ed by anticipations of
pleasure, to visit the Empire City?

The mode of life of the merchant or business man does not bring him in
contact with crime or the haunts of criminals. He may pass down Sixth
avenue, or Third avenue and the Bowery, on the Elevated railroad; or
through Greene, Wooster, and Bleecker streets, the Bowery, Fourth
avenue, Forsythe, Canal, Thirty-fourth, Houston, Twenty-third and
Chatham streets, and other thoroughfares, in a street car, knowing
nothing about the inmates of the houses lining either side of those same
streets, or their manner of life, or anything about those inhabiting the
basement beneath. It is only when the startling head-lines in his
favorite morning paper call his attention to some frightful crime
committed, that he learns either of its character, or location, or the
causes which produced it. To this lack of knowledge on the part of the
respectable portion of the community of the location of questionable
places and the haunts of felons, is to be attributed many of the
robberies which, from time to time, are chronicled in the newspapers. In
the case of "the stranger within our gates" the danger of straying into
the sloughs of vice and consequent victimization, is of course greatly
increased. And just here it is worthy of remark that there appears to be
some mysterious fatality by which strangers, greenhorns and "innocents,"
generally, contrive to wander by unerring though devious ways, straight
into the talons of vigilant night-hawks.

Concert saloons and pretty waiter girls are treacherous things to meddle
with. Neither can be depended upon and generally both have unsavory
reputations. The only thing pretty about the girls is a pretty bad
record.

During the war for the Union, when enlistments for the army were lively,
and bounty jumpers flourished, and money was nearly as plentiful as
salt, concert saloon proprietors made enormous fortunes. They were then
a new sensation in this country; indeed, it may be said the war brought
them into being. Broadway, from Fourteenth street to the Battery was
literally lined on both sides with them, and when at night the lamps in
front of these places were lighted, it rendered the street almost as
bright as day. Then, as now, they were principally confined to the
basements or cellars of buildings, but while some of them were known to
be the rendezvous of thieves and other criminals, there were a few which
enjoyed a better reputation, and were