ng. If he
knows a guest and likes him, he will take care that he is not exposed to
danger, after he is too far gone in liquor to protect himself. He will
either send him home, or send for his friends. If the man is a stranger,
he does not interfere--only, no crime must be committed in his house.
Thieves, pickpockets, burglars, roughs, and pugilists are plentifully
scattered through the audience. These men are constantly on the watch
for victims. It is easy for them to drug the liquor of a man they are
endeavoring to secure, without the knowledge of the proprietor of the
house; or, if they do not tamper with his liquor, they can persuade him
to drink to excess. In either case, they lead him from the hall, under
pretence of taking him home. He never sees home until they have stripped
him of all his valuables. Sometimes he finds his long home, in less than
an hour after leaving the hall; and the harbor police find his body
floating on the tide at sunrise. Women frequently decoy men to places
where they are robbed. No crime is committed in the dance hall, but
plans are laid there, victims are marked, and tracked to loss or death,
and, frequently, an idle, thoughtless visit there has been the beginning
of a life of ruin. The company to be met with is that which ought to be
shunned. Visits from curiosity are dangerous. Stay away. To be found
on the Devil's ground is voluntarily to surrender yourself a willing
captive to him. Stay away. It is a place in which no virtuous woman is
ever seen, and in which an honest man ought to be ashamed to show his
face.

VII. MASKED BALLS.

The masked balls, which are held in the city every winter, are largely
attended by impure women and their male friends. Even those which assume
to be the most select are invaded by these people in spite of the
precautions of the managers. Some of them are notoriously indecent, and
it may be safely asserted that all are favorable to the growth of
immorality. On the 22d of December, 1869, one of the most infamous
affairs of this kind was held in the French Theatre, on Fourteenth
street. I give the account of it published in the _World_ of December
24th, of that year:

"The _'Societe des Bals d'Artistes_,' an organization which has no other
excuse for existing than the profits of an annual dance, and which last
year combined debauchery with dancing in a manner entirely new to this
city, on Wednesday night had possession of the _T