sion the miserable denizens of the quarter sought the near-by
Bowery, with its brilliantly lighted drinking dens, its concert halls,
where negro minstrelsy was featured, and its theatres where the plays
were immoral comedies or melodramas glorifying the exploits of
picturesque criminals. News-boys, street-sweepers, rag-pickers, begging
girls filled the galleries of these places of amusement. Here is the
clerical visitor's description of the thoroughfare that was then the
second principal street of the city: "Leaving the City Hall about six
o'clock on Sunday night, and walking through Chatham Square to the
Bowery, one would not believe that New York had any claim to be a
Christian city, or that the Sabbath had any friends. The shops are open,
and trade is brisk. Abandoned females go in swarms, and crowd the
sidewalk. Their dress, manner, and language indicate that depravity can
go no lower. Young men known as Irish-Americans, who wear as a badge
long frock-coats, crowd the corners of the streets, and insult the
passer-by. Women from the windows arrest attention by loud calls to the
men on the sidewalk, and jibes, profanity, and bad words pass between
the parties. Sunday theatres, concert-saloons, and places of amusement
are in full blast. The Italians and Irish shout out their joy from the
rooms they occupy. The click of the billiard ball, and the booming of
the ten-pin alley, are distinctly heard. Before night, victims watched
for will be secured; men heated with liquor, or drugged, will be robbed,
and many curious and bold explorers in this locality will curse the hour
in which they resolved to spend a Sunday in the Bowery."

To find adventure and danger the rural visitor did not have to seek out
the Bowery and the adjacent streets to the east and west. Adroit rogues
were everywhere. Bland gentlemen introduced themselves to unwary
strangers. Instead of the mining stock or the sick engineer's story of
our more enlightened and refined age, these pleasant urbanites resorted
to the cruder weapon of blackmail. The art was reduced to a system.
Terrible warnings were conveyed to the innocent country-side by the
chronicler in such sub-heads as "A Widower Blackmailed," "A Minister
Falls among Thieves," "Blackmailers at a Wedding," "A Bride Called On."

Darkly the investigator painted the gambling evil of the New York of the
sixties. The dens of chance were in aristocratic neighbourhoods and
superbly appointed. Heavy blinds or c