The Price of Blood

An Extravaganza of New York Life in 1807

(1899)

INTRODUCTION:

In the year 1807 New York was grown to be a city of no small

pretension to an extremely cosmopolitan cast of society. Being a

seaport of considerable importance and of great conveniency to foreign

immigration, it had even before this become a favorite haven for

itinerant visitors from European countries, who for reasons best

known to themselves did not find it to fit their inclinations to

remain at home. These people, being received into the society of the

most exclusive and particular fashion of the town, soon lent to the

community a tone characteristic of the manners and customs of European

centres of civilization.

Could the reader have been introduced into our American city at this

period of its history, he might easily have flattered himself that

he was in London or Paris. Or could he have stood upon Courtlandt

Street corner, and have beheld young gentlemen of style dressed in

the latest English mode or the young ladies gay with red hats and red

shawls worn la Fran**** passing in review upon their evening

promenade, he might have believed himself to have been transported into

a community composed of both those European cities. Madame Bouchard,

the mantua-maker upon Courtlandt Street, vied in public favor with Mrs.

Toole, the English woman, whose shop upon Broadway had for so long been

the particular emporium of fashionable feminine adornment. Fashionable

bucks, who could afford to do so, drank nothing but Imperial champagne

at Dodge's; and young ladies who aspired to the highest flash of ton

made it a point to converse in French from the boxes of the theatres

between the acts of Mr. Cooper's performances. Monsieur Duport taught

dancing to young people of quality at twenty-five dollars a quarter,

and the French waltz and the English contra-dance divided the favor of

the most r****** assemblies.

So much as this has been told with a certain particularity that the

author may better invite the confidence of the discerning reader; for

otherwise it might cause him some misgivings to accept with entire

assurity the fact that a deposed East India Rajah should secretly have

maintained his court in an otherwise unoccupied house on Broadway, and

it might shock his sense of the credible to accept the statement that

an Oriental Potentate should have been able successfully to pursue

his vengeance against the authors of his undoing in so unexpected a

situation as the town of New York afforded.

It is with so much a preface as this that the author invites his reader

to embark with him upon the following narrative, which, though it

may at times appear a little strange and out of the ordinary course

of events, may yet lead the thoughtful mind to consider how easy it

is for the innocent to become entangled in a fate which in no wise

concerns him, and for the discreet to become enveloped in a network of

circumstances which he himself has had no part in framing.

Accordingly, while the frivolous may easily read this serious story

for the sake of entertainment, the sober and more sedate reader will

doubtless carry away with him the moral of the discourse which the

author would earnestly point out for his consideration.