Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations Part 15

"Since the gambling houses in the upper part of the city, where night games flourished, have been closed and their business almost entirely suspended, a new method of operations has been introduced. A _Mercury_ reporter a few days ago was hurrying down Broadway, near Wall street, when he was tapped on the shoulder by a young man not yet of age, whom he recognized as a clerk in a prominent banking house, and whose father is also well known in financial circles. After interchanging the usual courtesies the young clerk pulled a card-case from his pocket, and, asking if the _Mercury_ man liked to play poker, presented a neat little piece of white Bristol board which read:

HARRY R . . . . N, _First Flat, No. -- Sixth Avenue._

"'If you want to play a nice quiet game,' remarked the promising clerk, 'you can take that card and go up there any evening, or come with me to-night and see how the whole thing is done, but whatever you do don't lose that card, for you can't get in without it.'

"Suspecting the nature of this 'quiet little game,' the reporter agreed to meet the banking clerk that evening.

"'You will find a very nice set of fellows in this party,' remarked the clerk. 'There's none of those toughs or men you see in regular gambling houses there, but young men like myself and some of the best business men in this town. Why, I have seen young fellows there whose fathers have got loads of rocks. They lose a good pile once in a while, but don't mind that, because a fellow's no blood who cries just because he drops from ten to fifty dollars of a night.'

"The house was one of a row of French flat buildings, the ground floor of which is occupied by stores. The clerk, on entering the vestibule, gave an electric b.u.t.ton a familiar push with the index finger and almost immediately the hall door swung itself open. As soon as the head of the first flight of stairs was reached, a colored man, wearing a white tie, was met standing near a door. To him the clerk gave a card, and the reporter following the example, both were ushered into what happened to be a reception-room. Two heavy and rich Turkish curtains at one end of this room were quickly pushed aside and the front or card parlor was then entered. There were five round and oblong baize-covered tables in different parts of the elegantly furnished apartment. A number of costly oil paintings hung on the frescoed walls and a well-stocked buffet at one side completed the furniture. The adjoining rooms consisted of two sleeping apartments and a rear connecting kitchen, in which a colored cook seemed quite busy.

"At the center table, where a game of draw poker was in full blast, was noticed two celebrated professionals, a couple of race-horse owners and two clerks in a public department office down-town. At a side table were the sons of a prominent Hebrew merchant and property owner, two college students and several young men whose appearance would indicate they were employed in mercantile houses. Another side table was surrounded by a gathering of Broadway statues and gambling house hangers-on, who were engaged in a game called 'hide the heart,' and the last table had a circle of big, heavy-bodied and solid-looking men about it who were putting up on a game known as 'stud-horse poker.' The reporter and the clerk were quickly accommodated with seats at the center table, where 'draw poker' was in operation. The colored attendant with the white tie was at hand, and pulling out a ten-dollar bill the clerk gave it to the negro with the request to get him that amount of chips in return. The reporter followed suit with a crisp five-dollar bill. The colored man went away with the money to the further end of the room, where he pa.s.sed it over to a clean-shaven and well-dressed young man with a big diamond in his s.h.i.+rt front. This, the clerk informed him, was the proprietor of the place, who sat at a separate table, and, after receiving the cash, handed out to the waiter several stacks of white and red ivory chips, which were then brought back for the money. The play or 'ante' to the game was fifty cents, with no limit. The white chips represented half a dollar each and the red ones just double that sum. In the first two hands of cards the clerk lost his ten dollars, while the reporter made a profit. A short time convinced the reporter the two professionals were hard to beat.

"While an extremely close game was carried on, the house was certainly sure never to lose, as it put up no money and as 'banker' reaped a steady percentage deducted from the chips of all winners who cashed in.

"The clerk was broke in two hours' sitting and confessed he had lost sixty dollars, more than three weeks' salary, and while he wore a gold chain over his vest, he had left his watch in pledge with the game-owner for twenty dollars' worth of chips besides. As the reporter and his guide reached the sidewalk, one of the young men who had been in the place was asked what he thought of the place. Not suspecting the reporter's motive, the player answered glibly: 'Oh, that racket in French flats is getting to be all the go now, and I tell you it's immense. The police can't get on to it, and now as all the faro games are closed or not making expenses, and afraid to open, it is doing well.

Then there is such a better cla.s.s of people that go to these places, people who would not care to be seen or caught in a regular concern. Now up in Harry's you see how nice it is. There's your parlor to play in.

Then if it's an all-night play you can sleep in turns or lay off during the day, and get anything you want to eat right there. 'Get pulled?'

Why, there ain't the ghost of a show for that in those flats. In the first place, no one is let in without he is known or has a card; then a 'copper' can 't go in without forcing an entrance or a warrant, and if he does, what evidence can be produced to show the place is a gambling house? Why, gambling in the Fifth Avenue clubs is no better protected.

No one in the house up-stairs suspects what's going on. The halls are all carpeted and so are the stairs, and you never can hear any one pa.s.s up and down. Then if any raid is made, can't a man swear he was only having a game of cards in his own house with a party of friends?' In society, next to progressive euchre, poker comes the highest.

"'Are there many of these private flat games?' asked the reporter. 'Oh, yes; there's at least half a dozen I know of. There's one on Fifty-ninth street, one on Forty-fifth street, and several more on Sixth Avenue and Broadway, and any quant.i.ty now in other private houses run as social club rooms. You see, no games but poker--draw, stud-horse and straight, and hide the heart--are allowed to be run. Now if you never was in Harry's before, and you were seen to be all right, you would be given some cards to pa.s.s around to your friends confidentially, which would tell them where to go for play and would get them in without bother."

CHAPTER XXII.

SLUMMING.

_Depravity of Life in Billy McGlory's--A Three Hours' Visit to the Place--Degraded Men and Lost Women Who are Nightly in This Criminal Whirlpool._

The following from the Cincinnati _Enquirer_ tells its own story:

"Slumming in New York always begins with a trip to Billy McGlory's. It is a Hester street dive. What The. Allen was thought to be in the days when he was paraded as 'the wickedest man in New York,' and what Harry Hill was thought to be in the days when the good old deacons from the West used to frequent his dance hall, Billy McGlory is in New York to-day. The. Allen and Harry Hill are both alive, but Billy McGlory bears off the palm of wickedness amid the wickedest of Gotham. If you want to see his place, two things are necessary, a prize-fighter for a protector and a late start. I had both when I went there the other night. My companions were half a dozen Western men, stopping at an up-town hotel, and our guide was a little 'tough' who has fought half a dozen prize fights and would fight at the drop of the hat. We had pooled issues and one man had all the money in the party. Our wallets and watches and jewelry were left behind. It was nearly midnight when we started, and half an hour later when the carriage drove us up in front of a dingy-looking double doorway, from which the light was streaming.

The walls around were black; no light anywhere except that which came out of the open door. The entrance was a long hall, with nothing visible at the further end from the outside. It might have served for a picture of Milton's description of the 'Cavernous Entrance to h.e.l.l.'

"There was a policeman outside, and down the street a score of shadowy forms flitted in and out of the shadows--prost.i.tutes lying in wait for victims, our guide told us. McGlory's place is a huge dance hall, which is approached by devious ways through a bar-room. There is a balcony fitted up with tables and seats. There are tables and seats under the balcony. There are little boxes part.i.tioned off in the balcony for the best customers--that is the sight-seers--and we got one of them. A piano is being vigorously thumped by a black-haired genius, who is accompanied by a violinist and a cornet player. 'Don't shoot the pianist; he is doing his best,' the motto a Western theater man hung up in his place, would be a good thing here. Yet the pianist of one of these dance halls is by no means to be despised. It was from a position like this that Counselor Disbecker rose within a few years to a legal standing that enabled him to get $70,000 out of Jake Sharpe for lawyer's fees.

Transpositions are rapid in New York, and Billy McGlory, who was on the Island a few months ago for selling liquor without license, may be an excise commissioner himself before he dies.

"These side thoughts have crowded in while we are looking around. There are five hundred men in the immense hall. There are a hundred females--it would be mockery to call them women. The first we hear from them is when half a dozen invade our box, plump themselves in our laps, and begin to beg that we put quarters in their stockings for luck. There are some shapely limbs generously and immodestly shown in connection with this invitation. One young woman startles the crowd by announcing that she will dance the cancan for half a dollar. The music starts up just then, and she determines to do the cancan and risk the collection afterward. She seizes her skirts between her limbs with one hand, kicks away a chair or two, and is soon throwing her feet in the air in a way that endangers every hat in the box. The men about the hall are all craning their necks to get a sight of what is going on in the box, as they hear the cries of 'Hoop-la' from the girls there. There is a waltz going on down on the floor. I look over the female faces. There is one little girl, who looks as innocent as a babe. She has a pretty face, and I remark to a companion that she seems out of place among the other poor wretches--for there is not an honest woman in the hall. Before we leave the place it has been demonstrated that the little girl with the innocent face is one of the most depraved of all the habitues of the place.

"The dance is over, and a song is being sung by a man on crutches with only one leg. 'He is an honest fellow, is the Major,' says one of the girls. 'Poor fellow, he has a wife and six children. He sticks to them like a good fellow and works hard to get a living. He sells pencils in the day-time and works here at night.' A generous shower of coin goes on to the floor when the Major finishes. I begin to notice the atmosphere of tobacco smoke. It is frightfully oppressive. The 'champagne' that it has been necessary to order so as to retain the box has not been drank very freely. The girls have been welcome to it the visitors having discovered that it is bottled cider, with a treatment of whisky to give it a biting tang and taste. It costs three dollars a bottle. It would cost a man more to drink it. There was a young business man of Cincinnati here three or four weeks ago who filled himself up on it at a cost of $300. He had been foolish enough to go to McGlory's alone. He was found on the Bowery at five o'clock the next morning without any hat or overcoat. His pocket-book, watch and jewelry were gone. His only recollection was that he had taken three or four drinks of McGlory's 'champagne.' He went to the hotel where he was a guest and was wise enough to take the advice of the clerk. By paying $100 and no questions asked he got back his watch and jewelry. He also got his pocket-book and papers, but not the $200 that was in the book when he started out on his spree. In the intervals of the dance his story has been told me as a sample of the nightly occurrence.

"What is this that has come out for a song? It has the form of a young man, but the simpering silliness of a school girl. Half idiot, it jabbers out a lot of words that can not be understood, but which are wildly applauded by the crowd on the floor, who 'pat juba' while the creature dances. The girl who has been hanging around me to get a quarter, whispers something like 'Oh, the beast!' in my ear. I hear the other girls uttering similar remarks and epithets. So I look closer at the young man on the floor--for young man it is. He has a long head and smooth face, with a deathly white pallor over it, big mouth and lips as thick as a negro, a conical shaped forehead, and eyes that glitter with excitement like a courtesan's, but from which at times all signs of intelligence have apparently fled. He has a companion whose general appearance is like his own, but whose head is large and round, with a high forehead and full moon face. Who are they? Well, they are part of Billy McGlory's outfit, and that is all I can say about them. There are four more of them in female dress, who have been serving drinks to the customers at the tables, all the while leering at the men and practicing the arts of the basest of women.

"Some of my companions have been drawn into one of the little boxes adjoining ours. They come back now to tell of what depravity was exhibited to them for a fee. 'Great heavens!' exclaims one of them. 'I feel sick. Get me out of this if you can. It is d.a.m.nable.' No wonder they are sick. The sights they have seen would sicken all humanity.

Editor Stead, of London, could find a bonanza every night for a week right here in New-York City at Billy McGlory's a.s.sembly Hall. 'Hist!'

says our guide. We look up and find three or four toughs around. They do not allow any adverse criticisms to be pa.s.sed aloud at Billy's. If you begin to talk aloud what you think, out you go. There have been more round dances. There has been more indifferent singing and some clog dancing. It is getting late. The fumes of tobacco and of stale beer are stifling. Four-fifths of the men have not moved from the tables since we came in. Here and there one is lopped over asleep. But the waiter in female clothing comes along to wake him up and induce him to order more beer. Your gla.s.s must always be before you if you want to stay at McGlory's.

"'What are they all waiting for?' I ask. But no one will tell me. Across the balcony a girl is hugging her fellow in a maudlin and hysterical manner. Another girl is hanging with her arms around the neck of one of the creatures I described some time ago. She is pressing her lips to his as if in ecstasy. He takes it all as a matter of course, like an indifferent young husband after the honeymoon is over. His companion joins him--the moon-faced fellow--and they come around to our box and ogle us. They talk in simpering, dudish tones, and bestow the most lackadaisical glances on different members of our party. The girls shrink back as if contamination itself had come among them. 'We are pretty hard,' says one of them, 'but not so hard as they.'

"The piano gives a bang and a crash. The gray light is beginning to stream through the windows. There is a hurrying and a scurrying among the females, and there are a precious lot of young fellows, with low brows and plug-ugly looks gathering on the floor. There are twenty odd women with them, mostly young, none good-looking, all bearing marks of a life that kill. The band strikes up a fantastic air. The whole place is attention at once. The sleepy beer-b.u.mmers rouse up. The persons on the balcony hang over the railings. The figures on the floor go reeling off in a mixture of dancing and by-play as fantastic as the music. The pianist seems to get excited and to want to prove himself a Hans von Bulow of rapid execution. The fiddler weaves excitedly over his fiddle.

The cornetist toots in a screech like a car-engine whistle. The movements of the dancers grow licentious and more and more rapid. They have begun the Cancan. Feet go up. Legs are exhibited in wild abandon.

Hats fly off. There are occasional exhibitions of nature that would put Adam and Eve to shame. The draperies of modern costumes for a time covers the wanton forms, but as the performers grow heated wraps are thrown off. The music a.s.sumes a hideous wildness. The hangers-on about the place pat their hands and stamp and shout. The females on the floor are excited to the wildest movements. They no longer make any attempt to conceal their persons. Their action is shameful beyond relation. It is climaxed by the sudden movement of eight or ten of them. As if by concerted arrangement they denude their lower limbs and raising their skirts in their hands above their waists go whirling round and round in a lascivious mixture of bullet and cancan. It is all done in an instant, and with a bang the music stops. Several of the girls have already fallen exhausted on the floor. The lights go out in a twinkling. In the smoky cloud we have just enough daylight to grope our way out. The big policeman stands in the doorway. Billy McGlory himself is at the bar, to the left of the entrance, and we go and take a look at the man. He is a typical New York saloon-keeper--nothing more, and nothing less. A medium-sized man, neither fleshy nor spare; he has black hair and mustache, and a piercing black eye. He shakes hands around as if we were obedient subjects come to pay homage to a king. He evidently enjoys his notoriety.

"I had a chat with an old detective, who says to me about McGlory: 'He is a Fourth-warder by birth. He has a big pull in politics, but takes no direct part himself. He pays his way with the police, and that ends it.

I have known him for years, and 'tough' as he is, I would take his word as quick as I would take the note of half the bank presidents of New York. His place is in the heart of a tenement region, where there are a great many unmarried men. Grouped around him are the rooms and haunts of hundreds of prost.i.tutes, with their pimps, thieves and pick-pockets who thrive in such atmosphere. His place is head-quarters for them. These can not be suppressed, and it is part of the police policy to leave a few places like McGlory's where you can lay your hands on a man at any time, rather than scatter them indiscriminately over the city.'

"We go out on Hester street. It is a narrow, dirty, filthy street. It is the early morning--five o'clock. We had spent nearly five hours in the den. The air was reeking with the filthy odors of the night, but it was refres.h.i.+ng compared with the atmosphere we had left.

"We get in our carriage to go home.

"Three or four blocks up-town we pa.s.s Cooper Inst.i.tute and the old Mercantile Library. A stone's throw from McGlory's are the great thoroughfares of the Bowery and Broadway. You could stand on his house-top and shoot a bullet into the City of Churches. I have not told the half, no, nor the tenth, of what we saw at his place. It can not be told. There is no newspaper would dare print it. There is no writer who could present it in shape for publication. It can only be hinted at.

There is beastliness and depravity under his roof compared with which no chapter in the world's history is equal.

"Involuntarily, when I reached my apartment, I turned into the bath-room and bathed my face and hands. It was like getting a breath of heaven after experiencing a foretaste of sheol."

CHAPTER XXIII.

OUR WASTE BASKET.

_Contemporaneous Records and Memoranda of Interesting Cases._

*Miss Ruff's Tribulations.*

Miss Louise Ruff was a tall, fair-complexioned young lady of twenty-two, with a handsome form, lovely shoulders, handsome arms and bewitching address. Her family was well known on the east side of the town, and she had received a fairly liberal education. Miss Ruff, two or three years previous to the legal proceedings here chronicled, had the good or bad fortune to form the acquaintance of Mr. Julius Westfall, the well-to do proprietor of a couple of restaurants. Mr. Westfall was a Teutonic "masher" with which any Venus would have been justified in falling in love. He was a brunette with hyacinthine locks and l.u.s.trous black eyes, and with hands and feet too pretty, almost, for use. Mr. Julius Westfall fell violently in love with Louise. She had dropped in with a lady friend to drink a cup of coffee. From behind the receipt of custom he took an observation, and then he began to prance round, as one who had suddenly been attacked by a combination of the fire of St. Anthony and the dance of St. Vitus. He skipped around the saloon like a gra.s.shopper on a gravel lot, and smiled, and smiled, and smiled--looking his Fourth-of-July prettiest. Of course Miss Ruff nudged her companion above the fifth rib, and whispered something complimentary to the beaming proprietor; and when the ladies left, he bowed them out with all the grace of a Belgravia footman.

Mr. Westfall began to watch for Louise and to trot after her like a doppelganger. He kept a tub of ice-water in a closet, in which he occasionally bathed his throbbing temples. He was devoured by a consuming pa.s.sion. When he beheld her at a distance, he smacked his lips like a beautiful leopard. The heart of Miss Ruff was not of adamant. It was not a trap-rock paving stone. She could not resist the young man's loveliness and his innumerable fascinations. They began to walk out together in the evening when the dandelions were being kissed by the setting sun. They strolled into the beer gardens and listened to music's power, while moistening their clay. The Bowery Garden, between Ca.n.a.l and Hester streets, was a favorite resort. So was the Atlantic Garden and the Viennese lady musicians. Thus, for one long twelve-month they loved--after nature's fas.h.i.+on, nor thought of the crime.

Sometime in the latter part of last year--it may have been in October, or November, or December--Mr. Julius Westfall was summoned to the German fatherland. It became necessary to dispose of his business and to bid adieu to Louise. Why he did not marry the young lady doth not appear. He seems to have left suddenly, and probably the idea of matrimony did not occur to him. Mr. Ludwig Nisson became Mr. Westfall's successor in the restaurant business. More than that, he also became the successor of Mr.

Westfall in the affections of Miss Ruff. Now, Mr. Ludwig Nisson is a handsome young blonde, with lovely flaxen side-whiskers and a rose-pink complexion. Mr. Nisson's chin and upper lip are shaven clean every morning. He wears the latest Fifth-avenue style of store clothes. An ornamental garden of jewelry adorns his vest. His studs are diamonds; his hay-colored hair exhibits the perfection of the barber's skill. Mr.

Nisson's lips are red and pouting. He may be seven or eight and twenty.

He is very good-looking, and he knows it. As in the case of Mr.

Westfall, Ludwig made superhuman efforts to please Miss Ruff when she entered his saloon, in which are seats always "reserved for ladies." In the art of soul-floralization, Ludwig was his predecessor's equal. What could Louise do but listen to his blandishments? And when a young lady listens once, the poet tells us, she "will listen twice." Thus it came to pa.s.s that before Julius Westfall had been long gone--perhaps before he was even half seas over--Mr. Nisson began to meander around with Miss Ruff, to quaff the foaming lager, and to be on hand in the Bowery Garden when the band began to play.

Some of these affectionate and confidential manifestations did not eventuate amid the glare and blare of the beer garden's, but away up in a sanctum over a drug store and in other "sweet, retired solitudes,"

where they could listen to the sweet music of their own speech. Early in January of the present year, Louise possessed a secret which she felt she could confide to no ear but Ludwig Nisson's. With reddening cheeks she softly made her confession. The easiest and most economical course under the lamentable circ.u.mstances was to offer her some advice. That is just what Ludwig did offer--subsequently, however, backing it with a modest fiduciary bonus. After this Mr. Ludwig Nisson sought no more to commune with Miss Ruff. The poor, indiscreet girl was in a pitiable dilemma. She had no mother in whose heart of hearts she could seek forgiveness and shelter. If her family were made aware of the event impending, she knew the explosion of indignation would be terrific. So she professed to be tired of staying at home, and entered her name in a registry office for servants. Fitfully occupying two or three positions, a victim of anxiety and unrest, she finally consulted an old friend of her family--Mr. Peter Cook, the lawyer, who wrote a letter to Mr. Nisson for his client. In a few days a lawyer called on Mr. Cook on behalf of the restaurateur, and stated that the case would be allowed to go for trial, in which case, Mr. Nisson would defend it. Shortly afterward, or to be more specific, in May last, Mr. Henry E. Von Voss, collector for a down-town business house, called upon Miss Ruff and had a conversation with her in regard to a possible arrangement. Mr. Von Voss was anxious that the conversation should be private, but the lady with whom Louise was residing counseled her to secure the presence of a witness. He advised her to settle the matter amicably, on a pecuniary basis, and thus avoid the scandal of publicity. This counsel was favorably entertained, and in a few days, on the receipt of a small sum of money, she signed what in law is known as "a general release," drawn up by a Second Avenue lawyer, in which she exempted Mr. Nisson from all further claims of any kind whatsoever.

Time pa.s.sed on, and the money was spent. The tale of the months that would make her a mother were being surely fulfilled. As yet her family knew nothing of her condition. With Disgrace, his gaunt twin brother, Starvation, threatening to a.s.sail her, what should she do? Happy thought! There were the Commissioners of Charities and Corrections.

There was an asylum for unfortunate girls in her condition. Here would she apply and conceal her trouble.

Before an applicant can be admitted to this humane inst.i.tution certain preliminary information must be given. Louise refused to reveal Ludwig's name or to make a complaint against him. Thereupon she was taken before his Honor Justice Otterbourg at Ess.e.x Market and ordered to reveal the name of her lover, and to make complaint against him. "It is the first case in my practice," said Mr. Cook, "where the girl was compelled to make the complaint." Thereupon the usual order of arrest was issued, and Ludwig was sacrilegiously thumbed by a coa.r.s.e-handed sheriff. Of course the necessary bail was immediately found, and then he was at liberty to walk down to 89 Centre street and seek legal succor from Messrs. Howe & Hummel.