become
rich. Mr. Krone is an intimate friend of more than one Councilman, and a
man of much measure in the political world--that is, Mr. Krone is a
politician-maker. When you say there exists too close an intimacy
between the pugilist and the politician, Mr. Krone will bet twenty
drinks with any one of his customers that he can prove such doctrines at
fault. He can secure the election of his favorite candidate with the
same facility that he can make an hundred paupers per week. You may well
believe him a choice flower in the bouquet of the corporation; we mean
the corporation that banquets and becomes jubilant while assassins stab
their victims in the broad street--that becomes befogged while bands of
ruffians disgrace the city with their fiendish outrages--that makes
presidents and drinks whiskey when the city would seem given over to the
swell-mobsman--when no security is offered to life, and wholesale
harlotry, flaunting with naked arms and bared bosoms, passes along in
possession of Broadway by night.

It is the night succeeding the day Lady Swiggs discovered, at the house
of the Foreign Missions, the loss of her cherished donations. As this is
a world of disappointments, Lady Swiggs resigns herself to this most
galling of all, and with her Milton firmly grasped in her hand, may be
seen in a little room at Sister Scudder's, rocking herself in the
arm-chair, and wondering if Brother Spyke has captured the
robber-wretch. A chilly wind howls, and a drizzling rain falls thick
over the dingy dwellings of the Points, which, sullen and dark, seem in
a dripping mood. A glimmering light, here and there, throws curious
shadows over the liquid streets. Now the drenched form of some
half-naked and homeless being is reflected, standing shivering in the
entrance to some dark and narrow alley; then the half-crazed inebriate
hurries into the open door of a dismal cellar, or seeks eagerly a
shelter for his bewildered head, in some suspicious den. Flashing
through the shadow of the police lamp, in "Cow Bay," a forlorn female is
seen, a bottle held tightly under her shawl. Sailing as it were into the
bottomless pit of the house of the Nine Nations, then suddenly returning
with the drug, seeking the cheerless garret of her dissolute partner,
and there striving to blunt her feelings against the horrors of
starvation.

Two men stand, an umbrella over their heads, at the corner, in the glare
of the bottomless pit, which is in a blaze of