THE BEST KNOWN DANCE-HOUSE IN NEW YORK THE HALL — THE AUDIENCE — THE FEMALE 
 
 VISITORS— THE PERFORMANCES — DANCING— HARRY HILL— THE MIDNIGHT HOUR — HARRY 
 HILL ON DUTY . 6l2 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 JOHN KELLY. 
 
 "BOSS KELLY " — BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE — EDUCATION — BEGINS LIFE AS A STONE-CUTTER — 
 
 ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE BECOMES AN ALDERMAN — ELECTED TO CONGRESS — HIS CAREER 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES — IS ELECTED SHERIFF — LOSS OF HIS FAMILY — 
 
NEW YORK 
 
 BY 
 
 SUNLIGHT AND GASLIGHT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE GREAT METROPOLIS. 
 
 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF NEW YORK CITY— LOCATION— NATURAL ADVANTAGES — COMMERCIAL 
 
 ADVANTAGES — THE STREETS BUILDINGS CLIMATE HEALTHFULNESS MORTALITY — RAPID 
 
 GROWTH OF THE CITY LOFTY BUILDINGS — DESCRIPTION OF THE MOST NOTED AND THE 
 
 HIGHEST STRUCTURES IN THE CITY — REASONS FOR BUILDING SO HIGH — LAND CHEAP UP 
 STAIRS. 
 
 New York, the commercial metropolis of America, 
 is also the largest city of the Western Hemisphere. 
 It lies at the mouth of the Hudson River, and occupies 
 the whole of Manhattan Island, Randall's, Wards, and 
 Blackwell's Islands, in the East River, Bedloe's, Ellis's 
 and Governor's Islands in the Bay, and a portion of the 
 main land of West Chester County, north of Manhattan 
 Island, and separated from it by the Harlem River and 
 Spuyten Duyvel Creek. Its extreme length northward 
 from the Battery is sixteen miles ; its greatest width, 
 from the Hudson to the mouth of the Bronx River, is 
 four and a half miles; thus giving it an area of forty- 
 one and a half square miles, or twenty-six thousand five 
 hundred acres. Of these, twelve thousand one hundred 
 acres are on the main land. The city proper — the true 
 2 33 
 
34 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 New York — stands on Manhattan Island, which is 
 thirteen and a half miles in length, and varies in 
 breadth from a few hundred yards to two and a half 
 miles. It has an area of nearly twenty-two square 
 miles, or about fourteen thousand square acres. The 
 island is irregular in formation, having somewhat the 
 shape of a fan. It is very narrow at The Battery, its 
 southern end, and widens rapidly as it proceeds north- 
 ward. Its extreme length on the western or Hudson 
 River side is thirteen and a half miles, while on the East 
 River side it is nine miles long. It attains its greatest 
 breadth at Fourteenth and Eighty-seventh streets, 
 where it is about two and a half miles wide. At The 
 Battery the land is but a few inches above the surface 
 of the water, but from that point it rises steadily until 
 it reaches its northern limit, at Washington Heights, a 
 range of bold and beautiful cliffs, 1 30 feet above the 
 Hudson. The lower part of the island is sandy; the 
 upper part very rocky. Several bridges over the Har- 
 lem River and Spuyten Duyvel Creek afford connection 
 with the main land, and numerous lines of ferry boats 
 maintain constant intercourse on the Long Island and 
 New Jersey shores. The city is compactly built along 
 the western side, from the Battery to Fifty-ninth street, 
 the lower end of the Central Park. From that point 
 to Manhattanville, One Hundred and Twenty-fifth 
 street, the buildings are straggling, and above Man- 
 hattanville the west side is very rural, abounding in 
 country seats, market gardens and miniature farms. 
 The east side is built up compactly almost the whole 
 way, there being only about two miles of space that 
 does not merit this description. 
 
HOW NEW YORK IS BUILT. 
 
 35 
 
 Situated between two broad, deep rivers, and within 
 sixteen miles of the sea, upon which it looks out from 
 the safety of its well-sheltered harbor, Manhattan Is- 
 land was designed by nature as the seat of a great 
 commercial metropolis. Its waters are deep enough 
 for the largest vessels, and in its commodious harbor 
 the fleets of the world could ride at ease. It commands 
 all the chief routes of communication with the great 
 West and South, and steam and electricity have enabled 
 it to reach the various quarters of the globe as easily 
 and as quickly as any of its old world rivals. 
 
 New York is a magnificently built city. The lower 
 portion is a dense mass of houses, with narrow and 
 often crooked streets. This is the business quarter, 
 and is not so thickly populated as the middle districts. 
 Above Canal street the streets assume a more regular 
 formation. They are broad and straight, crossing each 
 other at right angles, and are laid off at regular inter- 
 vals. In the lower portion of the city all the streets 
 are designated by names. Above Houston street, the 
 cross streets, or those extending from river to river, are 
 designated by numbers. The avenues start from about 
 Third street, and extend to the northern end of the 
 island. The city is substantially, as well as handsomely 
 built. It contains few frame houses, the prevailing 
 materials being marble, stone, iron and brick. Marble, 
 iron, and the lighter colored stones are used principally 
 in the construction of business edifices, but the resi- 
 dences are chiefly of brick and brown stone. Land be- 
 ing very high in price, the buildings are generally lofty, 
 often reaching an altitude of seven and eight, and some- 
 times ten and twelve stories. The business edifices 
 
36 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 have generally two cellars below the pavement, with 
 vaults extending out under the street. These are dry, 
 are well lighted and ventilated, and are used for the 
 storage of goods. As a rule, the business houses of 
 the city are handsome and elegant. Every convenience 
 is provided for the prompt and proper despatch of the 
 business of the establishment. Time is everything in 
 New York, and nothing is neglected that can possibly 
 aid in saving it. Within these magnificent edifices is 
 gathered the wealth of the world. Compared with the 
 treasures they contain, the fabled wealth of Tyre of old 
 sinks into insignificance. The private residences of the 
 city are among the handsomest in the world, and, as a 
 rule, are furnished with elegance and taste. The city 
 has all the substantial appearance of London, and a 
 large part of the brightness and beauty of Paris. It 
 is a worthy rival to either, and is in many respects their 
 superior. 
 
 New York is highly favored as regards its climate. 
 Its proximity to the sea mitigates the cold of the win- 
 ters, and the cool ocean breezes temper the fierce heats 
 of the summer In the latter season the lower part of 
 the city may be stifling, but above Thirty- fourth street, 
 and in all the upper quarters, the breeze is constant and 
 refreshing. If New York were not a great city it would 
 unquestionably be the principal watering place of the 
 continent. Snow rarely lies in its streets, and the 
 people consider themselves in high good fortune when 
 the winter is sufficiently cold to hold the snow long 
 enough to give them a few days of sleighing. 
 
 I have said that New York combines the solidity pf 
 London with the beauty of Paris. Over it hangs a sky 
 
ARCHITECTURAL CHANGES. 
 
 41 
 
 York, are unknown. Old architects state that they can 
 hardly conceive the wonderful changes, wrought mainly 
 by their own hands, on taking a retrospect of the city 
 of their youth, and they stand amazed at the. giant 
 structures rising all over the city to take the place of 
 buildings which less than twenty years ago were con- 
 sidered ornaments of New 'York. Forty years ago, 
 when Griffith Thomas arrived in New York, he says he 
 found only two architects here, Messrs. Dacon and 
 Davis. To-day there are about five hundred architects 
 in this city ; and the practice, then quite general, of a 
 builder's making his own plans and designs is entirely 
 abandoned. Thirty years ago Mr. Renwick, then only 
 twenty-three years old, built Grace Church, at Tenth 
 street and Broadway, as the building, forty feet high, 
 formerly occupied by that congregation at Rector street 
 and Broadway had to be changed into offices; it was 
 in 1846 that Dr. Wainwright and Dr. Taylor preached 
 their last sermons in the old church, which was soon 
 changed to an eighty-feet building. In the immediate 
 vicinity of the old Grace Church used to stand Bunker's 
 Hotel, a well-known landmark of the time. It was 
 surrounded by buildings all three stories high ; to-day 
 not a vestige remains of any of these small buildings, 
 and the lower part of Broadway is filled with structures 
 ranging from six to seven stories. One of the highest 
 residences of New York, on Broadway, at the time 
 named was the house occupied by John F. Delaplaine. 
 It was forty-five feet high, and considerably over- 
 shadowed the adjoining two-story residence. The 
 ground is to-day occupied by what is known as the 
 Exchange Building, at Nos. 78 and 80 Broadway, which 
 
42 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 is filled with offices, and is not less than eighty-five feet 
 high. The Franklin House — which was considered a 
 rather high building, being sixty feet in height — at Dey 
 street, and Broadway, has had to make room for the 
 building of the Western Union Telegraph Company, 
 which is one hundred and sixty feet in height to the 
 roof (the tower being two hundred and thirty feet 
 above the sidewalk). On the other side of Broadway, 
 the Park Bank Building, ninety-five feet high, has now 
 for several years overlapped The Herald office, and 
 these two again have been recently overtopped by the 
 nine-story building of The Evening Post. 
 
 "On the side streets, the same principle of building 
 upward appears to have guided the various improve- 
 ments, even the old Tontine Building, at Wall and Wa- 
 ter streets, having been raised fifteen feet higher than 
 it was formerly, when the old coffee-house attracted the 
 attention and the cash of old New Yorkers. The staid 
 old Bank of New York, at William and Wall streets, 
 where Commodore Yanderbilt could always be found at 
 certain hours of the day, during his latter years, is now 
 a six-story building, where before only two stories were 
 considered ample accommodation for all those trans- 
 acting business within its walls. The Drexel Building, 
 at Broad and Wall streets, with its high basement and 
 seven stories, looms up gigantically on the spot where 
 only a few years ago stood an unpretending three-story 
 building — which, however, was sold for the highest price 
 ever paid for real estate in New York — while the Stock 
 Exchange, right across Broad street, is fully eighty-five 
 feet high, and has taken the place of a number of brick 
 stores thirty feet less in height. The beautiful white 
 
EVENING POST BUILDING. 
 
STATELY BUILDINGS. 45 
 
 place of business there for some time, and removed to 
 make room for the stately building now owned and 
 occupied by the New York Life Insurance Company. 
 This building, erected by Thomas and finished in 1868, 
 has four stories in front and eight in the back, and part 
 of it stands on very high ground. The Knickerbocker 
 Life Insurance Company's building on the corner of 
 
 NEW YORK LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY'S BUILDING. 
 
 Park Place is ninety-five feet high, and has taken 
 the place of some four-story brick houses, where the 
 Mechanics' Library Association, in times past, kept its 
 books and held its meetings. 
 
 " But not only are there high buildings occupied by 
 public institutions, insurance companies, banks, and 
 newspaper offices; throughout the lower part of the 
 
48 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 ground. Across the Square, on the corner of East 
 Fourteenth street, the German Savings Bank building 
 of ninety feet, with its mansard and high basement, 
 has replaced the old Belvidere Hotel, while a block 
 further up, on the corner of East Fifteenth street, the 
 
 Union Square Hotel, 
 remodeled, has had forty 
 feet added to its height. 
 The building owned by 
 the Singer Sewing Ma- 
 li chine Company, at East 
 Sixteenth street and 
 Union Square, is nearly 
 one hundred feet high, 
 while looking beyond 
 the Square, the eye 
 takes in at once the 
 n|j prominent store of Ar- 
 nold, Constable & Co., 
 filling the entire block 
 between Eighteenth 
 and Nineteenth streets, 
 on the ground where 
 only a very few years 
 ago stood nothing but 
 two-story shanties. 
 " Further up town the 
 Stevens Apartment House, at Twenty-seventh street 
 and Fifth avenue, attracts attention by its extraordinary 
 height, one hundred and ten feet, where before stood 
 only three and four-story houses, and on the corner of 
 Forty-seventh street a number of three-story houses 
 
 TRIBUNE BUILDING. 
 
RAPID GROWTH IN POPULATION. 
 
 51 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK. 
 
 POPULATION OF NEW YORK IN 1870 — THE STATE CENSUS OF 1875— WHAT CHANGES TT SHOWED— POPU- 
 LATION IN 1880 POPULATION AFFECTED BY THE IMPROVEMENTS IN THE LOWER PART OF THE 
 
 CITY — THE MOST DENSELY SETTLED PART OF NtW YORK — THE FLOATING POPULATION — 
 
 STRANGERS IN NEW YORKi — FOREIGN DISTRICTS' COSMOPOLITAN CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW YORKERS— LACK OF PUBLIC SPIRIT — INDIFFERENCE TO POLITI- 
 CAL AFFAIRS — THE RESULT — THE RACE FOR WEALTH — HOW BUSINESS IS DONE IN NEW YORK — 
 WEARING OUT BODY AND SOUL — A PHILOSOPHICAL MERCHANT — A NEW COMER'S IMPRESSIONS 
 — LIVING TOO FAST — NO CHANCE FOR LAGGARDS — HOW SUCCESS IS WON — MERIT THE TEST — 
 NEW YORK FROM A MORAL POINT OF VIEW — ITS CHARITIES AND BENEVOLENCE — TOLERATION 
 OF OPINIONS AND BELIEFS — MENTAL CULTURE OF THE PEOPLE — WHAT IT COSTS TO LIVE IN 
 NEW YORK— THE RICH AND THE MIDDLE CLASSES— NEW YORK AS A PLACE OF RESIDENCE — 
 ATTACHMENT OF THE PEOPLE TO THE CITY. 
 
 According to the Ninth Census of the United States, 
 the population of New York in 1870 was 973,106 souls. 
 This return was not satisfactory to the citizens of the 
 Metropolis, who claimed that it greatly under-estimated 
 the actual number of residents. In the summer of 1875 
 a census of the city was taken, by order of the Legis- 
 lature of the State. This enumeration showed the 
 population in that year to be 1,064,272, an increase of 
 91,166 inhabitants since 1 870. In 1 880, the Tenth Cen- 
 sus of the United States gave the population as 1,209, 
 56i. 
 
 The census of 1875 was deeply interesting, imper- 
 fect as it was conceded to be. It showed many changes 
 in various portions of the city, recording a gain for 
 some sections and a decrease for others. The falling 
 off was mainly in the lower wards, where business 
 houses predominate. In the strictly commercial quar- 
 ters dwellings are very rare, and the population is made 
 up almost entirely of janitors and their families, who 
 
52 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 occupy the upper floors of business houses and public 
 buildings. The population of the Sixth Ward was 
 shown to be noo less in 1875 tnan m 1870. In 1880 
 it had regained about 150 of its loss. This is one of 
 the most wretched and wicked sections of the city; "the 
 Five Points " is its centre. For some years it has been 
 improving in character, though " the Five Points " and 
 Baxter street are bad enough yet. During the past 
 ten or twelve years many of its old haunts have been 
 broken up, numerous factories and business establish- 
 ments have been erected on their sites, and Worth 
 street has been widened and opened from Broadway to 
 the Bowery, making a clear, wide path through what 
 was once an eyesore to the city and a chosen haunt of 
 vice and crime. In 1875 the greatest increase was in 
 the wards adjoining the Central Park, in which the gain 
 was over fifty thousand, and in 1880 the increase was 
 proportionally larger. This is accounted for by the 
 steady up-town movement of the population, which will 
 no doubt be greatly accelerated by the elevated rail- 
 roads, which now bring all parts of the city within easy 
 and rapid reach of each other. The largest increase 
 of all, in 1875, was m the Nineteenth Ward, which lies 
 east of the Sixth avenue, and between Fortieth and 
 Eightieth streets. In 1870 the population of this 
 ward was 86,090, in 1875 it was 125,196, showing an 
 increase of 39,106 in five years. In 1880 it had reached 
 the enormous figure of 158,108 inhabitants, thus gain- 
 ing 3 2 >9 12 people since 1875, or 72,018 in ten years. 
 
 The most densely populated portion of New York 
 is the region embraced in the Seventh, Tenth, and 
 Thirteenth wards, which lie upon either side of East 
 
MERIT WINS IN NEW YORK. 
 
 59 
 
 They take no root, and have no hold upon any genuine 
 interest ; they attain no permanent success. It is only 
 genuine merit that succeeds in the great city. Men are 
 here subjected to a test that soon takes the conceit 
 out of them. They are taken for just what they are 
 worth, and no more, and he must show himself a man 
 indeed who would take his place among the princes of 
 trade, or among the leaders of thought and opinion. 
 He may bring with him from his distant home the 
 brightest of reputations, but here he will have to begin 
 at the very bottom of the ladder and mount upward 
 again. It is slow work, so slow that it tries every 
 quality of true manhood to its utmost. The daily life 
 of the dwellers in the great city makes them keen, 
 shrewd judges of human nature, and they are pro- 
 ficients in the art of studying character. 
 
 It is said that New York is the wickedest city in the 
 country. It is the largest, and vice thrives in crowded 
 communities. How great this wickedness is we may 
 see in the subsequent portions of this work. Yet, if it 
 is the wickedest city, it is also the best on the Conti- 
 nent. If it contains thousands of the worst men and 
 women in our land, it contains also thousands of the 
 brightest and best of Christians. In point of morality, 
 it will compare favorably with any city in the world. 
 It is unhappily true that the devil's work is done here 
 upon a large scale ; but so is the work of God, upon 
 an even greater scale. If the city contains the gaudi- 
 est, the most alluring, and the vilest haunts of sin, it 
 also boasts the noblest and grandest institutions of 
 religion, of charity, and virtue. Being the great centre 
 
GO 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 of wealth and culture, New York is also the centre of 
 everything that is good and beautiful in life. 
 
 In its charities, New York is, as in other respects, 
 the leading city of the Continent. It maintains its own 
 charitable and benevolent institutions with a liberality, 
 and upon a scale of magnificence and comfort, 
 unequaled in other parts of the country. It spends 
 millions to relieve suffering and disease within its own 
 limits, andat the same time lends an open ear and a ready 
 hand to the cry of distress from other quarters. There 
 is no portion of the globe to which the charity of New 
 York does not extend ; and when it gives, it gives lib- 
 erally. When the yellow fever laid its heavy hand 
 upon the Southern States during the summer of 1878, 
 it was to New York that the sufferers first turned for 
 aid; and the Metropolis responded nobly. In the 
 course of a few months assistance in money and sup- 
 plies was sent to the amount of several hundred thous- 
 and dollars. During the recent war between Russia 
 and Turkey, New York, with characteristic liberality, 
 sent generous assistance to the sick and wounded of 
 both armies. When Chicago was burned, the people 
 of New York literally showered relief upon the afflicted 
 citizens of the western Metropolis. It is enough for 
 the great city to hear the cry of distress, no matter 
 from what quarter ; its action is prompt and generous. 
 The city authorities annually expend one million of 
 dollars in public charities, while the various religious 
 denominations and charitable associations expend annu- 
 ally about five millions more. No record can be had 
 of private charities — but they are large. This is the 
 charity that begins at home. Of the aid sent to suffer- 
 
CHANGES IN POPULATION. 
 
 65 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF NEW YORK. 
 
 RAPID GROWTH OF NEW YORK DURING THE PAST THIRTY-FIVE YEARS— THE FLUSH TIMES AFTER 
 THE WAR— EFFECTS OF THE PANIC OF 1873— A MOMENTARY CHECK — RETURN OF PROS- 
 PERITY — PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE — INCREASE IN BUILDING OPERATIONS — HOW REAL 
 ESTATE APPRECIATES IN VALUE— THE SECRET OF THE GREAT INCREASE OF WEALTH IN NEW 
 YORK — FUTURE CENTRES OF POPULATION — WHAT NEW YORK WILL BE FIFTY YEARS HENCE — 
 A GRAND DESTINY. 
 
 We have already given the population of the me- 
 tropolis according to the last three censuses, but before 
 passing on, it will be interesting to glance at the growth 
 of the city for the last thirty-five years. The United 
 States Census is taken every ten years, and shows a 
 marked change in every decade ; but the State Census, 
 which is taken every five years, enables us to obtain 
 a view of the movement of the city's population at 
 shorter intervals. From it we learn that, notwith- 
 standing the phenomenal growth of New York, there 
 was a period, covering the duration of our civil war, 
 when the metropolis, instead of increasing, actually de- 
 clined in population. The returns since the year 1845, 
 record the population as follows : 
 
 In 1845, 
 In 1850, 
 In 1855, 
 In i860, 
 In 1865, 
 In 1870, 
 In 1875, 
 In 1880, 
 
 371,223 
 
 5 I 5»547 
 629,810 
 813,669 
 726,386 
 942,292 
 1,064,272 
 1,209,561 
 
70 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 My motive for so leaving this property, is a firm per- 
 suasion that it may, at no distant date, be the site of a 
 village, and as it cost me much more than its present 
 worth, from circumstances known to my family, I like 
 to cherish the belief it may be realized to them. At all 
 events, I want the experiment made, by keeping the 
 property from being sold.' 
 
 " Under the second date on the will — namely, June 
 23d, 1832 — the foregoing bequest is thus modified: — 
 
 " 1 Whereas, in my said will I have left my farm, situ- 
 ate in the Twelfth (formerly Ninth) ward of the city of 
 New York, near the five-mile stone, to my son, James 
 Lennox, for and during the term of his natural life, and 
 after his death to his heirs, forever ; now I do hereby 
 give and devise the said farm to my said son, James 
 Lennox, and to his heirs, forever. At the same time, 
 I wish him to understand that my opinion respecting 
 the property is not changed, and though I withdraw 
 all legal restrictions to his making sale of the whole or 
 part of the same, yet I enforce on him my advice not to 
 do so.' 
 
 " A wise man in his generation was Robert Lennox. 
 The farm at the five-mile stone originally cost the tes- 
 tator somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000. 
 Early in 1864, Mr. James Lennox, the fortunate legatee 
 under the will quoted from, of the now historic farm, 
 conveyed to his nephew, Robert Lennox Kennedy, 
 the whole block between 7 2d and 73d streets, Madi- 
 ison and Fifth avenues — a block 204 feet 4 inches 
 in width on Fifth and Madison avenues and 420 feet 
 in length on each street named. The consideration 
 paid for this slice out of the golden farm was 
 
HISTORY OF THE LENNOX FARM. 
 
 71 
 
 $250,000. To Clarence S. Brown, on December nth, 
 1866, Mr. Kennedy, for $240,000, disposed of twenty 
 lots on this block, comprising the whole front on 7 2d 
 street, between Fifth and Madison avenues, and the 
 plot 120 feet 2 inches by 100 feet, on the southwest 
 corner of 73d street and Madison avenue. But four 
 years had elapsed when Clarence Brown disposed of 
 these identical lots to John Crosby Brown for $430,000. 
 
 " Not to enter into further detail," said the gentleman 
 who had furnished these particulars, " I may first add, 
 that in 1875 tne f arm at the five-mile stone was valued at 
 $9,000,000, without a building upon it. To-day I judge 
 that the lot on the corner of 7 2d street and Fifth avenue, 
 27 feet by 100, would fetch in the open market in the 
 neighborhood of $100,000, being more than twice as 
 much as the shrewd old Scotchman paid for the whole 
 thirty acres. At the present time the whole estate is 
 probably worth $1 2,000,000. Many brokers have con- 
 curred in the correctness of these views. Hall J. How 
 said to me, only yesterday, 'Why, Amos Clark, of 
 Boston, owns the lot on 7 2d street and Fifth avenue, 
 and he would not sell it for $100,000/ 
 
 "The late John D. Phillips was hardly so wise as the 
 owner of 'the farm at the five-mile stone.' On the 2d 
 of June, 1 85 1, he purchased of Peter McLaughlin the 
 lot on the southeast corner of 84th street and Fifth 
 avenue for $540. Tempted by the rapid rise in the 
 value of the property, Mr. Phillips sold this lot to 
 Stephen Roberts on the 18th day of August, 1853, for 
 $1900. On Thursday last this identical property was 
 purchased by George Kemp for $40,000. I wonder 
 if it ever occurs to capitalists that, in the long run, more 
 
88 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HARBOR OF NEW YORK. 
 
 NATURAL ADVANTAOFS OF THE HARBOR— THE OUTER AND INNER BAYS— EXCURSIONS— A TRIP 
 
 DOWN THE HAKIiOK — SCENES ALONG THE ROUTE THE SHIPPING — THROUGH THE INNER BAY 
 
 — GOVERNOR'S ISLAND — BEDLOe'S AND ELLIS* ISLANDS — BARTHOLDl's STATUE — LIBERTY 
 ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD— THE KILL VAN KULL — STATEN ISLAND — THE NARROWS— THE 
 FORTIFICATIONS — THE OUTER BAY — QUARANTINE— CONEY ISLAND — SCENES IN THE LOWER 
 BAY— SANDY HOOK — OUT TO SEA— BACK TO NEW YORK. 
 
 The Harbor of New York is one of the most beauti- 
 ful sheets of water in the world. It consists of an In- 
 ner and an Outer Bay, connected by the strait known 
 as "The Narrows." Between them lie Staten and 
 Long Islands, two natural barriers which render the 
 Inner Bay one of the safest of snug harbors. The 
 Outer Bay, though less sheltered than the Inner, affords 
 safe and commodious anchorage for the fleets of the 
 world. 
 
 In the summer and early fall steamers make daily 
 trips from the city to the ocean and back, and carry 
 thousands of passengers bent on enjoying the sea breeze 
 and the glorious scenery of the harbor. We invite the 
 reader to take passage with us on one of these. 
 
 We start from one of the up-town piers on the North 
 River side, and make several landings between our 
 point of departure and the Battery, at each of which 
 we add largely to our cargo of human freight. The 
 steamer glides swiftly along the city front, by the 
 hundreds of vessels lying at the piers and anchored in 
 the stream. Here, moored to their piers, each of which 
 is covered by an enormous wooden shed, are the great 
 European steamships. You may tell them by the color 
 
HARBOR SCENES. 
 
 89 
 
 of and the marks upon their smoke stacks. Two or 
 three are anchored in the river, having just come in 
 from the ocean voyage, and are still dingy and dirty 
 with the smoke and grime of travel. Further down 
 are the steamers plying between New York and Ameri- 
 can ports, the floating palaces of the Hudson and Long 
 Island Sound, and numbers of river craft. The huge 
 ferry boats, black with passengers, cross and recross 
 our track, and it requires not a little skill on the part 
 of our steersman to keep safely out of their way. Tugs 
 are puffing by us with heavily laden vessels, or vessels 
 in ballast, guiding them skillfully along their course. 
 The flags of all the countries of the world are floating 
 out from ship and shore, and the river presents a gay 
 and animated scene. On the opposite side is Jersey 
 City, the most conspicuous objects of the shore line 
 being the great ferry houses which mark the depots of 
 the various railway lines leading south and west from 
 New York. In the not distant future the tunnel now 
 in construction under the Hudson will connect New 
 Jersey with New York, and the railways will enter the 
 city by means of it. 
 
 The last landing has been made, and our steamer 
 now turns her head toward the Inner Bay. Just off the 
 Battery we pass a fine frigate and a monitor, fly- 
 ing the national flag, and near them notice several 
 foreign men of war riding at their anchors. From thi 
 steamer's deck the lower end of the city and the spires 
 and towers that rise from it make a pleasing picture, 
 while across the East River is Brooklyn, its heights 
 crowned with stately mansions, and between the two 
 cities swings the great bridge that is to connect them. 
 
92 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 pedestal of the figure, which will rise high above any 
 other object in the immediate neighborhood. 
 
 " Allowing twenty feet for the height of the island 
 above the water, the pedestal is to be one hundred and 
 ten feet high, and the statue, to the flame of the torch, 
 one hundred and forty-five. This makes the torch at 
 least two hundred and seventy-five feet above the level 
 of the Bay. It will equal in height the column of the 
 Place Vendome, at Paris, and will be larger than the 
 Collossus at Rhodes, so much celebrated by antiquity. 
 Like that statue, it will have to be cast in pieces of man- 
 ageable size, and built up, much after the manner of an 
 armored frigate. The construction will be a curious 
 piece of engineering skill. At night it is proposed that 
 a halo of jets of light shall radiate from the temples of 
 the enormous goddess, and perhaps the flame of the 
 torch may be fashioned in crystal, in order that it may 
 catch the light of the sun by day, and at night form a 
 glowing object illuminated by electricity. 
 
 " In respect to the pose of the statue, that has been 
 calculated with care. A Liberty would have to be 
 draped, even if a draped statue were not advisable, in 
 a climate as cold as ours, where nude figures suggest 
 extreme discomfort. But M. Bartholdi has also used 
 his drapery to give a tower-like and therefore solid 
 look to the lofty woman, without forgetting the neces- 
 sity for variety in the upward lines. * * * * 
 
 " She will stand so as to suggest that the strongest 
 hurricane could never budge her from the pedestal 
 she has chosen. Her gesture is meant to call the 
 attention of the most distant person, and, moreover, 
 to let him know unmistakably what the figure 
 
104 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SANDY HOOK. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF " THE HOOK " — A NOTED LANDMARK — A SANDY WASTE — THE COVE — THE BEACH 
 — THE LIGHT-SHIPS — THE LIFE SAVING STATION — SANDY HOOK LIGHTHOUSE — ITS HISTORY 
 — THE KEEPER'S HOUSE — WRECKS — IN THE LIGHT»TOWER — A GRAND VIEW — OCEAN CEME- 
 TERY — THE FORTIFICATIONS — TESTING THE HEAVY GUNS — THE NORTH LIGHT — THE SYRENS 
 — THE TELEGRAPH STATION. 
 
 Nineteen miles seaward from New York, on the 
 western side of the Bay, is a narrow strip of white 
 sand, projecting northward into the bright waters. 
 Seen from a steamer's deck on a clear day it gleams 
 like a streak of polished silver; but when the skies are 
 dull and gray, or overhung with clouds, it lies leaden 
 and dead in the half light. This is Sandy Hook, a long, 
 low, sandy peninsular of drift formation, the continua- 
 tion of a sand reef skirting the New Jersey coast. It 
 projects northward five miles into the Lower Bay of 
 New York, and forms the eastern breakwater of Sandy 
 Hook Bay. In width it varies from fifty yards at the 
 Neck, near Highlands Bridge, where jetties of brush- 
 wood form but a frail protection against easterly 
 storms, to a full mile at the point where the main light 
 is located. 
 
 Many an eye has watched this strip of sand sadly as 
 some outgoing steamer turned its head to the sea and 
 began its long way across the Atlantic ; and many a 
 heart has beat more quickly as it came plainly into 
 view, the homeward voyage over, for beyond it lie the 
 bright waters and the smiling shores of home. 
 
SANDY HOOK LIGHT-SHIPS. 
 
 105 
 
 A pleasant and profitable afternoon may be spent in 
 a visit to this interesting spot. Taking the Long 
 Branch steamer, we are carried swiftly down the Inner 
 Bay, through the Narrows, and out upon the broad 
 bosom of the Lower Bay, which is finally left to the 
 eastward, and our steamer passing into the calmer 
 waters of Sandy Hook Bay, or, as it is more commonly 
 called, " the Cove," lands us at the wharf of the New 
 Jersey Southern Railway. Once on shore, we see a 
 waste of sand all around us, covered thickly in parts 
 with cedars and a scrub undergrowth, with clear patches 
 of shining white here and there, and at intervals are a 
 number of buildings which are used for various pur- 
 poses. Leaving the railroad, we take our way over 
 the sands towards the point of the Hook, and soon 
 reach the bright and shining beach. At our feet the 
 breakers roll in lazily with a monotonous plash as they 
 waste themselves on the shore. Far away stretches 
 the blue Atlantic, calm and fair to look upon now, but 
 terrible at times. When the fierce gales of winter 
 sweep down upon the coast, the surf comes rolling in 
 "mountain high," and dashes upon the beach with a 
 wild, angry roar, never to be forgotten by those who 
 have listened to it. About a mile and a half to the 
 eastward is the Scotland Light-ship, rocking lazily upon 
 the placid sea, and six miles further east the Sandy 
 Hook Light-ship is seen rising and falling with the long, 
 regular heave of the ocean. The latter ship marks 
 the point from which all vessels bound for New York 
 shape their course for the Lower Bay, and from which 
 the European steamers begin to reckon their voyages to 
 the Old World. It is painted red, and carries two fixed 
 
118 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT — THE MAYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMEN — THE COM' 
 MISSIONEItS — DESCRIPTION OF THE VARIOUS MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENTS — POWERS OF OFFI- 
 CIALS — THE COURTS POLICE JUSTICES — THE MEN BY WHOM NEW YORK IS GOVERNED — RESPON. 
 
 SIBILITY OF THE BETTER CLASSES FROM THE GROG SHOP TO CIVIL POWER — WHO THE LEAD- 
 ERS ARE — THE " BOSS" — THE RING HOW BOSS TWEED MAINTAINED HIS POWER — SPASMODIC 
 
 EFFORTS AT REFORM— MULHOOLYISM IN NEW YORK — AN INSIDE VIEW OF MUNICIPAL POLITICS 
 
 — THE SLAVE OF THE RING LOOKING OUT FOR THE " BOYS " — THE INTERESTS OF THE CITY 
 
 NEGLECTED — THE POPULAR WILL DEFIED BY THE RING. 
 
 The City of New York is governed by a Mayor and 
 a Board of twenty-two Aldermen, with various Boards 
 of Commissioners. It is divided into twenty-four 
 wards and 557 election districts, and constitutes the 
 First Judicial District of the State. It sends 5 Senators 
 and 21 Assemblymen to the State Legislature, and 7 
 Representatives to Congress. The Mayor is elected 
 by the vote of the people for a term of two years, and 
 receives a salary of $12,000 per annum. The Alder- 
 men are chosen annually by the popular vote, and 
 receive each an annual salary of $4000, except the 
 President of the Board, who is paid $5000. 44 Six are 
 elected by the voters of the city at large (no one being 
 permitted to vote for more than four candidates), and 
 three from each of the four lower Senate districts (no 
 one being permitted to vote for more than two). The 
 upper Senate district with the 23d and 24th wards elects 
 four Aldermen (no one being permitted to vote for 
 more than three)." 
 
 The Mayor appoints the Commissioners and heads 
 of departments, with the consent of the Board of Alder- 
 
BOARDS OF FINANCE AND TAXES. 
 
 119 
 
 men. These hold office for periods varying- from three 
 to six years, and receive salaries ranging from $3000 
 to $15,000 a year. 
 
 The principal department under the City Govern- 
 ment is that of Finance. It has charge of all the fiscal 
 affairs of the corporation, and is presided over by the 
 Comptroller, who receives a salary of $10,000 per 
 annum, and occupies the most important position, from 
 a political point of view, in the city. He is generally 
 the "Boss" of New York politics, and wields his power 
 in a despotic manner. Next in importance is the City 
 Chamberlain or Treasurer. He is appointed by the 
 Mayor, and is confirmed by the Board of Aldermen. 
 He receives a salary of $30,000, but out of this has to 
 pay his office expenses, clerk hire, etc. 
 
 The Department of Taxes and Assessments ranks 
 next in importance. It consists of three Commis- 
 sioners, appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the 
 Board of Aldermen. They hold office for six years, 
 and one of them is President of the Board. The 
 President receives $6500 a year; the others $5000. 
 This Board fixes the rate of taxation upon real and 
 personal property, and collects the taxes due the city. 
 The Mayor, Comptroller, President of the Board of 
 Aldermen, and President of the Department of Taxes, 
 constitute a Board of Apportionment, which fixes the 
 amount to be raised each year by taxation. This Board 
 also decides how much shall be spent by the City Gov- 
 ernment, and all appropriations for any branch of that 
 government must receive its approval. It is thus really 
 in possession of powers superior to those of the Board 
 of Aldermen, and constitutes a check upon that body. 
 
134 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BROADWAY. 
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF BROADWAY — UNDER THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH RULE — PRIMITIVE NAME OF 
 THE STREET — IT COMMENCES TO GROW — THE GREAT FIRE OF I776— THE BROADWAY OF TO- 
 DAY — APPEARANCE OF THE STREET — A STROLL ON BROADWAY — THE LOWER STREET — 
 TRINITY CHURCH — THE INSURANCE COMPANIES — THE TELEGRAPH WIRES — MAGNIFICENT 
 BUILDINGS — SCENE FROM THE POST-OFFICE — A BROADWAY JAM — LOWER BROADWAY BY 
 NIGHT — CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VARIOUS PORTIONS OF THE STREET — VIEW FROM CANAL 
 STREET — THE HOTELS — AMONG THE PUBLISHERS — " STEWART'S " — GRACE CHURCH — 
 BROADWAY AT UNION SQUARE — THE NARROWEST PART — MADISON SQUARE — A GRAND SIGHT — 
 UPPER BROADWAY — A STREET OF MARBLE — THE GREAT HOTELS — THE CENTRAL PARK 
 
 REACHED — STREET CARS AND OMNIBUSES THE NIGHT LIFE OF BROADWAY SCENES ON THE 
 
 STREET — THE STREET WALKERS — THE ELECTRIC LIGHT — THE MIDNIGHT HOUR — BUSINESS 
 ON BROADWAY. 
 
 To the dweller in New York, Broadway is what the 
 Boulevards are to the Parisian. It is the centre of 
 life, gayety, and business; the great artery through 
 which flows the strong life-current of the metropolis. 
 From the Bowling Green to the Central Park, a dis- 
 tance of five miles, it is lined with stately edifices and 
 thronged with an endless crowd of busy workers, rest- 
 less pleasure-seekers, the good and the bad, the grave 
 and the gay, all hurrying on in eager pursuit of the 
 objects before them. To the stranger it is the great 
 " show street" of the city, and certainly no more won- 
 derful sight can be witnessed than this grand thor- 
 oughfare at high noon. 
 
 The history of the street is the history of the city. 
 It has grown steadily with it, shared its vicissitudes 
 and good fortune, and, like a true mirror, has reflected 
 every phase of the wonderful progress of New York. 
 
 Broadway was laid out as a street by the original 
 
BROADWAY IN OLD TIMES. 
 
 135 
 
 Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, and was called by 
 them the " Heere Straas," or " High Street." In the 
 days of the Dutch colony it was lined, especially on 
 the east side, with rows of pleasant mansions, the gar- 
 dens of which ran back to the marsh, on the present 
 site of Broad street. Under the Dutch rule it was ex- 
 tended to Wall street, where the city wall terminated 
 it ; and beyond this were pleasant fields and pastures, 
 where the portly " mynheers " turned out their cows to 
 graze, and dreamily smoked their pipes under the 
 wide-spreading trees. 
 
 When the English came into possession of the city, 
 and changed its name to New York, Broadway took a 
 step forward. The character of the buildings was im- 
 proved, and Bowling Green became the centre of a 
 thickly settled and fashionable district. Mr. Archibald 
 Kennedy, His Majesty's Collector of the Port of New 
 York, built the house now known as No. i Broadway, 
 a stately mansion in its day, and at one time the head- 
 quarters of the British General Sir Henry Clinton. 
 The great fire of 1776 greatly damaged the street, but 
 it was afterwards rebuilt in a more substantial manner. 
 By the opening of the nineteenth century, Broadway 
 had advanced from the Old Dutch Wall to a point above 
 the present City Hall Park, and by 181 8 it was built up 
 beyond Duane street. In 1830 it had passed Canal 
 street, and the portion between Chambers and Canal 
 streets was the fashionable shopping quarter of the 
 city. By 1 832 it had reached Union Square, and by 1841 
 had been extended to Madison square. Since that year 
 the growth of the street to the Central Park has been 
 steady and rapid. Year after year its various portions 
 
13G NEW YORK. . 
 
 have changed their character. Business has steadily 
 driven out the residences, until now along the whole 
 distance of five miles there is scarcely a dwelling house 
 proper left. 
 
 The first thing that strikes the stranger in looking 
 
 BROADWAY, LOOKING NORTH FROM EXCHANGE PLACE. 
 
 at Broadway, is its narrowness. The early citizens 
 never dreamed of the future greatness of their favorite 
 thoroughfare, and laid off a street with an average 
 width of sixty feet. For many years past, numerous 
 
A BROADWAY JAM. 
 
 143 
 
 to cross Broadway, at times, at this spot, one must 
 needs be a sort of animated billiard-ball, with power 
 to carom from wheel to wheel until he can safely 
 'pocket' his personal corporacity on the opposite walk. 
 The crush of vehicles here is sometimes so great as to 
 delay movement for ten minutes or more, and it re- 
 quires the greatest energy on the part of the police to 
 disentangle the dense, chaotic mass and set it in pro- 
 gress again. For those who are not obliged to cross 
 the choked-up thoroughfare, the scene is full of a brief 
 amusement — hack-drivers, truckmen, omnibus drivers, 
 swearing vehemently at each other, or interchanging 
 all kinds of 1 chaff' ; passengers indignantly railing at 
 the delay, and police officers yelling and waving their 
 clubs in their attempts to get the machinery of travel 
 again running smoothly. If, at such a time, a fire- 
 engine comes rattling up the street, post-haste for the 
 scene of a fire, and attempts to enforce its right of way, 
 the confusion becomes doubly confounded, and the 
 scene a veritable pandemonium. Ordinarily, however* 
 such tangles of traffic do not occur, for this locality is 
 fully supplied with policemen, whose main business is 
 to facilitate the passage of travel and prevent such a 
 blockade as we have described. 
 
 "The outlook down Broadway from the Post Office 
 is in all respects picturesque and impressive, and fills 
 the mind with a vivid sense of the immense activity of 
 New York life. In the distance the towers of Trinity 
 Church and the Equitable Life Insurance Building 
 lift themselves as landmarks, and noble buildings 
 thickly studding the squares between the New York 
 Evening Post Buildingand the Western Union Telegraph 
 
THE FINEST VIEW IN NEW YORK. 
 
 151 
 
 west, lined with stately buildings. On the right is 
 Madison Square, the handsomest of all the smaller 
 parks, beautifully shaded with noble trees, and adorned 
 with shrubbery, fountains and statuary. On the east 
 side of the Square is Madison avenue, one of the 
 stateliest and most fashionable streets of the metropolis. 
 The Fifth avenue leads away to the northward, a splen- 
 did mass of brownstone buildings, broken at intervals 
 by numerous church spires. To the northwest is 
 Broadway, lined with superb marble edifices as far as 
 the eye can reach. The throng of vehicles and pedes- 
 trians is very great here, coming and going in all 
 directions, and all the streets which centre here pre- 
 sent a gay and animated appearance, and the whole 
 scene constitutes a panorama unequaled by anything 
 in any of the great capitals of the Old World. 
 
 Crossing 23d street and Fifth avenue at the same 
 time, we come to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. This 
 immense building occupies an entire square, from 2/d 
 to 24th streets, and fronts on both Fifth avenue and 
 Broadway. It is built of white marble, and is six stories 
 in height. The block from 24th to 25th streets is occu- 
 pied by the Albemarle and Hoffman Houses, in the 
 order named. Both are of white marble. Immediately 
 opposite, at the intersection of Broadway and Fifth 
 avenue, is a handsome granite monument, erected to 
 the memory of General W. J. Worth, a gallant soldier 
 of the Seminole and Mexican wars. Facing this is the 
 New York Club House, a tasteful red brick building, 
 fronting on Broadway and Fifth avenue. Above this, 
 and also fronting on both streets, is the famous restau- 
 rant of Delmonico. At the southwest corner of 26th 
 
THE STAGE ROUTES. 157 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BROADWAY STAGES. 
 
 POPULARITY OP THIS MODE OF CONVEYANCE — A CHEAP PLEASURE — DESCRIPTION OF THE VARI- 
 OUS LINES — THE STAGES AS REGARDS COMFORT — THE OUTSIDE SEATS — "KNOCKING DOWN 
 IN BY-GONE DAYS" — THE PATENT CASH BOX SYSTEM — THE 44 SPOTTERS " — A NIGHT RIDE 
 WITH JEHU — THE 44 BOSS " ON THE WATCH — MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS — SKILL OF THE STAGE 
 
 DRIVERS — A STAGE DRIVER PHOTOGRAPHED SUFFERINGS OF THE DRIVERS — UPS AND DOWNS 
 
 OF THE CRAFT — THE MUTUAL BENEFIT ASSOCIATION. 
 
 In spite of the success of the elevated railways, 
 and of the large number of passengers carried by the 
 street car lines, the stages or omnibuses still manage 
 to hold their own. Until a year or two ago the fare on 
 all the lines was ten cents, but since the completion of 
 the elevated railways it has been reduced to five cents. 
 The low fares and the fact that, except for a short 
 distance on upper Broadway, the stages pursue routes 
 free from the presence and competition of the street cars, 
 enable them still to command a very large share of the 
 street travel of the city. In Broadway, below Union 
 Square, and in Fifth and Madison avenues, they are 
 the sole dependence of those who wish to ride cheaply 
 along those thoroughfares. The principal lines now 
 are as follows: — 
 
 The Broadway and Fifth Avenue, starting from the 
 Fulton Ferry, on the East River, passing up Fulton 
 street to Broadway, along which it continues to 23d 
 street, where it enters Fifth avenue, and follows that 
 thoroughfare as far as the Windsor Hotel. 
 
 The Broadway, Twenty-third Street and Ninth 
 Avenue, running along Broadway from the South 
 
KNOCKING DOWN. 
 
 159 
 
 sum to his own use. This led him to be veiy zealous 
 in picking up passengers, for the larger the receipts 
 the greater his chance of " knocking down " without 
 detection. It was in those days a well-established fact 
 that those who were the most skillful in helping them- 
 selves always made the largest returns to the office. 
 
 Now, however, each coach is provided with the 
 Slawson patent cash-box, which is placed inside, at the 
 front end of the vehicle. As he starts on his rounds 
 the driver is furnished with little envelopes containing 
 various sums, ranging from ten cents to two dollars. 
 Each envelope contains a stage ticket and the balance 
 of the amount, whatever it may be, in money. Passen- 
 gers entering the coach, if they have the amount in 
 change, deposit it in the Slawson box, which is so placed 
 that the driver can see whether the correct fare is paid or 
 not. If change is desired, the money is handed to the 
 driver through a hole in the roof in the rear of his seat, 
 and he returns an envelope containing a ticket and the 
 remainder of the sum given him in change. The ticket 
 is then deposited in the cash box by the passenger. As 
 he must return the envelopes given him at starting, or 
 their equivalent in money, the driver has no opportun- 
 ity of "knocking down." His only opportunity for 
 practicing the old game lies in the fares paid him by 
 the outside riders, who cannot make use of the cash box. 
 This has its risks, however, for he is closely watched, 
 and the number of " outsiders " is carefully counted by 
 " spotters " or spies placed along the route by the pro- 
 prietor. Sometimes the " boss " takes this office upon 
 himself, to the great disgust of the driver. 
 
 One night, not long since, a Fifth avenue stage was 
 
THE "BOSS" ON THE WATCH. 
 
 161 
 
 you saw him; next trip he'll be down to Bleecker 
 street; maybe he'll jump in and ride a few blocks. 
 He's a sly one. He thinks more of a cent with a hole 
 in it than I do of a good dinner. He hangs around 
 every night till one o'clock, when the last 'bus goes up. 
 He's got an awful grip on his gold, but some day some- 
 body'll have his money to spend/' The thought of it 
 gave an extra snap to the whip. 
 
 "He does look pretty old, that's a fact." 
 
 "Don't you worry about his dying off-hand. His 
 father is alive now, up in Delaware county. No, sir; 
 if I had his stamps I wouldn't hang around nights to 
 catch a five-cent fare. When he finds a driver short a 
 fare he docks him fifty cents." 
 
 "How do the receipts now compare with the ten- 
 cent days?" 
 
 "We do more than double the business. A stage 
 averages $3 more a day since they cut down to five 
 cents. We used to take in $6 or $7, and now we count 
 on from $9 to $11." 
 
 It requires the nicest skill to drive a stage on Broad- 
 way. Not only must the driver guide his ponderous 
 vehicle safely through the crowded mass, but his quick 
 eye must be all over the street, on the watch for pas- 
 sengers, and he must be ready to stop to take up or 
 let them down at any moment, and in such a manner 
 as will not block the already crowded street. The ease 
 and accuracy with which a stage will dart through a 
 crowd of Broadway vehicles, never colliding with or 
 in any way touching them, shows that Jehu has a firm 
 hand and a quick eye. 
 
 The stage drivers constitute a distinct and peculiar 
 11 
 
THE CENTRE OF FASHION. 
 
 165 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 FIFTH AVENUE THE CENTRE OF FASHION AND WEALTH— DESCRIPTION OF THE STREET — A 
 
 GRAND PANORAMA LOWER FIFTH AVENUE— ENCROACHMENTS OF BUSINESS— FOURTEENTH 
 
 STREET — THE 44 SWALLOW-TAIL" DEMOCRACY— AMONG THE PIANO MAKERS — CHICKERING 
 
 HALL— CHURCHES CLUBS AND ART GALLERIES— TWENTY-THIRD STREET DELMONICO S— 
 
 THE ASTOR RESIDENCES— STEWART'S MARBLE PALACE A REGION OF BROWN STONE— UPPER 
 
 FIFTH AVENUE — THE HOTELS — THE CATHEDRAL — THE VANDERBILT MANSIONS — ALONG 
 
 THE CENTRAL PARK THE LENOX LIBRARY — THE FIFTH AVENUE MANSIONS — HOMES OF 
 
 WEALTH AND LUXURY — HOW THEY ARE FITTED UP — FIFTH AVENUE ON NEW Year's NIGHT — 
 
 LIFE IN FIFTH AVENUE— THE WHIRL OF DISSIPATION WHAT IT COSTS THE STRUGGLE FOR 
 
 SHOW THE " NEWLY RICH "—DARK SIDE OF FIFTH AVENUE LIFE THE SKELETONS FIFTH 
 
 AVENUE HUSBANDS AND WIVES — THE CHILDREN— 44 ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS." 
 
 Fifth avenue is the fashionable street, par excellence, 
 of New York. It commences at Washington Square 
 and extends to the Harlem river, a distance of nearly 
 six miles, and is a broad, well-paved, and superbly built 
 street for the first three miles of its course. To live 
 and die in a Fifth avenue mansion is the dearest wish 
 of every New Yorker s heart. Though the lower 
 squares are being rapidly encroached upon by business 
 edifices, the street as a whole maintains its character as 
 the most magnificent avenue of residences in the world. 
 The buildings along its course are mainly of brown- 
 stone, though in the upper section, near the Central 
 Park, marble and the lighter-colored stones are being 
 used with pleasing effect. 
 
 The avenue begins at Waverly Place, the northern 
 boundary of Washington Square, and runs in a straight 
 line to 59th street, the southern boundary of the Cen- 
 tral Park, after which it skirts the eastern side of the 
 Park to 1 1 oth street. At 120th street its continuity 
 
1GG 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 is broken by Mount Morris Park, around which 
 it passes, and commences again at 124th street, 
 and pursues an unbroken line to the Harlem river. 
 From Washington Square to the Central Park, a dis- 
 tance of three miles, it is built up solidly, with magnifi- 
 cent residences, splendid hotels and imposing churches. 
 From 59th street, along the eastern side, it is being built 
 up rapidly, and before many years have elapsed this 
 section will be an unbroken line of buildings. It will be 
 a very pleasant section, too, for the western boundary 
 of the street will be the open expanse of the Central 
 Park, and the occupants of the houses will have before 
 them one of the loveliest landscapes in the world, as a 
 source of perpetual enjoyment. From the upper end 
 of the park to Mount Morris there are, as yet, no im- 
 provements. Passing Mount Morris and entering the 
 Harlem section of the avenue, we find it rapidly grow- 
 ing, the houses here being equal in splendor to those 
 below or opposite the park. 
 
 Starting on our tour of inspection from Washington 
 Square, we find the first blocks of the avenue occupied 
 by stately, old-fashioned mansions, and shaded by fine 
 trees. At the corner of Clinton Place is the Brevoort 
 House, one of the most exclusive hostelries of the 
 city, and largely patronized by English visitors. At 
 the northwest corner of 10th street is the Episcopal 
 Church of the Ascension, a handsome brownstone struc- 
 ture, and on the southwest corner of nth street is the 
 First Presbyterian Church, equally handsome, and also 
 of brownstone. Fourteenth street is a busy, bustling, 
 thoroughfare at its intersection with the avenue, and 
 here are a number of fashionable "Apartment Houses," 
 
178 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. ' 
 
 THE ELEVATED RAILROADS. 
 
 INCONVENIENCES OF OLD-STYLE TRAVEL — PLANS FOR RAPID TRANSIT — THE FIRST ELEVATER 
 RAILROAD — THE PRESENT SYSTEM — THE METROPOLITAN AND NEW YORK ELEVATED ROADS — 
 THE MANHATTAN COMPANY — DESCRIPTION OF THE ROADS — HOW THEY ARE BUILT— MODE OF 
 OPERATIONS — STATIONS — EMPLOYEES— RAPID TRAINS — ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM — ITS 
 DRAWBACKS — IMMENSE TRAFFIC — RESULTS OF THE ELEVATED SYSTEM — RAPID GROWTH OF 
 THE UPPER PART OF THE CITY — A RIDE ON THE ELEVATED RAILROADS — THE NIGHT TRAINS 
 — FROM THE BATTERY TO HARLEM BY NIGHT. 
 
 The peculiar conformation of Manhattan Island ren- 
 dered it impossible for New York to grow but in one 
 direction — from south to north. As the lower portions 
 of the city were taken for business purposes, the popu- 
 lation moved northward. In the course of time this 
 state of affairs came about: the majority of the dwellers 
 in the city had their places of business down town, at 
 a distance of several miles from their residences. To 
 reach the former in the morning, and return to the lat- 
 ter in the afternoon, they were dependent upon the 
 horse-cars and stages. These trips consumed a great 
 deal of time, and imposed upon the people an immense 
 amount of fatigue. Early in the morning and late in 
 the evening the cars and stages were crowded, so that 
 often the entire journey had to be made standing ; the 
 vehicles were dirty and badly ventilated, and every 
 discomfort was encountered. During heavy snows, 
 hours would be sometimes consumed in making the 
 journey, and at all times street blockades caused the 
 loss of much valuable time. Altogether, the whole 
 system of street travel was badly arranged, uncom- 
 
THE FIRST ELEVATED RAILROAD. 
 
 179 
 
 fortable, and entirely unsuited to the needs of a city 
 like New York. 
 
 This led to many plans for " rapid transit ;" that is, 
 for a system of roads running the length of the city, 
 and operated by steam, which should shorten the time 
 between given points and increase the comforts of the 
 traveler. At first these plans were for underground 
 roads, but they were rejected almost as fast as pro- 
 posed, as it was found that they would cost several 
 million dollars per mile, and require a generation 
 for their construction. After various other plans had 
 been proposed, a company was chartered and began 
 the construction of an elevated railroad on Green- 
 wich street and Ninth avenue, from the Battery to the 
 Central Park. It was proposed to operate the road 
 by means of an endless wire rope, worked by station- 
 ary engines at stated points along the line. This 
 proved a failure, however ; the endless ropes would not 
 work, and the stationary engines had to be abandoned. 
 The road was then strengthened, dummy engines 
 placed on it, and about 1870 it was opened for travel. 
 After experiencing various changes of fortune it passed 
 into the hands of the New York Elevated Railroad 
 Company, and has since been rebuilt and strength- 
 ened. It now forms a part of the western division of 
 the New York Elevated Railroad. 
 
 The next project was the Metropolitan Elevated 
 Railroad, to run from Rector and New Church streets, 
 by College Place, West Broadway, South Fifth avenue, 
 Amity street and Sixth avenue to the Central Park. 
 This scheme encountered a great deal of opposition 
 from property holders along the route, but this was at 
 
NEW YORK SOCIETY. 
 
 195 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 THE VARIOUS CLASSES OF SOCIETY — THE BEST OF ALL — THE "OLD KNICKERBOCKERS" — A HEAVY 
 SET OF SWELLS — RICHES AND CULTURE COMBINED— THE NEWLY RICH— THE CONTROLLING 
 ELEMENT— HOW SHODDY GETS INTO SOCIETY — THE POWER OF MONEY— FASHIONABLE SNOB- 
 BERY — FROM THE TENEMENT HOUSE TO THE FIFTH AVENUE MANSION — MANIA FOR COATS 
 OF ARMS — HOW BOSS TWEED WAS VICTIMIZED SUDDEN APPEARANCES AND DISAPPEAR- 
 ANCES IN SOCIETY " RICHES HAVE WINGS " A FAILURE AND A TRIUMPH — WHAT IT COSTS 
 
 MONEY THE ONE THING NEEDFUL — EXTRAVAGANCE OF NEW YORK SOCIETY — LOVE OF DRESS 
 — A FASHIONABLE LADY'S WARDROBE — FOLLIES OF THE MEN— PASSION FOR THE LEG BUSI- 
 NESS FASHIONABLE ENTERTAINMENTS — THE END OF EXTRAVAGANT CAREERS — THE SKELE- 
 TONS SOMETIMES COME OUT OF THEIR CLOSETS— FASHIONABLE BALLS AND PARTIES — KCW 
 THEY ARE GIVEN — INVITATIONS — BALL ROOM SCENES — THE SUPPERS — A SWELL CONVERSATION 
 
 FASHIONABLE THIEVES— -AN ARISTOCRATIC SNEAK THIEF— HOW A BROKER KEPT HIS PLACE 
 
 IN SOCIETY A DETECTIVE'S EXPERIENCE IN FASHIONABLE LIFE — THE PRETTY WIDOW AND 
 
 THE LACES — FASHIONABLE RECEPTIONS — WEDDINGS IN HIGH LIFE — ARRANGED ON A PECU- 
 NIARY BASIS — MONEY THE ATTRACTION HOW HEARTS ARE BOUGHT AND SOLD — THE WED- 
 DING FESTIVITIES GUARDING THE BRIDAL PRESENTS- — WHAT IT ALL COSTS — FASHIONABLE 
 
 DEATH ONLY THE RICH CAN AFFORD TO DIE IN NEW YORK COST OF A FASHIONABLE 
 
 FUNERAL — INTERESTING DETAILS. 
 
 I. 
 
 CONSTITUENT PARTS. 
 
 Society in New York is made up of many parts, a 
 few of which we propose to examine. 
 
 The first class is unfortunately the smallest, and con- 
 sists of those who set culture and personal refinement 
 above riches. It is made up of professional men and 
 their families — lawyers, clergymen, artists, authors, 
 physicians, scientific men, and others of kindred pur- 
 suits and tastes. Compared with the other classes, it 
 is not wealthy, though many of its members manage 
 to attain competency and ease. Their homes are taste- 
 ful, and often elegant, and the household graces are 
 cultivated in preference to display. The tone of this 
 
196 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 class is pure, healthful and vigorous, and personal 
 merit is the surest passport to it. It furnishes the best 
 specimens of manhood and womanhood to be met with 
 in the metropolis, and its home-life is simple and at- 
 tractive. In short, it may be said to be the saving 
 element of the society of the metropolis, and fortunately 
 it is a growing element, drawing to it every year new 
 members, not only from the city itself, but from all 
 parts of the country. It is this class which gives tone 
 to the moral and religious life of the city, which supports 
 the lectures, concerts, oratorios and scientific entertain- 
 ments which form so pleasant a feature of city life, and 
 it is seen in force at Wallack's and other leading thea- 
 tres on the first night of some new play. Its members 
 are generally sufficiently well-off in this world's goods 
 to render them independent of the forms to which 
 others are slaves. Travel and observation, added to 
 natural abilities, enable them to estimate persons and 
 things at their true value, and they maintain their posi- 
 tions without caring to imitate or enter into competition 
 with their wealthier neighbors. They are always ready 
 to recognize and lend a helping hand to struggling 
 merit, but sternly discountenance vulgarity and impos- 
 ture. They furnish the men and women who do the 
 best work and accomplish the greatest results in social 
 and business life, and their names are honored through- 
 out the city. 
 
 The next class is composed of the descendants of the 
 original Dutch settlers of New York, and style 
 themselves "the Old Knickerbockers." They are 
 clannish, and cling together, looking down with a 
 lofty contempt upon all who cannot show a Dutch 
 
202 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 to be exclusive, and then it is hard to enter the charmed 
 circle. Some years ago a gentleman, a man of brains 
 and sterling merit, who had risen slowly to fortune, 
 feeling himself in every way fitted for social distinction, 
 resolved to enter society, and to signalize his entree by 
 a grand entertainment. At that time he lived in a not 
 very fashionable street, but he did not regard this as a 
 drawback. He issued his invitations, and prepared his 
 entertainment upon a scale of unusual magnificence, 
 and at the appointed time his mansion was ablaze with 
 light, and ready for the guests. Great was his morti- 
 fication. Not one of those invited set foot within his 
 doors. In his anger he swore a mighty oath that he 
 would yet compel New York society to humble itself 
 to him. He kept his word, became one of the wealthiest 
 men in the city, indeed, one of the merchant princes of 
 the land, and in the course of a few years society, which 
 had scorned his first invitations, was begging for admis- 
 sion to his sumptuous fetes. He became a leader of 
 society, and his mandates were humbly obeyed by those 
 who had once presumed to look down upon him. It 
 was a characteristic triumph; his millions did the work. 
 
 II. 
 
 WHAT IT COSTS. 
 
 Poverty is always a misfortune. New York brands 
 it as a crime. Consequently no poor man, or even one 
 of moderate means, can hold a place in New York 
 society. Indeed, it would be simply impossible for any 
 one not possessed of great wealth to maintain a posi- 
 tion there, as to do this requires an almost fabulous 
 outlay of money. As money opens the doors of the 
 charmed circle, so money must keep one within it, 
 
HONOR SOLD FOR MONEY. 
 
 207 
 
 great though it be, melts steadily under such demands 
 upon it, until there is nothing left, and bankruptcy and 
 ruin end the story. From time to time the business 
 community is startled by the failure, perhaps the sui- 
 cide, of some nominally well-to-do merchant or banker. 
 The affair causes a brief sensation and is soon forgot- 
 ten. The cause is well known. "Living beyond his 
 means," or "ruined by his family's extravagance," is 
 the stereotyped reason given. Men suffer the tortures 
 of the damned in their efforts to maintain their com- 
 mercial standing, and at the same time to provide their 
 families with the means of keeping their places in so- 
 ciety. They are driven to forgery, defalcation, and other 
 crimes, yet they do not achieve their object. Ruin 
 lays its hand upon them, and the game is played out. 
 
 As for Madame, she must have money. The hus- 
 band may not be able to furnish it, and there may be 
 a limit to even the pawnbroker's generosity ; but money 
 she must have. Fashionable life affords her the means. 
 She sells her honor for filthy lucre ; she finds a lover 
 with a free purse, and willing to pay for her favors. 
 She acts with her eyes open, a,nd sins deliberately, and 
 from the basest of motives. She wants money and she 
 gets it. Sometimes the intrigue runs on without detec- 
 tion, and Madame shifts from lover to lover, according 
 to her needs. Again there is an unexpected discovery; 
 an explosion follows; Madame's fine reputation goes 
 to the winds ; and there is a gap in society. No 
 wonder so many fashionable women look jaded, have 
 an anxious, half-startled expression, and seem weary. 
 They are living in a state of dread lest their secrets be 
 discovered and the inevitable ruin overtake them. 
 
FASHIONABLE SNEAK THIEVES. 
 
 213 
 
 of the man. The stealing which was here confessed is 
 one of those crimes in the higher circles of society 
 which are generally kept hidden from the public. 
 
 "In the early part of last December the family of a 
 prominent lawyer living on Fifth avenue gave a social 
 entertainment, to which only persons of high standing 
 in society were invited. The following morning it was 
 discovered that rings, watches, and jewelry worth seve- 
 ral hundred dollars, were missing. The most careful 
 search and close examination of servants forced the 
 conclusion upon the family that the robbery had been 
 committed by some one of the guests, although this 
 seemed incredible, as every name upon the list of those 
 present seemed to forbid the thought of suspicion. The 
 affair was put into the hands of private detectives, who 
 were unable, however, to obtain the slightest clew to 
 the thief or to the property. 
 
 "A few days later a wealthy merchant entertained a 
 large number of friends, and the following day a wed- 
 ding ring and other jewelry, in value about $1000, but 
 prized far more on account of family associations, were 
 missing. Every nook and corner of the house was 
 searched, and detectives watched the servants, but mys- 
 tery continued to surround the matter. Meanwhile, 
 another merchant held a reception in his brownstone 
 house on a fashionable up-town street, and also suffered 
 a loss during the evening of jewelry, watches, and 
 other property, valued at from $200 to $300. The 
 articles in this case were in a room where the gentle- 
 men assembled, and the theft lay between some one of 
 them and an old servant, whom the master of the 
 house immediately exculpated, declaring that he did 
 
DETECTIVES AT FASHIONABLE PARTIES. 217 
 
 sented me with regular cards of invitation that the 
 high-toned lady had brought with her. I was not a lit- 
 tle embarrassed, you can well imagine, for ten years' 
 knocking about among dangerous characters, and being 
 constantly engaged in putting up jobs on the most 
 brilliant members of what we call the ' swell mob/ had 
 rather unfitted me for contact with members of the 
 upper ten thousand, 
 
 "' And I didn't have a dress suit! 
 
 "'But that was easily managed, thanks to a costumer 
 on the Bowery, and when I presented myself at the 
 brownstone 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 perfectly at my ease. 
 
 "'The hostess introduced me as a friend of her late 
 husband, 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 export- 
 ing advantages 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 watching keenly if any of the guests disap- 
 peared from the rooms, after formally entering them. 
 There was no reason for anticipating any dishonest 
 operation, and my position was looked upon, both by 
 
THE PRETTY WIDOW AND THE DETECTIVE. 219 
 
 " ' ' Hadn't I better take Mrs. a glass of wine ?' 
 
 'Certainly; it is very kind of you,' she replied, 
 « and tell her I will be there in a moment to see if she 
 needs anything else.' 
 
 " 1 As I had anticipated, the parlor was empty, and 
 what was more remarkable, the front door was open. 
 
 " ' 1 went up the stairs as swiftly and as silently as I 
 could. When I reached the door of the room contain 
 ing the presents, I detected the odor of chloroform. 
 
 " 1 The door was partially closed. I pushed it open, 
 and it was easily seen from whence the scent came. 
 There sat 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 landing. 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, but still 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. 
 
 " 1 Then she entered the parlor again, and when I, in 
 about ten seconds, followed her, she was the most beau- 
 tiful sick woman, lying among the satin cushions of a 
 sofa, that I ever saw. 
 
250 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SIXTH AVENUE. 
 
 RAPID ADVANCE OF SIXTH AVENUE IN PROSPERITY— DESCRIPTION OF THE STREET — THE LOWER 
 
 PORTION — THE TENEMENT HOUSES — FRENCH FLATS THE ELEVATED RAILROAD AND ITS 
 
 STATIONS — A BUSY SCENE — SIXTH-AVENUE STORES " MACEY'S " — THE JEFFERSON MARKET 
 
 POLICE COURT — BOOTH'S THEATRE — THE MASONIC TEMPLE — " THE TABERNACLE" — SIXTH 
 AVENUE BY NIGHT — A CHANGE OF SCENE — THE STREET- WALKERS — BRAZEN VICE — THE 
 
 FRENCH WOMEN— SNARING A VICTIM SHAMEFUL SCENES ON THE AVENUE THE STREET A 
 
 TERROR TO DECENT PEOPLE— THE ROUGHS— SIXTH-AVENUE OYSTER HOUSES AND BEER SA- 
 LOONS — SCENE IN A FLASH SALOON — A YOUTHFUL CRIMINAL — THE DETECTIVE'S PRIZE — 
 SIXTH AVENUE AFTER MIDNIGHT — A DRUNKEN SINGER — " IN THE SWEET BYE- AND-BYE " — 
 NO EFFORT MADE TO CHECK THE EVIL. 
 
 Of late years Sixth avenue has come prominently 
 before the public as one of the most noted streets of 
 the great city. It commences at the northern end of 
 Carmine street, and runs northward to 59th street. At 
 this point it is broken by the Central Park, but com- 
 mences again at noth street, the northern boundary 
 of the Park, and pursues its northward course to the 
 Harlem River. It is traversed from its southern ex- 
 tremity to the Park by the Metropolitan Elevated Rail- 
 road, and below the arcade formed by this structure 
 run the horse-cars of the Sixth-Avenue Railroad Com- 
 pany, the northern terminus of which is 59th street. 
 The avenue is solidly built up below the Park, and 
 ranks next to Broadway as a business street, being 
 devoted to the retail trade. In the lower part are a 
 number of tenement-houses, but above 34th street the 
 upper floors of the buildings are laid off in " French 
 flats," some of which are elegant and stylish. For 
 miles on both sides of the street are handsome retail 
 stores, some of which are elegant and extensive enough 
 
ON THE ROAD TO RUIN. 
 
 255 
 
 Sixth avenue. Girls lounge about in the midst of the 
 smoke ; do not hesitate to sit on the laps of gentlemen, 
 and are always ready for one of the foaming glasses 
 of beer which are pyramidally carried about by the 
 ubiquitous waiters. There are many young men being 
 ruined here. While we look on, an episode occurs 
 that illuminates the whole subject as a flash of lightning 
 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 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 
 abstracted 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 proprie- 
 tor thrusts it into the drawer, the detective — for the 
 abstracted man is none other — reaches over the bar, 
 utters a few words, and takes the note and examines 
 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 
 the 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. 
 
PATENT DIVORCES. 
 
 281 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 DIVORCES WITHOUT PUBLICITY. 
 
 CUEER ADVERTISEMENTS — THE " DIVORCE RING " — ITS FIELD OF OPERATIONS — THE DIVORCE 
 LAWYER— WHO HE IS— HEADQUARTERS OF THE MEMBERS OF THE RING — SCENE IN A LAW- 
 YER'S OFFICE — A RICH CLIENT — " OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE AND ON WITH THE NEW"— A 
 CHARACTERISTIC CASE — " THE EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD TO GET A DIVORCE*' — WEST- 
 ERN DIVORCES — 'HOW A MERCHANT MADE A MISTRESS OF HIS WIFE — WHO ARE THE CLIENTS 
 
 COST OF A DIVORCE — HOW IT LS MANAGED — THE REFEREE SYSTEM — SPOTTING A HUSBAND — 
 
 MANUFACTURING EVIDENCE — THE " OLD MAN " ENTRAPPED PROFESSIONAL WITNESSES — 
 
 THE DIVORCE LAWYER'S SYSTEM OF DRUMMING UP BUSINESS — DIRTY" WORK FOR TEN PER 
 CENT — SERVING A SUMMONS— A MOCKERY OF JUSTICE— POWER OF THE RING — THE COURTS 
 AND BAR AFRAID TO BREAK IT UP. 
 
 A leading New York daily, of a recent date, contains 
 the following advertisements : — 
 
 DIVORCES without publicity in 30 days ; all causes ; every State ; consulta- 
 tion free; experienced lawyer ; success guaranteed. 
 
 Smith, Brown & Co., 86 — Street. 
 
 DIVORCES cheaply, without publicity; desertion, incompatibility, non-sup- 
 port, intemperance, compulsory marriages; parties any State ; explanatory 
 blanks free ; always successful; consultations free; confidential. 
 
 Lawyer Smoothtongue, 105 — Street. 
 
 Similar advertisements are to be found in other 
 journals, especially in those of " sporting" proclivities. 
 They announce to the public that there is in New York 
 a powerful and regularly organized " Ring," whose 
 business it is to untie the marriage-knot, and they 
 guarantee to do it with the ease and celerity with which 
 it is tied. This would seem strange in a State where 
 the laws regulating divorces are so rigid ; but the di- 
 vorce lawyer knows how to set even these at defiance, 
 and that his efforts are successful, is shown by the 
 handsome income he enjoys and the elegant style in 
 which he lives. He does not rely upon New York 
 
282 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 alone for his field of operations ; other States are more 
 liberal in this matter, and if the separation of husband 
 and wife cannot be procured in the Empire State, he 
 can easily accomplish it in some other part of the 
 Union. 
 
 The divorce lawyer devotes himself to this branch 
 of his profession exclusively. He is sometimes an ex- 
 member of the Bar, who has been disbarred for dis- 
 honest practices, and cannot appear directly in the 
 case himself. He hires some shyster lawyer to go 
 through the formalities of the courts for him, and some- 
 times succeeds in inducing a barrister of good stand- 
 ing to act for him. His office is usually in the quarter 
 most frequented by practitioners of standing, and is 
 located in some large building with long halls, so that 
 his clients may come and go without attracting special 
 notice. The outer office is fitted up in regular legal 
 style, with substantial desks and tables, and the walls are 
 lined with cases of law books. The private consulta- 
 tion room is elegantly furnished, and is provided with 
 the coziest arm-chairs, in which the clients can sit at 
 their ease, and pour into the sympathizing ears of the 
 "counsellor" their tales of woe. 
 
 Let us seat ourselves, unseen, in the private office 
 of a leading divorce firm. They are located at the 
 rear of a superb building on Broadway, and have ele- 
 gantly fitted-up apartments. Counsellor , the 
 
 head of the firm, conducts the consultations. He is a 
 portly, smooth-faced, oily-tongued man, possessing 
 great powers of cheek and plausiveness, just the man 
 to lead a hesitating client to take the decisive step. A 
 clerk from the outer office announces a visitor. A 
 
AN ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE. FOILED. 
 
296 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 
 
 THE CITY HALL— THE GOVERNOR'S ROOM — THE COUNTY COURT HOUSE— REMINISCENCES OF THE 
 " TWEED RING" — THE HALL OF RECORDS — THE UNITED STATES SUB-TREASURY — THE GREAT 
 VAULTS — HOW UNCLE SAM'S MONEY IS GUARDED — THE ASSAY OFFICE — THE CUSTOM HOUSE — 
 A NOBLE EDIFICE— THE BUSINESS OF THE PORT OF NEW YORK — DUTIES OF OFFICIALS— THE 
 BARGE OFFICE — PASSING THROUGH THE CUSTOM HOUSE — CUSTOM HOUSE BROKERS — TAM- 
 MANY HALL — THE TAMMANY SOCIETY — POLITICAL ORGANIZATION — " BOSS KELLY " — THE 
 
 COOPER UNION — WORK OF THE INSTITUTION — THE BIBLE HOUSE — A GREAT WORK DONE THE 
 
 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN — HOW THE SCHOOLS ARE CONDUCTED — ANNUAL EXHIBI- 
 TIONS — THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION BUILDING — THE LECTURE ROOM — A 
 REFUGE FOR YOUNG MEN — THE GRAND CENTRAL RAILROAD DEPOT — INTERNAL ARRANGE- 
 MENTS — THE CAR HOUSE — THE FOURTH AVENUE TUNNELS. 
 
 Apart from the great public edifices mentioned 
 separately in these pages, there are many which de- 
 serve special notice. Of the principal of these we 
 propose to speak in this chapter. 
 
 The most prominent of the public buildings is the 
 City Hall, the headquarters of the Municipal Govern- 
 ment of New York. It stands in the City Hall Park, 
 in the rear of the Post Office, from which it is sepa- 
 rated by a wide, open space, and between that 
 building and the County Court House. The front 
 and sides are of white marble, and the rear of brown 
 sandstone. It is built in the Italian style, and was 
 begun in 1803 and completed in 181 2, at a cost of 
 more than half a million of dollars. It is 216 feet 
 long and 105 feet deep, and is surmounted by a cupola 
 containing a clock with four faces, which are illuminated 
 by gas at night. On the summit of the cupola stands 
 a statue of Justice. The building contains the Mayors 
 office, the Common Council Chamber, the City Library, 
 
THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 
 
 301 
 
 The Wall street front is ornamented with a handsome 
 portico supported by twelve front, four middle and two 
 rear columns of granite, each thirty-eight feet in height. 
 The building is constructed of Quincy granite, and was 
 
 CUSTOM HOUSE. 
 
 erected in 1835, at a cost, including the ground, of 
 $1,800,000. It was used for a number of years as the 
 Merchants* Exchange. It was subsequently sold to 
 the United States Government for $1,000,000, and was 
 
COOPER UNION. 
 
 309 
 
 to a free library and reading room, and halls for lectures 
 and for study. 
 
 The institution was designed by Mr. Cooper for the 
 free instruction of the working classes in science, art, 
 English literature, the foreign languages, and telegraphy. 
 Of late years there has been added to it a school of 
 
 COOPER UNION. 
 
 design for women. The course of instruction is very 
 thorough, the ablest teachers being employed, and the 
 standard of scholarship is high. Searching and rigid 
 examinations test the proficiency of the pupils, and the 
 graduates are sent forth into the world thoroughly 
 prepared in the branches taught here. Mr. Cooper's 
 plans have been ably carried out by the teachers in 
 
316 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 forms are sheltered by an immense glass and iron roof, 
 of a single arch, with a span of two hundred feet and 
 a height of one hundred and ten feet. The offices, 
 baggage and waiting-rooms, etc., are located in the 
 southern end and the western side. Besides these, the 
 basement contains a police station, barber shop, and 
 restaurant. 
 
 The depot is occupied by four important lines of 
 railways. The 4.26. street front contains the offices, 
 waiting and baggage-rooms of the New York, New 
 Haven and Boston, and the Shore Line Railroads ; 
 and the Vanderbilt avenue, or western side, is taken 
 up with the offices, baggage and waiting-rooms of the 
 New York, Harlem and Albany, and the Hudson 
 River and New York Central Railroads, the rooms of 
 each road teing entirely separated from those of the 
 other. The upper floors of the building are occupied 
 by the offices of the various railway companies. All 
 the apartments in the great structure are handsomely 
 frescoed, finished in hard wood, and provided with 
 every convenience. 
 
 The car house, which comprises the principal portion 
 of the depot, is very handsome. The roof is supported 
 by thirty-one ornamental iron trusses, each one of 
 which weighs forty tons and forms a single arch stretch- 
 ing from side to side. Eighty thousand feet of glass 
 admit the light of day, and at night the place is bril- 
 liantly illuminated by gas jets supplied with large reflec- 
 tors and lit by electricity. The platforms between the 
 tracks and on the sides are constructed of a light- 
 colored stone. Each road has its own tracks, and so 
 perfect are the arrangements of the depot, that though 
 
330 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 AMONG THE BULLS AND BEARS OF WALL STREET. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF WALL STREET — VALUE OF REAL ESTATE — ENORMOUS RENTS — ORIGIN OF THE 
 NAME OF THE STREET — NOTABLE BUILDINGS — TRANSACTIONS OF THE STREET — THE SCENE 
 AT NOON— THE STOCK EXCHANGE — THE LONG ROOM — OUTSIDE DEALERS— THE REGULAR 
 BOARD — HOW BUSINESS IS CONDUCTED IN THE EXCHANGE — THE VICE-PRESIDENT — RULES OF 
 THE EXCHANGE — GOOD FAITH EXACTED OF ITS MEMBERS — THE GOVERNMENT BOARD — 
 CHARACTERISTIC SCENES — THE VAULTS AND THEIR TREASURES — THE TELEGRAPH INSTRU- 
 MENTS — THE "TICKERS" — LIFE OF A STOCK BROKER — SPORTS OF THE EXCHANGE — THE 
 CLEARING HOUSE AND ITS OPERATIONS— CURBSTONE BROKERS— RECKLESS TRANSACTIONS — 
 STOCK SPECULATIONS— BUYING AND SELLING ON COMMISSION — UNCERTAINTIES OF THE 
 
 STREET — HOW FORTUNES ARE MADE AND LOST ON WALL STREET — STOCK GAMBLING WHO 
 
 ARE THB SPECULATORS— A DARING BROKER— " BLACK FRIDAY "—HOW AN OPERATOR WAS 
 RUINED — STOCK SWINDLERS — SHARPERS IN WALL STREET — THE COMBINATION SYSTEM — A 
 BAREFACED SWINDLE — ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT — HOW BOGUS OPERATORS 
 FLEECE UNSUSPECTING CUSTOMERS— AN INSIDE VIEW OF THE COMBINATION SYSTEM — 
 ENORMOUS PROFITS — THE SWINDLE EXPOSED — A WARNING TO WOULD-BE SPECULATORS. 
 
 I. 
 
 WALL STREET. 
 
 Wall Street, the financial centre, not only of New 
 York, but of the New World, is but half a mile in 
 length, and is one of the narrowest thoroughfares in 
 the Great City. It commences on the East side of 
 Broadway, opposite Trinity Church, and runs direct to 
 the East River, gradually sloping from its Western end 
 towards the water. It is handsomely built up along 
 the greater part of its course, and contains some of the 
 most elegant buildings in the city. Marble, brown- 
 stone and brick are the materials chiefly used, iron 
 finding no favor in the financial heart of the city. The 
 buildings are used for banks, brokers', lawyers' offices, 
 and as the headquarters of some of the greatest cor- 
 
WALL STREET. 
 
 331 
 
 porations in the Union. The street contains the Stock 
 Exchange, the United States Sub-Treasury and Assay 
 Office, and the Custom House. All the buildings, 
 with the exception of those just named, are filled from 
 top to bottom with offices. Land is more valuable 
 here than in any other section of the city; even Broad- 
 way prices for real estate sink into insignificance when 
 compared with those demanded in Wall street. Rents 
 are in proportion, and the cost of a comfortable dwell- 
 ing house is often paid for a year's use of a small 
 office in a desirable location. Landlords reap a rich 
 harvest here. Brokers must be close to the Stock 
 Exchange, and the lawyers doing business here must 
 be near their clients. These classes pay any rent 
 asked in order to hold their places. 
 
 The streets intersecting Wall street are lined for 
 several blocks with banks, bankers' and brokers' offices, 
 and are all included in the general term "Wall Street," 
 in dealing with financial matters. Even Broad street 
 is absorbed in the term, and yields precedence to its 
 smaller rival. 
 
 Wall street derives its name from the fact that 
 under the rule of the Dutch, the northern wall of the 
 city followed the line now pursued by the street. 
 Long before the advent of the English, houses sprang 
 up on each side of the wall, and the open space between 
 them became a well traveled street, known as "Long 
 de Wal," which was afterwards changed to the present 
 name, Wall street. The wall was demolished in 1 699, 
 and the stones were used to build a Town Hall, which 
 stood on the site of the present United States Sub- 
 Treasury. Prior to the Revolution, the lower part of 
 
342 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 carelessly or maliciously, shouts out, "I'll give '14 for a 
 thousand; '14 for a thousand." 
 
 The Vice-President plies his hammer: "Fine Ir- 
 ving — fine Irving, fifty cents." The roll keeper proceeds 
 to make his little note of it, and Irving, who has 
 violated the rule, founded on common sense, which 
 forbids a member making a bid below or an offer 
 above the one which has the floor, immediately subsides, 
 amid the laughter of his neighbors. 
 
 Occasionally an interruption of a grosser character 
 occurs, a member leaping from his seat on some slight 
 provocation, and striking off the hat of the man who 
 has offended. "Fine Harrison; fine Harrison again ;" 
 "fine, fine him again." "Fine Harrison!" cries the Vice- 
 president, repeating the word without cessation, until 
 the broker's wrath has been appeased and he returns 
 to his chair with the disagreeable reflection that a 
 heavy score is against him for the semi-annual settle- 
 ment day. Every repetition of that fatal monosyllable 
 was a fresh mark of fifty cents or a dollar against his 
 name. Generally, however, the Government brokers 
 are more orderly than their neighbors in the Regular 
 Board. Indeed, the whole proceedings are more 
 decorous and respectful, the bidding, half the time, 
 being carried on in a low conversational tone. At 
 second call there is a brief excitement, but when things 
 are dull throughout the street, this room peculiarly 
 reflects the external influences. 
 
 Very different it is, however, on days when some 
 special cause provokes great fluctuations. Then the 
 members spring from their seats, arms, hands, excitable 
 faces, rapid vociferations, all come in play, and the ele- 
 
FORTUNES IN WALL STREET. 
 
 351 
 
 turn in the tide, and so they go on until they have 
 nothing more to risk. 
 
 if fortunes are quickly made in Wall street they are 
 lost there with even greater rapidity. You may see 
 men in rags, S o wretched that the Police Station is 
 their lodging and the bread of charity their only sub- 
 sistence, hanging about their old haunts in the street, 
 watching the operators with wistful eyes, who were 
 once high in the favor of the Exchange, and possessed 
 of wealth and good commercial standing. They were 
 ruined by stock gambling. Once they had palatial 
 mansions on Fifth avenue, and were the favorites of 
 fortune. Now they have no future, no hope. They 
 have not the moral courage, even if they had the oppor- 
 tunity, to seek to regain their former positions. They 
 have fallen never to rise again. 
 
 The best and most reputable firms in the street 
 never speculate on their own account. They buy and 
 sell on commission, and their only speculative dealings 
 are for their customers. They take care in such cases 
 to be protected by liberal "margins," which secure 
 them against all possibility of loss. 
 
 All sorts of people come into the street to tempt 
 fortune, and the brokers could tell some queer tales of 
 their customers did they see fit to do so. When a 
 person wishes to speculate in stocks, it is not necessary 
 for him to buy the securities outright, though that is 
 by far the safer way in dealing with first-class stocks. 
 If he can satisfy the broker that he is a responsible 
 person, he will be allowed to begin operations by pay- 
 ing down only ten per cent, of the value of the securities 
 he wishes to deal in. Thus with $1000 he may buy 
 
432 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE PAWNBROKERS AND THEIR WAYS. 
 
 THK SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS — LAWS RESPECTING PAWNDROKERS — HOW LICENSES ARE ISSUED — 
 DISREGARD OF THE LAW BY THE PAWNBROKERS — SOURCES OF PROFIT — EXCESSIVE INTEREST — 
 STORAGE CHARGES — SALES OF UNREDEEMED GOODS — WHO ARE THE PAWNBROKERS — THE 
 JEWS — A DISHONEST CLASS — SUCKING THE LIFE BLOOD OF THE POOR — HOW CUSTOMERS ARE 
 SWINDLED — CHARACTERISTIC SCENE IN A PAWN SHOP — THE JEWS' ONE PER CENT. — AN INSIDE 
 VIEW OF THE BUSINESS — DRUMMING UP CUSTOM. 
 
 The stranger in passing through East Broadway, the 
 Bowery, Chatham, Oliver, Division, Catharine, Grand, 
 Canal, Broome, or the neighboring streets, is struck 
 with the number of quiet, dingy-looking shops over 
 which are suspended the old sign of the Lombards — 
 three gilt balls. These shops and the three-ball signs, 
 all of the latter more or less dingy, may be seen in 
 many other quarters of the city, but they are nowhere 
 so numerous as in the streets named above, which are 
 centres of the abodes of poverty and wretchedness. 
 These are pawnbrokers' shops, and, as a rule, their 
 proprietors are harpies, who suck the life blood of the 
 poor, and grow rich upon their miseries. Of course, 
 in all large cities there must of necessity be a great 
 aggregation of poverty and misery. To the poor the 
 pawnbroker is a necessity. They must have some 
 place to which they can repair at once, and, by pledging 
 such articles as they possess, raise the pittance they so 
 sorely need. Municipal legislators the world over 
 recognize this necessity, and endeavor to throw such 
 safeguards around the business of pawnbroking that 
 the poor shall not be entirely at the mercy of the 
 
AN INTERVIEW WITH " MINE UNCLE." 
 
 437 
 
 stuffy, and the room smells strongly of garlic or onions. 
 A man with an unmistakeably Jewish face and a villain- 
 ous expression of countenance stands behind the nar- 
 row counter, the greater part of which is partitioned 
 off from the public part of the room. We take our 
 stand, invisibly, of course, and watch the proceedings. 
 
 A young man enters, well dressed, and rather dissi- 
 pated in appearance. The child of Abraham watches 
 him narrowly, and begins to shake his head and groan, 
 as if in pain. The visitor approaches the counter, and 
 lays a gold watch upon it. The broker clutches it 
 eagerly, examines it, and groans louder than ever. 
 
 "Vat you vant on dis vatch?" he asks, mournfully. 
 
 "Fifty dollars. It cost me one hundred and fifty," 
 is the reply. 
 
 "Fifty tollar! fifty tollar! Holy Moshish, vat you take 
 me for!" Then, turning, he calls wildly, "Abraham! 
 Abraham! you shust koom hier, quick." 
 
 A second Jew, dirtier and more disreputable looking 
 than the first, makes his appearance, and the proprietor, 
 passing the watch to him, and holding up his hands, 
 shrieks out, as if in despair, 
 
 "Abraham! he vant fifty tollar on dat vatch. De 
 man ish grazy." 
 
 "Ve shall be ruined," echoes Abraham, hoarsely. 
 " Ve couldn't do it. 'Tish too much." 
 
 The proprietor waves his arms wildly, takes the 
 watch from Abraham, and eyeing the owner sharply 
 for a moment, says : — 
 
 "I tell you vat I do. I gif you fifteen tollar. How 
 long you vant de monish ? " 
 
 "Only for a month," replies the young man, evidently 
 struggling between disgust and despair. 
 
"OLD TRINITY." 
 
 469 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 TRINITY CHURCH. 
 
 " OLD TRINITY'' — THE THREE CHURCHES — DESCRIPTION OF TRINITY CHURCH— THE INTERIOR — 
 THE ALTAR AND REREDOS— THE WINDOWS — THE SERVICES — FINE MUSIC — DAILY SIGHTS IN 
 TRINITY — THE SPIRE — THE CHIMES — VIEW FROM THE SPIRE — THE CHURCHYARD — NOTED 
 TOMBS— TRINITY PARISH— THE CHAPELS— WEALTH OF THE PARISH— ITS NOBLE WORK. 
 
 The most interesting church edifice in New York is 
 Trinity Church, or, as it is affectionately termed by the 
 citizens, " Old Trinity." It stands on Broadway oppo- 
 site the head of Wall street, and forms one of the most 
 conspicuous objects on the great thoroughfare. The 
 present edifice is the third that has stood on the site. 
 The first church was completed in 1697, an< ^ was de- 
 stroyed in the great fire of 1776. A second church 
 was built in 1 790, and in 1839 tms was demolished, and 
 the present stately edifice begun on its site. It was 
 completed and consecrated in 1846. 
 
 Trinity is one of the few specimens of pure Gothic 
 architecture to be found in the United States, and is 
 stately and beautiful within and without. It is built of 
 brownstone from the base to the summit of the spire, 
 and the interior is finished in the same material. The 
 walls are fifty feet high, and the arch of the ceiling is 
 sixty feet above the floor of the church. The roof is 
 supported by massive brownstone columns. The spire 
 is two hundred and eighty-four feet in height, and is 
 surmounted by a bright gilded cross. The church con- 
 sists of a nave, choir, and aisles. On each side of the 
 choir are the vestry rooms. The south room contains 
 
470 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 the offices of the clergy, and is also the robing room. 
 The north room contains a fine tomb, with a full length 
 effigy in stone, to the memory of Bishop Onderdonk. 
 The chancel occupies the choir, and is beautifully fitted 
 up. At the sides are stalls for the clergy and choris- 
 ters, with a fine organ on the north side, and at the 
 back are the altar and reredos, which were erected as 
 a memorial to the late William B. Astor, by his sons, 
 both of whom are active members of the church. They 
 are very beautiful, and are of a soft colored stone, 
 richly ornamented with sculptures. The windows of 
 the church are of stained glass, those at the sides being 
 very simple. The great window back of the altar is a 
 magnificent work. Over the Broadway entrance is a 
 gallery containing the grand organ, one of the most 
 powerful instruments in the city. 
 
 Trinity is noted for its elaborate services. Morning 
 and evening prayer are celebrated in simple style 
 every day, but on Sundays and feast days the full 
 choral service is used. The choir consists of men and 
 boys, carefully trained by the Musical Director; they 
 are surpliced, and are famous for their skill. No 
 grander or more impressive service can be heard in 
 the land than in Old Trinity on Sunday mornings. The 
 church is always kept open during the day, and it is no 
 uncommon sight, during business hours, to see numbers 
 of persons kneeling in the pews of the church in silent 
 prayer. A soft, subdued, holy light streams in through 
 the colored windows, giving to the beautiful interior 
 an air of solemnity, in harmony with its sacred char- 
 acter. 
 
 The spire of the church faces Wall street, and is 
 
474 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE LOST SISTERHOOD. 
 
 PREVALENCE OF PROSTITUTION IN NEW YORK— POLICE STATISTICS — FIRST-CLASS HOUSES — 
 
 THE PROPRIETRESS — THE INMATES THE ARISTOCRACY OF SHAME THE VISITORS — 
 
 VISITS OF MARRIED MEN AVERAGE LIFE OF A FASHIONABLE PROSTITUTE THE NEXT 
 
 STEP — THE SECOND-CLASS HOUSES — TERRORS OF THESE PLACES — THE GREENE STREET 
 
 BAGNIOS GOING DOWN INTO THE DEPTHS THE NEXT STEP THE WATER STREET HELLS 
 
 — AVERAGE LIFE OF A PROSTITUTE — "THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH" — HOW YOUNG GIRLS 
 ARE TEMPTED INTO SIN EFFORTS TO SAVE AN ERRING DAUGHTER THE STREET WALK- 
 ERS — THE PANEL HOUSES — HOW MEN ARE ROBBED AND MURDERED IN THESE HOUSES — 
 THE CONCERT SALOONS — THE WAITER GIRLS — THE DANCE HALLS — THE " BUCKINGHAM " — 
 THE "CREMORNE" BUCKINGHAM BALLS ASSIGNATION HOUSES PERSONALS— THE MID- 
 NIGHT MISSION — REFORMATORY ESTABLISHMENTS — ABORTIONISTS — THE WICKEDEST 
 WOMAN IN NEW YORK. 
 
 Prostitution is an appalling evil in New York. One 
 can scarcely look in any direction without seeing some 
 evidence of it. Street walkers parade the most prom- 
 inent thoroughfares, dance houses and low concert 
 halls flaunt their gaudy signs in public, and houses 
 of ill-fame are conducted with a boldness unequalled 
 anywhere in the world. The evil is very great, but it 
 is far from assuming the proportions that some well- 
 meaning, but misinformed, persons have assigned it. 
 Some years ago Bishop Simpson, of the Methodist 
 Church, made the startling assertion, at a public meet- 
 ing, that the prostitutes of New York were as numer- 
 ous as the members of the Methodist Church in that 
 city. This drew from the Superintendent of Police a 
 statement, in which he showed that while the evil was 
 undeniably very great, it was not so bad as the Bishop 
 had reported it. The truth is that there are about 600 
 houses of prostitution and about 90 assignation houses 
 
PROFESSIONAL PROSTITUTES. 
 
 475 
 
 in New York. The number of women known to the 
 police as professional prostitutes is about 5000, in 
 which estimate are included several hundred waiter 
 girls in the concert saloons. The Census of 1880 
 returned the female population of New York as 615,- 
 815. This would give one professional prostitute for 
 123 females of all ages in the entire city. These fig- 
 ures are horrible enough to contemplate, but they are 
 not so bad as the statement referred to above. Of 
 the number of women who resort to prostitution as a 
 means of obtaining money, or from other motives, and 
 who yet manage to retain positions of respectability 
 in society, of course no estimate can be made. They 
 are, unfortunately, very numerous, and are said, by per- 
 / sons in position to speak with some degree of accu- 
 racy, to equal the professionals in numbers. 
 
 These things are sad to contemplate, and disagree- 
 able to write about. The whole .subject is unsavory ; 
 but no picture of New York would be complete did it 
 not include an account of this terrible feature of city 
 life, which meets the visitor at almost every turn ; and 
 it is believed that some good may be accomplished by 
 stripping the subject of all its romance, and presenting 
 it to the reader in its true and hideous colors. 
 
 The professional women of New York represent 
 every grade of their wretched life, from the belle of 
 the fashionable house of ill-fame to the slowly dying 
 inmate of the Water street brothel. They begin their 
 careers with the hope that they will always remain in 
 the class into which they enter, but find, when it is too 
 late, that they must go steadily down into the depths, 
 
476 NEW YORK. 
 
 closing their lives with a horrible death and a pauper's 
 grave. 
 
 The first-class houses of New York are conducted 
 with more or less secrecy. It is the object of the pro- 
 prietress to remain unknown to the police as long as 
 possible, but she finds at last that this is impracticable. 
 The sharp-eyed patrolmen soon discover suspicious 
 signs about the house, and watch it until their suspicions 
 are verified, when the establishment is recorded at 
 police headquarters as a house of ill-fame, and placed 
 under the surveillance of the police. These houses 
 are few in number, the entire city containing, accord- 
 ing to police reports, not more than fifty. Large rents 
 are paid for them, and they are generally hired fur- 
 nished. They are located in some quiet, respectable 
 portion of the city, and outwardly appear to be simply 
 private dwellings. It often happens that the neighbors 
 are in ignorance of the true character of the house, 
 long after it is well known to the police. It is hinted 
 that even Fifth avenue is not free from the taint. The 
 houses are magnificently furnished, and every attrac- 
 tion is held out to lure desirable visitors to them. The 
 proprietress is a woman of respectable appearance, 
 and passes as a married woman, some man generally 
 living with her, and passing as her husband. This 
 enables her, in case of trouble with the authorities, to 
 show a legal protector and insist upon her claim to be 
 a married woman. 
 
 The inmates are women in the first flush of their 
 charms. They are handsome, well dressed, generally 
 refined in manner, and conduct themselves with out- 
 ward propriety ; rude and boisterous conduct, im- 
 
A FORTUNATE ESCAPE. 485 
 
 much discouraged. Not so my friend, who told me 
 there was another lady down the street, who was 
 really in want of girls to help her. We went to her 
 house. It was another of the same sort ; but after I 
 got in there my own clothes were tatcen away from 
 me, and the lady furnished me with some sort of silk, 
 trimmed with fur, and tried to make me behave and 
 act like the other girls in her establishment. I 
 remained there from Saturday to Wednesday night, 
 because I could not get away. I had no clothes to 
 wear in the streets, even if I should succee8 in reach- 
 ing them, which was impossible, and the woman who 
 kept the house was angry with me, and treated me 
 brutally because I would not comply with her wishes. 
 I and another young girl tried to escape by climbing 
 over the fence of the back yard. The other girl got 
 away, but I was discovered by the barkeeper, who 
 drove me back into the house, with curses. On 
 Wednesday evening I was made to sit at the window, 
 and call a man, who was passing, into the house. He 
 turned out to be a detective, and arrested me, and 
 brought me here." 
 
 The girl's story proving to be true, the magistrate 
 restored her to her friends, and caused the arrest of 
 the keeper of the house. 
 
 The police are often called upon by the relatives of 
 abandoned women to assist them in finding them, and 
 rescuing them from their lives of shame. Sometimes, 
 in the cases cf very young girls, these efforts are suc- 
 cessful, and the poor creature gladly goes with her 
 friends. Others again refuse to leave their wretched 
 haunts ; they prefer to lead their lives of infamy. 
 
THE FIRST DIVISION. 
 
 499 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE NATIONAL GUARD. 
 
 THE FIRST DIVISION— ITS ORGANIZATION — HOW ARMED — APPROPRIATIONS BY THE CITY — 
 PRIVATE EXPENSES — THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF — EFFICIENCY OF THE TROOPS — PAST 
 SERVICES OF THE FORCE — OVERAWING THE MOB — PUTTING DOWN RIOTS — A REINFORCE- 
 MENT TO THE POLICE— DISCIPLINE— THE ARMORIES — THE SEVENTH REGIMENT ARMORY — 
 PARADES. 
 
 The military organizations of the City of New York 
 constitute the First Division of the National Guard of 
 the State of New York, and are justly regarded with 
 
 SIXTY-NINTH REGIMENT ARMORY. 
 
 pride by the citizens of the Metropolis. The division 
 numbers about 6,500 men, and consists of four bri- 
 gades, which are divided into nine regiments of in- 
 
502 NEW YORK. 
 
 • 
 
 strength of a fortress and the elegance and comfort 
 of a club-house. It cost over $300,000, and the inte- 
 rior was decorated and furnished at the expense of the 
 regiment. The regimental drill room is 300 by 200 
 feet in size, and besides this there are ten company 
 drill rooms, an officers' room, a veterans' room, a field 
 and staff room, a gymnasium, and six squad drill 
 rooms. 
 
 SEVENTH REGIMENT ARMORY. 
 
 The parades of the division are among the sights 
 of the city, and draw great crowds to witness them. 
 The martial bearing of the troops, their splendid uni- 
 forms and equipments, and the perfect discipline which 
 marks every movement, elicit hearty applause from the 
 citizens who line the entire route of the march. 
 
THE RICHEST MAN IN NEW YORK. 
 
 503 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT. 
 
 THE RICHEST MAN IN NEW YORK — EARLY LIFE — BECOMES A FARMER — ENTERS THE RAILROAD 
 WORLD— BECOMES VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK CENTRAL SYSTEM— SUCCEEDS THE 
 OLD COMMODORE — THE VANDERBILT PALACES — LOVE OF FAST HORSES. 
 
 The richest man in New York is Wfilliam H. Van- 
 derbilt, Esq. He is the oldest son of the late Com- 
 modore Vanderbilt, and was born at New Brunswick, 
 
 New Jersey, on the 8th of May, 1821. He obtained 
 his early education at the Columbia College Grammar 
 School, and at the age of eighteen began his business 
 career as a clerk in the banking house of Drew, Rob- 
 
506 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 CRIME IN NEW YORK. 
 
 PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS — THEIR NUMBERS — THE THIEVES— SUPERINTENDENT WALLING's DE- 
 SCRIPTION OF THEM — THB> THIEF LANGUAGE — GRADES OF THIEVES — BURGLARS — BANK ROB- 
 BERS — SNEAK THIEVES— CONFIDENCE MEN — HOW THEY OPERATE — THE PICKPOCKETS — 
 WHERE THEY COME FROM— THE ROGUES' GALLERY— THE RIVER THIEVES — DARING CRIMES 
 — THE FENCES— HOW STOLEN GOODS ARE DISPOSED OF— TRICKS OF THE FENCES — THE 
 ROUGHS— BLACKMAILERS — HOW THEY FLEECE THEIR VICTIMS. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, men and women of certain 
 grades of intellect and temperament deliberately de- 
 vote themselves to lives of crime. These constitute 
 the " professional criminals," who make up such a ter- 
 rible class in the population of every great city. In 
 New York this class is undoubtedly large, but not so 
 large as many people assert. That it is active and 
 dangerous, the police records of the city afford ample 
 testimony. It is very hard to obtain any reliable sta- 
 tistics respecting the professional votaries of crime, 
 but it would seem, after careful investigation, that New 
 York contains about 3000 of them. These consist 
 of thieves, burglars, river thieves, fences, and pick- 
 pockets. In addition to these we may include under 
 the head of professional criminals, the following : — 
 Women of ill-fame, about 5000 ; keepers of gambling 
 houses, and of policy and lottery offices, about 600, 
 making in all nearly 9000 professional law-breakers, 
 or about one professional criminal in every 136 in- 
 habitants in a population of a million and a quarter. 
 This is a startling statement ; but unhappily it is true. 
 
THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 527 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 CREEDMOOR. 
 
 THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA— THE CREEDMOOR RANGE— THE GROUNDS 
 THE TARGETS — SHOOTING MATCHES — NATIONAL GUARD PRACTICE — AMATEUR MARKS- 
 MEN. 
 
 The rifle range of the National Rifle Association 
 of America is located at Creedmoor, a little village 
 on Long Island, about thirteen miles from New York. 
 The association owns a tract of eighty-five acres of 
 land, enclosed with a substantial fence, and levelled 
 and sodded with turf. Buildings for the use of the 
 association and marksmen are erected within the 
 grounds, and at the extreme end of the lawn thirty- 
 iron targets are placed, giving any desired range from 
 50 to 1200 yards. At various intervals are placed a 
 "running deer" target, " a tramp" or "moving man" 
 target, and a " ringing target," in the last of which a 
 bell is rung when the centre is struck. A fine clock- 
 faced wind dial is placed at a conspicuous point to 
 show the marksmen the direction of the wind, and 
 numerous flags and streamers are planted along the 
 range for the same purpose. 
 
 Frequent shooting matches are held at Creedmoor 
 during the year, and draw large crowds from New 
 York, Brooklyn, and the surrounding country. The 
 scene at such times is very brilliant, as the ladies 
 attend the matches in large numbers, and take great 
 
NEW YORK. 
 
 interest in the sport. All the proceedings are regu- 
 lated by a fixed code of rules, a violation of which 
 subjects the offender to a forfeiture of the privileges 
 
 CREEDMOOR RIFLE RANGE. 
 
 of the range. Each regiment of the National Guard 
 of New York and Brooklyn is required to practise at 
 the Creedmoor range several times during the year, 
 
NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 HENRY BERGH. 
 
 THE FRIEND OF THE BRUTE CREATION— ESTABLISHM ENT OF THE " SOCIETY FOR THE PRE. 
 VENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS " — WORK OF MR. BERGH — HOW HE BECAME A TERROR 
 TO TWO-LEGGED BRUTES — A NOBLE RECORD. 
 
 One of the most familiar figures upon the streets 
 of New York is that of Henry Bergh, the President 
 of the " Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani- 
 mals." Tall, erect, neatly dressed, and with a counte- 
 nance remarkable for its expression of kindness and 
 benevolence, he never fails to attract attention as he 
 passes slowly along, seemingly preoccupied, but keep- 
 ing a keen watch over the dumb creatures along his 
 route, to whose protection he has devoted his life. 
 
 Twenty years ago Mr. Bergh came to the conclu- 
 sion that his mission in life was to protect dumb ani- 
 mals from the cruelties practised upon them. He 
 entered upon his self-appointed task with enthusiasm, 
 drew others into the good work, and in 1866 suc- 
 ceeded in organizing the Society of which he is the 
 president. The necessary legislation was carried 
 through the Legislature of New York through the ef- 
 forts of the society, and its officers were empowered 
 to enforce the laws thus enacted. 
 
 Mr. Bergh is fifty-seven years old, and is possessed 
 of ample means. He is devoted to the cause he has 
 espoused, and serves the Society as its president with- 
 out pay. Since he began his work he has created a 
 
HENRY BERGH. 
 
G16 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 JOHN KELLY. 
 
 "BOSS KELLY " — BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE — EDUCATION — BEGINS LIFE AS A STONE-CUTTER — 
 
 ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE — BECOMES AN ALDERMAN — ELECTED TO CONGRESS HIS CAREER 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES — IS ELECTED SHERIFF — LOSS OF HIS FAMILY- 
 ASSISTS IN OVERTHROWING THE TWEED RING— LEADER OF TAMMANY HALL— APPOINTED 
 COMPTROLLER — REMOVAL FROM OFFICE — PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 One of the most noted men in New York is John 
 Kelly — or, as he is commonly called, "Boss Kelly" — 
 the leader of the Tammany Hall Democracy of the 
 Metropolis. He is credited by his friends with being 
 one of the most skilful political leaders in the country, 
 and denounced by his enemies as the very embodi- 
 ment of political trickery and corruption. His friends 
 are warmly devoted to him, and his- enemies hate him 
 with an intense bitterness. His sway over his partic- 
 ular branch of the Democracy is absolute, and he can 
 control its vote, and make or unmake political for- 
 tunes with a power unsurpassed by that of any old- 
 world despot. Mr. Kelly is of Irish parentage, and is # 
 a native of the Fourth Ward, the classic region which 
 produced his famous predecessor, " Boss Tweed." He 
 received his preliminary education in the parochial 
 school of St. Patrick's Cathedral, which he left at the 
 age of twelve years. He subsequently attended the 
 night schools established by the Board of Education, 
 and displayed an ardent desire to obtain a liberal edu- 
 cation. Upon .leaving the Cathedral school, he was 
 apprenticed to learn the trade of a grate-setter and 
 
1 HE TAMMANY BOSS. 
 
 617 
 
 soapstone-cutter, in which he became a proficient 
 workman. He was a steady, resolute young man, 
 without vicious habits, and exhibited a strong devo- 
 tion to his widowed mother. In after years he edu- 
 
 JOHN KELLY. 
 
 cated his younger brother and established him in 
 business, and extended similar assistance to his sis- 
 ters, all of whom have become women of remarkable 
 character. 
 
CHINESE QUARTER. 
 
620 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 RELIGION IN NEW YORK. 
 
 NUMBER OF CHURCHES IN NEW YORK — VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY — THE DUTCH REFORMED 
 CHURCH— THE EPISCOPALIANS — GRACE CHURCH— ST. THOMAS'S— " THE LITTLE CHURCH 
 AROUND THE CORNER " — THE LUTHERANS — THE PRESBYTERIANS — THE FIFTH AVENUE- 
 CHURCH — THE BAPTISTS— THE METHODISTS— ST. PAUL'S CHURCH— THE CONGREGATIONAL- 
 
 ISTS — THE QUAKERS THE UNITARIANS — THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH — ST. STEPHEN'S 
 
 ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL — THE JEWS — THE TEMPLE EMANU-EL — LOWER NEW YORK DES- 
 TITUTE OF CHURCHES— FASHIONABLE RELIGION— STRANGERS IN CHURCH— THE MUSIC — 
 PROFESSIONAL SINGERS— A TENOR'S SENSATION— THE FIFTH AVENUE PROMENADE— PEW 
 RENTS — CHURCH DEBTS— RECKLESS EXTRAVAGANCE. 
 
 There are more than five hundred churches, chapels, 
 and places used for religious worship in New York, 
 with seating accommodations for about 600,000 people. 
 These are divided among the Orthodox Protestant de- 
 nominations, the Roman Catholics, Quakers, the Greek 
 Church, and the Jews. Of these, the Protestant 
 churches number nearly 450, the Catholics over 40, the 
 Quakers 5, the Greek Church 1, and the Jews 27. 
 The total value of church property in the city is about 
 as follows : Protestant, $30,000,000, exclusive of en- 
 dowments ; Catholic, $8,000,000 ; Jews, $2,000,000 ; the 
 Greek Church, $10,000. Apart from their church 
 property, the various denominations own numerous 
 schools, hospitals, and charitable and benevolent insti- 
 tutions, which swell the value of their real estate to an 
 enormous figure. It is of the churches, however, that 
 we propose to treat here. 
 
 The oldest denomination in the city is the Dutch 
 Reformed. It was planted here by the first settlers of 
 New Amsterdam, and the church records extend back, 
 
G34 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 of the city, almost all being located above Canal street. 
 Trinity, St. Paul's, and one or two others, are all that 
 supply the religious wants of the dwellers in this sec- 
 tion. One ward in this region, containing 30,000 
 people, has not a single place of worship in it, with the 
 exception of a Chinese Joss house, which is kept, by its 
 votaries, in the background. 
 
 The morning services at the various churches, 
 especially at the more fashionable temples, bring out 
 a goodly crowd of worshipers, and it is difficult to 
 obtain a seat. At the fashionable churches the lady 
 members of the congregations have a bad habit of wait- 
 ing until the services have begun before putting in an 
 appearance. Then they sail up the aisles, to their softly 
 cushioned pews, arrayed in all the finery to which they 
 have devoted so much attention during the past week. 
 These late entrances disturb the worshipers, but they 
 enable the ladies to show off their toilets, and that, 
 after all, is what the churches are for, so far as they 
 are concerned. Strangers are expected to stand in 
 the aisles near the door, and wait until the sexton can 
 show them to seats. A certain fashionable sexton is 
 said to have derived quite a snug income from the 
 "tips" bestowed upon him by visitors wishing to obtain 
 eligible seats. A good story is told of a certain high- 
 toned church. A gentleman had been standing in the 
 main aisle during the greater part of the service, vainly 
 waiting for the sexton to show him to a seat. At last, 
 finding the process tiresome, he leaned over, and, in a 
 whisper, asked the occupant of a pew in which there 
 were several vacant seats, "What church is this?" 
 "Christ's," was the whispered reply. "Is He at home, 
 
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