cheapest quality sold at the places just mentioned. Some of them
wear the traditional queue, but they wind it very closely round their
heads, probably to avoid the derision of the street boys, to whom a
Chinaman's "tail" offers a temptation not to be resisted. Others have
allowed their hair to grow in the ordinary manner. They are not
communicative when addressed, which may be due, perhaps, to the fact,
that but few of them possess more of the English language than is
necessary for the purposes of trade. Fireworks and tobacco are the
principal articles in which these New York Chinamen deal.

Everybody who passes through the Bowery, and more especially at night,
must have observed the remarkable prevalence of small children there.
Swarms of well-clad little boys and girls, belonging to the
shop-keepers, sport before the doors until a late hour at night. Here is
a group of extremely diminutive ones, dancing an elf-like measure to the
music of an itinerant organist. Darting about, here, there, and
everywhere, are packs of ragged little urchins. They paddle along in the
dirty gutter, the black ooze from which they spatter over the passers on
the sidewalk, and run with confiding recklessness against the legs of
hurrying pedestrians. Ragged and poor as they certainly are, they do not
often ask for alms, but continually give themselves up, with wild
_abandon_, to chasing each other in and out between the obstacles on the
sidewalk. Boys of a better class carry on business here. Watch this one
selling fans: he is so well dressed, and so genteel in appearance, that
it is easy to see his livelihood does not altogether hang upon a
commercial venture so small as the one in which he is at present
engaged. That boy has evidently a mercantile turn, and may be a leading
city man yet. Farther on, four smart-looking youngsters are indulging in
some very frothy beverage at a street soda-water bar. High words are
bandied about concerning the quality of the "stamps" offered by them in
change, the genuine character of which has been challenged by a boy of
their own size, who seems to be in charge of the concern. Numbers of
these cheap soda-water stalls are to be seen in the Bowery; and they
appear to drive a good business generally, notwithstanding the
lager-beer saloons that so generally abound. Many larger establishments
for the sale of temperance drinks are open here during the summer
months. I notice a good number of people going to and fr