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
"Near him, that man, whose fingers are loaded with showy rings, and who
affects womanish manners, is the owner of a newspaper which delights in
praising the aristocratic institutions of the Old World--a harmless
pastime, in which and one can safely indulge, in a country where there
is no law against the press, and where everybody may relieve his mind
of any foolish idea or fancy without injury to anything but his
reputation. Gambling is more than a passion to that personage--it is
his very life, as necessary to him as the air he breathes. He has
organized lotteries throughout the States, and though they are
prohibited by severe laws, he has found the means to evade them all,
and build up a large fortune. He often plays very high, and recently
very nearly broke the bank. The latter met with a loss of two hundred
thousand dollars.
"The gambler who is now leaving the gaming-table, is a teller in one of
our city banks. He long enjoyed the confidence of the directors; but, a
few days ago, they decided to have him watched, after office hours--a
measure now resorted to by many financial institutions, on account of
frequent defalcations. To-morrow morning, that teller will be requested
by the board of directors to show his books, and give an account of the
situation and prospects of the bank. But, in spite of his proficiency
in book-keeping, he will be unable to figure up and represent the
seventy-five thousand dollars he has squandered away in gambling houses
since he commenced, six months ago, to frequent them.
"I also recognize at the table a lawyer, who, a few years ago, married
a courtesan, in whom covetousness for wealth had become, during the
last years of her life, a ruling passion. A few weeks after their
marriage, the courtesan died, bequeathing the lawyer all her fortune.
It was surmised, at the time, that she had been poisoned; and perhaps
her husband comes here to drown his remorse.
"That black-haired, rather corpulent man, whose visage is spoiled by a
dishonest glance, and demeanor tarnished by an innate vulgarity, is a
teacher of foreign languages. He assumes important airs, as teachers
generally do and though affecting, in his discourse, a Puritan
austerity, few men are more intensely devoted to the pursuit of gain.
An adventurer, he had but one purpose in view when he settled in the
United States and commenced teaching--to find an heiress. After a
fruitless search among his young pupils of the fair sex, he finally
fascinated and married a spinster. Her savings are nightly dwindling
away at the gaming table."
A CARD-TABLE ROMANCE.
One of the city journals recently published the following account of an
affair, which occurred some time since, at one of the best-known gaming
hells of Broadway. The parties referred to are members of one of the
wealthiest and most fashionable families in the city:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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