Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 07, June 5, 1858
Author: Unknown
Date: 2015-05-26T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: New York (N.Y.) -- Politics and government

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 07, June 5, 1858

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Title: Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 07, June 5, 1858

Editor: Stephen H. Branch

Release date: May 26, 2015 [eBook #49051]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEPHEN H. BRANCH'S ALLIGATOR, VOL. 1 NO. 07, JUNE 5, 1858 ***

CONTENTS

| Page
Life of Stephen H. Branch. | 2
Peter Cooper’s Avarice and Infernal Antecedents. | 8
The Early Penury of the Three Napoleons of the American Press—bennett, Greeley, and Raymond. | 11
A Sweet Letter. | 12

Volume I.—No. 7.]—— SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 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.

c2

Life of Stephen H. Branch.

While pursuing my studies at Andover, I am corresponding with a girl who resides in my native city. There were girls in Providence far more beautiful than her, (and whose parents were more affluent than hers,) from whom I could doubtless have selected a companion for life, but her father had been a boy with my father, and she loved me as a sister her brother, or as a fond mother loves her precious offspring. These truths had their influence with me. Moreover, this girl had pursued me for years, and (to illustrate her devotion) if I went to a ball, she was there. If I took my position in a cotilion, she would soon be opposite, and staring me broadly in the face, and, as we crossed over, she would cast the most tender glances, and press my hand with deep affection. If I proposed to dance with her, her eyes would kindle with the wildest enthusiasm. If I went to church, she would be in the next pew, and enter mine, if it were not full. If I turned a corner, I often would meet her. If I looked behind, while promenading Westminster, (the Broadway of Providence,) she would often be prancing towards me like an Arabian courser. She would address letters to herself through the Post Office, and call for them when I was at the letter delivery. If I went to a party, she would contrive to get an invitation, and a day seldom passed, when I did not see her. Juliet never loved Romeo more fervently than she loved me. And because I knew she loved me as no virgin ever loved, I resolved to have her. All her kindred favored our union, and before I went to Andover, her father came, on summer evenings, to the Post Office, and conversed with me in the most friendly tones. So, in the Autumn of 1836, I bade adieu to Andover, forever, and repaired to Providence, and married her at her father’s. The wedding was large and magnificent. My father obtained me a clerkship in the Rhode Island Cloth Hall, but manufactures were long depressed, and its directors resolved to close its affairs, which deprived me of a situation. The commercial desolation of 1837 was in embryo, and merchants were curtailing, and extensive failures transpired, and clerks and mechanics were discharged throughout the country, and my father could obtain no lucrative employment for me, and dared not establish me in business in such a frightful panic. Myself and wife resided at her father’s. I made several journeys to Boston and New York for a clerkship, but I could obtain none. The Spring of 1837 arrived. I was proud and ambitious. Heartless comments were made, all over Providence, about my idleness, and my prolonged residence with the parents of my wife. I got uneasy, and was mortified beyond expression and endurance. I made a final passage to New York, and resolved, if I obtained no employment, to have a crisis. I could procure no situation, and went to Philadelphia, where I was also unsuccessful. I saw an advertisement for a clerk in Westchester, Pennsylvania, whither I repaired, but a clerk had been obtained. My means were nearly exhausted, and I strove to sell a diamond ring and gold pencil case to the barkeeper, and was suspected as a thief, and arrested, and my trunks examined in the presence of a large crowd, who came to the Hotel from every part of the town. I was honorably acquitted, and instantly left for Philadelphia, where I sold my ring and pencil case, and proceeded to New York, where I sold my watch. I now became desperate, and resolved to bring matters to an immediate consummation. I wrote a letter to father, and told him that I was almost deranged, and besought him to save me. The banks suspended specie payment on the day I wrote to my father, and the whole country was a commercial ruin. Father wrote me, that he had spent thousands of dollars for my education,—had recently paid my debts in Andover and Providence, amounting to a thousand dollars,—had let me have large sums since my marriage,—was not worth over twenty thousand dollars,—feared he might soon be compelled to assign his property, and could obtain no clerkship for me while the money panic raged. I proceeded to New Haven, and wrote to him again, and he responded that he would see my father-in-law, and pledge himself to meet him half-way in any proposition he might make to save me, if he sacrificed his last dollar. I went to Norwich, and wrote him again, and he informed me that he had seen my father-in-law, who declined to aid me to the extent of a penny, and said that I must effect my salvation in my own way. Although my father-in-law was worth several hundred thousand dollars, he had let me have but twenty-five dollars before or since my marriage, and when he placed this amount in my hand, he sneeringly exclaimed: “I always like to help the unfortunate.” In view of all this, I loathed my father-in-law, and loved my father, and wrote a fearful letter to both, (superscribing it to the former,) threatening to visit Providence, and tear their hearts out if they did not instantly relieve me. I included my father in this awful letter, so that my father-in-law could not be the sole complainant against me, as I feared he would consign me to prison for years, if possible. And I was fortunate in including my beloved father in my dreadful letter, as the sequel will show. I then advanced to Scituate, about ten miles from Providence, and wrote another letter to my father and father-in-law, threatening to come to Providence on the following day, and take their lives, if they did not rescue me from my horrible dilemma. Two constables, named Gould and Potter, came to Scituate, and arrested me at the Hotel of Dr. Battey, (from which I had dated my letter,) and took me to Providence in a carriage, and put me in jail as a debtor, on a debt of five hundred dollars, created for the occasion by the wisdom of my father. My father-in-law desired to imprison me as a criminal, (as I had anticipated,) but my father’s counsels prevailed, and I was saved from a felon’s doom. In those days, debtors were incarcerated, and I was confined in a dark cell, by locks, and bars, and bolts, as all Providence feared I would escape, and kill my father and father-in-law, and perhaps others. Their fears were supremely ridiculous, as, if I had seriously contemplated their death, I would not have told them where I was in Scituate, nor the precise period that I should come to Providence and dispatch them. But my object was attained. I meant to have a crisis, and I got it with a vengeance on all sides. The night I entered my cell was the happiest of my life. My bed was on the floor, and rats and bugs crawled over me to their hearts’ content. I never slept more sweetly, though occasionally aroused by the enormous rats squealing and nibbling at my nose. The privy of the prisoners in the large debtors’ apartment joined my cell, and the stench was almost intolerable, and yet I soon became accustomed even to that, and for days I laughed and danced and sang as never, for I had emerged from anxiety and torture approximating purgatory itself. Mr. Parker, a debtor, soon joined me in my cell, and we played cards, and narrated our curious experience, and had a merry time; but Parker obtained his liberty, and I was again alone, and I soon got melancholy, and I wept bitterly over the calamities of my beloved wife, through her penurious and demon father. In three weeks I was permitted the freedom of the jail, which imparted perfect bliss to my disconsolate mind. I reviewed my classics and mathematics in prison, and some faithful companions called, and time again passed merrily. In six weeks my father came, and (as my only complainant) effected my discharge, by withdrawing his fictitious suit for debt against me. He accompanied me in a carriage to the steamboat, and gave me money, with his most affectionate blessing, and I departed for New York, an outcast, in company with a dear relative named Franklin Cooley, who had been very kind to me during my entire confinement, and through all my days. I left my benefactor in New York, and departed for Albany, and went to my Aunt Lucy’s, whom I had not seen for ten years, who resided in the town of Groveland, near Geneseo, in Livingston County, in the State of New York. My grandfather, on the mother’s side, left Connecticut forty years ago, in consequence of extreme melancholy, after his wife’s demise, and buried himself in the wilderness of Groveland, and wrote to none of his kindred for twenty years. He first worked on a farm, and as the country became more populous, he taught school and realized enough to buy him a farm from the famous Mr. Wadsworth, whom he knew in youth in Connecticut. At the expiration of twenty years, he wrote to East Hartford, Ct., and his surviving daughter, Lucy, with her husband, a drunken and cruel vagabond, went to Groveland, and in about five years after their arrival, my grandfather died, and Aunt Lucy and her husband coaxed him in his closing hours to leave his farm to them, which was worth about twenty thousand dollars, one-half of which should have reverted to my mother’s children, who were allowed one dollar each, so that they could not break the will. On my arrival, I found my aunt’s husband drunk, and she told me that he had involved the farm in debt, which was mortgaged for a large amount, and that he treated her like a brute. They lived in a one-story hut, consisting of one room, and a pigeon-house in the roof. I arrived at midnight, in a stage coach, and as there was no house within a mile, I was compelled to stop all night, but where I was to sleep I could not divine. Aunt Lucy asked me if I was prepared to retire, and responding yes, she lit a cheap candle, and led me to the rear of the hovel, and up she went a ladder, like a squirrel, and bade me follow. On arriving at the door of the pigeon-house, she suspended one leg to enable me to pass her, and then gave me the candle, and we bade each other good night, and I crawled in, passing through dense partitions of cobwebs, and battalions of spiders and rats, and down I lay for the night, and counted minutes until the morning’s dawn, when I emerged from the hideous hole, in which I had nearly suffocated. I took breakfast, consisting of pork and herring, and visited my grandfather’s grave in a distant field, and departed for Geneseo in the mail coach, where I examined my grandfather’s Will, and found that my mother’s children could never obtain their share of his beautiful estate. I left for Rochester, and departed for Albany in a canal boat, and worked a short time in a printing office at Utica. I left for New York, and worked a brief period in the job office of William A. Mercein, and went to Philadelphia, where I worked a week, and left for Baltimore, where I found my brother Albert, who was a compositor in the printing office of the Baltimore Sun, just started by Mr. Abel, (an old friend of mine,) whose editor and subsequent famous Washington correspondent was Sylvester S. Southworth. [Mr. Abel is a native of Warren, Rhode Island, and established the Philadelphia Ledger after the Baltimore Sun. In earlier years, Mr. Abel and myself often worked side by side as compositors in Providence, Boston, and New York.] I worked a few days in Baltimore, and arrived in Washington just prior to the extra Session of Congress in 1837, and obtained a situation in the job office of Gales & Seaton, through the influence of their bookkeeper, Levi Boots, who was a room-mate of mine when I worked and boarded with Wm. Greer, of the Washington Globe, during my residence in Washington in 1830. I got $10 a week at Gales & Seaton’s, and soon entered Columbian College, which was located nearly two miles from Washington, whose worthy President was Mr. Chapin. I studied nights, and recited privately with Professors Ruggles and Chaplin, at daylight, and took breakfast with the students, and left for Gales & Seaton’s with bread and cold meat, in a little basket, for my dinner, and, after working all day, returned to Columbian College at sunset. These were the glorious days of the American Senate, and I was enchanted with Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Benton, Preston, Crittenden, Buchanan, and others, whose eloquence and anathema against the public robbers, were equal to the philippics of Cicero and Demosthenes against the scoundrels of their respective countries. The House of Representatives was full of duelists, tigers, monkeys, screech-owls, and wild-cats, who formed a perfect menagerie. I heard the exciting debate that led to poor Cilley’s immolation, and attended his funeral, whose exercises were the most imposing I ever witnessed. I saw the unearthly Calhoun in the mournful procession, as it moved from the Capitol, whose brilliant eyes reflected the profoundest sorrow. I studiously avoided my old friend Causin, as I did not wish to see him after my terrible reversion of fortune. But we met by chance in the Rotunda of the Capitol, and when I related my sad story, he was deeply affected. We met again, and he seemed quite friendly, but the charm was broken, and our enthusiastic friendship soon became a matter of oblivion. I now receive a letter from William Augustus White, (dated Burlington, Vt.,) with whom I was intimate in Andover, while I was a member of Phillips’ Academy, and while I studied under private teachers. Young White wrote me that the Massachusetts Education Society undertook his education, but it had failed during the bankruptcy of 1837, and he was at the College at Burlington, Vt., and knew not what to do, and solicited funds to enable him to join me in Washington. I told his story to the President and Professors and students of Columbian College, and to Gales & Seaton, and to Mr. Gronard, the generous foreman of the job office, and other liberal gentlemen, who contributed money that I forwarded to White, and he came to Washington, where I obtained him a situation with Mr. Abbott, who had a Classical Academy near the President’s. White roomed with me at Columbian College until 1839, when I became so ill, that I was compelled to relinquish my studies. My blood rushed fearfully to the brain, and I was so nervous, that I imagined if I spoke beyond a whisper, that I would break a blood vessel. I also thought if I ate solid food, I would have the cholic as soon as it entered my belly. Dr. Thomas Sewell, of Washington, came out to the College, and the students and professors gathered around my bed, and I thought I was about to die, when the Doctor, (after punching my belly rather roughly,) exclaimed: “Why, Branch, you are not dangerously ill, and you could not die, if you wanted to, without suicide. You are only nervous and dyspeptic, and you remind me of a nervous person recently described in an eminent British periodical, who imagined that he had glass legs, and that, if he attempted to walk, they would snap like pipe stems. He made his friends dress him, and carry him about the house for a long period, until he nearly wore them out, and they resolved to do it no longer; and believing that he could walk as well as they, they determined to try an experiment. So, they asked him if he would like to take a ride into the country. He said he would, if they would put him in the carriage. They first placed masks, torches, horns, and Indian apparel in a trunk, and placed him in the carriage, and off they drove, arriving in a deep wood before sunset, and asked him if he would get out, and sit on the grass. He said he would, if they would take him out. They carefully took him out, and seated him on the grass, and then got into the carriage, saying that they were going back to London, and that, if he accompanied them, he must get into the carriage himself, which he assured them he could not do, without breaking his glass legs. So, off they drive, amid his frantic cries to take him with them. In about two hours, a thunder storm arose, and four of them, in their frightful disguises, rapidly approached him, (amid rain, thunder, and lightning,) all masked and attired like devils and wild Indians, and made the woods ring with drums, and horns, and bagpipes. He sat firmly until they were about to inclose, and apparently devour him, when he sprang to his feet, and ran so fleetly on his supposed glass legs, that they pursued him for half a mile, and gave up the contest. They then repaired to their carriage, and although they drove tolerably fast, yet, when they arrived at their home in London, they found him sitting quietly in his easy chair, as though nothing had transpired, his fancy glass legs having distanced the fleetest horses.” I had not laughed for two months, but Dr. Sewell’s funny and truthful story made all the students, and President, and professors roar, and I had to join them against my will. When they all retired, I arose from my bed, for the first time in ten days, and dressed and shaved myself, and raised my voice far beyond a whisper, and in one hour talked in my usual tone, and called for some beef steak, of which I ate quite heartily, and found that my nerves had bamboozled me most shamefully, and I recovered rapidly. But I was delicate, and could not work at the printing business, and my blood concentrated in the brain, and I had to cease my severe mental application, and I resolved to return to my father’s in Providence as the prodigal son. Young White accompanied me to my father’s door, and told my mournful story, when my father embraced me with his wonted affection, after an absence of nearly three years.

(To be continued to our last moan.)

Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1858.

This is the seventh week of the Alligator, and nearly every editor in this city has had the courtesy, and kindness, and generosity to notice my efforts to establish a journal on the basis of truth and justice, save James Gordon Bennett, Horace Greeley, and Henry J. Raymond. As I have written for the Herald, Tribune, and Times nearly since their birth, the premeditated slight of Bennett, Greeley, and Raymond seems so impolite and unkind and ungenerous, that I have resolved to analyse the editorial career of these notorious big and little villains of the press, who are a greater curse to the people of this country than all the thieves who ever entered the City Hall, or our State or National Capitols. And next week I will begin their dissection, and pluck out their livers, and cast them to the cadaverous and greedy vultures for a choice repast, which will present the novel spectacle of thievish crows devouring the livers of their own species. It is the custom of these editors to unite and crush those who dare oppose them, and expose their crimes, by refusing to let the wholesale newspaper venders have the Herald, Tribune, and Times, if they sell the public journals of their adversaries. If they strive to deprive me of bread, by intimidating the wholesale newspaper dealers of Ann, Nassau, and Beekman streets, so help me God, I will enter their editorial closets, and lash them until the blood streams from every pore, if I am slain in the attempt. Next week, then, and as long as I can wield a pen, I will show the people of this country how these editors blow hot and cold, and black mail, and collude with thievish politicians, and share their spoils, and sell the people! And from my knowledge of Bennett, Greeley, and Raymond (after a close communion with them for twenty years,) I brand them as three of the biggest villains that ever breathed. So, next week, let the American people prepare for startling revelations!

James R. Whiting is a man whose head commands our profoundest respect, and his heart our warmest attachment. This is no age for him. He is like a cat in a strange garret among the Busteeds, and Connollys, and Pursers, and Devlins, and Smiths, and Erbens, and other perjured aliens and plunderers that prowl around the City Treasury. But James R. Whiting would have been adored in the halcyon or tumultuous days of the Persian, Egyptian, Grecian, or Roman Empires. But neither the press nor the people will ever appreciate his wisdom, patriotism, and sacrifice in these degenerate times. God bless James R. Whiting! and when he dies, the honest people will weep over his departure, as the Athenians did over the bones of Socrates, whom they kicked, and cuffed, and taunted with insanity, and accused of corrupting the youth of his country, and thrust poison down his throat, but they deeply regretted their folly and cruelty, and the Grecians of every age have mourned his melancholy fate, and cursed their ancestors for their neglect and persecution of the scholar and patriot, and unrivalled Father of Philosophers, since the globe was launched into the atmospheric waves.

c8

Peter Cooper’s Avarice and Infernal Antecedents.

We all know how John Jacob Astor and Stephen Girard got their first thousand dollars. And now let us see how Peter Cooper obtained his first fifteen hundred dollars. When quite young and penniless, the American Government owed Peter Cooper’s aunt fifteen hundred dollars, as pension money, which Peter long besought his aunt to let him strive to obtain, and she invested him with the power to collect it, and he soon obtained it without much difficulty through some of the vagabond politicians of those days, for whom he had done some dirty work in securing their election to Congress and other civil trusts. On obtaining the money, Peter requested the parties who got it for him never to disclose it, and they promised they would not. After he got it, Peter would often visit his sick and needy and aged aunt, and assure her that he had not obtained it, nor would he ever be able to force the Government to pay her. One evening a friend called on Peter’s aunt, (who had been absent in a foreign land,) and found her very ill, and in the last stages of poverty, having sold or pawned nearly all she had. On perceiving this sad state of her affairs, he exclaimed: “Why, my good lady, how could you so rapidly squander the fifteen hundred dollars, with interest, that Peter Cooper obtained for you from our Government, as the pension due you for the patriotic services of your illustrious kindred?” She slowly raised her skeleton form from the bed, and reclining on her hands and side, she said in a husky and feeble tone: “My dear nephew, Peter Cooper, has often told me that my claim is invalid, and that I can never obtain a cent.” Her friend then started from his chair, and shook her hand, and kissed it, and told her to be of good cheer, and rushed from the house, and was on his way to Washington in one hour, and soon returned to New York with a letter from the President of the United States, (who knew her husband in his early years,) affectionately assuring her that her claim was paid to Peter Cooper, as her accredited agent and nephew. Great mental excitement and a protracted and dangerous illness followed these painful disclosures, during which Peter did not visit her. After she partially recovered, she instituted a suit against Peter, which he resisted through all the Courts for sixteen years, when the Court of Appeals directed Peter to pay his aunt four thousand and five hundred dollars. The instant Peter heard of the Court’s fatal decision, he mounted a fleet horse and reached his aunt’s at midnight, and approached her with these sweet words: “O, my dear aunt, how do you do? I am so glad to see you. I declare, how well and young you look for one so old as you. Well, my dear aunt, I have come to pay you the money I owe you, which I have kept all this time, and opposed you for sixteen years in the Courts, simply because I feared if I let you have it, somebody would get it away from you, and you would then be poor and penniless in your declining years.—Now, my dear aunt, I do assure you that I always intended to let you have the money; but your memory was so very bad, and you were always so charitable and easily influenced, that I thought I could take care of your money much better than you, and so I have always kept it against my will, and solely for your good. And now, dear aunt, I have written a receipt for you to sign, and if you will just take this pen, and sign it, you can have all this money in gold that you see in my handkerchief, which will keep you comfortable all your days.” And the poor old infirm creature tottered to the table, and put on her spectacles, and signed a receipt with her skeleton and trembling hand, for two thousand dollars, in full of all demands against Peter Cooper, which the unparalleled villain had thus cunningly written to defraud her of the balance of two thousand and five hundred dollars, which the Court of Appeals had directed him to pay her, after sixteen years of obstinate and wicked litigation on his part. He then gave her two thousand dollars, and left her as a robber darts from a habitation when its tenant is after him with a dagger or revolver. She threatened to prosecute him for obtaining $2,500 through false pretences, and he dared her to do it. But she descended from patriotic blood, and was so excited and exasperated at his wrongs, and disgusted with her species and modern kindred, and being superannuated and broken-hearted, and literally worn out, that, while sitting in her bed dictating a letter to the President of the United States respecting the monstrous robberies of Peter Cooper, she fell back and expired, with her withering execrations of her nephew on her lips. And it was the belief of the most eminent jurists of those days, that her sudden demise saved Peter Cooper from a residence of ten years in the dungeons of the State.

Peter Cooper has long bamboozled this city and country with his bogus philanthropy. He has not, and never will surrender his right, nor that of his heirs, to the building bearing the imposing inscription of “Union” and “To Science and Art.” He will let the first four stories, and pocket the rent, but the fifth story being (like the upper story of the Wall street buildings,) almost valueless, and which he could hardly let at all, he designs devoting to human learning, by letting it to itinerating lecturers for as much as he can squeeze out of them, and put that in his pocket also. And from my knowledge of his narrow mind, (he having been my Grammar pupil in his old age,) I do not believe that he will ever let the fifth story of his bogus scientific edifice to any lecturer who differs with his political or religious views. The penurious old rascal has furnished the immortal “Union” and “Science” and “Art” fifth story with the dilapidated and wormy benches of the old Wash Tub Tabernacle, and of Dr. Spring’s old brick church, which were too much decayed for a wholesome and patriotic or political bonfire. By all his noise and imposture about devoting his building to “Union, Science, and Art,” he has succeeded in prohibiting the construction of an edifice (on the vacant square at the junction of the Third and Fourth Avenues) far more beautiful than his, and by foiling that project, he greatly enhanced the value of his own property. And through his stupendous “Union,” and “Science” and “Art” imposition, he has cheated the New York Common Council into voting him a reduction of $8,000 worth of taxes on his building. There never was such a cunning wretch as Peter Cooper, whose craft would make the devil himself blush. Through his pretended love of his species, and his spurious earnest regard for the culture of the youth of the present and of coming generations, he has foisted the merest old granny that ever existed on the noble Metropolis as Mayor; and, not content with the Mayoralty and nearly all of the Executive Departments in his grasp, this cunning old rat directs the Mayor (who married his adopted daughter) to appoint his (Peter’s) own son Edward as Street Commissioner, which is worth millions in the hands of such cunning old thieves as Peter Cooper and Daniel F. Tieman, who have been stealing the public money through their enormous speculations and gigantic suburban operations, ever since they entered the Common Council in 1828. I have got the data to write a hundred pages on Peter Cooper’s indictment, while he had a glue factory on the old Boston road, and his niggardly meanness to his nieces and nephews, and other kindred, and to the poor Irishmen at present in his glue factory in the vicinity of New York. He screws down all in his employ to such low wages, that he barely permits them to subsist, although their employment of skinning diseased cows feet and making glue is the most offensive labor under Heaven. For his cruelty towards an inoffensive apple-woman, (whom he seized by the throat, and dragged from his store, and threw into the gutter,) he should be horsewhipped from the Battery to Harlem. And through his artifice and eternal excuse, (to the poor starving wretches who have solicited aid since he began his bogus intellectual edifice,) that he could not contribute a dollar to any charity except his building, he has saved thousands that other equally affluent citizens have contributed to relieve the sick and hungry and naked during the several winters of famine through which we have passed, since Peter Cooper began the construction of his sham literary institution. And these reprobates now strive to starve the sick old fathers and mothers and grandmothers and dear little brothers and sisters of the noble newsboys who sell their papers amid the rain and sleet and freezing cold, while these leprous and chronic-pile old scamps are sweetly reposing in feather beds they stole from the tax-payers, under the garb of City Reform. Peter Cooper must soon meet his plundered aunt in the realms of shadows, whose contemplation makes him tremble like a murderer going to execution.

c11

The Early Penury of the Three Napoleons of the American Press—Bennett, Greeley, and Raymond.

The Hon. John Kelly (now Member of Congress from the city of New York) told me that he was the first boy whom James Gordon Bennett employed, when he issued the first number of the Herald,—that he (honest Johnny Kelly) was then a poor, barefooted boy, with scarcely means to live,—that his duties consisted in sweeping out the office, running errands, folding and selling the Herald, and in doing every thing required in and out of the office,—that Bennett then had an office in the basement of a dilapidated building in Wall street, near William, which was in constant danger of falling, and for which he paid no rent,—that Anderson & Ward then published the Herald, whose printing office was in Ann street, in a building subsequently destroyed by fire, and which occupied the lot of the present Sunday Atlas edifice,—that Anderson & Ward would not let Bennett have a solitary copy of the Herald until he paid for it,—that he (John) used to go every day with Bennett to Anderson & Ward’s to get the Herald papers, and that Bennett often had no money, and would appeal in vain for the Herald,—that in tears he often pawned his watch to Anderson & Ward for the Herald newspapers,—that on one occasion, he had no money, and Anderson & Ward held his watch as security for the preceding day’s Heralds, and Ward was drunk, and Anderson was absent, and Bennett cried so long and hard that Ward finally let him have the newspapers,—that nothing but Ward’s generosity, arising from his intoxication, saved Bennett on that critical occasion, as, if Ward had withheld the papers, and the Herald had not appeared as usual, it might have ceased to exist, and the World have never heard of James Gordon Bennett. And thus one event (even the whim of a drunkard) often shadows or illuminates our pathway to ceaseless adversity or prosperity, or to eternal obscurity or immortality.

The Hon. Horace Greeley was so poor when he published the New Yorker, that he could not pay his Wheat Bread Board, and even failed to pay his Unbolted Wheat, or Graham Bread Board. I boarded with Mr. and Mrs. Greeley for seven years at the old Graham House in Barclay street, and (sometime after Greeley established the Tribune) Mrs. Greeley often borrowed money of me, from one shilling to five dollars. She always paid me, but often kept it for weeks, which subjected me to great embarrassment, as I was at the portal of starvation. But Mrs. Greeley was a poetess, and very interesting in conversation, and a sweet and gentle lady, and extremely beautiful, and her pretty smile emitted the solace of an angel’s wand, to a cadaverous and gloomy Grahamite like me, which was of infinite value to my digestive organs, and I never could resist her arch persuasion to loan her money, although it was often my very last shilling. I know a printer in this city who caught Greeley in one of Simpson’s Pawn Boxes. Greeley had just pawned a coat and silver watch, (which the printer saw dart up the spout like a Fourth of July rocket,) and he, Greeley, being near-sighted, was leaning over the counter, counting the pawn money, when the printer, being in the next Pawn Box, (and who had worked as a journeyman printer by the side of Greeley in a printing office in Chatham street some years before,) seized Greeley’s ear, and slapped him on the back, when Greeley looked up, and blushed profusely, and trembled from hat to boot, and picked up his money from the counter, and walked out of the pawnbroker’s shop, with gigantic strides, amid the screams of Simpson and his clerks, and the printer, and all the miserable wretches present, including the darkies. Three years afterwards, Simpson got the boss of the printer to print some auction placards, and told him that Greeley never redeemed his coat and watch, which were sold at a Pawnbroker’s public sale.

Lieutenant Governor Henry J. Raymond, (soon after he came to New York,) was the room-mate of my brother Thomas in Beekman street, nearly opposite Saint George’s Church, at the boarding house of a superannuated Presbyterian clergyman named Brown. Gov. Raymond told me, three weeks since, that my brother Thomas was the first person he roomed with in New York. My brother Tommy had run away from home, and appealed to me for money, and to get him a situation. He arrived from Providence in a snow storm, and as Mrs. Tripler, (with whom I boarded, opposite Saint George’s Church,) was full, I got him board at Parson Brown’s, in a small dark attic room, for two dollars a week. Two days after he began to board at Brown’s, young Mr. Raymond came there, and Brown put him in Tommy’s apartment, where they roomed and slept together for a long period. Raymond was very short, but Tom was much shorter, with the hump of King Richard on his back, but they slept soundly, and snugly, and sweetly, and cosily, and seldom kicked or scratched each other. After Raymond came into Tom’s bed, (it was a double, ricketty, second-hand cot,) Brown reduced Tom’s fare twenty-five cents, which made his board one dollar and seventy-five cents a week, and even that was quite a tax on my attenuated purse. Tom has often told me that he and Raymond would sometimes talk on religion and politics until the doleful hours of midnight, and related many funny anecdotes of Raymond, which I shall publish in the “History of my Life.” Tom said that Raymond was so poor at this time, that he could hardly subsist, and used to have his hair cut close to the skull, to save barber’s money, and wash his handkerchiefs and stockings, and sometimes his shirts, and used to mend his shirts and stockings every Sunday morning, and the room was so cold, that Raymond sat up in the cot, with his legs covered with the sheet and blanket, while he darned his stockings and sewed the rips of his shirts, and that he, (Tom,) suffered severely while Raymond was sitting up in the cot mending his duds, letting in the cold air on his (Tom’s) back and legs. Poor Tommy is cold now, (dying from the rheumatism and dropsy that Raymond gave him,) and I recently bore his tiny body, and big heart, and intelligent brain to our family tomb in Rhode Island, by whose side I may soon repose.

Bennett, Greeley, and Raymond are now at the summit of the American Press, and we shall soon show that they have not been true to the children of the Great Being who raised them from utter penury and obscurity to their present exalted position. And we shall review the source and rise of their Secretaries, Hudson, Dana, and Tuthill, on some very fine day, and then we shall analyse our own mysterious career, and then——O me! O glass! O paint! O putty! O Cooper! O Tiemann! O Edward! O Jeremiah! and the Italian Tasso!

c12

A Sweet Letter.

Rahway, May 15th, 1858.

Stephen H. Branch—

Dear Sir,—Having read a great deal about you, I have taken a great interest in you. Although a stranger, I take my pen to address you a few lines, hoping you will excuse the liberty I take. It is pure admiration of your persevering character that causes me to write; for I have never seen your face to my knowledge. In your poverty, I deeply sympathised with you, and in your prosperity, I rejoice with you. And now I suppose you would like to know who it is that takes such an interest in you. I am a country lady. My name is Miss James, not the whole of it though, the rest I will give when I hear from you. I reside in Rahway, New Jersey. I hope at some future day to become better acquainted with you. If you take interest enough in the writer to answer this—please answer this at once, and direct to

CARRIE JAMES,

Rahway, New Jersey.

O Carrie, Carrie,
Why will you tarry?
Come, O come with me,
And my darling be,
And we will soon be three,
And roam o’er land and sea,
And free lovers be
To eternity!
O how I cry
To see thy eye,
And hear thy sigh!
O! I! O! my!
I almost die
To see thy thigh!
Good by, Carrie,
Thee I’d marry!
So come quick to town,
And I’ll buy a gown,
And to Potts we’ll trot,
Who’ll soon tie our knot,
And to the Astor we’ll go,
And put honey on our dough,
And say avaunt to woe,
And scream and jump Jim Crow,
Till the Rooster doth blow
His cock-a-doodle do,
And hens cut-ka-dar-cut.
And cats mew from their gut.
And we will gaze, and hug, and kiss each other,
Like Adam, our father, and Eve, our mother:
And we will toil like thunder,
In winter and in summer,
To have a brat far better
Than poor old Cain, our brother.
So do not tarry,
Sweet little Carrie,
But come to me,
And I’ll love thee,
Forever and ever,
And scold thee never:
And now on my lone bed,
I will lay my poor head,
And dream sweetly of thee,
Until thy face I see!

The following meritorious gentlemen are wholesale agents for the Alligator.

Ross & Tousey, 121 Nassau street.
Hamilton & Johnson, 22 Ann street.
Samuel Yates, 22 Beekman street.
Mike Madden, 21 Ann street.
Cauldwell & Long, 23 Ann street.
Boyle & Gibson, 32 Ann street and
Hendrickson & Blake, 25 Ann street.

Advertisements—One Dollar a line

IN ADVANCE.

B. LOCKWOOD’S, BROADWAY LETTER OFFICE AND Stationery Store, 422, Broadway, New York. Letters delivered in the city and to the U. S. Mails, just before their times for closing, in all directions. Stationery—a general assortment wholesale and retail. Lockwood & Warren’s Ink, a very superior article—jet black—does not corrode. All orders punctually attended to.

B. LOCKWOOD.

P. C. GODFREY, STATIONER, BOOKSELLER, AND General News dealer, 831 Broadway, New York, near 18th street.

At Godfrey’s—Novels, Books, &c., all the new ones cheap
At Godfrey’s—Magazines, Fancy Articles, &c., cheap.
At Godfrey’s—Stationery of all kinds cheap.
At Godfrey’s—All the Daily and Weekly Papers.
At Godfrey’s—Visiting Cards Printed at 75 cents per pack.
At Godfrey’s—Ladies Fashion Books of latest date.

AUG. BRENTANO, SMITHSONIAN NEWS DEPOT, Books and Stationery, 608 BROADWAY, corner of Houston street.

Subscriptions for American or Foreign Papers or Books, from the City or Country, will be promptly attended to.

Foreign Papers received by every steamer. Store open from 6 A. M. to 11 P. M. throughout the week.

THERE IS SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS

IN THE

PICAYUNE.

You are sincerely warned not to look at THE PICAYUNE.

AVOID THE PICAYUNE!

SHUN THE PICAYUNE!

Or if you must have it, STEAL it.

EXCELSIOR PRINT, 211 CENTRE-ST., N. Y.

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.

—The cover image has been created by transcriber and placed in public domain.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEPHEN H. BRANCH'S ALLIGATOR, VOL. 1 NO. 07, JUNE 5, 1858 ***

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Table of Contents

- CONTENTS

- STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S ALLIGATOR.

- Life of Stephen H. Branch.

- Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.

- Peter Cooper’s Avarice and Infernal Antecedents.

- The Early Penury of the Three Napoleons of the American Press—Bennett, Greeley, and Raymond.

- A Sweet Letter.

- The following meritorious gentlemen are wholesale agents for the Alligator.

- Advertisements—One Dollar a line

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE