The larger number of these little girls emerge from their hiding-places about eleven o'clock in the morning. Their hiding-places may have been a hotel, an assignation house, their parents' homes, some hallway, the News Girls' Lodging House, resorts in North William, Bayard, Hester, New Bowery, or any other street in which cheap rooms can be obtained. It is not to be presumed that all news-girls are bad; on the contrary, many are very good, respectable little things, but a few only remain so, for their associations are bad, and many men who purchase papers from them are constantly tempting them, so that it is very difficult for any of them to remain good for any length of time.
Be that as it may, however, the news girl in this case arrives down-town about noon. She strolls down among the brokers and bankers, and in many cases is winked at, conversed with and asked to visit different offices, which invitation is generally accepted, for a little money is to be made by the call, with which the afternoon papers are purchased. Sometimes the selling of papers is merely a pretext under which a better opportunity is afforded of conversing with men. The papers are hawked in saloons, upon the streets, in cars, and other places. If any one should chance to buy a paper and offers a nickel, the girl invariably has no change; when the purchaser, nine times out of ten, tells her to keep the change. They are extremely shrewd, smart, intelligent and wide awake.
Their papers all sold, about nine or ten o'clock at night they saunter up Chatham street, the Bowery and other thoroughfares; or, if it is the summer season, they will be found in the City Hall park, playing, sitting on the benches, or accosting passing pedestrians. The Battery, too, has its frequenters, and the piers and docks at night are crowded with them. This life they pursue until they engage regularly in a life of shame, by becoming regular boarders in some one of the many dives in the cellars of Chatham street, the houses of prostitution in Forsyth, Hester, Canal, Bayard and other streets. Or, again, they may be found in the various pretty-waiter-girl saloons of the Bowery, or such notorious resorts as Hilly McGlory's, Owney Geoghegan's, and so on. The public parks, however, are favorite places, and they may be found even in Union Square and Madison Square, and sometimes in Central Park. They enjoy themselves, too, for they are often seen on picnics in summer and at balls during the winter. They have their favorites among the opposite sex, too, just as have more favored and aristocratic females. For the love of one of these little girls--Mary Maguire--a member of the notorious Mackerelville gang met a tragic end, at the hands of a jealous rival in City Hall park, by being stabbed to death. Little Mary was only fourteen years of age. She was afterwards sent to the House of the Good Shepherd.