KIT BURNS'S.
Having given the reader a description of the "Wickedest Man in New
York," we must now introduce him to Mr. Christopher Burns, or, as he is
familiarly called, Kit Burns, the compeer of the noted John Allen.
In walking through Water street, you will notice a plain brick
building, rather neater in appearance than those surrounding it. The
lower part is painted green, and there is a small gas lamp before the
door. The number, 273, is very conspicuous, and you will also notice
the words over the door, rather the worse for exposure to the weather,
"_Kit Burns_" "_Sportsman's Sail_".
The ostensible business of Kit Burns, is that of a tavern keeper, and
it is said that his house is well kept for one of its class. The bar
does a thriving business, and is well stocked with the kind of liquor
used in Water street.
Attached to the tavern, however, are the principal attractions of the
place to those who frequent it. These are the rat and dog pits.
THE RAT PIT.
Rats are plentiful along the East River, and Burns has no difficulty in
procuring as many as he desires. These and his dogs furnish the
entertainment, in which he delights. The principal room of the house is
arranged as an amphitheatre. The seats are rough wooden benches, and in
the centre is a ring or pit, enclosed by a circular wooden fence,
several feet high. A number of rats are turned into this pit, and a dog
of the best ferret stock is thrown in amongst them. The little creature
at once falls to work to kill the rats, bets being made that she will
destroy so many rats in a given time. The time is generally "made" by
the little animal, who is well known to, and a great favorite with, the
yelling blasphemous wretches who line the benches. The performance is
greeted with shouts, oaths, and other frantic demonstrations of
delight. Some of the men will catch up the dog in their arms, and press
it to their bosom in a frenzy of joy, or kiss it as if it were a human
being, unmindful or careless of the fact that all this while the animal
is smeared with the blood of its victims. The scene is disgusting
beyond description.
[Illustration: A Dog Fight at Kit Burn's]
THE DOG FIGHTS.
Kit Burns is very proud of his dogs, and his cellar contains a
collection of the fiercest and most frightfully hideous animals to be
found in America. They are very docile with their owner, and seem
really fond of him. They are well fed and carefully tended, for they
are a source of great profit to their owner.
Notice is given that at such a time there will be a dog fight at
"Sportsman's Hall," and when that time arrives the roughs and bullies
of the neighborhood crowd the benches of the amphitheatre. A more
brutal, villainous-looking set it would be hard to find. They are more
inhuman in appearance than the dogs.
Two huge bull-dogs, whose keepers can hardly restrain them, are placed
in the pit, and the keeper or backer of each dog crouches in his place,
one on the right hand, the other on the left, and the dogs in the
middle. At a given signal, the animals are released, and the next
moment the combat begins. It is simply sickening. Most of our readers
have witnessed a dog fight in the streets. Let them imagine the animals
surrounded by a crowd of brutal wretches whose conduct stamps them as
beneath the struggling beasts, and they will have a fair idea of the
scene at Kit Burns's.
THE REVIVAL AT KIT BURN'S.
During the summer of 1868, while the Water street revival was going on
at John Allen's, the parties conducting the movement endeavored to
induce Kit Burns to join them. He refused all their offers, and at last
they hired his rat pit at a high price, for the purpose of using it for
religious services for one hour in each day. This was done, and the
meetings held therein were sadly disgraceful to the cause of
Christianity. We take the following account of one of these meetings
from the _New York World_, our apology for intruding it, being our
desire to present a truthful picture.
The Water street prayer-meetings are still continued. Yesterday at
noon a large crowd assembled in Kit Burns's liquor shop, very few of
whom were roughs. The majority seemed to be business men and clerks,
who stopped in to see what was going on, in a casual manner. In a few
minutes after twelve o'clock the pit was filled up very comfortably,
and Mr. Van Meter made his appearance and took up a position here he
could address the crowd from the centre of the pit, inside the
barriers. The roughs and dry goods clerks piled themselves up as high
as the roof, tier after tier, and a sickening odor came from the dogs
and debris of rats' bones under the seats.
Kit stood outside, cursing and damning the eyes of the missionaries
for not hurrying up.
Kit said, 'I'm d----d if some of the people that come here oughtn't to
be clubbed. A fellow 'u'd think that they had niver seen a dog-pit
afore. I must be d----d good-looking to have so many fellows looking at
me.'
Inside, the exhortations were kept up to fever heat. In a little
gallery above the pit, not more than four feet from the dirty ceiling,
there were half a dozen faded and antiquated women, who kept chorus to
the music of the Heavenly Jerusalem, as follows:
'To God, the mighty Lord
Your joyful thanks repeat;
To him due praise afford,
As good as he is great.
For God does prove
Our constant friend;
His boundless love
Shall never end-a-a-h.'
'That's what I call singing the bloody gospil. The man that wrote that
ballad was no slouch,' cried out George Leese, alias 'Snatchem,' one of
the worst scoundrels in New York, who is now in the saving path of
grace. As a beastly, obscene ruffian, 'Snatchem' never had his equal in
America, according to his own account. The writer has seen this fellow
at prize fights, with a couple of revolvers in his belt, engaged in the
disgusting office of sucking blood from the wild beasts who had ceased
to pummel each other for a few seconds. This man, with his bulging,
bulbous, watery-blue eyes, bloated red face, and coarse swaggering
gait, has been notorious for years in New York. The police are well
acquainted with him, and he is proud of his notoriety.
'Snatchem' asked our reporter if he ever saw such 'a-rough and-tumble-
stand-up-to-be knocked-down son of a gun as he in his life.'
Did you ever see such a kicking-in-the-head-knife-in-a dark-room fellow
as I am, eh?'
Our reporter meekly answered 'no.'
I want a quarter-stretch ticket to go to glory, I do. I can go in
harness preaching the bloody gospil against any minister in New York. I
know all Watts' Hymns and Fistiana, and I'd like to be an angel and
bite Gabriel's ear off.'
A man got upon one of the benches in the pit and commenced to preach in
a frenzy to the crowd. He related his experience as a gambler at
several gambling houses in Ann street and on Broadway. He told very
affecting stories about young men who bought stacks of chips and were
afterwards reduced to their bottom dollar and misery.
The minister asked 'if any one present was in need of his prayer, or of
water from the Jordan to wash out his sins, to let him hold up his
hand.'
George Leese did so. 'He wanted all the water he could get from the
Jordan or any other river.'
A man who announced that his name was Sam Irving, and had been a great
scoundrel and dog-fighter, said he used to go to Harry Jenning's; to
Butler's, in Ninth Avenue; to McLaughlin's, in First Avenue; and to Kit
Burns's, to see dogs fight and snarl at each other; he went to Ireland
once to bring over a fighting-dog; the man who gave him that dog came
to a terrible end by his own hand. The speaker had been reared in sin
and shame; he had known the life of the streets; but now Jesus had
grabbed him where he lived, and he was going to do better. He wanted
every one to take warning by him. They could get Christ as well as him.
The prayer-meeting ended by the singing of the Doxology.