Advice To Tourists:
Don't go wandering about the streets or parks unnecessarily in the evening. ... New York is one of the most crime-haunted and dangerous cities...
There are hundreds - thousands - of infernal rascals among our population; street boys, grown up into rowdies, and the brutal scum of vile city ignorance and filth; shoulder-hitters and thieves, expelled, some of them, from distant San Francisco, vomited back among us to practice their criminal occupations, who will sneak up behind you, or pretend drunkenness and run against you, or inquire the way, or the hour, and snatch your watch, or take you unawares...knock you on the head, and rob you before you can even cry out.
If you have evening errands, go circumspectly through respectable streets. If you are lost, ask a direction at a respectable store, or from the...policeman...
Walt Whitman 1856