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down.                           God bless all the girls!
  22.  Monday.  Writing, chores and sick
continuous headache, unfitting me for anything.  Out
for a walk down Broadway at 4 P. M.  [Phonography] in
the evening.     Sick and sad and tired.
  I have had in my possession for the past week
or so, two piles of letters written by girls of the
town to Cahill and Gun, who severally have hand-
ed them to me for perusal.     They afford curious
insight into a side of life oftener depicted in conven-
tional than truthful colors; of which, too, facts
are hard to come at and proportionately valuable.
Men familiar with such are commonly not of the
capacity to offer them, if loose-souled enough
to talk freely.     These letters, in conjunction with
what I have heard from their recipients, as from
the Arnolds, Sears and Tracy, give me at second
hand, information they have paid a dearer price
for.    So now for them.           The first and
smaller batch ^|were| written to Cahill by Isabella
Clemo, of �Bella� as she commonly signs herself.
Like her companion she is a mulatto or colored
girl, said to be very pretty.   Both are at the present
time inmates of a brothel at the corner of Broome
and Wooster Streets.    Sears has succeeded Cahill
in his connection with �Bella�, as he preceded
Gun with his mistress.             Well, this Bella�s
letters, thirteen in number, directed to Bleecker