Gallus Mag, The Most Brutal Bouncer in 1860s New York

Popular New York City bouncer Gallus Mag in an undated photo. (Source)

May perhaps 1, 2022 ~ By Shari Rose

Through the 1860s and 1870s, Gallus Magazine was a distinguished bouncer in New York City’s Fourth Ward neighborhood with a fierce status for brutally beating rowdy clients and even trying to keep their severed ears as trophies. 

Gallus Magazine At The Hole-In-The-Wall

All over the 19th century, lots of neighborhoods in New York Metropolis that housed European immigrants ended up really impoverished. With cramped dwelling situations in tenement structures and very little entry to first rate wages, criminal offense flourished and risky gangs became an integral part of everyday lifetime in neighborhoods like the Fourth Ward and 5 Points. 

Previous area of the Hole-In-The-Wall bar in New York. (Source)

Hole-In-The-Wall was a well-known bar on Dover Avenue where gang users typically visited to have a consume. Gallus Mag worked as a bouncer for this establishment in the late 1860s. As a 6-foot-tall English female armed with equally a pistol and bludgeon, Gallus Mag was a formidable adversary to any gang member who threatened her or the staff members at the bar. 

In accordance to Herbert Asbury’s 1928 reserve, “The Gangs of New York,” she was “an extraordinary virtuoso in the artwork of mayhem.” Gallus Magazine was brief to defeat unruly customers with her bludgeon and drag them by their ears out the doorway. Often, she fully little bit the ears off rowdy patrons, a great deal to the delight of the regulars at Hole-In-The-Wall. It’s thought she stored a mason jar loaded with alcoholic beverages and the severed ears of earlier customers powering the bar as a warning towards long run issues-generating.

Gallus Mag and Sadie The Goat

In Asbury’s novel, Gallus Magazine crosses paths with a different challenging lady of the period recognized as Sadie the Goat. Like Mag, Sadie was properly-accustomed to the difficult problems of the Fourth Ward and did not move down from a fight. In just no time, they entered into an argument that shortly escalated into an all-out brawl. During the struggle, it is considered that Gallus Magazine bit off Sadie’s ear and positioned it into her mason jar. 

Gallus Mag in New York. (Resource)

Even though her genuine name is Margaret Perry, there are distinctive theories as to how Gallus Mag been given her well known nickname. 1 holds that she normally wore suspenders, or “galluses.” Yet another contends that gallus refers to her character, that means she was rather boisterous, identical to someone who would thumb out their suspenders when having a daring stance on an concern.   

Following the operator of Gap-In-The-Wall, Charley Monell, was sent to prison for assault with intent to eliminate, Mag set her sights in other places. She and her partner, John, owned a saloon jointly for a number of several years till the mid 1870s. Because of to her reputation in town, the establishment was affectionately known as “Gallus Mag’s.”

Not like Sadie the Goat, Gallus Magazine has a historic file that proves she was a serious particular person of this era who worked in multiple saloons in Manhattan. Even so, there are no police reviews that point out her proclivity to chunk off the ears of her victims, however there is enough proof of her obtaining concerned in lots of fights. 

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