The Bozeman weekly chronicle. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1883-1889, 1886-04-14
IN A LITTLE STREET.
Phase of New York Life Not Seen
Through the Windows.
fEpoafaI COrTaupODdapaal

Through the Windows.
Especial Correspondence.l
NEW YORK, April 5.-My passion has al
ways been to study all the phases of the So
ciety of great city. Isay phases, not strata,
for society, / think, is one, and each of us is,
in degree, responsible for the vices of our
Reighbors, and more agreeable thought has
a share in their virtues. | have spent many
years in this study and my success has been
rs great as that of the minnow that tried to
devour a whale
Yet have mixed more or less with every
large set in New York except that most ex-
elusive of all, the professional criminals. 1t
is hard for anyone not criminal or a Grim
inal lawyer to force his way into this set,
which, judged by the lest which is usually
applied in such cases, must be composed of
our very best society.
The study of the society of large city has
q much keener interest when united with the
study of the development of mankind from
savagery to such civilization as they have
thus far reached. The most useful handbooks
of the latter study are the tables prepared at
50 great expense under the direction of Her
bert Spencer. Strangely enough our own
native races span a large arc in this growth,
and give America what, until recently, she
never dreamed of possessing, an important
place in the real history of mankind
In these parallel studies / began with
theory that / have never seen any strong
reasons for changing OF adhering to, that in
every large city you find survivals from
every stage of growth through which man.
kind has passed.
Perhaps as agreeable way as any other of
studying a city is TO take each street and re-
gard it as an individual, though this method
is subject to the objection that death viii
overtake you before you have got half way
through one sgeet, or indeed one house.
Thorough people, therefore, had best begin
with a short street, and of short streets l
know of none where the moralist, sociologist
and artist will find more food for thought
and fancy than in Ann street, the little street
that runs east from The Herald building
This street is one of the centers of the fal1irs
the small street peddlers-and the rag
dealers trade; and is the Wall street of the
down town gamblers
This last class, who form . sort Of natural
aristocracy in the region dominated by the
Rocky Mountains, are looked upon with less
favor in the east Though their standard of
morals is somewhat higher than that of
stock brokers, they have never been held so
uIuCn dDON6 tHe1ll. lucy now
ever, fail to be of interest to the student, for
they are clearly surviyals of the period when
men first began to worship changeless num-
beTs. Most of them are martyrs to the creed
of Pythagoras.
Press through the crowd Of bunco steerers,
bootblacks, mudlarks, guttersnipes and news
boys that block up your way and enter one of
the narrow passageways ON either side of Ann
Whoka nj nh
you have passed the iron-barred gate! You
see club room with roulette table and a
faro bank in opposite corners If it is about
2 or 3 In the afternoon you are asked to par
take of an excellent dinner
What Is the strange fascination of the
green cloth! It is hard for mathematician
TO understand it, for very slight knowledge
Of fractions proves that player would save
a great deal of time by throwing his green
backs into the fire.
But you wish to dig beneath the surface of
this smiling scene You pick out the most
courteous of the devotees around the gaming
tables, and ask Uncle ST to play for you
He translates your S. bill into ten blue chips;
he places half of them ON the corner of the
ace, to take in the trey; they double, and dis
appear Somehow you can't help noticing
what becomes of them. The other five double
once, twice. "Call turn" cries the dealer;
''four for one, gentlemen" Alas, your little
fortune is again swept away
Uncle 81 shrugs his shoulders as you offer
him cigar, and begins to retail the current
gossip of the place As he goes on the air
seems to grow denser, the gentlemen standing
around the tables grow spectral You begin
to realize that the inferno is moral place.
and that you are there There is the wheel
Of Ixion there is the river of Tantalus, the
stone Of But not so fast. What is Uncle
81 sayinga He smiles as be sees how inter
ested you are. His smile is marred by the
absence Of four front teeth. These teeth he
lost in a singular manner. He was drinking
glass Of hot rum punch when large bet,
the last of many such, went against him.
Click! In his frenzy he bit piece from the
glass at the cost of four incisors.
As Uncle 81 sees that you are to be trusted,
and have still a wad Of greenbacks in your
vest pocket, he grows more and more conf
dential This bank, it seems, is owned by a
janitor, who grew rich in the employment of
two old brothers, who used, year after year,
to stare at each other across a large ma
hogany table in their Office in Wall street
The janitor is well known for the severity of
his morals and his contributions to charities,
but he keeps one little corner Uf his life sacred
to Mammon Square gamer aOh, per
fectly square for small sums. Which is
true eneugh that is for sums smaller than
the smallest stake which they allow you to
play.
aSee," says Uncle 81, pointing to man be
side whom an Egyptian mummy would look
like a rosy-cheeked country lad, and who wan
ders about with one chip in his hand like a
hen with one chicken @There is Brown; he's
strange fellow They call him Brown be-
cause he always plays on the queen. He has
a system, ON which be has spent some $20,000
and the best part of his life in trying to
out. See, he is playing his chip open
oa tHE->- If anyone speaks to him before
fksSe 'sion Brown viii snatch up his
bet ana Sc. roundly he thinks y
sps1.e lIis lack s
AosF does BE Isen
e pays 81 me Fl ands g ms
food a fafu hAnhs iSsy call
sboarder
With that Unole ke ss
reporter. gives - ~
special vocabulary of bls
that of the saElor, tue richest IL anv nrofes
sion He tails yea what elunker IS, q cold
and frnzan dael eass cari, snaksd ron-
suNsaeIS
gssal ss,lLl6a o4 lloas5IIs ItI II
aI.easas al spss s93H9s 20 aHH
/ feel flle "a reality fllaE her so gafalf II
viii be heard no more. May the bene
diction Of saactifed grief be ours, as w
/ oipa mr. krnaqllro hack "a Him who said