New York

Chatham street begins at City Hall Place and ends at Chatham square. It is not over a fourth of a mile in length, and is narrow and dirty. It is taken up, principally, with Jews and low class foreigners. There are also some cheap hotels and lodging houses, several pawnbroker's shops, and half a dozen concert saloons in the street. The lowest class Jews abound in this quarter, and vile, filthy wretches they are. They deal in imitation jewelry, old clothes, and cheap clothing.

The city journals frequently contain such advertisements as the following:

"A TEST MEDIUM. - THE ORIGINAL MADAME F - - tells everything, traces absent friends, losses, causes speedy marriages, gives lucky numbers. Ladies fifty cents; gentlemen, one dollar. 464 - - th Avenue."

The New York correspondent of a provincial journal, recently published the following excellent sketch of the lottery business as practiced in this city.

The principal reformatory establishments of New York city are the Penitentiary, on Blackwell's Island, and the House of Refuge, devoted to juvenile criminals, on Randall's Island.

                     THE PENITENTIARY.

New York stands at the head of all American cities in the excellence and extent of its system of public education. It has one free college, fifty-five ward or grammar schools, forty primary schools, and ten colored schools. The ward schools are divided into three departments, primary, male, and female, and the others into two, one for each sex. The buildings are generally of brick, tastefully trimmed with freestone or granite, and are amongst the handsomest in the city. They are commodious, and in every respect equal to the demand upon them. The rooms are large, airy, and neat.

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.

There are more than two thousand persons in the city of New York, who make their living by conducting gift enterprises. These schemes have various names, but are conducted substantially on the same plan.

                     THE SYSTEM.

In a city so vast as New York, one of the greatest considerations is to provide ample means for rapid and sure passage from one part of the corporate limits to another. Persons who live at the upper end of the island cannot think of walking to their places of business or labor. To say nothing of the loss of time they would incur, the fatigue of such a walk would unfit nine out of ten for the duties of the day. For this reason all the lines of travel in the City are more or less crowded every day.

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.