om a large one,
the entrance of which is so wide and high that it realizes the idea of
"open house," and within which there are a great number of taps from
which soda-water, ready mingled with all the various kinds of syrups, is
drawn.

Let us cross over the Bowery, and take a look at Division Street, which
diverges from it at the neck of Chatham Square, and is one of the
curiosities of the district. It is a narrow street, very brilliantly
lighted up on one side by the show-windows of the milliners' shops; and
a marvellously long row of milliners it is, never ending until it runs
against a druggist just where Bayard Street makes an angle with
Division. Every window and every show-case by the thresholds is filled
with a curious variety of infinitesimally small bonnets and hats, some
in a skeleton state, others bedizened in all the fancy modes of the
season. Division Street may be termed the milliners' quarter of New York
City. Most of the goods displayed here are of a "sensation" character,
but that is just what pays on the east side. Yet I would not be
understood here as meaning to disparage the west side; and indeed I have
been told that ladies from the most fashionable quarters of the city are
not above buying their millinery in Division Street. Numbers of young
girls are passing to and fro here, pausing ever and anon to gaze in at
the windows with longing eyes. If there be "sermons in stones," so are
there also in show-cases, and many a sad romance of won and lost grows
out of the latter too. The shop-girls have nearly got through their work
now, and they lean against the door-posts or stand out on the sidewalk,
gossiping in groups of twos and threes. You will observe that there is
not a single milliner's shop on the other side of the street. The
dealers there are mostly in the hardware and grocery lines, or they
represent commerce as tobacconists, confectioners, and such like; but
they have nearly all shut up for the night, and the glory of the gas is
on the milliner side of the way alone. All along the Bowery the same
order of things may be observed to prevail,--the west side being chiefly
devoted to the dry-goods trade, while the hardware dealers, grocers,
restaurateurs, and numerous other tradespeople occupy the east side.

And now again up the Bowery,--where the lights appear to stretch away
into almost endless space. The numerous lines of horse-cars pass and
repass each other in long perspective, their lights