crimes have the unrestrained
and sanguinary character of a race accustomed to overcome all obstacles.
They rifle a bank, where English thieves pick a pocket; they murder,
where European _proletaires_ cudgel or fight with fists; in a riot, they
begin what seems about to be the sacking of a city, where English
rioters would merely batter policemen, or smash lamps. The "dangerous
classes" of New York are mainly American-born, but the children of Irish
and German immigrants. They are as ignorant as London flash-men or
costermongers. They are far more brutal than the peasantry from whom
they descend, and they are much banded together, in associations, such
as "Dead Rabbit," "Plug-ugly," and various target companies. They are
our _enfants perdus,_ grown up to young manhood. The murder of an
unoffending old man, like Mr. Rogers, is nothing to them. They are ready
for any offense or crime, however degraded or bloody. New York has never
experienced the full effect of the nurture of these youthful ruffians as
she will one day. They showed their hand only slightly in the riots
during the war. At present, they are like the athletes and gladiators of
the Roman demagogues. They are the "roughs" who sustain the ward
politicians, and frighten honest voters. They can "repeat" to an
unlimited extent, and serve their employers. They live on _"panem et
circenses,"_ or City-Hall places and pot-houses, where they have full
credit.

We shall speak more particularly of the causes of crime in future
chapters, but we may say in brief, that the young ruffians of New York
are the products of accident, ignorance, and vice. Among a million
people, such as compose the population of this city and its suburbs,
there will always be a great number of misfortunes; fathers die, and
leave their children unprovided for; parents drink, and abuse their
little ones, and they float away on the currents of the street;
step-mothers or step-fathers drive out, by neglect and ill-treatment,
their sons from home. Thousands are the children of poor foreigners, who
have permitted them to grow up without school, education, or religion.
All the neglect and bad education and evil example of a poor class tend
to form others, who, as they mature, swell the ranks of ruffians and
criminals. So, at length, a great multitude of ignorant, untrained,
passionate, irreligious boys and young men are formed, who become the
"dangerous class" of our city. They form the "Nineteenth-stre