overrun with them. There is a
uniformity in their appearance that makes them easily recognised,
for they all affect the ultra stylish in costume, even to the
extreme of light kid gloves in the street; they all have the
crisp moustache, the smooth-shaven cheeks, and the same keen,
ever-watchful eye, constantly on the look-out for a "customer,"
that respectable word meaning, in their slang, a person to be
victimized and swindled. Every lady who walks the street has to
run the gauntlet of their insolent glances, and not unfrequently
to hear their vulgar and offensive criticisms on her personal
appearance; and every gentleman whose business calls him into
Broadway of a pleasant day, has seen these persons grouped on the
corner leisurely surveying the passers-by, or gathered into a
little knot before some favorite rum-shop, discussing what is, to
them, the absorbing topic of the day--probably the "good strike"
Blobbsby made, "fighting the tiger," the night before; the "heavy
run" a favorite billiard-player made on a certain occasion, or
the respective chances of success of the two distinguished
gentlemen who may chance at that time to be in training with a
view of battering each other's heads until one concedes his claim
to the brutal "honors" of the prize ring.

No gentlemen of fashion and fortune are more expensively dressed
than these men; no class of people wear more finely stitched and
embroidered linen, more costly broadcloth, more showy golden
ornaments, or more brilliant diamonds; but for all, the man is
yet to be found who has ever seen one of them put his hand or his
brain to one single hour's honest work. Unsophisticated persons
are often puzzled to account for the apparently irreconcilable
circumstances of no work, and plenty of money, and in their
endeavors to invent a plausible hypothesis on the basis of
honesty, must ever be bewildered. The city man knows them at a
glance to be "sporting men."

This phrase is a particularly comprehensive one; the "sporting
man" is a gambler by profession, and therefore a swindler by
necessity, for an "honest gambler" would fill a niche in the
scale of created beings that has never yet been occupied; in
addition to this, nearly every sporting man is a thief whenever
opportunity offers. They probably would not pick a sober man's
pocket, or knock him down at night and take his watch and money,
for the risk of detection would be too great; but they are kept
from downright st