The Secrets of the Great City / A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York City

by James Dabney McCabe

BUCKET HOUSES.

These shops sell the vilest and most poisonous liquors, and derive their name from the fact that their customers usually bring buckets, bowls, or pitchers for the stuff, instead of bottles or jugs. They are confined to the worst quarters of the city, and are foul and wretched beyond description. The proprietors are brutal wretches, who are capable of any crime. They do all in their power to encourage drunkenness, in order to increase their gains. They knowingly sell actual poisons for drink—liquors which nothing would induce them to use. On Saturday nights the rush to these places is very great. Liquor cannot be procured the next day, and so the poor victims of the rum- seller lay in a double quantity, and spend the Sabbath in a state of beastly intoxication.