The Secrets of the Great City: A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York CityMcCabe, James Dabney
History
The Secrets of the Great City: A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York City
McCabe, James Dabney
New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel; New York (N.Y.) -- History
This method of robbery is closely connected with street-walking. The
girl in this case acts in concert with a confederate, who is generally
a man. She takes her victim to her room, and directs him to deposit his
clothing on a chair, which is placed but a few inches from the wall at
the end of the room. This wall is false, and generally of wood. It is
built some three or four feet from the real wall of the room, thus
forming a closet. As the whole room is papered and but dimly lighted, a
visitor cannot detect the fact that it is a sham. A panel, which slides
noiselessly and rapidly, is arranged in the false wall, and the chair
with the visitor's clothing upon it is placed just in front of it.
While the visitor's attention is engaged in another quarter, the girl's
confederate, who is concealed in the closet, slides back the panel, and
rifles the pockets of the clothes on the chair. The panel is then
noiselessly closed. When the visitor is about to depart, or sometimes
not until long after his departure, he discovers his loss. He is sure
the girl did not rob him, and he is completely bewildered in his
efforts to account for the robbery. Of course the police could tell him
how his money was taken, and could recover it, too, but in nine cases
out of ten the man is ashamed to seek their assistance, as he does not
wish his visit to such a place to be made public.
THE "HUSBAND GAME."
The street-walkers are adepts in deceit. Their chief object is to
procure money, and they do not hesitate to plunder their victims in
order to obtain it. One of their favorite "dodges" is called the
"husband game." This is played as follows. A man is picked up on the
street, after nine o'clock, and carried to the girl's room. He is asked
to pay his money in advance, which he does. The girl then turns the
lights down, and seems about to prepare to retire for the night, when a
loud knocking is heard. The girl, in alarm, informs him that she is a
married woman, and that her husband has returned. She begs him to
escape, or he will be killed. The visitor, terribly frightened, is glad
to get off through a side door. His money is not returned, but the
woman promises to meet him the next night, which engagement, of course,
is never kept. In ten minutes more she is on Broadway in search of a
fresh, victim.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CONCERT SALOONS.
There are seventy-five concert saloons in New York, which employ seven
hundred and forty-seven waiter girls. The brothels usually termed
dance-halls, are included in this estimate, but, as we design referring
especially to them in another chapter, we shall pass them by, for the
present, and devote this chapter to the concert saloons proper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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