23. “Black Sheep… Who Made the Night Hideous“
The authorities were largely powerless to do anything about the Christmas crime sprees and disorders. Understandably, respectable citizens back then condemned Christmas as a disgrace. Newspapers railed against “the drunken men and boys in the street” and the “black sheep … who made night hideous with Galathumpian doings“. In 1844, an editorial in the New York Ledger deplored the streets being overrun with a “riotous spirit … our city has almost daily been the theater of disorders which practically nullify civil government “.
Pressure from above finally led to the creation of modern police forces capable of effective crowd control. They kept the crime spree relatively controlled by keeping the celebrants out of the business districts and wealthy residential areas. Instead, they made sure that the Christmas rowdies confined their disorders to their working-class neighborhoods. Eventually, a cultural shift took the wild partying from holy Christmas, and made the secular New Year’s the time for cutting loose instead.