urtains, kept drawn all day, hid
the inmates from prying eyes. Within, rosewood doors, deep carpets, and
mirrors of magnificent dimensions. The dinner table spread with silver
and gold plate, costly chinaware, and glass of exquisite cut: the viands
embracing the luxuries of the season and the wines of the choicest.
"None but men who behave like gentlemen are allowed the entree of the
rooms" is the naive comment. "Play runs on by the hour, and not a word
spoken save the low words of the parties who conduct the game. But for
the implements of gaming there is little to distinguish the room from a
first-class club-house. Gentlemen well known on 'change' and in public
life, merchants of a high grade, whose names adorn charitable and
benevolent associations, are seen in these rooms, reading and talking.
Some drink only a glass of wine, walk about, and look on the play with
apparently but little curiosity. The great gamblers, besides those of
the professional ring, are men accustomed to the excitement of the Stock
Board. They gamble all day in Wall and Broad Streets, and all night on
Broadway. To one not accustomed to such a sight, it is rather startling
to see men whose names stand high in church and state, who are well
dressed and leaders of fashion, in these notable saloons, as if they
were at home." Conspicuous among the keepers of the gambling hells was
John Morrissey, who had begun life as the proprietor of a low drinking
den in Troy, and as a step in the march of prosperity, had fought
Heenan, the Benicia Boy, for the championship of Canada. He was a
personality of the city of the sixties. The author of the curious volume
thought it necessary to tell of his career as he told of the career of
A.T. Stewart, and Henry Ward Beecher, and the particular Astor of the
day, and the particular Vanderbilt, Fernando Wood, and Leonard W.
Jerome, and George Law, and James Gordon Bennett, the elder, and Daniel
Drew, and General Halpin, and half a dozen more of the town's
celebrities.

The Franconi Hippodrome on the Fifth Avenue Hotel site had become a
memory, but far downtown Barnum's Museum was flourishing, with the doors
open from sunrise till ten at night. Early visitors from the country
inspected the gallery of curiosities before sitting down to breakfast.
The great showman was living in a brown-stone house on Fifth Avenue, at
the corner of Thirty-ninth Street. He was approaching his sixtieth year,
and had retired from active life