Cast your imagination back to the mid-nineteenth century.

Gallus Mag was a female bouncer at the Hole in the Wall, a notorious tavern, owned by a man named One-Armed Charley, in New York City's equally notorious Five Points district.

She was over six feet tall and earned her name by wearing suspenders (known as galluses) to hold her skirts up. Bouncing at the Hole in the Wall was a sideline to her daytime occupation as a mugger.

It was not uncommon for Gallus Mag to bite off the ears of Hole in the Wall customers who got out of hand. She kept a collection of these ears pickled in a jar behind the bar.


Information gleaned from Gotham: A History of New York City To 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace

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