“Having absorbed these general facts, I turned to the master of this household. He was a man of small stature but ruggedframe, and his left shirt sleeve dangled empty at his side. That adroit Finn, noticing my inquiring look, blurted out: ‘That arm went in a street accident, I suppose?’
“‘No, sir; it wint at the battle of Spottsylvania.’
“Here was a hero! The narrow limits of his humble home expanded to embrace the brown and kneaded Virginian glades as I saw them just seven years ago, pictured with the lurid pageantry of that stubborn fight when Sedgwick fell. This man, crammed with his family into twelve feet square at the top of Sweeney’s Shambles, was once part of that glorious scene. In answer to my test questions he said he belonged to the Thirty-ninth New York, which was attached to the Second Corps, and that he received a pension of $15 per month from the grateful country he had served as payment in full for an arm. It was enough to keep body and soul together, and he could not complain. Nor could I; but I could and did signify to my guide by a nod that I had seen and heard enough, and we went down again into the slimy, reeking court.”
There is a square on the East side bounded by Houston, Stanton, Pitt, and Willett streets. It contains a group of three front and seven rear houses, and is known as “Rag-pickers’ Row.” These ten houses contain a total of 106 families, or 452 persons. All these persons are rag-pickers, or more properly chiffonniers, for their business is to pick up every thing saleable they can find in the streets. Formerly they brought their gatherings to this place and assorted them here before taking them to the junk stores to sell them. Now, however, they assort them elsewhere, and their wretched dwellings are as clean as it is possible to keep them. They are generally peaceable and quiet, and their quarrels are commonly referred to the agent in charge of the row, who decides them to their satisfaction. They are very industrious in their callings, and some of them have money in the Savings banks. Nearly all who have children send them to the Mission Schools.
The Board of Health, in one of their recent publications, express themselves as follows:
“The worst class of tenement houses was those where a landlord had accommodations for ten families, and these buildings comprise more than half of the tenement houses of the city, and accommodate fully two-thirds of the entire tenement-house population. When the number of families living under one owner exceeded ten, it was found that such owner was engaged in the keeping of a tenement-house as a business, and generally as a speculator. It is among this class of owners that nearly all the evils of the tenement-house system are found. The little colony exhibit in their rooms, and in the little areas around their dwellings, extreme want of care. The street in front of the place was reeking with slops and garbage; the alleys and passage ways were foul with excrements; the court was imperfectly paved, wet, and covered with domestic refuse; the privies, located in a close court between the rear and front houses, were dilapidated, and gave out volumes of noisome odors, which filled the whole area, and were diffused through all the rooms opening upon it; and the halls and apartments of the wretched occupants were close, unventilated, and unclean. The complaint was universal among the tenants that they are entirely uncared for, and that the only answer to their request to have the place put in order, by repairs and necessary improvements, was, that they must pay their rent or leave. Inquiry often disclosed the fact that the owner of the property was a wealthy gentleman or lady, either living in an aristocratic part of the city or in a neighboring city, or, as was occasionally found to be the case, in Europe. The property is usually managed entirely by an agent, whose instructions are simple, but emphatic, viz., ‘collect the rent in advance, or, failing, eject the occupants.’ The profits on this sort of property, so administered, are rarely less than fifteen per cent., and more generally thirty per cent. upon the investment.”
The evils of the tenement house system are almost incalculable. It is the experience of all nations that barrack life is demoralizing, and the tenement house is but a barrack withoutthe rigid discipline of a military establishment. Its inmates know no such thing as privacy. Home is but a word with them. They have habitations, but not homes. Within the same walls are gathered the virtuous and the depraved, the honest laborer and the thief. There can be no such thing as shielding the young from improper outside influences. They have every opportunity to become thoroughly corrupted without leaving the house. Decency is impossible. Families exist in the greatest amount of personal discomfort, and the children take every opportunity to escape from the house into the streets. The tenement houses every year send many girls into the ranks of the street walkers, and a greater number of young men into the ranks of the roughs and thieves.
Drunkenness is very common among the inhabitants of these houses. Men and women are literally driven into intemperance by the discomfort in which they live. Nearly all the domestic murders occurring in the city are perpetrated in the tenement houses. Immorality is very common. Indeed, the latter crime is the logical result of such dense packing of the sexes. It is a terrible thing to contemplate, but it is a fact that one half of the population of this great city is subjected to the demoralizing influences of these vast barracks. The laboring class, who should constitute the backbone and sinew of the community, are thus degraded to a level with paupers, forced to herd among them, and to adopt a mode of life which is utterly destructive of the characteristics which should distinguish them. It is no wonder that crime is so common in the Metropolis. The real wonder is that it does not defy all restraint.
The tenement houses are afflicted with a terrible mortality. Says Dr. Harris, “Consumption and all the inflammatory diseases of the lungs vie with the infectious and other zymotic disorders, in wasting the health and destroying the life of the tenement population.” Of late years a new disease, the relapsing fever, which, though rarely fatal, destroys the health and vigor of its victims, has made havoc among the tenement population. The mortality among children is very great, and perhaps this is fortunate for them, for it would seem that death intheir first flush of innocence is far better than a life of wretchedness and perhaps of infamy. Small pox and all the contagious and infectious diseases would make short work with the tenement-house population, were any of them to become epidemic in the city. There would be nothing to check them, and the unfortunate people living in these sections would find no means of escaping from them.
The oldest inhabitant cannot remember when Chatham street did not exist. It still contains many half decayed houses which bear witness to its antiquity. It begins at City Hall Place, and ends at Chatham Square. It is not over a quarter of a mile in length, and is narrow and dirty. The inhabitants are principally Jews and low class foreigners. Near the lower end are one or two good restaurants, and several cheap hotels, but the remainder of the street is taken up with establishments into which respectable buyers do not care to venture. Cheap lodging houses abound, pawnbrokers are numerous, several fence stores are to be found here, and some twenty or twenty-five cellars are occupied as dance houses and concert saloons. These are among the lowest and vilest of their kind in New York.
Chatham street is the paradise of dealers in mock jewelry and old clothes. Some of the shops sell new clothing of an inferior quality, but old clothes do most abound. Here you may find the cast-off finery of the wife of a millionaire—the most of it stolen—or the discarded rags of a pauper. It seems as if all New York had placed its cast-off clothing here for sale, and that the stock had accumulated for generations. Who the dealers sell to is a mystery. You see them constantly inviting trade, but you rarely see a customer within their doors.
CHATHAM SQUARE.
Honesty is a stranger in Chatham street, and any one making a purchase here must expect to be cheated. The streets running off to the right and left lead to the Five Points and similar sections, and it is this wretched portion of the city that supports trade in Chatham street. The horse car lines of the east sidepass through the entire length of the street, and the heaviest portion of the city travel flows through it, but respectable people rarely leave the cars in this dirty thoroughfare, and are heartily glad when they are well out of it. The buildings are generally old and dilapidated. The shops are low and dark. They are rank with foul odors, and are suggestive of disease. The men and women who conduct them look like convicts, and as they sit in their doorways watching for custom, they seem more like wild beasts waiting for their prey, than like human beings. Even the children have a keener, more disreputable appearance here than elsewhere. The lowest class Jews abound in this vile quarter, and filthy creatures they are.
The Chatham street merchants are shrewd dealers, and never suffer an opportunity to make a penny to pass by unimproved. They are not particular as to the character of the transaction. They know they are never expected to sell honestly, and they make it a rule not to disappoint their customers. One of their favorite expedients to create trade in dull times is called a “forced sale.” They practise this only on those whom they recognize as strangers, for long experience has enabled them to tell a city man at a glance. A stranger walking along the street will be accosted by the proprietor of a shop and his clerks with offers of “sheap” clothing. If he pauses to listen, he is lost. He is seized by the harpies, who pretend to assist him, and is literally forced into the shop. He may protest that he does not wish to buy anything, but the “merchant” and his clerks will insist that he does, and before he can well help himself, they will haul off his coat, clap one of the store coats on his back, and declare it a “perfect fit.” The new coat will then be removed and replaced by the old one, and the victim will be allowed to leave the shop. As he passes out of the door, the new coat is thrust under his arm, and he is seized by the proprietor and his assistants, who shout “stop thief!” and charge him with stealing the coat. Their noise, and the dread of being arrested upon a charge of theft, will frequently so confuse and frighten the victim that he will comply with their demand, which is that he shall buy the coat. This done he is suffered todepart. A refusal to yield would not injure him, for the scoundrels would seldom dare to call in the police, for fear of getting themselves into trouble with the officials. They have reckoned with certainty, however, upon the stranger’s timidity and bewilderment, and know they are safe.
James Gordon Bennett was born at New Mill, Keith, in Banffshire, on the northeastern coast of Scotland, about the year 1800. His relatives were Roman Catholics, and he was destined for the priesthood of that church. He entered the Roman Catholic Seminary at Aberdeen, in 1814, and remained there two years, acquiring the basis of an excellent education. Chance having thrown in his way a copy of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, he was so much impressed by it that he abandoned all thought of a clerical life, and resolved to emigrate to America, which he did in 1819, arriving in Halifax in May of that year, being then nearly twenty years old. He had not an acquaintance on this side of the Atlantic, had no profession save that of a bookkeeper, and had but twenty-five dollars in his pocket.
He began by giving lessons in bookkeeping, in Halifax, but his success was so poor that he came to the United States, landing at Portland, where he took passage for Boston. Arriving in Boston he found great difficulty in procuring employment, and was reduced to the verge of starvation, but at length obtained a place as a proof-reader. He held this position for two years, and, having lost it by the failure of his employers, came to New York in 1822. Soon after this, he accepted an engagement on theCharleston(S.C.)Courier, but held it for a short time only. Returning to New York he attempted to organize a Commercial School, but was unsuccessful. He next tried lecturing, with equally bad luck, and was obliged to renew his connection with the press. He held various positions on the New York newspapers, in each and all of which he proved himself a journalist of large ideas and great originality and power.In 1828, he became the Washington correspondent of theNew York Enquirer, and in this position inaugurated the style of newspaper correspondence which is now adopted by all the leading journals of the country. He was poorly paid for his services, and was obliged to do an immense amount of miscellaneous literary work in order to earn a bare support. In the autumn of 1829 he became assistant editor of theCourier and Enquirer, with James Watson Webb as his chief. In this position he did great service, and really made the success of the paper. He found his position unpleasant, however, and abandoned it in 1832.
He tried several other expedients, all of which were unsuccessful, and even tried to induce Horace Greeley, then a struggling printer, to join him in the establishment of a newspaper. Horace refused, but recommended him to another printer who accepted his proposition. His next step was to rent a cellar in Wall street, and in this cellar, on the 6th of May, 1835, theNew York Heraldwas born. The coal vaults of the presentHeraldoffice are an improvement upon the original office, which was sanctum and counting-house all in one. Mr. Bennett performed all the work on the paper, except setting it up and printing it. He collected the news, wrote the contents, sold the paper, and received advertisements. He worked manfully, but his difficulties were enormous. He made his little journal spicy, attractive, and even impudent—though not indecent, as some have wrongly asserted—in the hope of making it popular. He worked from sixteen to eighteen hours a day, but in spite of all his efforts he lost money until the end of the third month, after which he contrived to pay the actual expense of publication for some time longer. Then a fire destroyed the printing office, and his partners refused to continue their connection with the paper. By almost superhuman efforts he succeeded in securing the means of going on with theHerald, and in a short while the “great fire” occurred just in time to save him. It was the most terrible catastrophe that had ever occurred in America, and Bennett resolved to profit by it. He went himself among the ruins, note-book in hand, and the result of his labors was a series of graphic and accurate reports intheHeraldof the disaster, that at once created a large demand for the paper. This demand did not fall off, but it was not sufficient to place theHeraldon a successful footing. At this time, Mr. Bennett was fortunate enough to secure a large contract from Dr. Brandreth for advertising his pills in theHerald. The sum received was very large, and was conscientiously expended in the purchase of news, and in improving and increasing the attractions of the paper. At the end of the fifteenth month of its career, Mr. Bennett ventured to increase the size of theHerald, and to raise its price from one to two cents. Since then the paper has prospered steadily, and is now one of the wealthiest and most powerful journals in the land, and the best purveyor of news in the world. Its success is due almost exclusively to the proprietor. Mr. Bennett has not only built up his own paper, but has revolutionized the press of the world. This is his chief claim to distinction.
He rarely writes for the paper now, though he maintains a close supervision over all parts of it, as well as over the mechanical department of his enterprise.
JAMES GORDON BENNETT.
He is married, and has two children, a son, James Gordon Bennett, jr., who will succeed his father in the ownership of theHerald, and a daughter. He resides on the Fifth avenue. He is said to be a courtly and agreeable host, and his long and extensive experience as a journalist has made him one of the best informed men of the day.
In person he is tall and firmly built, and walks with a dignified carriage. His head is large and his features are prominent and irregular. He is cross-eyed, and has a thoroughly Scotch face. His expression is firm and somewhat cold—that of a man who has had a hard fight with fortune, and has conquered it. He is reserved in his manner to strangers, but is always courteous and approachable.
During the year 1869, there were 15,918 men, and 8105 women arrested for intoxication, and 5222 men and 3466 women for intoxication and disorderly conduct, making a total of 21,140 men and 11,571 women, or 32,711 persons in all arrested for drunkenness. Now if to this we add the 21,734 men and women arrested during the same year for assault and battery, and for disorderly conduct, and regard these offences as caused, as they undoubtedly were, by liquor, we shall have a total of 54,445 persons brought to grief by the use of intoxicating liquors.
But it does not require this estimate to convince a New Yorker that drunkenness is very common in the city. One has but to walk through the streets, and especially those in the poorer sections, and notice the liquor shops of various kinds, from the Broadway rum palace to the “Gin Mill” of the Bowery, or the “Bucket Shop” of the Five Points. There are 7071 licensed places for the sale of liquor in the city, and they all enjoy a greater or less degree of prosperity. Very few liquor sellers, confining themselves to their legitimate business, fail in this city. The majority grow rich, and their children not unfrequently take their places in the fashionable society of the city. The liquors sold at these places are simply abominable. Whiskey commands the largest sale, and it is in the majority of instances a vile compound. About three years ago, theNew York Worldpublished a list of the principal bar-rooms of the city, with a report of chemical analyses of the liquors obtained at each, and proved conclusively that pure liquors were not sold over the bar at any establishment in the city. A fewmonths ago aWorldreporter published the following estimate of the business of the bar-rooms in the vicinity of Wall street, patronized principally by the brokers:
Hot spiced rums.
Hot whiskeys.
Whiskeys straight.
Brandies.
Wines.
Mixed liquors.
Ales, beers, etc.
Bottles Champagne.
L. Dardy
56
59
62
15
23
30
105
6
Mike’s
65
110
70
20
28
23
90
10
V.B. Carpenter
43
62
112
30
35
27
110
5
Young
35
40
52
10
12
15
65
2
P. Murphy
34
49
63
12
15
25
45
2
Schedler
51
48
112
35
52
45
315
18
Delmonico
213
205
315
90
135
180
210
35
Riley
105
123
180
25
30
62
80
6
Sammis & Sharp
23
31
30
8
10
15
35
1
Van Riper
27
22
19
10
13
18
40
1
Ed. Schultze
18
29
38
12
15
20
60
2
Delatour’s
15
20
45
27
30
12
25
2
Gault’s
28
32
125
23
35
28
85
5
Total
713
830
1223
317
433
500
1265
94
“This makes a total of 5281 drinks and 94 bottles of champagne consumed in thirteen of the largest saloons, supported by the brokers; and including the dozen or more of small places, the number of drinks taken in and about Wall street per day is over 7500, while over 125 bottles of champagne are disposed of. The amount of money expended for fuel to feed the flagging energies of the speculators is, therefore, over $2000 per day, and it is not at all strange that the brokers occasionally cut up queer antics in the boards, and stocks take twists and turns that unsettle the street for weeks.”
The brokers, however, are not the only generous patrons of the bar-rooms. The vice of drunkenness pervades all classes. Every day men are being ruined by it, and the most promising careers totally destroyed. Day after day, you see men and women reeling along the streets, or falling helpless. The police soon secure them, and at night they are kept quite busyattending to them. But the arrests, numerous as they are, do not represent the sum total of the drunkenness of the city. The drinking in private life, which oftentimes does not result in actual intoxication, but which kills by slowly poisoning body and mind, is very great, but there is no means of estimating it.
A FEMALE DRINKER.
Respectable men patronize the better class bar-rooms, and respectable women the ladies’ restaurants. At the latter places a very large amount of money is spent by women for drink.Wives and mothers, and even young girls, who are ashamed to drink at home, go to these fashionable restaurants for their liquor. Some will drink it openly, others will disguise it as much as possible. Absinthe has been introduced at these places of late years, and it is said to be very popular with the gentler sex. Those who know its effects will shudder at this. We have seen many drunken women in New York, and the majority have been well dressed and of respectable appearance. Not long since, a lady making purchases in a city store, fell helpless to the floor. The salesman, thinking she had fainted, hastened to her assistance, and found her dead drunk.
We have already written of the Bucket Shops. They represent the lowest grade of this vice. They sell nothing but poisons.
Is it strange then that crime flourishes? Is it a wonder that Saturday night and Sunday, the chosen periods for drinking heavily, are productive of more murders and assaults than any other portion of the week?
The question is very frequently asked, “Is living in New York very expensive?” An emphatic affirmative may be safely returned to every such interrogatory. Let one’s idea of comfort be what it may, it is impossible to live cheaply in this city with any degree of decency. One can go to a cellar lodging-house, and live for from twenty to forty cents a day, but he will find himself overcharged for the accommodation given him. He may live in a tenement house, and his expenses will still be disproportioned to the return received. The discomforts of life in New York, however, fall chiefly upon educated and refined people of moderate means. The very rich have an abundance for their wants, and are able to make their arrangements to suit themselves. The very poor expect nothing but misery.
To begin at the beginning, the expenses of a family in fashionable life are something appalling. Fifty thousand dollars per annum may be set down as the average outlay of a family of five or six persons residing in a fashionable street, and owning their residence. Some persons spend more, some less, but this amount may be taken as a fair average, and it will not admit of much of what would be called extravagance in such a station.
For those who own their houses, keep a carriage, and do not “live fashionably,” or give many entertainments, the average is from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars.
For those who aspire to live in comfort and in a respectable neighborhood, and to occupy a whole house, the average is from five to six thousand dollars. With six thousand dollars a year, a family of five persons, living in a rented house, will be compelled to economise. Those who have smaller incomes areobliged to board, to occupy a part of a house, or to leave the city.
The average rent of a moderate sized house in New York is $1800 per annum. This amount may or may not include the use of the gas fixtures, and the house may or may not have a furnace in it. There will be a dining-room and kitchen, with hall or passage in the basement. The first floor will contain two parlors and the front hall. The second floor will contain a bath-room, water closet, and two, or perhaps three, chambers. The third floor usually contains two large and two small rooms, and several closets. The chambers in the more modern houses contain marble basins, with hot and cold water laid on. Where the tenant is unknown to the landlord, he is required to pay his rent monthly, in advance, or to give security for its quarterly payment. Such a house will require the services of at least two women, and if there be children to be cared for, a nurse is necessary. The wages of these, per month, are as follows: cook, $16 to $20; chambermaid, $12 to $15; nurse, $12 to $16. In many of the wealthier families a higher rate of wages is paid. At the rate given, however, from $480 to $582 is the annual outlay for servants, to which must be added a considerable sum for “changing help.” Instances are known to the writer in which this “changing help,” in the case of discharging an old cook and securing a new one, has cost a housekeeper as much as $30 in a single change. This will be easily understood when I state that ladies who go to look after “girls,” in the places from which they advertise for situations, are obliged to go to the expense of hiring a carriage, it being unsafe for them to venture into these sections on foot. Without counting the changes, however, and taking the lower estimate of wages, we have a total of $2280 for house rent and servants’ hire. This leaves, from $6000, the sum of $3720 for food, clothing, sickness, education, and all the incidentals of a family. The General Government secures a large slice of this through its iniquitous income tax, and State and county taxes take up several hundred more. Those who have had experience in keeping house in any portion of the country can easily understand how the rest goes,when one has to pay fifty cents per pound for butter, fifty cents a dozen for eggs, sixteen cents a pound for crushed sugar, twenty-five cents a pound for fowls, and thirty-five cents a pound for the choice cuts of beef. All this, too, with the certainty of getting light weights from your butcher and grocer.
Many persons seek refuge in boarding. Those who have no children, or but one or two, may live cheaper in this way, but not in the same degree of comfort that their outlay would bring them in their own homes. A couple with two or three children and a nurse, cannot live in any respectable boarding-house in New York, except in instances so rare that they do not deserve to be mentioned, for less than sixty dollars per week for board and lodging alone. Such persons must pay extra for washing, and there are many “incidentals” which add to the landlady’s receipts.
For such a family, giving them two chambers and a parlor, the Fifth Avenue Hotel charges $30 per day, or $10,950 per annum. The figures are high, but “the Fifth Avenue” gives a fair return for the money. The charges of the other hotels are in proportion. None of them will receive such a family for less than $6000 or $7000 per annum.
Of late years, a new style of living has been introduced. The city now contains a number of houses located in unexceptionable neighborhoods, and built in first-class style, which are rented in flats, or suites of apartments, as in the Parisian houses. The largest of these are the monster “Stevens House,” on Twenty-seventh street, fronting on Broadway and Fifth avenue, Dr. Haight’s House, on the corner of Fifth avenue and Fifteenth street, and Mr. Stuyvesant’s House, in East Eighteenth street, the last of which was the pioneer house of its kind in this city. The “Stevens House” was built and is owned by Paran Stevens, Esq., and is one of the largest buildings in the city. It is constructed of red brick, with marble and light stone trimmings, and is eight stories in height above the street, with a large cellar below the sidewalk. The cost of this edifice is to be one million of dollars. “The woodwork of the interior is of black walnut; the walls are finely frescoed and harmoniously tinted.There are, in all, eight floors, including the servants’ attics. Five stores occupy the lower tier. There are eighteen suites of rooms, to which access is had by a steam elevator. The building is heated upon the principle of indirect radiation, by forcing steam-heated air through pipes into the different rooms. The main staircase is of iron, with marble steps, and the main halls to each story are tiled. The chief suites comprise parlor, dining-room, boudoir, dressing-rooms, and butler’s pantry; each principal suite comprehending five commodious chambers on the first floor, and two at the top of the house. Each kitchen is furnished with improved ranges. The roof is supplied with water tanks, and, as a further protection against fire, the second floor is supported by iron arched beams, filled in with concrete.”
The Haight House is said to be the most thoroughly comfortable establishment of the kind in New York. “It consists of five floors, having twenty suites of apartments for families, and fifteen for bachelors, at a yearly rental of from three thousand to two thousand dollars for the former, and from one thousand four hundred to six hundred and fifty dollars for the latter. These suites are entered from the hallways, each suite having a separate entrance of its own, and at the entrance to the principal suites there is a small antechamber, from which a servant may announce the names of visitors. The family suites embrace a commodious parlor, a large dining-room, with butler’s pantry attached, a kitchen, three bed rooms, and a bath room. Each suite has its own dumb-waiter; a dump for coal and refuse, and the proper provision for ventilation; while the suites intended for single occupants are furnished with every appliance necessary to the securing of perfect comfort and ease. Although every accommodation is furnished by the house, some of the tenants have chosen to go to the expense of decorating their own apartments, and have had their rooms elegantly frescoed and painted by some of the first artists in the city. The mantels are either of walnut or the finest marble, of elegant design and workmanship. The supposition is that a majority of the guests will cook for themselves, but arrangements may be effected by which the cooking may be done in a general kitchen for the purpose.There is a steam elevator, and a general system of kitchens, sculleries, pantries, store and ice rooms, with the engines, and a well-devised workshop for the engineer. There is a steam laundry, capable of washing one thousand pieces per day, where guests may have their washing done at a cheaper rate than could be possible under any of the ordinary methods; and also a drying room—all of the principal work of the establishment being effected by steam. Each apartment has its bell and whistle, communicating with the basement. A janitor, or porter, has a lodge in the main hall, within which there is also a ‘post-office.’ In the basement is another porter’s lodge for the facilitation of business with the butcher, the baker, and the expressman.”
These houses, however, are accessible only to people of ample means. The apartments rent for sums which will secure comfortable dwellings, and the other expenses are about the same one would incur in his own house. The great need of the city is a system of such houses in respectable neighborhoods, in which apartments may be had at moderate rents.
In spite of the fact that games of chance for money are prohibited by the laws of the State of New York, there is no city in the Union in which they are carried on to a greater extent than in the Metropolis. There are about 200 gambling houses proper in the city, and from 350 to 400 lottery offices, policy shops, and places where gambling is carried on with more or less regularity. About 2500 persons are known to the police as professional gamblers. Some of the establishments are conducted with great secrecy. Others are carried on with perfect openness, and are as well known as any place of legitimate business in the city. The police, for reasons best known to themselves, decline to execute the laws against them, and they continue their career from year to year without molestation. There are about twenty of these houses in Broadway, occupying locations which make them conspicuous to every passer-by. In the cross streets, within a block of Broadway, there are from twenty-five to thirty more, and the Bowery and East side streets are full of them.
Ninety-five of the gambling houses of the city are classed as “Faro Banks.” Faro is the principal game, but there are appliances for others. Faro is emphatically an American game, and is preferred by amateurs because of its supposed fairness. An experienced gambler, however, does not need to be told that the game offers as many chances for cheating as any others thatare played. It has attained its highest development in New York.
The gambling houses of New York are usually divided into three classes: First and Second Class, and Day Houses. The First-Class Houses are few in number. There are probably not more than half a dozen in all, if as many. In these houses the playing is fair—that is, cheating is never resorted to. The Bank relies upon the chances in its favor, the “splits,” and the superior skill and experience of the dealer. The first-class houses are located in fashionable side streets leading from Broadway, and are easy of access. Outwardly they differ in nothing from the elegant mansions on either side of them, except that the blinds are closed all day long, and the house has a silent, deserted air. In its internal arrangements the house is magnificent. The furniture, carpets, and all its appointments are superb. Choice paintings and works of art are scattered through the rooms in truly regal profusion. All that money can do to make the place attractive and luxurious has been done, and as money can always command taste, the work has been well done.
The servants attached to the place are generally negroes of the better class. They are well trained, many of them having been brought up as thevalets, or butlers of the Southern gentry, and answer better for such places than whites, inasmuch as they are quiet, uncommunicative, attentive and respectful. One of these men is always in charge of the front door, and visitors are admitted with caution, it being highly desirable to admit only the nominally respectable. The best known houses are those of Morrissey, in Twenty-fourth street, and Ransom’s and Chamberlain’s, in Twenty-fifth street. Chamberlain’s is, perhaps, the most palatial and the best conducted establishment in the country.
A FIRST-CLASS GAMBLING HOUSE.
The house is a magnificent brown-stone mansion, not far from Broadway. Ascending the broad stone steps, and ringing the bell, the visitor is ushered into the hall by the man in charge of the door, who is selected with great care. An attentive colored servant takes his hat and overcoat, and throws open the door of the drawing rooms. These apartments are furnished withtaste as well as with magnificence. The carpet is of velvet, and the foot sinks noiselessly into it. The walls are tinted with delicate shades of lavender, and the ceiling is exquisitely frescoed. The furniture is of a beautiful design, and is upholstered in colors which harmonize with the prevailing tint of the walls and ceiling. The mantels are of Vermont marble, and over each is a large wall mirror. At each end of the room is a long pier glass, placed between richly curtained windows. Fine bronzes are scattered about the room, and in the front parlor are large and well-executed copies of Dora’s “Dante and Virgil in the Frozen Regions of Hell,” and “Jephthah’s Daughter.” The front parlor is entirely devoted to the reception and entertainment of guests. The gaming is carried on in the back parlor.
In the rear of the back parlor is the supper room, one of the richest and most tasteful apartments in the city. A long table, capable of seating fifty guests, is spread every evening with the finest of linen, plate, and table-ware. The best the market can afford is spread here every night. The steward of the establishment is an accomplished member of his profession, and is invaluable to his employer, who gives him free scope for the exercise of his talents. There is not a better table in all New York. The wines and cigars are of the finest brands, and are served in the greatest profusion. Chamberlain well understands that a good table is an important adjunct to his business, and he makes the attraction as strong as possible. There is no charge for the supper, or for liquors or cigars, but the guests are men above the petty meanness of enjoying all these luxuries without making some return for them. This return is made through the medium of the card table.
The proprietor of the house, John Chamberlain, is one of the handsomest men in the city. He is of middle height, compactly built, with a fine head, with black hair and eyes, and small features. His expression is pleasant and winning, and he is said to be invariably good natured, even under the most trying circumstances. In manner he is a thorough-bred gentleman, and exceedingly attractive. He is of middle age, and is finely educated. His self-possession is remarkable, and neverdeserts him, and he has the quality of putting his guests thoroughly at their ease. In short, he is a man fitted to adorn any position in life, and capable of reaching a very high one, but who has chosen to place himself in a position which both the law and popular sentiment have branded as infamous. Indeed, his very attractions and amiable qualities make him a very dangerous member of the community. He draws to the card table many who would be repelled from it by the ordinary gambler, and the fairness with which he conducts his house renders it all the more dangerous to society.
The guests consist of the most distinguished men in the city and country. Chamberlain says frankly that he does not care to receive visitors who are possessed of limited incomes and to whom losses would bring misfortune. He says it hurts him more to win the money of a man on a salary, especially if he has a family, than to lose his own, and as he does not care to be a loser he keeps these people away as far as possible. In plain English, he wishes to demoralize only the higher classes of society. His visitors are chiefly men who are wealthy and who can afford to lose, or whose high social or political stations make them welcome guests. You may see at his table Governors, Senators, members of Congress and of Legislatures, generals, judges, lawyers, bankers, merchants, great operators in Wall street, famous actors and authors, journalists, artists—in short, all grades of men who have attained eminence or won wealth in their callings. Consequently, the company is brilliant, and the conversations are such as are seldom heard in the most aristocratic private mansions of the city. The early part of the evening is almost exclusively devoted to social enjoyment, and there is very little gambling until after supper, which is served about half-past eleven, after the theatres have closed.
Then the back parlor is the centre of attraction. There is a roulette table on the eastern side of this apartment, said to be the handsomest piece of furniture in the Union. At the opposite side is a large side-board bountifully provided with liquor and cigars. The faro table stands across the room at the southern end, and is the most popular resort of the guests, thoughsome of the other games find their votaries in other parts of the room.
“The table upon which faro is played is not unlike an ordinary dining-table with rounded corners. At the middle of one side, the place generally occupied by the head of a family, the dealer sits in a space of about three square feet, which has been fashioned in from the table. The surface is covered with tightly drawn green ladies’ cloth. The thirteen suit cards of a whist pack are inlaid upon the surface in two rows, with the odd card placed as at the round of the letter U. The dealer has a full pack, which he shuffles, then inserts in a silver box with an open face. This box is laid upon the table directly to his front.
“The cards are confined within it by a stiff spring, and the top card is visible to all, save a narrow strip running about its edge, which is necessarily covered by the rim of the box to hold it securely in position.
“The game now begins. The dealer pushes out the top card, and the second card acted upon by the spring rises and fills its place. The second card is pushed off likewise laterally through the narrow slit constructed for the exit of all the cards. This pair thus drawn out constitutes a ‘turn,’ the first one being the winning and the second the losing card; so that the first, third, fifth, and in the same progression throughout the fifty-two are winning cards, and the second, fourth and sixth, etc., are the losing cards. The betting is done this way: The player buys ivory checks and never uses money openly. The checks are white, red, blue, and purple. The white checks are one dollar each, the red five dollars, the blue twenty-five and the purple one hundred dollars.
“Having provided himself with the number of checks (which in size resemble an old-fashioned cent), he lays down any amount to suit his fancy on any one card upon the table—one of the thirteen described. Suppose the deal is about to begin. He puts $100 in checks on the ace. The dealer throws off the cards till finally an ace appears. If it be the third, fifth, seventh, etc., card the player wins, and the dealer pays him $100 in checks—the ‘bank’s’ loss. If, however, it were the second,fourth, sixth, etc., card the dealer takes the checks and the bank is $100 winner. Should a player desire to bet on a card to lose, he expresses this intention by putting a ‘copper’ in his checks, and then if the card is thrown off from the pack by the dealer as a losing card the player wins. This is practically all there is in faro.
“It should be remembered that the losing cards fall on one pile and the winning cards on another. When only four cards remain in the box there is generally lively betting as to how the three under cards will come out in precise order, the top one being visible. In this instance alone the player can treble his stake if fortunate in his prediction. This evolution is a ‘call.’
“A tally board is kept, showing what cards remain in the box after each turn. This provision is to guard the player. Of course four of each kind are thrown from the box—four aces, etc.
“Some one will inquire how does the bank make it pay while taking such even chances? In this way. If two of a kind should come out in one ‘turn,’ as, for instance, two aces, half of the money bet on the ace, either to win or lose, goes to the bank. This is known as a ‘split. They are very frequent, and large sums pass to the dealer through this channel. That is where the bank makes the money.
“Chamberlain says that if men were to study and labor ten thousand years they could never beat the bank, or rather the game. It is something which no one understands. When only one of a kind remains in the box, as an ace, for instance, to bet then that the card will come to win or to lose is just like throwing up a copper and awaiting the result, head or tail. So it will be seen that the bank is in a position where it has everything to risk.
“The playing is conducted largely by means of checks on the National banks of the city, men seldom carrying money about their persons. Here Mr. Chamberlain has to use his wits. A check given for gaming purposes is not valid in law. Therefore it is necessary to know his man—to be sure of his wealth, to be certain of his credit. It requires instantaneousdecision. If the check is refused the drawer is mortally offended. But a few evenings since a city millionaire offered his check; it was declined. This was Chamberlain’s mistake. It is said that if a merchant repudiates his gambling check at the bank it will destroy his credit in commercial circles. This is the only safeguard upon which the faro bank relies. It shows, however, to what a dangerous extent gambling has laid hold of the mercantile community, how rottenness is at this hour the inward germ of apparent soundness, and how heads of heavy concerns fritter away their capital at faro.
“The largest number of business men who play at Chamberlain’s are stock brokers, and these persons say openly that it is a fairer game than the cunning and unscrupulous gambling of Wall street. The brokers, as well as other patrons, go in the night time to try and regain what they lost by day in speculation. Thus they alternate between one gaming resort and the other throughout the year. At the faro table they may lose several thousand dollars; but this they consider equivalent pay for rich suppers, costly wines, fine cigars and a merry time, and they are willing to pay for fun.
“Besides the opportunities which Chamberlain affords to his patrons to lose or win, as luck may direct, he keeps a sort of midnight national bank, where he will cash a check for any man he knows as a reliable party, and many who never think of gambling take advantage of his accommodating spirit. This is why he is reputed a good and valuable neighbor.
“How skilfully contrived are all these minutiæ of a gambling palace! They seduce even those who would gladly have never seen a game of chance, and before one is aware of his danger he is past redemption.”
Next to the first-class houses come the Second-Class Houses, or “Hells,” as they are called in the city. These lie principally along Broadway and the side streets leading from it, and in the Bowery. They are numerous, and are the most frequented by strangers. They are neither as elegantly furnished, nor as exclusive as to their guests, as the first-class houses. Any one may visit them, and they keep a regular force of runners, or“ropers in,” for the purpose of enticing strangers within their walls. They are located over stores, as a general rule, and the Broadway establishments usually have a number of flashily-dressed, vulgar-looking men about their doors in the day time, who are insufferably rude to ladies passing by.
THE SKIN GAME.
Faro is the usual game played at these houses, but it is a very different game from that which goes on under the supervision of John Chamberlain. In gambler’s parlance, it is called a “skin game.” In plain English it means that the bank setsout to win the player’s money by deliberate and premeditated fraud. In first-class houses a visitor is never urged to play. Here every guest must stake his money at the risk of encountering personal violence from the proprietor or his associates. The dealer is well skilled in manipulating the cards so as to make them win for the bank always, and every effort is made to render the victim hazy with liquor, so that he shall not be able to keep a clear record in his mind of the progress of the game. A common trick is to use sanded cards, or cards with their surfaces roughened, so that two, by being handled in a certain way, will adhere and fall as one card. Again, the dealer will so arrange his cards as to be sure of the exact order in which they will come out. He can thus pull out one card, or two at a time, as the “necessities of the bank” may require. Frequently no tally is kept of the game, and the player is unable to tell how many turns have been made—whether the full number or less. Even if the fraud is discovered, the visitor will find it a serious matter to attempt to expose it. The majority of the persons present are in the pay of the bank, and all are operating with but one object—to get possession of the money of visitors. The slightest effort at resistance will ensure an assault, and the guest is either beaten and thrown into the street, or he is robbed and murdered, and his body thrown into the river. There are always men hanging around these places who are on the watch for an opportunity to commit a robbery. The most notorious burglars and criminals of the city visit these hells. They keep a close watch over visitors who stay until the small hours of the morning, especially upon those who are under the influence of liquor. They follow them down into the dark and silent streets, and, at a favorable moment, spring upon them, knock them senseless and rob them. If necessary to ensure their own safety, they do not hesitate to murder their victims.
Many persons coming to the city yield to the temptation to visit these places, merely to see them. They intend to lose only a dollar or two as the price of the exhibition. Such men voluntarily seek the danger which threatens them. Nine out of ten who go there merely through curiosity, lose all their money.The men who conduct the “hell” understand how to deal with such cases, and are rarely unsuccessful.
It is in these places that clerks and other young men are ruined. They lose, and play again, hoping to make good their losses. In this way they squander their own means; and too frequently commence to steal from their employers, in the vain hope of regaining all they have lost.
There is only one means of safety for all classes—Keep away from the gaming table altogether.
At first gambling was carried on only at night. The fascination of the game, however, has now become so great, that day gambling houses have been opened in the lower part of the city. These are located in Broadway, below Fulton street, and in one or two other streets within the immediate neighborhood of Wall street.
These “houses,” as they are called, are really nothing more than rooms. They are located on the top floor of a building, the rest of which is taken up with stores, offices, etc. They are managed on a plan similar to the night gambling houses, and the windows are all carefully closed with wooden shutters, to prevent any sound being heard without. The rooms are elegantly furnished, brilliantly lighted with gas, and liquors and refreshments are in abundance. As the stairway is thronged with persons passing up and down, at all hours of the day, no one is noticed in entering the building for the purpose of play. The establishment has its “runners” and “ropers in,” like the night houses, who are paid a percentage on the winnings from their victims, and the proprietor of the day house is generally the owner of a night house higher up town.
Square games are rarely played in these houses. The victim is generally fleeced. Men who gamble in stocks, curbstone brokers, and others, vainly endeavor to make good a part of their losses at these places. They are simply unsuccessful. Clerks, office-boys, and others, who can spend but a few minutes and lose only a few dollars at a time, are constantly seen in these hells. The aggregate of these slight winnings by the bank is very great in the course of the day. Pickpockets andthieves are also seen here in considerable numbers. They do not come to practise their arts, for they would be shown no mercy if they should do so, but come to gamble away their plunder, or its proceeds.
It is not necessary to speak of the evils of gambling, of the effect of the vice upon society. I have merely to describe the practice as it prevails here. New York is full of the wrecks it has made. Respectable and wealthy families there are by the score whose means have been squandered on the green cloth. There are widows and orphans here whose husbands and fathers have been driven into suicide by gambling losses. The State Prisons hold men whose good names have been blasted, and whose souls have been stained with crime in consequence of this vice. Yet the evil is suffered to grow, and no honest effort is made to check it.
The lottery business of New York is extensive, and, though conducted in violation of the law, those who carry it on make scarcely a show of secrecy.
The principal lottery office of the city is located on Broadway, near St. Paul’s church. It is ostensibly a broker’s office, and the windows display the usual collection of gold and silver coins, bills, drafts, etc. At the rear end of the front room is a door which leads into the office in which lottery tickets are sold. It is a long, narrow apartment, lighted from the ceiling, and so dark that the gas is usually kept burning. A high counter extends along two sides of the room, and the walls back of this are lined with handbills setting forth the schemes of the various lotteries. Two large black-boards are affixed to the wall back of the main counter, and on these are written the numbers as soon as the drawings have been made. There is always a crowd of anxious faces in this room at the hour when the drawings are received.
The regular lotteries for which tickets are sold here, are theHavana Lottery, which is conducted by the Government of the Island of Cuba, the Kentucky State Lottery, drawn at Covington, Kentucky, and the Missouri State Lottery, drawn at St. Louis, Mo.
The Havana Lottery is managed on the single number plan. There are 26,000 tickets and 739 prizes. The 26,000 tickets are put in the wheel, and are drawn out one at a time. At the same time another ticket inscribed with the amount of a prize is drawn from another wheel, and this prize is accorded to the number drawn from the ticket wheel. This is continued until the 739 prizes have been disposed of.
The Kentucky and Missouri lotteries are drawn every day at noon, and every night. The prizes are neither as large nor as numerous as in the Havana lottery. The drawings are made in public, and the numbers so drawn are telegraphed all over the country to the agents of the lottery.
“The lottery schemes are what is known as the ternary combination of seventy-eight numbers, being one to seventy-eight, inclusive; or in other words, ‘three number’ schemes. The numbers vary with the day. To-day seventy-eight numbers may be placed in the wheel and fourteen of them drawn out. Any ticket having on it three of the drawn numbers takes a prize, ranging from fifty thousand dollars to three hundred dollars, as the scheme may indicate for the day. Tickets with two of the drawn numbers on them pay an advance of about a hundred per cent. of their cost. Tickets with only one of the drawn numbers on them get back first cost. On another day only seventy-five numbers will be put in the wheel, and only twelve or thirteen drawn out. And so it goes.
“The owners or managers of these concerns are prominent sporting men and gamblers of New York and elsewhere. Considerable capital is invested. It is said that it takes nearly two million dollars to work this business, and that the profits average five hundred thousand dollars or more a year. The ticket sellers get a commission of twelve per cent. on all sales. The tickets are issued to them in lots, one set of combinations going to one section of the country this week, another next; and alltickets unsold up to the hour for the drawing at Covington, are sent back to headquarters. In this way many prizes are drawn by tickets which remain unsold in dealers’ hands after they have reported to the agents; and the lottery makes it clear.”
It is argued that lotteries, if managed by honest men, are of necessity fair. This is true; but there is a vast amount of questionable honesty in the whole management. The numbers may be so manipulated as to be entirely in favor of the proprietors, and in the fairest lottery the chances are always very slim in favor of the exact combination expressed on any given ticket being drawn from the wheel. The vast majority of ticket buyers never receive a cent on their outlay. They simply throw their money away. Yet all continue their ventures in the hope that they may at some time draw a lucky number. The amount annually expended in this city in the purchase of lottery tickets is princely. The amount received in prizes is beggarly. The effect upon the lottery gamblers is appalling. Men and women of all ages are simply demoralized by it. They neglect their legitimate pursuits, stint themselves and their families, commit thefts and forgeries, and are even driven into madness and suicide by the hope of growing rich in a day.
Policy dealing is closely allied with the lottery business, and is carried on by the agents for their own benefit. It is one of the most dangerous forms of gambling practised in the city. It consists of betting on certain numbers, within the range of the lottery schemes, being drawn at the noon or evening drawings. You can take any three numbers of the seventy-eight, and bet, or “policy” on them. You may bet on single numbers, or on combinations. The single number may come out anywhere in the drawing. It is called a “Day Number,” and the player deposits one dollar in making his bet. If the number is drawn,he wins five dollars. The stake is always one dollar, unless a number of bets of the same description are taken. Two numbers constitute a “Saddle,” and both being drawn, the player wins from twenty-four dollars to thirty-two dollars. Three numbers constitute a “Gig,” and win $150 to $225. Four numbers make a “Horse,” and win $640. A “Capital Saddle” is a bet that two numbers will be among the first three drawn, and wins $500. A “Station Number” is a bet that a given number will come out in a certain place—for instance, that twenty-four will be the tenth number drawn,—and this wins sixty dollars. Any number of “Saddles,” “Gigs,” or “Horses,” may be taken by a single player.
All this seems very simple, and indeed it is so simple that the merest child ought to understand it. The policy dealers know that the chances are always against a single number being drawn, and still greater against the drawing of a combination. Therefore they offer an enormous advance upon the amount staked, knowing that they are as sure of winning as they could desire to be. A man might play policy for a year, and never see his numbers drawn. Yet thousands annually throw away large sums in this wretched game. A large share of the earnings of the poor go in policy playing. It seems to exercise a terrible fascination over its victims. They concentrate all their efforts on devising systems and lucky numbers, and continue betting in the vain hope that fortune will yet reward them with a lucky “gig” or “saddle.” All the while they grow poorer, and the policy dealers richer. The negroes are most inveterate policy players. They are firm believers in dreams and dream books. Every dream has its corresponding number set down in the books. To dream of a man, is one; of a woman, five; of both, fifteen; of a colored man, fourteen; of a “genteelcolored man,” eleven; and so on. A publishing firm in Ann street sells several thousand copies of these dream books every month. The negroes are not the only purchasers. Even men accounted “shrewd” in Wall street are among the number. Indeed Wall street furnishes some of the most noted policy players in the city.
The policy offices are generally dingy little holes, and may be recognized by the invariable sign, “Exchange,” over the door or in the window. They are located principally in the most wretched quarters of the city.
Visitors to the Lunatic Asylum and the Almshouse may see a number of instances of the fatal results of policy playing.