Edward Winslow Martin

Thieves are numerous in New York. As a general rule, they herd together in the worst quarters of the city - in the Five Points and along East River - where they can rapidly and easily communicate with each other, and where they can hide from the police without fear of discovery. There are many blunderers in the fraternity, but there are also many experienced hands, who do a great deal of damage, and give a world of trouble to the authorities. These are generally well known to the police.

The harbor of New York comprises the Hudson or North River on the west side of the island, the East River on the east side, and the inner bay lying between the mouth of the Hudson and the Narrows. Beyond the Narrows is the lower bay, which is little more than an arm of the sea, though the anchorage is good and secure.

Those employment agencies whose advertisements may be daily seen in our city papers, are well exposed in the following experience of a young man in want of a situation.

Street musicians in New York are as plentiful as the leaves in Vallambrosa. One cannot walk two blocks in the entire City, without hearing from one to half a dozen street instruments in full blast. A few of the instruments are good and in perfect tune, but the majority emit only the most horrible discord.

                     THE ORGAN GRINDERS.

As we have said before, land for building purposes is very high and scarce in New York. In consequence of this, dwellings rent here for more than in other American cities. The laying off of the Central Park was a decided benefit to the city and its inhabitants, but the blessing had also its accompanying evil. It reduced the "house room" of the island by eight hundred acres, which would have afforded comfortable accommodations for seventy-two thousand persons, and naturally crowded the lower quarters of the city to a still greater extent.

Strangers coming to New York should always be on the watch for pickpockets, and even natives are not careful enough in this respect. Picking pockets has been reduced to a science here, and is followed by many persons as a profession. It requires long practice and great skill, but these, when once acquired, make their possessor a dangerous member of the community. Women, by their lightness of touch and great facility in manipulating their victims, make the most dangerous operators in the city.

Many years ago a sharp-witted scamp appeared in one of the European countries, and offered for sale a pill, which he declared to be a sure protection against earthquakes. Absurd as was the assertion, he sold large quantities of his nostrum, and grew rich on the proceeds. The credulity which enriched this man, is still a marked characteristic of the human race, and often strikingly exhibits itself in this country.