Brown-Street, New York, is not a savoury locality. Although it is situated in the heart of the city, lying midway between the palatial splendour of the 'up-town' domestic residences and the enormous blocks of buildings forming the 'down-town' commercial establishments; though it runs parallel with, and at no great distance from, the famous Broadway; and though it has in its rear a magnificent square, where are to be found some of the grand old-fashioned roomy mansions which by their size and substantiality might well put the gimcrack erections of Fifth-avenue to the blush, yet is Brown-street a place of 'no 'count.' The houses are for the most part two-storied buildings of the shabbiest description; the iron railings which should guard the 'stoop' or flight of steps leading to the doors are generally wanting, having been extracted feloniously for the purpose of sale, or broken up and converted into handy weapons of attack and defence by the Hibernian residents of the colony. The street-doors are but seldom closed, standing three or four inches open, but creaking furiously when further demands are made upon them, as though they had conceded all they meant to give; the windows of the first-floors are uniformly furnished with outside Venetian shutters, which, no matter what may be the time of year, are generally closed during the morning, while in the afternoon the passer-by can discern through them the half-dressed figures of frowsy women and girls, who have no scruple about entering into conversation or indulging in humorous repartee. What the second-floor contained, none save those who have made their way into such penetralia (among which number I am not one) can say, but there is no doubt as to the purposes to which the underground cellars are applied. These are lager-beer saloons, dram-shops, whisky-stores, in some instances pretended billiard-halls or pistol-galleries, but in every case pandering to the vilest tastes of degraded humanity. Stumble down these steep, broken, slippery steps and you stumble into Hades, you plunge head foremost into the infernal regions. Here, for the gratification of his countrymen, Max Heilbronn has opened a German gehenna, where Schinken and Blutwurst, dried and highly-seasoned Lachs, provoke the thirst of the Teutons, and induce them to wind up with something far stronger than the mild and insipid lager-beer with which they commence their potations. There Tim O'Dwyer, to insure the happiness of his compatriots, unfurled the green flag over the 'Ould Ireland' store, strewed the stained and battered tables with the latest received numbers of the _Bloody Pike_, the _Patriot's Vitriol Bottle_, and other cheerful publications, and provided a stock of Bourbon and rye, after the consumption of which his customers would clear the floor and betake themselves to dancing jigs, breaking heads, biting each other's noses off, and other national pastimes.