omers are chiefly ladies, and men who have nothing to do. Their
busiest hours are the early afternoon, and during the evening. After the
theatres are closed, they are thronged with parties of ladies and
gentlemen who come in for supper.

Some of the best restaurants in the city are those in which a lady is
never seen. It must not be supposed that they are disreputable places.
They are entirely the opposite. They are located in the lower part of
the city, often in some by-street of the heavy business section, and are
patronized chiefly by merchants and clerks, who come here to get lunch
and dinner. The fare is excellent, and the prices are reasonable. The
eating houses of Henry Bode, in Water street, near Wall street, Rudolph
in Broadway, near Courtlandt street, and Nash & Fuller (late Crook, Fox &
Nash), in Park Row, are the best of this kind. In the last there is a
department for ladies.

Between the hours of noon and three o'clock, the down-town restaurants
are generally crowded with a hungry throng. In some of them every seat
at the long counters and at the tables is filled, and the floor is
crowded with men standing and eating from plates which they hold in their
hands. The noise, the bustle, the clatter of knives and dishes, the
slamming of doors, and the cries of the waiters as they shout out the
orders of the guests, are deafening. The waiters move about with a
celerity that is astonishing; food is served and eaten with a dispatch
peculiar to these places. A constant stream of men is pouring out of the
doors, and as steady a stream flowing in to take their places. At some
of the largest of these establishments as many as fifteen hundred people
are supplied with food during the course of the day. A well patronized
restaurant is very profitable in New York, even if its prices are
moderate, and the higher priced establishments make their proprietors
rich in a comparatively short time. The proprietor of a Broadway oyster
saloon made a fortune of $150,000 by his legitimate business in five
years. A large part of the income of the restaurants is derived from the
sale of liquors at the bar.

The principal up-town restaurants are largely patronized by disreputable
people. Impure women go there to pick up custom, and men to find such
companions. Women whose social position is good, do not hesitate to meet
their lovers at such places, for there is a great deal of truth in the
old adage which tells us tha