ering in Mott or Mulberry
street. But the performances carried on are precisely alike in all. In
the sporting dance house, a series of boxing matches, small theatrical
sketches may be acted, a song or two interspersed, and some piano
playing, winding up afterwards with a dance, in which all so inclined
may indulge, taking either the regular girls employed in the house as
partners, or others who have strayed in from the streets.

In the regular dance houses, such as the Haymarket on Sixth avenue,
"ladies" are admitted free, but "gentlemen" are charged twenty-five
cents admittance, and here regular dancing takes place, such as
quadrilles, waltzes, etc. In the French Madame's on Thirty-first street,
which is ostensibly a restaurant, the girls come in from the street, and
while sipping black coffee, are ready to accept an engagement to dance
the _cancan_, which is performed up-stairs in rooms paid for by those
desiring to see the questionable performance. It is not infrequently
danced by the females in an entirely nude state, with various other
concomitants not to be mentioned here, but of such a nature as to
horrify any but the most _blase roue_. There is also the well-known
Billy McGlory's, in Hester street, near the Bowery, where general
dancing is indulged in until an early hour of the morning, when a
universal _cancan_ takes place upon the public floor, and where each
female boldly exposes just enough of her person to excite desire in the
beholder. These girls dance in ordinary street costumes, and in many
cases are paid by the proprietor for their services. It is a wild
debauch, and needs but to be seen once, to be ever afterward remembered
with disgust and loathing.

There are other places, not particularly dance houses nor yet
concert saloons, such as the Empire, Star and Garter, Gould's, etc.,
which are used as general places of resort by all classes of males and
Magdalenes. Here may be found the professional prize fighter, men about
town, gamblers, merchants, clerks, politicians, bankers, officials of
all kinds, and all classes of females, mistresses, _nymphs du pave_,
inmates of assignation houses, all intent on fun and dissipation, and a
desire to not only see the elephant, but pull it by the tail. Some of
the girls-haunting these places have been pretty waiter girls, but find
it more profitable to ply their trade as Cyprians. The bars are the
chief sources of profit in these as in kindred establishments. Hence