We are not in accord with those pessimists who speak of New York as a boiling caldron of crime, without any redeeming features or hopeful elements. But our practice in the courts and our association with criminals of every kind, and the knowledge consequently gained of their history and antecedents, have demonstrated that, in a great city like New York, the germs of evil in human life are developed into the rankest maturity. As the eloquent Dr. Guthrie, in his great work, "The City, its Sins and its Sorrows," remarks: "Great cities many have found to be great curses. It had been well for many an honest lad and unsuspecting country girl that hopes of higher wages and opportunities of fortune, that the gay attire and gilded story of some acquaintance, had never turned their steps cityward, nor turned them from the simplicity and safety of their country home. Many a foot that once lightly pressed the heather or brushed the dewy grass has wearily trodden in darkness, guilt and remorse, on these city pavements. Happy had it been for many had they never exchanged the starry skies for the lamps of the town, nor had left their quiet villages for the throng and roar of the big city's streets. Weil for them had they heard no roar but the river's, whose winter flood it had been safer to breast; no roar but ocean's, whose stormiest waves it had been safer to ride, than encounter the flood of city temptations, which has wrecked their virtue and swept them into ruin." By hoisting the DANGER signal at the mast-head, as it were, we have attempted to warn young men and young women--the future fathers and mothers of America--against the snares and pitfalls of the crime and the vice that await the unwary in New York. Our own long and extensive practice at the bar has furnished most of the facts; some, again, are on file in our criminal courts of record; and some, as has already been hinted, have been derived from the confidential revelations of our private office. With the desire that this book shall prove a useful warning and potent monitor to those for whose benefit and instruction it has been designed, and in the earnest hope that, by its influence, some few may be saved from prison, penitentiary, lunatic asylum, or suicides' purgatory, it is now submitted to the intelligent readers of America, By the public's obedient servants, HOWE & HUMMEL. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Ancient and Modern Prisons--Some of the City's Ancient Prisons--How Malefactors were Formerly Housed--Ancient Bridewells and Modern Jails, CHAPTER II. Criminals and their Haunts--The Past and Present Gangs of the City--How and Where they Herd--Prominent Characters that have passed into History, CHAPTER III. Street Arabs of Both Sexes--The Pretty Flower and News Girls--The Young Wharf Rats and their eventful Lives--How they all Live, where they Come From, and where they finally Finish their Career, CHAPTER IV. Store Girls--Their Fascinations, Foibles and Temptations,