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
Rats are plentiful along the East River, and Burns has no difficulty in
procuring as many as he desires. These and his dogs furnish the
entertainment, in which he delights. The principal room of the house is
arranged as an amphitheatre. The seats are rough wooden benches, and in
the centre is a ring or pit, enclosed by a circular wooden fence,
several feet high. A number of rats are turned into this pit, and a dog
of the best ferret stock is thrown in amongst them. The little creature
at once falls to work to kill the rats, bets being made that she will
destroy so many rats in a given time. The time is generally "made" by
the little animal, who is well known to, and a great favorite with, the
yelling blasphemous wretches who line the benches. The performance is
greeted with shouts, oaths, and other frantic demonstrations of
delight. Some of the men will catch up the dog in their arms, and press
it to their bosom in a frenzy of joy, or kiss it as if it were a human
being, unmindful or careless of the fact that all this while the animal
is smeared with the blood of its victims. The scene is disgusting
beyond description.
[Illustration: A Dog Fight at Kit Burn's]
THE DOG FIGHTS.
Kit Burns is very proud of his dogs, and his cellar contains a
collection of the fiercest and most frightfully hideous animals to be
found in America. They are very docile with their owner, and seem
really fond of him. They are well fed and carefully tended, for they
are a source of great profit to their owner.
Notice is given that at such a time there will be a dog fight at
"Sportsman's Hall," and when that time arrives the roughs and bullies
of the neighborhood crowd the benches of the amphitheatre. A more
brutal, villainous-looking set it would be hard to find. They are more
inhuman in appearance than the dogs.
Two huge bull-dogs, whose keepers can hardly restrain them, are placed
in the pit, and the keeper or backer of each dog crouches in his place,
one on the right hand, the other on the left, and the dogs in the
middle. At a given signal, the animals are released, and the next
moment the combat begins. It is simply sickening. Most of our readers
have witnessed a dog fight in the streets. Let them imagine the animals
surrounded by a crowd of brutal wretches whose conduct stamps them as
beneath the struggling beasts, and they will have a fair idea of the
scene at Kit Burns's.
THE REVIVAL AT KIT BURN'S.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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