An hour before sunrise in the city there is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets, which we are accustomed to seeing thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely shut buildings which throughout the day are swarming with life. The drunken, the dissipated and the criminal have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labors of the day, and the stillness of death is over the streets. 2. What is the genre of this excerpt?