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Show ROWDYISM. IMMORALITY. DRINKING. Rowdyism and drinking were com ! mon sixty years ago. That is Dr. i Lyman Abbott's statement in an ar-1 , tide tending to prove that the people j of New York are more moral today1 I than at earlier periods in our histon ! I In his recollections of New York, ap-j ap-j pearing in The Outlook, he says. "I do not think that I am mistaken I in believing that the moral standards in 1850 were lower than they are In 1913. I can remember when A. T. Stewart introduced the one-price system sys-tem In retail stores, and how great Ian Innovation it was. Drinking and I j drunkenness were common Thoi Washlngtonlan movement had aboi- lnhed drinking from ministers" meet-1 ings. but not from social parlors. On I New Year's day the old Dutch cus tom was ptlll kept up. thc ladles kept 1 open house, the men paid In one day , their formal calls for the year. Cake and wine were the easiest things I for a hostess to serve By G o'clock one fully expected to sec well-dressed gentlemen not only reeling in the j streets, but also showing by their un steady gait and their loosened j tongues in parlor? the evidence of , their excess. Drunkennes was not j then the bad form which I judge it I to be In practically all social centers I today Streetwalkers were much more in evidence than they are to-, to-, day. The upper gallery of the thea- tres was reserved for them, where they mlRht ply their trade, and no woman was allowed upon the first floor or in the first gallery of moat theatres without being accompanied by a man as a guarantee of respectability. respecta-bility. Police conditions were at least no better thau they are now probably worse." i Dr. Abbotts father left a descrip j tion of New York in 1843. from which the following l8 a quotation: "The disorders of ruffianism has grown between 1800 and 1840 to an alarming extent. As soon as the stores were shut rowdies bean to I congregate at street corners and i about the low hntl and grOggeiiei The most ptai. cable paaserb could I : not hope to escape their insults, not always their violence. Broadway was so Infested that no person could pass through It after nightfall with safety. A more ehametul, though less dangerous dan-gerous disturbance was created by the disorderly women who thronged the thoroughfares and carried on their infamous traffic with utter shamelessless. insulting almost every passerb with their obscene jests, their horrible profanity, and their loud, boisterous songs and laughter." The improved conditions of today I no doubt come from better police ser I vice and a greater demand for law enforcement. Our large cities lu j 1840 were but overgrown town6, with the rowdyism of the unpoliced town J increased in proportion to population. I There are fpw villages today en-i en-i tirely free from the offensive acts of hoodlums, and were our cities as I poorly policed as they were long I prior to the Civil war we would have j a repetition, though in smaller de-: de-: gree, of the rowdyism described by I the senior AbbotL Looking back, wo can be thankful that the American people hae gotten got-ten away from the old democracy which so disliked interference with personal liberty as to make possible all kinds of abuses of personal rights. |