"Now I will only add that the Maestro (teacher) at the Five Points has become an indispensable personage among them. He is assumed to be a lawyer, medical doctor, theologian, astronomer, banker--everything as well as a teacher. A boy is arrested for throwing stones in the street; the Maestro is applied to and the boy is released. One has fifty dollars to deposit; the Maestro is consulted as to the soundness of the savings-banks--and so on. But, to better appreciate their feelings on this subject, it must be known that these poor foreigners have for a long while been victimized by the grossest impositions. I have heard of as much as one thousand dollars lost by one family, through the sharp practice of a man (an Italian) who, taking advantage of their ignorance of the English, and of their confidence, deposited and drew in his name the money which was intended as part payment for a farm they had bought in Massachusetts, and gave them to understand that the bank had failed. And this is one of the many cases they had related to me on the subject. Nor less shameful imposition they suffered at the hands of the "shysters" whenever some juvenile delinquent was arrested for trifles. They had to pay from fifty to one hundred dollars, and, what was worse, often without obtaining their release. In order to explain the process by which poor people possess such cash amounts, I must say that in extraordinary circumstances they help each other with the most disinterested and prompt liberality. Some of those who go to California, having borrowed the money here, remit it generally in drafts payable to order of lenders, who, being unknown to the bank, are refused payment. The Maestro then, of course, is applied to, and for the first two or three cases I found it hard to make them understand that I did not do it for money. They would insist on my receiving something for my trouble in procuring payment by the drawees, and one, especially, on having paid a draft of one hundred and sixty dollars gold, followed me for a block, with a coin piece in his hand, insisting that I should take it. 'My dear man, keep your money,' I would say; 'I am very glad to have been able to render you this service.' 'No, Maestro, no. Well, take _at least_ these five dollars' (gold). That _at least_ struck me that he must have been laboring under the impression that my services were worth considerably more, and I addressed him in that sense. In answer, he explained that an Italian, who has gone away from New York, charged him and others ten per cent, for cashing drafts to order.