t "there's no place so private as a crowded
hall." A quiet but close observer will frequently see a nod, or a smile,
or a meaning glance pass between the most respectable looking persons of
opposite sexes, who are seemingly strangers to each other, and will
sometimes see a note slyly sent by a waiter, or dropped adroitly into the
hand of the woman as the man passes out, while her face wears the
demurest and most rigidly virtuous expression. Such women frequent some
of the best known up-town establishments to so great an extent that a
lady entering one of them is apt to be insulted in this way by the male
habitues of the place. These wretches hold all women to be alike, and
act upon this belief.

XL. THE CHEAP LODGING-HOUSES.

The Bowery and the eastern section of the city are full of cheap
lodging-houses, which are a grade lower than the lowest hotels, and
several grades above the cellars. One or two of these are immense
establishments, five and six stories in height. Some of them provide
their lodgers with beds and covering, others supply pallets laid down on
the floor of a cheerless room, and others again give merely the pallets
and no sheets or coverings. The rooms, the beds, and the bedding in all
these establishments are horribly dirty, and are badly ventilated. Bed
bugs abound in the summer, and in the winter the lodger is nearly frozen,
the covering, when furnished, being utterly inadequate to the task of
keeping out the cold. From six to ten persons are put in a room
together. The price varies from ten to twenty-five cents, according to
the accommodations furnished. Each of these houses is provided with a
bar, at which the vilest liquors are sold at ten cents a drink. The
profits of the business are very great, not counting the receipts of the
bar, which are in proportion. The expense of fitting up and conducting
such an establishment is trifling. One of them accommodates nearly two
hundred lodgers per night, which at ten cents per head, would be a net
receipt of twenty dollars.

The persons who patronize these establishments are mainly vagrants, men
who live from hand to mouth, and who will not be received by the humblest
boarding-house. Some are doubtless unfortunate, but the majority are
vagrants from choice. Some have irregular occupations, others get the
price of their lodgings by begging.

The business of a lodging-house seldom commences before ten o'clock, and
its greatest rush