"Why! you are not Harry after all; I have made a mistake!"
And, with the most profuse apologies, she will make her escape. An immediate search will show the man that she has carried his wallet or his watch with her.
Young boys, termed "Kids," are very dangerous operators. They work in gangs of three or four, and by pushing against their victim, seize what they can and make off. Sometimes one of this gang is arrested, but as he has transferred the plunder to his confederates, who have escaped, there is no evidence against him.
The members of the fraternity are well known to each other, and they arrange their scenes of operations, or "beats," with great care. No one will intrude upon the "beat" of another, for "there is honor even among thieves."
CHAPTER XLII.
DRUNKENNESS.
Drunkenness is very common in New York. About eighteen thousand arrests are made annually for drunkenness alone, and nearly ten thousand more for drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Besides these there are thousands of cases of which the police never hear. The vice is not confined to any class. It is to be seen in all conditions of life, and in both sexes. Day after day you will see men under the influence of liquor, reeling through the streets, or lying under the trees in the public parks. The police soon rid the streets of such cases, which are comparatively few during the day.
At night the number of intoxicated persons increases. You will then see all classes of drunkards. There goes a young man, handsomely dressed, evidently the son of a rich family, unable to stand by himself, and piloted by a friend whose chief care is to avoid the police. There is a clerk, whose habits will soon lose him his situation. Here is a woman, well dressed, too, reeling along at a rate which will soon carry her into the arms of the policeman. The high and the low are represented on the streets.
The bar-rooms and beer-gardens are in full blast, and will not close until midnight. The better class establishments are quiet and orderly, but the noise and confusion increases as we descend the scale of the so-called respectability of these places. The sale of liquors is enormous, and the work of destruction of body and soul that is going on is fearful. The bar-rooms, beer-gardens, restaurants, clubs, hotels, houses of ill-fame, concert-halls and dance-houses, are doing an enormous trade, and thousands are engaged in the work of poisoning themselves with drink.
[Illustration: A fashionable New Yorker—too much wine.]