The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1901-07-25
Vol. XV.-No. l.
.zzzz !: HE BOWERY. q
**xxx u SECOND PAPER
SECOND PAPER.

~ NE of the sights which calls
forth the wonder of the
~ Bowery visitor perhaps more
than any other is the number
of pawnbrokers, lodging houses and
saloons that are compressed into such
small space. No other street in this
country can show One-half the number
of saloons and lodging houses in the
same amount of space; multiply four
teen by ten and your result will be too
short rather than too great. The two
industries are usually combined under
one name, whether the proprietor of
the saloon has any interest in the
lodging house or not. This is done to
evade the Raines law, which allows no
free lunch to be provided or liquor to
be sold on Sunday except by hotels.
Consequently every few feet the visitor
finds himself staring at gorgeous
sign bearing some such fanciful en-
blem as this:
The Senate Hotel
5, 10 and Is cents.
Baths, Hot and Cold, Free.
The Whitehouse hotel offers the weary
bed, coffee and roll, breakfast and
bath, all for the magnificent sum of
10 cents, and just beneath the hotel
sign is board bearing the inscription,
Hotel Bar.
On entering one CT these saloons on
Sunday you will, if unknown to the
walters, have placed before you plate
of dry bread, nothing more; then you
may call for your liquid refreshments.
Under the law no liquor can be sold on
Sunday unless it be accompanied by
food, and should the waiter fail to
place the bread before one unknown, the
proprietor might find himself before a
magistrate the following morning and
perhaps have his license revoked, as
the reform society agent, or "Mugs," as
they are called locally, are constantly
seeking to catch someone mapping.
With perhaps a dozen exceptions, the
saloons or dumps" on the Bowery are
the lowest and cheapest of dives. All
drinks are five cents, from wine, so
called, to beer, though quite a number
retail everything at cents per drink
OF what ingredients they are composed
the maker alone knows, but about
"three fingers of Bowery whisky will
knock any ordinary man higher than a
kite, though the old topper whose
sinnards" would make sole leather
manages to dispose of a vast quantity
of the stuff before showing its effects.
Like everything else. it's easy after
you are used to it.
The majority of these GROCERIES are
dark, low ceilinged rooms, Is or 100
feet in length by about 30 in width,
and are filled with small tables and
chairs, and of an evening are filled to
overflowing by both sexes, laughing,
singing and dancing to the accompani-
ment of an over-thumped piano. Old
men and young men, young girls and
old women, dirty, ragged and unclean,
engaged in getting all the sport there
is in life while it lasts; free and gay
today for tomorrow may see them
beginning term in the workhouse on
"Larry's" island.
The men are generally of the "Pan-
handler" class or those who work for
starvation wages and have no other
way of amusement. The women are
poor, forlorn outcasts, having neither
friends or home. The Bowery is the
place for some of the missionary and
aid societies to work, instead of collect
ing money for the so-called heaten in
foreign lands, of whom we know
nothing, never saw and never expect