The bride was the daughter of a famous politician, and I am sure that in point of beauty and tasteful dress she might have passed muster at Tuxedo. She was tall, graceful, and very young--not more than seventeen. One could see traces of her Hebrew lineage in her exquisitely lovely face, and I am sure she was well dressed, because she wore nothing that in any way detracted from her rare beauty or was offensive to the eye. She had been brought up near the corner of the Bowery and Hester Street, in the very centre of one of the most vicious and depraved quarters of the town; and as I talked with her that night she told me how most of her childhood had been spent playing with her little brothers and sisters in the garden which her father had built for them on the roof of the house in which they lived, and on the ground floor of which he kept the saloon which laid the foundations of his present political influence. She spoke simply and in good English, and one could easily see how carefully she had been shielded from all knowledge even of that which went on around her. An extraordinary company had assembled to witness the ceremony and take part in the festivities which followed, and as I sat beside two brilliant, shrewd, worldly-wise Hebrews of my acquaintance we remarked that it would be a long while before we could expect to see another such gathering. The most important of the guests were those high in political authority or in the police department, men whose election districts are the modern prototype of the English “pocket boroughs” of the last century; while the humblest of them all, and the merriest as well, was the deaf-and-dumb boot-black of a down-town police court, who appeared in the unwonted splendor of a suit which he had hired especially for the occasion, and to which was attached a gorgeous plated watch-chain. “Dummy” had never been to dancing-school, but he was an adept in the art of sliding across the floor, and he showed his skill between the different sets, uttering unintelligible cries of delight and smiling blandly upon his acquaintances as he glided swiftly by them. Several of the gentlemen present had “done time” in previous years, and others--John Y. McKane for example--have since then been “sent away.” I saw one guest wink pleasantly at a police captain who was standing near him and then slyly “lift” the watch from a friend’s pocket, merely to show that he had not lost his skill. A moment later he awakened a little innocent mirth by asking his unsuspecting friend what time it was.