The Dangerous Classes, Then and Now

New Yorkers are no strangers to crime. In 1832, returning from a particularly raucous July 4 celebration, Philip Hone complained bitterly about the decline of the city of which he had once been mayor: “Squibs [firecrackers] were thrown with a perfect indifference to life and property, while ill-mannered boys shouted about the glories of a Republic.” He concluded that it “would take a Napoleon or a Caesar” to govern New York effectively. A decade later, George Templeton...