A benevolent desire to launch far and wide the already well-spread reputation of the New York rowdy impels the present writer to declare his conviction, that, should Physiology offer a premium for the production of a perfect and unmitigated specimen of polisson, Experience would seek for it among the choice representatives of the class in question,—­ay, and find it, too.  Nor would the ardor of search be chilled by the suggestion of scarcity conveyed in the practical sarcasm of the sly old cynic, when he scorched human nature with a horn lantern by instituting a search with it on the sun-bright highways for an unauthenticated type of man.  And yet the rowdy, like many another ugly and repulsive thing, may have his use.  In the East Indies, it is customary to keep a live turtle in the wayside water-tanks which are so precious in that thirsty land, the movements of the animal, as well as the industry with which it devours all noxious particles which chance may have conveyed into the waters, serving to keep them in a condition of purity and health.  The rowdy is the turtle in the tank,—­so far, at least, as being an ugly beast to look at and a great promoter of commotion,—­by which latter service he keeps the community alive to the presence of impure particles in the social element, if he does not assist in getting rid of them.  An alligator in an aquarium might furnish a better comparison for him in other respects.

Of this class there are many branches; but the one with which I have to deal at present is to be studied to most advantage by visiting some pier of the great river-frontage of New York, to which excursion-boats rush emulously at appointed hours, crossing and jostling each other with proper respect for their individual rights as free commoners of the well-tilled waters.  Here, as, with audacious disregard of the chance-medley of smashed guards and obliterated paddle-boxes, the great water-wagons graze wheels upon the ripple-paved turnpike of the river, the steamboat-runner, squalidly red from the effects of last night’s carouse, and reeking sensibly of the alcoholic “morning call,” may be recognized by the native manner in which he makes the pier peculiarly his own,—­by the inflammatory character—­which unremitting dissipation has imparted to the inhaling apparatus of his unclassical features,—­by the filthy splendor of his linen, which a low-buttoning waistcoat, gorgeous and dirty likewise, unbosoms disadvantageously to the gaze of the beholder,—­by the invariable “diamond” pin, of gift-book style, with which the juncture of the first-mentioned integument is effected, if not adorned,—­and, above all, by the massive guards and guy-chains with which his watch is hitched on to the belaying arrangements of Chatham Street garments, the original texture and tint of which have long been superseded by predominant grease.  Hand and elbow with the professional city-rowdy the steamboat-runner is ever to be found:  at the cribs, where the second-rate men of the “fancy”