o in to _look_ on a game. In corroboration of
which success I may mention that early last winter (1867), one Saturday
evening, the police made a regular and truly formidable descent on these
billiard-saloons, arresting, among others, in all twenty-seven Italians,
I believe, of whom eleven were boys from seven to fifteen. Next evening
I had an application to interfere for their release, as it is usual for
me to do whenever circumstances warrant it, and in looking into the
subject carefully I found that of them only two--namely, the youngest
and the oldest--belonged to our school, and that both had gone to buy
groceries, and, while the grocer was weighing and wrapping the
provisions, they had walked to the door between the store and the saloon
to look in, and were under that circumstance arrested. Upon my
conviction that such was really the case, I applied for and obtained
their discharge. The other boys mostly belonged to families newly
arrived from Italy and directed for California, to which State these
people generally move if unable to make a living in New York.

"Now I will only add that the Maestro (teacher) at the Five Points has
become an indispensable personage among them. He is assumed to be a
lawyer, medical doctor, theologian, astronomer, banker--everything as
well as a teacher. A boy is arrested for throwing stones in the street;
the Maestro is applied to and the boy is released. One has fifty dollars
to deposit; the Maestro is consulted as to the soundness of the
savings-banks--and so on. But, to better appreciate their feelings on
this subject, it must be known that these poor foreigners have for a
long while been victimized by the grossest impositions. I have heard of
as much as one thousand dollars lost by one family, through the sharp
practice of a man (an Italian) who, taking advantage of their ignorance
of the English, and of their confidence, deposited and drew in his name
the money which was intended as part payment for a farm they had bought
in Massachusetts, and gave them to understand that the bank had failed.
And this is one of the many cases they had related to me on the subject.
Nor less shameful imposition they suffered at the hands of the
"shysters" whenever some juvenile delinquent was arrested for trifles.
They had to pay from fifty to one hundred dollars, and, what was worse,
often without obtaining their release. In order to explain the process
by which poor people possess such cash amount