ulation is large, she can play the same
game upon a fresh set of victims for many years to come. It is of no use
to complain. She knows human nature better than you do, and she adheres
rigidly to her programme, grimly replying to your tale of woes, that, if
you do not like her establishment, you can go elsewhere. You would go if
you could find a better place; but you know they are all alike. So you
make up your mind to endure your discomforts until May, with her smiling
face, calls you into the country.

Boarding-houses allow their guests a brief respite in the summer. The
city is then comparatively deserted, and the most of these "highly
respectable" establishments are very much in want of inmates. Expenses
are heavy and receipts light then, and the landladies offer an unusual
degree of comfort to those who will help them to tide over this dull
season.

As regards the ferreting out of impropriety on the part of her guests,
the New York landlady is unequalled by the most skilful detective in the
city. She doubts the character of every woman beneath her roof; but in
spite of her acuteness she is often deceived, and it may be safely
asserted that the boarding-houses into which improper characters do not
sometimes find their way are very few. It is simply impossible to keep
them out. The average boarding-house contains a goodly number of men who
are so many objects of the designs of the adventurers. Again, if the
adventuress wishes to maintain the guise of respectability, she must have
a respectable home, and this the boarding-house affords her. One is
struck with the great number of handsome young widows who are to be found
in these establishments. Sometimes they do not assume the character of a
widow, but claim to be the wives of men absent in the distant
Territories, or in Europe, and pretend to receive letters and remittances
from them. The majority of these women are adventuresses, and they make
their living in a way they do not care to have known. They conduct
themselves with the utmost outward propriety in the house, and disarm
even the suspicious landlady by their ladylike deportment. They are ripe
for an intrigue with any man in the house, and as their object is simply
to make money, they care little for an exposure if that object be
attained.

XXXIX. THE RESTAURANTS.

New York is said to contain between five and six thousand restaurants.
These are of every kind and description known to