midnight
Gentlemen of the genteel world , in shining broadcloth , touch glasses and answer -- `` yes ! '' It is a wonderful city-this of ours . Vice knows no restraint , poverty hath no friends here . We bow before the shrine of midnight revelry ; we bring licentiousness to our homes , but we turn a deaf ear to the cries of poverty , and we gloat over the sale of men . The sickly gaslight throws a sicklier glare over the narrow , unpaved streets . The city is on a frolic , a thing not uncommon with it . Lithe and portly-figured men , bearing dominos in their hands , saunter along the sidewalk , now dangling ponderous watch-chains , then flaunting highly-perfumed cambrics -- all puffing the fumes of choice cigars .