OF OLD NEW YORK

collection of autographs for unpaid supper bills in the
records of the "Rialto."

Extremes met on this same "Rialto," or if not, they
faced each other, for on the east side of Broadway, op¬
posite the Metropolitan Opera, there throve, for a num¬
ber of years, in a one-story tumble-down shanty a Ger¬
man bar which served, in addition to its liberal potations
of lager, sundry substantial viands at what would be,
to-day, regarded as mythical prices. Here many impe¬
cunious player-folk found succor from famine and
drought to the eventual enrichment of "Meinherr" and
his "Frau," who presided over the mysteries of pig's-
knuckles and sauerkraut.

Few of the old landmarks remain. Broadway below
Forty-second Street retains not a vestige of its old sport¬
ing and theatrical character. Great commercial struc¬
tures have replaced the haunts of the actor, the pugilist
and the turfman. Gone is the Thespian who "knocked
'em cold" in Council Bluffs. Gone the wire-tapper and
the tout with the "good thing" in the third race. Gone
the card shap, the billiard sharp, and divers others whose
exceeding sharpness was no match for the scythe of time.
Swarms of industrial workers now tread the stones they
trod, and the roar of "Big Business" has drowned the
last faint echoes of an earlier and more festive day.
 

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