We do not claim, in what we have written, that the police of this city
are perfect, but we do maintain that they are better than those of any
other American city.




CHAPTER V.


SOCIETY.

In New York, poverty is a great crime, and the chief effort of every
man and woman's life, is to secure wealth. Society in this city is much
like that of other large American cities, except? that money is the
chief requisite here. In other cities poor men, who can boast of being
members of a family which commands respect for its talents or other
good qualities, or who have merit of their own, are welcomed into what
are called "select circles" with as much warmth as though they were
millionaires. In New York, however, men and women are judged by their
bank accounts. The most illiterate boor, the most unprincipled knave,
finds every fashionable door open to him without reserve, while St.
Peter himself, if he came "without purse or scrip," would see it closed
in his face. Money makes up for every deficiency in morals, intellect,
or demeanor.

Nor is this strange. The majority of fashionable people have never
known any of the arts and refinements of civilization except those
which mere wealth can purchase. Money raised them from the dregs of