Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations: The Veil Lifted, and Light Thrown on Crime and its Causes, and Criminals and their Haunts. Facts and Disclosures.Howe, William F.
History
Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations: The Veil Lifted, and Light Thrown on Crime and its Causes, and Criminals and their Haunts. Facts and Disclosures.
Howe, William F.
Crime -- New York (State) -- New York; Criminals -- New York (State) -- New York; New York (N.Y.) -- Social conditions
With this preface we shall now introduce the reader to the inside of one
of these concert saloons, and show him the pretty waiter girl as his
fancy pictures her, and as she really is: Chancing to walk along the
street, the ears are assailed by the clash of music emanating from some
basement, down perhaps a half a dozen steps. A number of red globes,
surrounding as many gas jets, serve to show the entrance, on either side
of which are full length paintings of women in short skirts. The door is
of green leather or oil-cloth. Pushing this open, we enter and seat
ourselves at one of the many round tables with which the place is
plentifully supplied. In a second--not longer--several girls are beside
us, and some sit down at our table. One--perhaps two at once--will
immediately ask if we are not going to treat, and, in response, drinks
are ordered. While one of the girls proceeds to supply the order, and
before the drinks are brought, we glance around the saloon. On one side
is the bar, at which several persons are standing, drinking with some of
the sweet-voiced houris. The barkeeper and proprietor, both in their
shirt sleeves, are behind it. On one side of the bar is a
slightly-raised platform, upon which is a piano-player, a violinist and
a shrill fifer. This is the music that charms and attracts. Around the
room are men of all kinds, sailors, laboring men, seedy individuals,
lovers, thieves, a few poor gamblers, fellows in hard luck and waiting
for "something to turn up." Sprinkled over the place, talking, laughing,
joking and striving to induce them to buy drinks, are a number of the
waiter girls. The floor is plentifully and generously covered with plain
sawdust, which answers the double purpose of effectually hiding the
large cracks, and of absorbing the expectorations and spilled beer. The
time is yet early and business is not very brisk, so we chat with the
prettiest and youngest of the girls for a second only, when we are again
importuned to drink by another of the fair ones, even before the first
round is brought, for it must be understood that only the girl ordering
the drinks gets any percentage. The drinks brought, the price is asked
and the amount paid, as follows: Two beers, two lemonades with a stick
in it for two girls, and two brandies for two others; total, one dollar
and forty cents. Now the girls don't drink brandy, they have a little
colored water, but they charge for brandy all the same, and pay the
proprietor in pasteboard tickets, which are supplied by him to the girls
in packages of five dollars worth and upwards. For that which she
charged one dollar and forty cents she pays in checks forty cents, thus
making a clear one dollar--five cents each for two beers, ten cents each
for lemonades, and five cents each for the colored water. The customer
pays ten cents for each glass of beer, twenty cents each for lemonade
and forty cents each for brandy. When the customer fails to call for
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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