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2, May 1, 1858, by Stephen H. Branch
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Title: Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 2, May 1, 1858
Author: Stephen H. Branch
Release Date: May 11, 2015 [EBook #48930]
Language: English
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CONTENTS
PAGE
LIFE OF STEPHEN H. BRANCH. 2
STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S ALLIGATOR. 6
FRA DIAVOLO AND HIS ITALIAN BRIGANDS. 7
ICE CREAM. 7
OUR COUNTRY’S RUIN. 9
DEV’L-IN A BAKERY. 10
FOR PALE STUDENTS, AND ROMANTIC VIRGINS. 11
[Illustration: STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S ALLIGATOR.
Volume I.—No. 2.] SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1858. [Price 2 Cents.]
STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S ALLIGATOR.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
STEPHEN H. BRANCH,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.
Life of Stephen H. Branch.
John Horsewell was a poor boy, and had duck legs. My brother William
was taller and older than John, and had a new suit of clothes, with
which I clad John from head to foot. Bill’s hat and boots were too
large for John, and his coat on John nearly grazed the ground. I put
on my Sunday suit, and off we went to Boston, forty miles distant. We
quarrelled on the road, in a deep wood, and I demanded John to take
off Bill’s clothes, at which he called me hard names, and I left him,
and directed my steps towards Providence, leaving him reclining on
the embankment of the forest road. I wandered half a mile at a quick
and revengeful pace; but as twilight was approaching, and I heard the
bark of a dog, with lungs of thunder, I became alarmed, and hurried
back to John, and craved his pardon, and we lingered until the stage
arrived, when we took passage for Boston, reaching the Marlboro’ Hotel
at midnight. Mr. Barker was the host, and, on our inquiry for lamps
to retire, he exclaimed: “Who are you, and whence came you?” John was
disconcerted, but I was cool, and replied: “Our names are Branch and
Horsewell, and we are from Providence.” “Did you visit Boston with the
permission of your father and mother?” “No, sir.” “You ran away, then?”
“No, sir; we walked away.” “What can you do in Boston in your clouts?”
“Learn a trade, sir.” “Have you any money?” “Forty cents, sir.” “Bob:
Take these brats to your room, and make a bunk on the floor, and lock
the door, and watch their movements closely until morning, when I will
put them in the poor house or county jail.” And off we tramped to bed,
up four flights of stairs, and were locked in until Bob came to bed,
when we snored terribly, pretending to be in a doze so profound, that
a cannon could not arouse us. John cried all night, and at daylight
we crawled softly from our hard nests, while Bob was asleep, and
softly turned the key, and descended the stairs in our stockings, and
fled for our lives. We went to the market, and got a cheap breakfast,
and then sought the theatre, where we saw Mac Cready announced as
“Hamlet.” We ardently desired to go, but had not sufficient money;
and away we trudge to Brattle street, and exchange our new clothes
for worthless rags, with five dollars besides. We then return to the
theatre, and linger on its steps until the performance begins, when we
purchase tickets, and rush, with about forty negroes, up stairs into
the gallery, like a gang of maniacs, (so wild was our common joy,)
where we witness a vast plain of woolly heads that resemble the Black
Sea. The heat was intense, and we perspired like cotton slaves, and
the stench was as intolerable as cholera malaria. During the day, we
engaged lodgings with a little colored barber, opposite the theatre,
for nine-pence each a night. At the close of the performance we thumped
a long period before he let us in, and then we found him partially
intoxicated. In the morning, we strolled on the Common, and John became
homesick, and besought me to return to Providence; and he cried and
implored so hard, that I yielded; and while engaging our passage, a
young man named James Baker recognised us, and desired me to remain in
Boston under his protection, to which I assented, but John departed
for Providence. I went to board with Jim Baker in Theatre Alley, with
Mrs. Charnock, a superannuated actress, and afterwards at the Sun
Tavern and other places, for which we did not pay our board, and walked
to Salem, where I wrote to father for money, which he sent me, and I
returned to Providence. He received me with intense affection, and I
wept with commingled joy and sorrow at my return, and his anguish at my
dishonorable absence. At about ten years old, John Horsewell and myself
stole some pigeons from Dexter Spencer’s barn, and we were caught with
them in our hats. Father took my hand, and led me to the wharf, where
ships could float, and suspended me over the water, until I had a
slight fit, when he carried me home. It was baking day, and aunt Lucy
was very angry because he did not drown me, and in her wrath, while
he was absent, she took out the pies and brown bread, and put me in
the oven head foremost, and nearly baked me. A few seconds more in the
oven, and I would have smothered. I told father when he came to dinner,
and he boxed Aunt Lucy’s ears severely, and demanded her to instantly
surrender the dress and bonnet he gave her the day previous. But she
cried so hard, and wrung her hands so piteously, that he soon restored
them, lest she would have cramps in the stomach, with which she was
often dangerously afflicted, through her excessive fondness for cheese
and hard-shell clams, of which she often ate until she could scarcely
breathe. A month later, I stole some peaches and currents from Captain
Prouds’ garden, and old junk and iron from the ship yards. Father was
a Justice of the Peace, and took me to jail, and put me in a cell;
but I screamed so fearfully, that he restored me to liberty in about
five minutes; and when I emerged from the dungeon, I sprang upon his
bosom, and kissed him as tenderly as a cow laps her calf, and I also
kissed the turnkey, whose keys terribly scared me. I soon went to a
country boarding school, and terrified the farmers for miles around,
who petitioned father to come after me, who visited the unsophisticated
countrymen, and strove to tranquilise their nerves with the assurance
that I would not contaminate their children, nor desolate their fields
and orchards, and that it was the crows and not me that pilfered their
early crops of fruits and vegetation. But they shook their heads, and
besought him to restore the wonted quiet and confidence of the parish,
by my immediate departure for some distant region. Father succumbed,
and we left for Providence, where I became the very youthful clerk
of Norman White, who is now an extensive type and paper merchant in
Beekman street, with whom I remained until I left for New York with Jim
Baker in the steamer Washington, Captain Bunker, concealing ourselves
in the water closets until the boat passed Newport, when we appeared
on deck, and strutted as boldly and proudly as Robert Macaire and his
companion. But the Captain soon discovered us to be impostors, and made
us pass pine wood to the firemen for our passage. Jim was older and
stronger than me, and the Captain and first mate made him work like a
slave; but I was seasick, and vomited dreadfully all over the deck, and
the firemen, and passengers; and as the Captain slowly passed me, I
belched a copious volley of the most bitter bile plumply in his face,
for which he severely shook me, and made me express my sorrow for the
dire calamity and apparent insult, and drove me down below, where I
implored the Cook to throw me overboard, and relieve me from my deathly
sickness. The nigger Cook laughed uproariously over my misfortunes, and
declined my request, and brought me a stew composed of pork, molasses,
and onions, for my dinner; and, as I smelt, and inhaled, and gazed
upon the nauseous dish, I let fly a torrent of bile into the darkey’s
face, who run for his life, and molested me no more during the voyage,
and I never saw Sambo again. We arrived in New York, at Fulton market,
and went to Holts’ Eating House, and ate heartily, and Jim Baker went
in pursuit of work as a segar maker, and I tagged on behind. He got
employment, and we boarded in Fulton street, near Broadway. I soon
got a situation as bar keeper, with Mr. Saunders, in Laurens street,
next to the theatre, and soon afterwards went a few doors above, in
the basement, as bartender for Mr. Gilman. I then became a waiter in a
New York and Albany steamboat, and afterwards in a Hartford steamer.
I then went to an Intelligence office (whoso proprietor strove to
cheat me), and for 50 cents got a situation with Wm. Chapman, No. 60
Pine street, at $2 a week, and boarded in Water street, near Beekman.
Wm. H. Stansbury was Mr. Chapman’s book-keeper, who left soon after
I came, and went with James Brooks, of the “_New York Express_,” as
book-keeper, where he is now. This was in 1826. My duties consisted
in helping William Chapman softly draw his coat over his rheumatic
shoulders, and going to the Post Office, and copying letters. I told
Mr. Chapman that I had to pay two dollars a week for board, and that
he must increase my salary, or I could not remain. He said that he
could get a boy for less than two dollars a week, and I left him, and
got a place with two brothers, named Morton, in Front street, for two
dollars and twenty-five cents a week. While passing the sailor hat
store of Mr. Leary, Mr. Leary’s mother called me into the store, and
said: “Little boy, if you will take this bottle, and go to the grocery
and get me some gin, I will give you some pennies.” When I returned
with the gin, she asked me if I would like to be a clerk for Mr. Leary.
I said that I would come for my board and clothes. She told me to call
in the evening and arrange the compensation with Mr. Leary, who would
then be in the store. I did so, and on the following day I told the
Messrs. Morton that I must leave them, as two dollars and twenty-five
cents a week could not buy my food and clothes, and pay for washing my
two shirts and two pairs of stockings. Mr. Leary, his wife, mother,
children, and myself, were packed like pork in two small rooms in the
rear of the store, which were used as kitchens, bed-rooms, parlors,
wash-rooms and everything else, which rendered the atmosphere slightly
dense and foggy, and perhaps impure, and in the night we often had
skull collisions, and tumbled over each other, which strongly resembled
a rough and tumble cabin scene in a terrific storm. I might have
endured all this, but to make fires, open store, sell hats to drunken
sailors, run errands, and take care of squalling children, so taxed
my patience, and wasted my pale and naturally delicate form, that I
resolved to leave instanter, and, with the Pilgrim’s heavy burden, away
I flew in pursuit of employment. Mr. Leary now keeps a hat store in the
Astor House, whose boys are wealthy merchants in Exchange Place, whom
I often remind of the days when I bore them in my arms, and spanked
them when they squalled. From Leary’s I went to the Harpers in Cliff
street, and was placed in the pressing and folding room, in the upper
story. I boarded with Fletcher (the youngest of the Harpers) in Batavia
street, between James and Roosevelt. The firm then consisted of John,
James, and Wesley Harper. Fletcher was the foreman of the composing
room, (where I was ultimately placed), who corrected my earliest errors
in the printer’s stick—and a precious job he had of it—consuming more
of his valuable time than my composition was worth. Fletcher was a
fireman, and recently married, and rather wild, and had two children,
one of whom was the partner of Raymond, Wesley and Jones, of the
“_New York Daily Times_,” at the origin of that Journal, whom I often
fondled in my arms in his infancy, who was a very pretty child, though
rather lively for one so extremely young, whose extraordinary vivacity
I attributed to worms. Wesley Harper was incomparably modest and
susceptible in those days, and visited and married a lady residing with
Fletcher, who was connected with his wife. While they were courting up
stairs, the servant girl, myself, and other apprentices often annoyed
them with our funny tricks; but Wesley and Fletcher did not dare
complain of us to John and James Harper, as the courtship of Wesley was
without the knowledge of the elder Harpers. The servant of Fletcher
imparted to us this precious secret, and we long teased the timid
lovers with impunity, in which the mischievous servant participated
with great hilarity.
(To be continued to the mournful eve of our last gasp)
Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1858.
LISTEN!—On Saturday last we arose with the glorious sun, and went
to our printing office, and found the printer’s devil asleep in his
dingy bunk. We applied a bodkin, and he sprang at us like a tiger.
We grappled, and discovering that he had an Editorial Alligator by
the throat, he released his grasp. We then banged the gong, and the
printers appeared, like the imps in Robert the Devil, from the infernal
regions. We then placed our leviathan form on the press, and lit
the faggots, and puff, puff, went the machinery, like the drums and
trumpets in Musard’s Express Train Gallop. We filled our carpet bag
with Alligators, and flew like a whirlwind to the wholesale newspaper
merchants in Beekman, Nassau, and Ann streets, where we found a plumed
battalion awaiting the advent of the Alligator. The wholesalers, and
retailers, and newsboys approached us in platoons, and clasped our
fervent hands until they squeezed them into icicles, and we cried for
quarter, and returned to our printing office, for another carpet bag of
Alligators, which we sold on our way to Ann street, and returned again,
and again, and yet again, for Alligators, until the weary sun retired
to his downy bed in the bleak peach and potato fields of the Jerseys.
Our printing office was besieged throughout the day, for Alligators,
and on our return from Ann street the second time, we found our office
stairs so thronged with applicants for Alligators, that we had to
meander a dark alley, and ascend a ladder, and enter our office through
a window. During the day, several bloody collisions transpired on the
stairs, between the newsboys, in their struggles for the Alligators, as
they emanated from our electric presses; and in one of the desperate
conflicts, the Police were summoned to preserve the public peace.
And, altogether it was a most laborious and exciting day for us, and
at early twilight we were weary and worn, and retired soon after
the curfew strains expired on the evening air. But we had an awful
nightmare, in which we soliloquised in tones so stentorian, (about
newsboys and Alligators,) as to arouse and terrify a venerable nervous
gentleman in the next apartment, who thought we were either fighting or
dying, and he rapped against the wall with his poker until he awoke us.
While on the eve of our emergence from the nightmare, we dreamed that
a colossus spider was devouring our proboscis, at which we levelled a
Hyer blow,
When pure blood oozed from our nose,
Like water from Sikesy’s hose,
which aroused us, and we darted into the bath room, and applied the
healing Croton without effect, and had to dam our nostrils with
putty, which checked the copious effusion of blood, but which made us
talk in nosy and twangy accents. In about an hour, the putty became
thoroughly saturated and drippy, and we had to make fresh applications,
and ultimately the putty dam was victorious. But our eyes are rather
crimson, and we have fearful rumbling sounds in our ears, resembling
distant thunder, and the bugle in the mountains, and we fear our
nostrils are in a state of inundation, and that our blood will effect
a passage through our eyes or ears, and rush wildly into the open air.
But we checked the blood, and leaped into our couch, and off we went,
like a patriotic rocket, into a slumber like that of the pure and sweet
Amena, in the chamber of Rudolpho, and was no farther molested with
horrible dreams of the newsboys and Alligators.
Fra Diavolo and his Italian Brigands.
Three hundred and sixteen thousand dollars have been drawn from the
Municipal Treasury, for printing the worthless Records of the County
Clerk’s office, and nearly as much for the Register’s Records. Who
got the $550,000 for which there is nothing valuable to show? Can the
smooth, and glossy, and sweetly-scented Connolly, or Wetmore, (or
Busteed and his kinsman, Doane,) or Nathan, or Nelson tell us? Of
course they can, as they were the corrupt disbursers of this prodigious
plunder. Speak, then, ye infernal robbers of the toiling millions,
whom ye bamboozle, and starve, and disease, and jam, and ram, and
smother in cellars and attics and tenement houses, and whose devoted
wives and virgin daughters you drive unto prostitution for food and
rent and medicine and apparel. You consummate these pernicious wrongs
and oppressions through your Janus and Judas professions of democracy,
which no more resemble Jefferson’s, Madison’s, Calhoun’s and Jackson’s
political creed, than your sleek hair, and fancy apparel, and thievish
propensities resemble the simple garb and integrity of those democratic
legions, whose votes you literally steal through your honied political
heresies, and the lavish expenditure of the very money you steal from
the people, through such jobs as the Record printing. With fast horses,
wines, and costly gluttony, and daubed all over with pomatum, you revel
high in your dazzling Persian Pavilions, whose construction and gilded
furniture, and luscious viands, are stolen directly from the honorable
and deluded millions. These are truths, and we will proclaim them from
the steeples of the metropolis, and strive to arouse a people who
slumber on the confines of volcanoes, while thieves, and rapes, and
incendiaries, and midnight assassins are softly crawling towards their
throats. Your perjured alienage we might extenuate, but your robbery
of the honest and laborious masses we will expose and combat, if we
rot in the dungeons of Blackwell’s or Sing Sing. The purest editors of
this thievish age are too pliable, and politic, and mercenary for the
public welfare; but we will dissect your robbery, if we are crucified
with spikes, and our limbs are chopped and hacked with a butcher’s
axe, and our flesh, blood, bones and marrow burned to cinders, and our
ashes cast upon the whirlwind for annihilation. The axe and faggot we
defy. God only do we fear. So, come on, ye teeming caverns of infernal
thieves, and seize, and incarcerate, and butcher, and strive to
annihilate our mortal scabbard, but you shall not have the soul, which
will elude your wicked and revengeful grasp, and have eternal succor
in the realms of purity and bliss, if, in its mortal pilgrimage, it be
true to God and his pilfered, oppressed, and misanthropic children.
Ice Cream.
Under the genial, affable, and generous Joseph Gales, of the National
Intelligencer, James Watson Webb is the senior editor of our country,
and James Gordon Bennett is close at his heels, whose venerable and
majestic forms will soon descend the dismal steps of the tomb, and
their extraordinary souls appear in the awful presence of a Judge,
from whom there is no appeal. Solemn thought! and almost paralysing
in its contemplation. Webb was born in America, and Bennett on the
mountains of Scotland, where one of his parents survives, to enjoy the
success and protection of her faithful son. With James Watson Webb we
never exchanged a word, which we can scarcely realise in view of our
intimate relations, for twenty years, with other metropolitan editors.
But with James Gordon Bennett we have had the closest relations, and we
proclaim, with no ordinary emotions of pleasure, that he has treated
us more like a brother than a stranger. In our memorable mnemotechnic
controversy with Professor Francis Fauvel Gouraud, in 1843, when almost
every editor in America was arrayed against us, and eternal ruin seemed
inevitable, James Gordon Bennett came to our rescue, and, with George
W. Kendall, of the New Orleans Picayune, George D. Prentice, of the
Louisville Journal, and Mrs. Walters, of the Boston Transcript, we were
sublimely victorious in that scholastic disputation. In consideration
of his magnanimous conduct, we wrote to the _Herald_ about one hundred
columns from Panama and California, when the civilized world was
rocked, to its profoundest basis, with the dazzling gold discoveries,
and on our return, he gave us money, and ever cheered us in our
illness and penury. When we wrote the inflammatory Report of the noble
Alfred Carson, against the Common Council of 1850, we gave it to Mr.
Bennett, to the exclusion of the other editors, because he had been
true in our adversity, when the hands of all mankind seemed uplifted
to annihilate our pale and feeble frame. We had boarded with Horace
Greeley, for seven years, at the Graham House, in Barclay street,
and all our relations had been of the most friendly character; and
yet we deemed it our sacred duty to send our Pilgrim letters to Mr.
Bennett, and also give him Carson’s famous Report, to the exclusion
of Greeley, because Bennett’s fidelity was next to our Father’s.
Greeley was a formidable candidate for the Mayoralty, when Carson’s
Report appeared, and if we had given it to him instead of Bennett, he
would have been the successor of Mayor Woodhull. But in giving it to
Bennett for publication one day in advance of Greeley, so exasperated
the latter against Carson and ourself, that he attacked the Report
like a ferocious bull dog, and slew himself, whose name was hardly
whispered in the Mayoralty Convention that soon followed. Alderman
Morgan Morgans, (President of the Board of Aldermen,) Alderman Robert
H. Hawes, Alderman George H. Franklin, and Mayor Woodhull himself were
also candidates. But as they were all severely denounced in Carson’s
Report, for discharging culprits without examination or trial, and
for other offences common to Aldermen in those days, they were all
rejected by the Convention, when the oily Ambrose C. Kingsland entered
the arena, and was nominated and easily elected, which proved to be
the saddest municipal calamity of that period, as he was in collusion
throughout his term with official scoundrels, and made more money than
any Mayor who preceded him, as one of our Aldermanic pupils often
assured us; and if Kingsland will publicly deny our accusations, we
will adduce our informant’s name, and paralyse him. And to be briefly
explicit, our informant was connected with Kingsland and Draper’s
operations to rob the city of the Gansevoort property. Kingsland’s
appointment of Matsell as Chief of Police partially corroborates the
assertion of the Alderman who imparted his precious information.
Kingsland’s appointment of Matsell was effected thus: According to his
custom, with Mayors elect, Matsell invited Kingsland to a ride into
the Metropolitan suburbs, on the morning after his election, and in
passing a gaudy edifice, the Brandon Chieftain halted and exclaimed:
“Kingsland, my boy, is not that a fascinating mansion?” Kingsland
crimsoned, and gazed rapiers and scabbards, and in baffled accents,
mildly ejaculated in the expressive language of Jemmy Twitcher: “Vell,
vot of it?” “O, nothing,—only I thought I would inquire how you
enjoyed yourself in its rainbow halls on Friday evening last. And,
by the way, how about the appointment of Chief of Police? Have you
resolved whom to appoint?” “Certainly I have. You well know my ancient
love for you, and that you are my choice for Chief, beyond any being
living or dead. I was elected to eject you, but I shan’t do it, my boy.
‘Thou art the man!’ Ha, ha, ha! Give us your hand, old boy. Ha, ha, ha!
A very fine day, ain’t it Matsell?” “Kingsland, you have really got a
magnificent Palace in the Fifth Avenue, but I think your front parlor
requires a five thousand dollar clock, to render it thoroughly gorgeous
and enchanting.” “Chief, what in the name of mud are you driving at?”
“I am driving for my life to Burnham’s, for his choicest brandy and Ice
Cream.”
More delicious Ice Cream next week.
Our Country’s Ruin.
The seed of wide-spread corruption is culminating here, at Albany, and
Washington, with the velocity of light, (which is about two hundred
thousand miles per second,) which may rend the Union to fragments
during the present generation. And the present leaders of parties
will be the immediate cause of our country’s downfall, through their
sly winks and blinks at the robbers of their respective parties, to
seize the public booty to elect their municipal, State, and national
officers. Horace Greeley, with all his professions of purity, justice
and humanity, will shield an anti-slavery thief at every peril of
his conscience, and scourge the thieves of all other parties like
Tacitus, or Diogenes, and so will the leaders of the American and
Democratic parties. It is not the struggle for the boundaries of
slavery and freedom that will rend this Union to atoms, but the
miserable, thievish, aspiring, and traffic politicians who use the
Negro and Satan, to seize the public treasure and official honors. It
is the ungodly grab of lazy men for gilded booty, to enable them to
revel in indolence, and control the elections and magic wires of all
the parties, that will consummate our dissolution and eternal ruin.
And Greeley and Bryant know this, and so does that puritannical,
mercenary, penurious, white handkerchief’d, and stiff-necked old
Presbyterian, Gerard Hallock, of the Journal of Commerce, and those
thieves of thieves, and Catalinian conspirators, and overshadowing
plunderers, Simeon Draper and Thurlow Weed, whom God, or man, or fiend
should drive to the wilderness, or smite from the face of the earth,
and, if possible, from its profoundest bowels. For their stabs at the
heart of our free institutions, and their pernicious example to the
youth of this generation, they should be hurled from the summit of the
Rocky mountains. There is no honor or patriotism in these demons. If
there were, they would rally like our Fathers for the preservation of
our glorious Union, and the Municipal, State and National Treasuries,
whose plunder they counsel and shield in the infamous persons of their
political confederates, and share their spoils in darkness, with only
the Devil present, but the Great Invisible in the awful distance, whose
retribution will be terrible when it comes, beyond the grave; and worms
may partially devour their vile carcases, before they die, as with
Biddle and Nero, and Caliglula. All leaders of parties are plunderers,
and thus directly advocate the subversion of our liberties and the
public dishonor. God, alone, from the Revolution to the present hour,
has shielded the Americans from foreign and domestic adversaries,
with his beneficent arms expanded over our fertile vales, and fields,
and plains, and forests, and noble mountains, and has rescued us from
the Burrs and Arnolds, and Goths and Vandals, who strive to paralise
our progress in a pure and sacred civilization. But our disunion and
subversion are as inevitable as the advent of the morning sun, unless
some Washington, or Cincinnatus, or Brutus the First come forth, and
stab the incarnate devils down, and trample their worthless bodies in
the dust. Thieves, rapes, incendiaries, assassins, and traitors teem
like the Egyptian locusts throughout our borders, and the odious vices,
and bloody strife, and crumbling ruins, and all the horrors and havoc
and universal chaos of the Roman Empire, and other ancient States,
will be our awful doom, unless the wisdom, and virtue, and firmness of
our country rally in the Forum, and impart the principles of integrity
and patriotism to the people, and immolate the leading scoundrels and
traitors of the age. Thus only can we avert the overshadowing evils
that flit like midnight spectres through every street and habitation,
and will soon spread through every meritorious fireside. And thus only
can we avert the execrations of our posterity, for being recreant to
the Roman Fathers of the Revolution, and for not resisting with our
lives, the barbarians of the present generation.
NICE AND MODEST.—The son and son-in-law of Peter Cooper as Mayor and
Street Commissioner of the largest city of the Western Hemisphere,
worth half a million per annum.
Aminidab Sleek,
(Without a shriek
For freedom,
Or bleed ’em,
Or Sodom,
Or Gotham,)
Could make that sum at least,
And for life have a feast.
The office-holding Coopers
Are worse than the Hoopers,
So fat grow they,
On pap all day,
Throughout the year,
Which seems so queer,
For Reformers,
Or Performers,
Which was always so,
In this vale of dough:
Our eyes are wo!
O! O!! O!!!
Dev’l-in a Bakery.
Hawes, the New York baker, says: “Branch, do you know Charley Devlin?”
“Yes.” “Well, Branch, I was a baker apprentice with him, and also a
journeyman. He was burned and floated out of his bakery in the Fourth
Ward some years since, and he desired to bake for his customers in my
oven until his own was repaired. I, of course, consented. Subsequently,
he became a primary politician, and for several years past has besought
me to sell my bakery, and become a contractor. I hesitated for a long
period, but last year, (finding that he had acquired wealth very fast,)
I resolved to dispose of my bakery, and join him as a contractor.
A neighbor learned my purpose, who assured me that, to his sorrow,
in early life he was a politician, and that if I joined Devlin as a
contractor, I would be compelled to take at least three false oaths a
day throughout the year, (for which people are sent to States Prison
ten years, and forever lose their suffrage,) which so alarmed me,
that I abandoned my intention and narrowly escaped the portals of a
dungeon, and the loss of my patronage as a baker, and my reputation
as an honorable man, for which I devoutly thank the Great Disposer of
Events.” We congratulated our honest friend Hawes, and warned him to
beware of the Dev’l-in a bakery.
THE HAPPY FAMILY.—How cunning for Peter Cooper and Mayor Tiemann to
send Hopeful to the Democratic General Committee, and beat Elijah F.
Purdy by one vote for Chairman; and then for Daniel and Edward (the
sons of Peter) to turn up Mayor and Street Commissioner. It is the more
cunning, as Peter Cooper and Daniel F. Tiemann have held Municipal
offices since 1828, and now, with Hopeful, have two of the most
lucrative and honorable offices in America. In view of all this, Peter
can well afford to give two or three upper stories of a Bowery edifice
to the city for educational purposes, without feeling it very keenly.
Besides, the immortality of the gift is of some moment. Verily, the
Tiemanns and Coopers should be a very Happy Family; and if Death do not
confuse and thwart their successful and extraordinary tactics, as with
poor Joseph S. Taylor, (who, with all his faults, had a heart as big
as a mountain,) they will doubtless acquire sufficient from the public
teats, which they have sucked so long, to render them comfortable in
their superannuation.
For Pale Students, and Romantic Virgins.
In 1780, Washington defrayed the educational expenses of a youth, who
was an immediate descendent of Pocahontas, and procured his passage
to Scotland, where he became a student in its noble highlands. In his
class were two youths, whom he loved with enthusiastic fondness. One
was from Damascus, and the other from the Oriental Empire, who was
born beneath the native village skies of Confucius, to whom he traced
his blood. On the eve of graduation, and just prior to their departure
for the remotest portions of the globe, they fondly rambled in the
woods and groves, where they oft had wandered, and ascended majestic
mountains, on whose celestial peaks, (with the pale moon in her zenith
roaming,) they sung these pensive lines, in their favorite Alpine
bowers:
When shall we three meet again?
When shall we three meet again?
Oft shall glowing hope expire;
Oft shall wearied love retire;
Oft shall death and sorrow reign,
Ere we three do meet again.
Though in distant lands we sigh,
Parched beneath a hostile sky;
Though the deep between us rolls,
Friendship shall unite our souls;
Long may this loved bower remain;
Here may we three meet again.
When the dreams of life have fled;
When its wasted lamp is dead;
When in cold oblivion’s shade,
Beauty, wealth and power are laid;
Where immortal spirits reign,
There may we three meet again.
They soon departed for their respective countries, and never met again!
Alas!
“The human heart, like the muffled drum,
Is ever beating funeral marches to the grave!”
WANTED—Temperate, energetic, and impulsive young men to canvass the
city for the Alligator, who can be carriers on those routes where they
obtain subscribers. There are thousands of masters and misses, and
fathers and mothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers who will take
the Alligator. So, young men, off with your coats, and fly through the
city like a tornado, for subscribers to the Alligator. And first visit
the Astor, Saint Nicholas, Metropolitan, Lafarge, Everett, and other
splendid Restaurants and Oyster Saloons, not one of whose proprietors
will refuse the Alligator. But if they should, just let us know, and
we may, in our wrath, blight their custom with our fatal jaw. And
visit the Reverend Doctors Potts and Taylor, and see Brown, the fancy
Sexton, and ask the loan of his magic whistle, which will guide you to
victory like a wand of enchantment. If Potts and Taylor salute you like
Diogenes, and Brown declines his festive and mausoleum whistle, we may
haunt them with a peep through their private windows on the first dark
and boisterous midnight. So, boys, look aloft, and arouse yourselves,
and select your own routes without our consultation, until you desire
our Alligators to serve your ecstatic patrons.
The following was written, in 1854, by Stephen H. Branch, for Ald.
Orison Blunt, then Alderman of the Third Ward, but is now Supervisor
from the Fifteenth Ward:
Captain Robert Creighton: Sir: I am authorized by the Corporation of
the City of New York to extend to you the Freedom of the City, together
with a gold box, as a testimonial of their regard for you. I might
linger on the thrilling incidents connected with your fidelity to
suffering humanity, from the moment you discovered the San Francisco,
until you rescued from a watery grave, more than 200 distracted beings.
I might touchingly allude to your tears from day to day, as witnessed
by your sailors, because you could not sooner relieve the unfortunate.
I might speak of the fearful responsibility you assumed in violating
the insurance of your ship and valuable cargo, by deviating from your
specific course; of your fearful perils amid the howling tempest; of
the four inch stream of water pouring in upon you, which caused both
pumps to be constantly wrought before you discovered the wreck; of
the disadvantages of four hundred tons of iron, and large quantities
of merchandise, in a ship of only seven hundred tons burthen; of
the loss of every sail before you saw the wreck, save your foresail
and mainsail. I might dwell on these historical truths, and on your
affectionate regard for the rescued, but I forbear. All this, and even
more, is on every tongue, and uttered around every fireside, and cannot
be glorified by me. The contemplation of the good you have effected
will ever be a delightful solace to you, and your humanity will be a
precious inheritance to your consanguinity. The wives and children of
those whose lives you have preserved will ever love you, and transmit
your name to their farthest posterity. The mariners of every ocean
will strive to imitate your meritorious example. The noble youth of
our country will read of your heroic deeds, and resolve to emulate
your manly virtues. Little children already lisp your name in terms
of praise. Tears of gratitude are freely shed for you by either sex,
and fervent prayers go up to Heaven from the habitations of all this
land, that your valuable life may be long preserved, and that health,
happiness, and prosperity may ever be your lot. And your name will be
revered by coming generations, when every being who beholds the sun of
this day, shall be a tenant of the tomb!
Advent Record—One dollar a line.
George W. Matsell was born in Brandon, England, and weighed 15 pounds
at birth, and won the first premium at the Brandon Baby Show. Robert
Dale Owen visited Brandon on the day after his birth, and gave him some
sugar plums and a silver porringer.
Richard B. Connolly was born in Bandon, Ireland, (R., for Rogue, being
the only difference between Matsell and Connolly’s birthplace), 20
miles west of Cork, and will leave with his parents for Independence
Hall, Philadelphia, where he will be naturalized. Richard is a handsome
and promising child, and opened his expressive eyes and sweetly
smiled, and said Mum and Pap when two days old, when his astounded Mum
dropped him into the lap of Bridget, and screamed and swooned and fell
and rose with dishevelled hair and projected tongue and frothy mouth
and distended nostrils and run into the neighbors, with Pap after her
with gigantic strides. Three days after birth, little Dick said
Slippery-
Dicery,
Hickory-
Trickery,
when his confounded Mum scampered to the Fortune Teller, and Pap to the
Physician for worm seed, and to the Nurse of the Infant Lunatic Asylum,
for a strait-jacket for the little scamp, when the medicine and jacket
soothed him into a gentle slumber, with Mum and Pap slowly expiring on
his precocious lips.
And as he lay,
All the lone day,
In a cradle,
Like a stable,
in his starts and stitches and solliloquies, he often roared to Pap
and Mum the words “County Clerk,” “Contractor,” “Silent Alms House
Governor,” “Ex-officio Record Commissioner,” “Comptroller,” and
inquired for Simeon Draper,
Whose clerk he would like to be,
In the land beyond the sea,
Called the Free America,
Where there’s “lots of trickery.”
Dickey may be a model Comptroller, unless he prematurely dies with
proboscis paralysis.
Richard Busteed was born near Tipperary, Ireland. His eyes reflected a
thrilling flippancy on the fourth day. Will soon leave Tipperary with
his Daddy and Mummy for New York. Will probably excel in the sophistry
and metaphysics of law. Has prodigious conscientious developments,
projecting like cliffs and promontories all over his skull. Will always
desire to pay his debts before they are due. As he matures, he will
be susceptible and impulsive to the 90th degree, and have marvellous
compunction. Will never be rude nor impolite, nor snatch candy from
other boys, although his bump of snatchitiveness may grow in wild Irish
luxuriance, or through Catalinian pomatum, which may cause him to
snatch pap from his Mummy’s breast, (while she is serenely snoozing, to
recruit from his unreasonable demand for pap,) which may nourish and
increase his hillock of diminutive snatchitiveness, and cause him to
snatch like Bobby Morris, and thunder and lightning, when he grows to
the size of a tailor, in America, where he will be naturalized through
his father’s residence (?) And, altogether, little Dickey Busteed is a
cute infant, and will soon be a rouser of a brat, and may rise from a
petty-foggy lawyer, to a keen and pious Corporation Counsel, and might
make a very shrewd Record Commissioner, but will always be poor, from
his too moderate and compunctive legal fees.
Increase Record—One dollar a line.
None.
Decrease Record—One dollar a line.
Paupers Gratis.
None.
Marine Intelligence.
The _Clipper_ Stephen H. Branch arrived this morning in a tempest, with
a cargo of Alligators, consigned to
Ross & Tousey, 121 Nassau street.
Dexter & Brother, 14 Ann street.
Hamilton & Johnson, 22 Ann street.
Samuel Yates, 22 Beekman street.
Madden & Company, 21 Ann street.
Cauldwell & Long, 23 Ann street.
Boyle & Whalen, 32 Ann street and
Bell & Hendrickson, 25 Ann street.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—A Table of Contents was not in the original work; one has been
produced and added by Transcriber.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1
no. 2, May 1, 1858, by Stephen H. Branch
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