Standing at the door of a gambling saloon, with one foot raised on the steps, would be a well-dressed young man, playing thimblerig on his leg with a golden pea, for the edification of a crowd of gaping greenhorns, some one of whom would be sure to bite. Not far off would be found a precocious little blackguard of fourteen or fifteen, standing behind a cask, and playing on the head of it a sort of thimblerig game with three cards, called “French monte.” He first shows their faces, and names one--say the ace of spades--as the winning card, and after thimblerigging them on the head of the cask, he lays them in a row with their faces down, and goes on proclaiming to the public in a loud voice that the ace of spades is the winning card, and that he’ll “bet any man one or two hundred dollars he can’t pick up the ace of spades.” Occasionally some man, after watching the trick for a little, thinks it is the easiest thing possible to tell which is the ace of spades, and loses his hundred dollars accordingly, when the youngster pockets the money and his cards, and moves off to another location, not being so soft as to repeat the joke too often, or to take a smaller bet than a hundred dollars. There were also newsboys with their shrill voices, crying their various papers with the latest intelligence from all parts of the world, and boys with boxes of cigars, offering “the best Havana cigars for a bit a-piece, as good as you can get in the stores for a quarter.” A “bit” is twelve and a half cents, or an English sixpence, and for all one could buy with it, was but little less useless than an English farthing. Presently one would hear “Hullo! there’s a muss!” (_Anglicé_, a row), and men would be seen rushing to the spot from all quarters. Auction-rooms, gambling-rooms, stores, and drinking-shops would be emptied, and a mob collected in the street in a moment. The “muss” would probably be only a _difficulty_ between two gentlemen, who had referred it to the arbitration of knives or pistols; but if no one was killed, the mob would disperse, to resume their various occupations, just as quickly as they had collected. Some of the principal streets were planked, as was also, of course, that part of the city which was built on piles; but where there was no planking, the mud was ankle-deep, and in many places there were mudholes, rendering the street almost impassable. The streets were the general receptacle for every description of rubbish. They were chiefly covered with bits of broken boxes and casks, fragments of hampers, iron hoops, old tin cases, and empty bottles. In the vicinity of the numerous Jew slop-shops, they were thickly strewed with old boots, hats, coats, and pantaloons; for the majority of the population carried their wardrobe on their backs, and when they bought a new article of dress, the old one which it was to replace was pitched into the street.