ch with them, and there spend the
entire day. In the skating season the lakes are thronged with skaters.
The church bells ring out mournfully towards three o'clock, but few
persons answer the call. The afternoon congregations are wofully thin.

In the mild season, the adjacent rivers and the harbor are thronged with
pleasure boats filled with excursionists, and the various horse and steam
railway lines leading from the city to the sea-shore are well patronized.

Broadway wears a silent and deserted aspect all day long, but towards
sunset the Bowery brightens up wonderfully, and after nightfall the
street is ablaze with a thousand gaslights. The low class theatres and
places of amusement in that thoroughfare are opened towards dark, and
then vice reigns triumphant in the Bowery. The Bowery beer-gardens do a
good business. The most of them are provided with orchestras or huge
orchestrions, and these play music from the ritual of the Roman Catholic
Church.

Until very recently the bar-rooms were closed from midnight on Saturday
until midnight on Sunday, and during that period the sale of intoxicating
liquors was prohibited. Now all this is changed. The bar-rooms do a
good business on Sunday, and especially on Sunday night. The Monday
morning papers tell a fearful tale of crimes committed on the holy day.
Assaults, fights, murders, robberies, and minor offences are reported in
considerable numbers. Drunkenness is very common, and the Monday Police
Courts have plenty of work to do.

At night the churches are better attended than in the afternoon, but not
as well as in the morning.

Sunday concerts, given at first-class places of amusement, are now quite
common. The music consists of masses, and other sacred airs, varied with
selections from popular operas. The performers are famous throughout the
country for their musical skill, and the audiences are large and
fashionable. No one seems to think it sinful thus to desecrate the
Lord's Day; and it must be confessed that these concerts are the least
objectionable Sunday amusements known to our people.

It must not be supposed that the dissipation of which we have spoken is
confined exclusively to the rougher class. Old and young men of
respectable position participate in it as well. Some are never called on
to answer for it, others get into trouble with the police authorities.
One reason for this dissipation is plain. People are so much engrossed
in the purs