hop at a
time, and warn all whom he saw going in, and to follow up all complaints
to the utmost until that shop was closed, when he laid siege to another.
Various offers of money, direct and indirect, were made him. One fellow
offered him $500 to walk on the other side of the street. Another
offered him $1,000 to drop the undertaking. Another hinted at a regular
salary of hush-money, saying "he had now got these fellows where he
could make as much out of them as he wanted to, right along."

Sometimes they threatened him with "murder and sudden death." Several
times they got out an injunction upon him, and several times sued him
for slander. One of their complaints charged, with ludicrous hypocrisy,
that the defendant, "with malicious intent, stood round the door
uttering slanderous charges against the good name, fame, and credit of
the defendant," just as foolish old lawyers used to argue that "the
greater the truth the greater the libel." Sometimes they argued and
indignantly denounced. One of them told him, "he was a thief and a
murderer, driving men out of employment whose wives and children
depended on their business for support."

Another contended that their business was just as fair as that of the
stock-operators in Wall street. I fear that wasn't making out much of a
case.

But their threats were idle; their suits, and prosecutions, and
injunctions, never came to a head; their bribes did not operate. The
officer, imperturbably good-natured, but horribly diligent, watched, and
warned, and hunted, and complained, and squeezed back their money at the
rate of $500 or $1,000 every month, until they were perfectly sickened.
One by one they shut up shop. One went to his farm, another to his
merchandise, another to emigrant running, another (known by the elegant
surname of Blur-eye Thompson) to raising recruits, several into the
bounty jumping business.

Such was the life and death of an outrageous humbug and nuisance, whose
like was not to be found in any other city on earth; and would not have
been endured in any except this careless, money-getting, misgoverned one
of New York.

CHAPTER XXI.

LOTTERY SHARKS.--BOULT AND HIS BROTHERS.--KENNETH, KIMBALL AND
COMPANY.--A MORE CENTRAL LOCATION WANTED FOR BUSINESS.--TWO
SEVENTEENTHLIES.--STRANGE COINCIDENCE.

I have before me a mass of letters, printed and lithographed circulars,
and the like, which illustrate well two or three of the most foolish and
vicio