al Zouaves,
National Zouaves, Billy Wilson's Zouaves appropriated without
ceremony the streets and squares as drill grounds. All day long
they manoeuvred and double-quicked; all day and all night herds of
surprised farm horses destined for cavalry, light artillery, and
glory, clattered toward the docks; files of brand-new army waggons,
gun-carriages, smelling of fresh paint, caissons, forges,
ambulances bound South checked the city traffic and added to the
city's tumult as they jolted in hundreds and hundreds toward the
wharves--materially contributing to Berkley's entertainment.

Beginning with the uproarious war meeting in Union Square, every
day saw its crowds listening to the harangue of a somebody or a
nobody. Sometimes short, ugly demonstrations were made against an
unpopular newspaper office or the residence of an unpopular
citizen; the police were rough and excitable, the nerves of the
populace on edge, the city was now nearly denuded of its militia,
and everybody was very grateful for the temporary presence of
volunteer regiments in process of formation.

As yet the tension of popular excitement had not jaded the capacity
of the city for pleasure. People were ready for excitement,
welcomed it after the dreadful year of lethargy. Stocks fell, but
the theatres were the fuller; Joseph Jefferson at Winter Garden,
Wallack at his own theatre, "The Seven Sisters" at Laura Keene's,
drew unsatisfied crowds, galloping headlong on the heels of
pleasure.

Philharmonics, plays, burlesques, concerts, minstrel
entertainments, never lacked audiences, especially when the
proceeds were destined for the Union Defence Committee; the hotels,
Bancroft, St. Nicholas, Metropolitan, New York, Fifth Avenue, were
all brilliantly thronged at night; cafes and concert halls like the
Gaieties, Canterbury, and American, flourished and flaunted their
advertisements; grills, restaurants, saloons, multiplied. There
were none too many for Berkley's amusement.

As yet no battle lightning flickered along the Southern horizon to
sober folk with premonition; but the nightly illumination of the
metropolis was becoming tinged with a more sinister reflection
where licence had already begun to lift a dozen hydra-heads from
certain lurid resorts hitherto limited in number and in impudence.

It was into the streets of such a city, a meaner, dirtier, uglier,
noisier, perhaps more vicious edition of the French metropolis of
the Third Empire, th