REGARD us forbearingly, generous and urbane reader; follow us
undaunted whither we go, nor charge us with tracing crime in a bad
cause. We will leave the old prison, the dejected inebriate, the
more curious group that surround him, and the tale of the destroyer
it develops, and escort you in our walk to the mansion of Madame
Flamingo, who is well known in Charleston, and commonly called the
Mother of Sin. It is a massive brick pile, situate in one of the
public thoroughfares, four stories high, with bold Doric windows,
set off with brown fluted freestone, and revealing faded red
curtains, overlain with mysterious lace, and from between the folds
of which, at certain hours of the day, languid and more mysterious
eyes may be seen peering cautiously. Madame Flamingo says (the city
fathers all know it) she has a scrupulous regard to taste, and
develops it in the construction of her front door, which is of black
walnut, fluted and carved in curious designs. In style it resembles
somewhat the doors of those fashionable churches that imitate so
closely the Italian, make good, paying property of fascinating pews,
and adopt the more luxurious way of getting to heaven (prayer-book
of gold in hand) reclining on velvet and satin damask.

The mansion of Madame Flamingo differs only in sumptuousness of
furniture from twenty others of similar character, dotted here and
there about the little city. Add to these the innumerable smaller
haunts of vice that line the more obscure streets-that,
rampart-like, file along the hundred and one "back lanes" that