A good citizen going through the neighbourhood after dark was sure to be assaulted, beaten, and probably robbed.

Nightly the air was filled with the sound of brawling.

Wretchedness, drunkenness, and suffering stalked abroad.

There were such rookeries as Cow Bay and Murderer's Alley, the latter of which continued to exist, though its sinister glory had long since departed, until fifteen or twenty years ago.

The lodging houses of the section were underground, without ventilation, without windows, overrun with rats and vermin.
For diversion the miserable denizens of the quarter sought the near-by Bowery, with its brilliantly lighted drinking dens, its concert halls, where negro minstrelsy was featured, and its theatres where the plays were immoral comedies or melodramas glorifying the exploits of picturesque criminals.