awing the regularly constituted authorities, intimidating
the police by their numbers, and carrying things with a high hand
generally. One class consisted of the individuals comprehended in the
title of "Bowery Boy"--a term which included that certain, or rather
uncertain, element of New Yorker residing in the streets running into
the Bowery and adjacent to it, below Canal street, and the other, a
rival gang, called "Dead Rabbits," which unsavory distinction was
adopted by an equally questionable portion of humanity dwelling in the
Fourth and Sixth wards and streets in the vicinity of Catherine and
Roosevelt. There were among these two gangs of the city's representative
"toughs," materials of a far different kind from the actual felon, but
who were none the less dangerous, and among them may be classed many
leaders of ward politics and volunteer fire companies, and from which
Lew Baker and his victim, Bill Poole, "The Paudeen," "Reddy, the
Blacksmith," and numerous others were afterwards developed; but they
were oftener far more guilty than the real criminals, for they aided and
abetted, and in cases of arrest befriended them, causing their
subsequent escape from the penalties justly due for their crimes.

As a type of the veritable "Bowery Boy" may be taken the leader of that
gang of notorious "toughs," one who, from his well-earned reputation as
a bar-room and street rough-and-tumble fighter, has become a historical
personage, under the sobriquet of "Mose." His faithful lieutenant,
"Syksey," of "hold de butt" fame, will not soon be forgotten either, as
both figured prominently in the terrible pitched battles the two rival
gangs frequently indulged in, to the terror and consternation of all New
York. Of the rival mob, known as "Dead Rabbits," Kit Burns, Tommy Hedden
and "Shang" Allen are names long to be remembered by the terror-stricken
citizens who lived in the days when the fights between these notorious
aspirants for pugilistic and bloody honors were often of the deadliest
and most sanguinary character, lasting for days at a time; when entire
streets were blockaded and barricaded, and the mobs were armed with
pistols and rifles. Even cannons were sometimes used, and the police,
even when aided by the military, were powerless to suppress these
battles until many were killed and wounded on both sides. In these
desperate conflicts it was no unusual sight to see women, side by side
with men, fighting as valiantly as the