st inside the door, to the left. A group of
half-naked negroes lie insensible on the floor, to the right. A little
further on two prostrate females, shivering, and reeking of gin, sleep
undisturbed by the profanity that is making the very air resound. "The
gin gets a-many of us," is the mournful cry of many a wasting inebriate.
Mr. Krone, however, will tell you he has no sympathy with such cries.
You arraign, and perhaps punish, the apothecary who sells by mistake his
deadly drug. With a philosophical air, Mr. Krone will tell you he deals
out his poison without scruple, fills alms-houses without a pang of
remorse, and proves that a politician-maker may do much to degrade
society and remain in high favor with his friends of the bench of
justice. On one side of the dungeon-like place stands a rickety old
counter, behind which three savage-faced men stand, filling and serving
incessant potions of deleterious liquor to the miserable beings, haggard
and ragged, crowding to be first served. Behind the bar, or counter,
rises a pyramid of dingy shelves, on which are arranged little painted
kegs, labelled, and made bright by the glaring gas-light reflected upon
them. On the opposite side, on rows of slab benches, sit a group of
motley beings,--the young girl and the old man, the negro and the frail
white,--half sleeping, half conscious; all imbibing the stifling
draught.

Like revelling witches in rags, and seen through the bedimmed atmosphere
at the further end of the den, are half-frantic men, women, and girls,
now sitting at deal tables, playing for drinks, now jostling, jeering,
and profaning in wild disorder. A girl of sixteen, wasted and deformed
with dissipation, approaches Brother Spyke, extends her blanched hand,
and importunes him for gin. He shudders, and shrinks from her touch, as
from a reptile. A look of scorn, and she turns from him, and is lost
among the grotesque crowd in the distance.

"This gin," says Mr. Fitzgerald, turning methodically to Brother Spyke,
"they make do for food and clothing. We used to call this the devil's
paradise. As to Krone, we used to call him the devil's bar-tender. These
ragged revellers, you see, beg and steal during the day, and get gin
with it at night. Krone thinks nothing of it! Lord bless your soul, sir!
why, this man is reckoned a tip-top politician; on an emergency he can
turn up such a lot of votes!" Mr. Fitzgerald, approaching Mr. Krone,
says "you're a pretty fellow. Keeping