PREFACE

Broadway—that over-lighted part of it,
of which I write—changes faster than the
main street of a mining town. Its festiv¬
ities, scandals, shootings, shows, celebrities,
and above all its favourite resorts, flicker
across the surface of the year like moving
pictures on a wide-spread sheet. What was
written of it last year, last week, or yester¬
day, cannot be correct to-day, in detail. I
therefore attempt nothing more, in the fol¬
lowing pages, than a picture of the Spirit
of Broadway.

The second paper in this book—Lobster
Palace Society—^was written some three
years ago, and has to-day a sort of archseo-
logical value. Remark the changes that
have come, since then! Martin's, at Madi¬
son Square, is gone forever; a skyscraper