-but people _found it out_! Well, I got up a
cock-and-bull story about drinking drugged soda, and some people believe
it and some don't. Now, when I get _corned_, I keep out of sight.--Ah,
temperance spouting is a great business! But come, gentlemen--it won't
do for us to be seen drinking at the bar; I've got a bottle of
fourth-proof brandy in my pocket; let's take a swig all around.'

And producing the article in question, Mr. Cough took a very copious
swig, and passed the bottle to the others, who followed his example. We
shall now leave this worthy trio, with the remark that they all got very
comfortably drunk previous to retiring for the night. Mr. Cough turned
into his berth with his boots on and a cigar in his mouth; Mr. Marrowfat
sung obscene songs, and fell over a chair; and deacon Small rushed into
the gentleman's cabin, and offered to fight any individual present, for
a trifling wager. He was finally carried to bed in the custody of the
bootblack.

Among the passengers was a very handsome lad, twelve or fourteen years
of age, whose prepossessing appearance seemed to attract the attention
of a tall gentleman, of distinguished bearing, enveloped in a cloak.--He
wore a heavy moustache, and his complexion was very dark. He paid the
most incessant attention to the boy, making him liberal presents of cake
and fruit, and finally gave him a beautiful gold ring, from his own
finger.

This man was a foreigner--one of those beasts in human shape whose
perverted appetites prompts them to the commission of a crime against
nature. Once before, in the tenth chapter of this narrative, we took
occasion to introduce one of those fiends to the notice of the reader;
it was at the masquerade ball, where the Spanish ambassador made a
diabolical proposal to Josephine Franklin, whom he supposed to be a boy.
It is an extremely delicate task for a writer to touch on a subject so
revolting; yet the crime actually exists, beyond the shadow of a doubt,
and therefore we are compelled to give it place in our list of crimes.
We are about to record a startling fact--in New York, there are boys who
_prostitute_ themselves from motives of gain; and they are liberally
patronized by the tribe of genteel foreign vagabonds who infest the
city. It was well known that the principal promenade for such cattle was
in the Park, where they might be seen nightly; and the circumstance had
been more than once commented upon by the newspapers.--Any person w