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

Popular New York Town bouncer Gallus Mag in an undated photograph. (Source)

May perhaps 1, 2022 ~ By Shari Rose

Through the 1860s and 1870s, Gallus Mag was a prominent bouncer in New York City’s Fourth Ward community with a intense reputation for brutally beating rowdy prospects and even trying to keep their severed ears as trophies. 

Gallus Magazine At The Gap-In-The-Wall

All over the 19th century, several neighborhoods in New York Metropolis that housed European immigrants had been really impoverished. With cramped residing disorders in tenement buildings and very little entry to good wages, crime flourished and harmful gangs turned an integral section of each day daily life in neighborhoods like the Fourth Ward and Five Factors. 

Former locale of the Gap-In-The-Wall bar in New York. (Supply)

Hole-In-The-Wall was a popular bar on Dover Avenue exactly where gang users generally frequented to have a consume. Gallus Mag worked as a bouncer for this institution in the late 1860s. As a 6-foot-tall English woman armed with the two a pistol and bludgeon, Gallus Magazine was a formidable adversary to any gang member who threatened her or the staff at the bar. 

In accordance to Herbert Asbury’s 1928 e book, “The Gangs of New York,” she was “an incredible virtuoso in the artwork of mayhem.” Gallus Magazine was fast to defeat unruly shoppers with her bludgeon and drag them by their ears out the doorway. Occasionally, she completely bit the ears off rowdy patrons, a lot to the delight of the regulars at Gap-In-The-Wall. It is thought she kept a mason jar stuffed with alcohol and the severed ears of earlier customers at the rear of the bar as a warning towards long term issues-generating.

Gallus Mag and Sadie The Goat

In Asbury’s novel, Gallus Magazine crosses paths with another hard lady of the era identified as Sadie the Goat. Like Magazine, Sadie was properly-accustomed to the hard situations of the Fourth Ward and did not stage down from a combat. In no time, they entered into an argument that soon escalated into an all-out brawl. All through the combat, it is considered that Gallus Magazine little bit off Sadie’s ear and positioned it into her mason jar. 

Gallus Mag in New York. (Resource)

Though her serious title is Margaret Perry, there are different theories as to how Gallus Magazine received her well-known nickname. 1 holds that she generally wore suspenders, or “galluses.” One more contends that gallus refers to her character, which means she was fairly boisterous, comparable to anyone who would thumb out their suspenders when taking a daring stance on an challenge.   

After the owner of Hole-In-The-Wall, Charley Monell, was sent to prison for assault with intent to destroy, Mag set her sights somewhere else. She and her partner, John, owned a saloon jointly for quite a few several years until the mid 1870s. Due to her recognition in town, the institution was affectionately identified as “Gallus Mag’s.”

Compared with Sadie the Goat, Gallus Magazine has a historical document that proves she was a real individual of this period who labored in various saloons in Manhattan. Nevertheless, there are no police stories that point out her proclivity to bite off the ears of her victims, nevertheless there is enough evidence of her having involved in several fights. 

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