i£x HtbrtH 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
 -t ' 'Tort nieiiw ^m^irjam- Mtrnhatans 
 
 (new YORK), 1651. 
 
 'When you leave, please leave this book 
 
 Because it has been said 
 "Ever'thing comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned book." 
 
 H. J. SCHAEFER, jj" 
 
 BOOKBINDER, Sb 
 1406 N 20th St. JS 
 
 PHILADA. 
 
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
i 
 
HAM /ND THE GOTHAMITES 
 
 OR THE 
 
 GAY GIRLS OF NEWYORK 
 
 BY 
 
 HEINRICH OSCAR VON KARLSTEIN. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 F. C. VALENTINE, 
 Member of the New York Press Club, 
 T*v*nslator of ♦* Claire and the Forge-Master," " Wild Oats,* 
 "John Bull's Daughters," Etc., Etc. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1886, 
 
 By laird & LEE. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 LAIRD & LEE, Publishers 
 
Emile Zola's Powerful^ Realistic Novels. 
 
 ^ "After reading Zola's novels it seems as if in all others, ever 
 in the truest, there were a veil between the reader and the things 
 described, and there is present to our mind the same difference as 
 exists between the representations of human faces on canvas and 
 the reflection of the same faces in the mirror. It is like firding 
 truth for the first time. — Signor de Amida, 
 
 NANA. Translated from the 127th Frencli edition. 
 
 LA TERRE. M. Zola says of this, one of his latest works, 
 "I have endeavored to deal with the French peasant in this 
 ; book, just as I dealt with the Paris workman in 'L' Assommoir.* 
 I have endeavored to write his history, to describe his manners, 
 passions and sorrows in the fatal situations and circumstances 
 m which he finds himself." 
 
 L' ASSO M M O I R . Translated from the 97th French edition. 
 
 NANA'S DAUGHTER. A reply to "Nana." 
 
 A DREAM OF LOVE. 
 
 POT BOUILLE. (Piping Hot!) Translated from the STtli 
 
 French edition. 
 
 THE LADIES' PARADISE. Translated from the 84t!i 
 
 French edition. 
 
 NANA'S BROTHER GERMINAL. Transla'^ed from the 
 
 47th French edition. 
 
 ABBE MOURET'S TRANSGRESSION. Translated 
 
 from the 52d French edition. 
 
 THE JOYS OF LIFE. Translated from the 44th French 
 edition. 
 
 A LOVE EPISODE. Translated from tHe 62d French 
 
 edition. 
 
 HUMAN BRUTES. (La B^te Humaine.) 
 
 THERESE RAQUIN. Translated from the 47th French 
 
 edition. 
 
 THE RUSH FOR THE SPOIL. Tranriated from the 
 
 S4th French edition. 
 
 MONEY. (L' Argent.) Zola's latest. Jurt puhUthed. 
 
 Above books are printed on good paper from large type, and ar* 
 
 appropriately illustrated. They are the best editions of 
 Emile Zola's works published in America. 
 
 LAIRD & I,BB, PubUshers, 
 
 263-265 Wabash Ave., CHICAGO, HI 
 
DEDICATORY. 
 
 Ye Gothamites: 
 
 I have no hesitancy in dedicating this book to you. 
 My long residence in your great city has made me as 
 familiar with your merits as with your defects, so that 
 I am not apt to do you the injustice of ignoring the 
 former or exaggerating the latter. 
 
 Your greatness makes you so good-natured that you 
 seem to enjoy abuse; your intelligence allows you to 
 accept criticism, and your pride seems to smile at 
 praise, as if to say, when your collossal immensity is 
 recognized and appreciated: " Wait a bit, my boy; { 
 have not half begun yet." 
 
 When I look upon my work and think of you, I can- 
 not but call to mind Mark Twain's coward, who did 
 not resent insults because he was afraid that if he were 
 to strike a man he would kill him with a blow, as he 
 had done before. My gentle Gothamite, you struck a 
 foreigner before; your arm has grown longer and 
 mightier since then; but with strength came magnan- 
 imity—too much for your good, I fear; though it 
 ensures me safety from your ill-will, even if you pay 
 any attention at all t^ tiie few little pen-pricks that I 
 must inflict. 
 
A L.ITERARY GEM.4 
 
 w a il I » " 
 
 Mademoiselle deMaupin, 
 
 A ROMANCE OF LOVE AND PASSION. 
 
 By THEOPHILE GAUTIER 
 
 •2mo, 413 pages. Pap«p covars. Illustpated with 16 
 Kalf'tones from tha original etchings 
 by Toudouza. 
 
 •ThB gcfahotiodkor aiMtaiid sense, AcTIoly Wrftof b«wtr."^ C. 
 
 •Ctontiw is on itUmitable model. HU manner is so li^ asd twe, •<> '^JfeSS 
 Mfve, his fimcy so alert, his taste so happy, his humor sfc genial, tbaft M OMUs lUostao 
 almost as Gonugious as laughter.*— Jtf'r. Htnrjt famet. 
 
 «'MADEM0iSe4E DE HAUPW," the latest prodnct of tlw pen d 
 Theophile Gautier, is considered by the ba4 critics of this inimitable 
 Frenchman to be Ws mo-t artistic, witty and andacioos work. In writing 
 this diarming novel, Gaotier has disfJayed all the artistic coloring that 
 atmospheres the romantic 8cho<J of literature this rersatfle author has 
 created. 
 
 ''MADEMOISELLE OE MAUPiN^ is alhre with the characteristic vignr 
 shown in "Albertus,* «Les Jeunes— France,* and "Poesies ds 
 Theophile Gautier," his earlier works, but is more delicate, and 
 abounds in the subtle cynicism which contrasU so ddig^itfnlfy with th« 
 pungent wit tlut sparkles on every pi^ 
 
 The bode is a marvel of beauty, both fitom an artiitfo as weQ m « 
 typographical standp(^t. 
 
 fOa 8ALB AT AU BOOK STORES AND Nam ffSailOt AMI QM AU 
 BAILROAD TRAINS. 
 
 LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, 
 
 OHICA9<% IjUUNOia. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Where to begin and where to end, where to praise 
 and where to disparage, are serious questions for him 
 who undertakes the description of a city like Gotham, 
 which is a marvel of grandeur and a charnel-house of 
 squalor, a colossus of charity and a giant of bigotry, a 
 mountain of freedom and an abyss of slavery, a statue 
 of virtue and a cess-pool of vice — it is a cosmos. 
 
 Yes, it is a world, and a world siii generis at that. 
 
 Gotham cannot assert that I make either odious or 
 odorous comparisons when I mention it in connection 
 with other cities, for I can not compare it. It is incom- 
 parable in everything that is good and in all that 
 is bad. 
 
 Berlin is not Germany, thank God; London is not 
 England, Paris is not France, Madrid is not Spain, 
 and Rome is not Italy — each one of these cities has 
 its individual characteristics which stamp and distin- 
 guish it — Gotham has none of these and all of them. 
 This makes the task more difficult, but nil desperandum, 
 " My soul's in arms and eager for the fray;" at it, then, 
 and 
 
 «» » « • Nothing extenuate 
 Nor set down aught in malice." 
 
 With this motto: 
 
 VORWARTS — MARSCH \ 
 s 
 
SAPPHO 
 
 By ALPHONSE DAUDET. 
 
 17n9ht^0a TramlatUn from the 100th W^noh BS»Um. 
 
 "•fiftppho'le, without doubt. Daudst's masterpiece, and giould W 
 read by every lover of the artistic in choice fiction."— THftune. 
 
 " The boook may, without exaggeration, be describedas a glowingplc- 
 ture of Parisian life, with all its diversity of characters, with its bo^e- 
 mian and half- world circles that are to be found nowhere else; with all 
 its special immorality, in short, but also with the touch of poetry that 
 eaves it from utter corruption, and with the keen artistic sense that 
 pressrves its vetaries from absolute degradation,"— Daily lelegra^h. 
 
 No book has attained greater popularity in France than 
 " Sappho." Our translation, as published in 
 
 The Pastime Series 
 
 is done by a master hand, preserving all the beauties of 
 the original French. 
 
 It should be in the hands of every young man. 
 
 For sale at all book stores and news stands, and on all railroadi 
 trains. Be sure and ask for LAIRD & LEE'S EDITION, as It is 
 
 THE BEST PUBLISHED. 
 
 LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, 
 
 CHICAGO, ILLS. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 DEDICATORY ... 
 
 INIRODUCTORY 
 
 3 
 5 
 
 CHAPTER I. Preparatory. — The Grumbling Foreigner — 
 Dutchman " — Beards and Chewing-Tobacco — Divorces by De- 
 fault — •Paucity of Trees Increases Divorces and Reduces Suicides 
 
 — Elegance in Dress of Gotham's Daughters — Female Beauty — 
 Morality — Self-confidence and Confidence in the Fair Gothamites 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. Gotham's Daughters.— A Bleak Outlook- 
 Paternal Authority — Obedience is the First Duty of a Father 
 
 — His Child's Slave — His Recompense — An Aristocratic Home — 
 The Husband's Solitude — A Thousand Dolls and a Thousand Dol- 
 lars — Why .Divorces Are Few^ Among the Higher Classes — The 
 Old Dutch and Mayflower Families — Maternity and Higher Pur- 
 poses - 20 
 
 CHAPTER III. Education. — Its Limitations — Influence on 
 Girls — Organic Chemistry and Potatoes — Results — Breach of 
 Promise of Marriage — Infidelity — Opportunity Makes the Thief— 
 The " Discreet Dressmaker" — Better to Regulate the Social Evil — 
 Cramming Education — Physical Eff"ects on Girls and Boys — Pre- 
 vented in the Latter — Glorious Dissemblers — Their Life is Not ia 
 Their Homes — Who is to Blame? — " Darning " Wives for Not 
 Darning Stockings — The Boarding-House the Subverter of the 
 Home — Cooking-Schools — Biddy, Gretchen and Francois 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV. Flirting.— A Fine Art — "You Ought to Have 
 Seen Mamma Flirt" with a Stranger — Depth of Real Love — 
 Jenny Wants a Beau and Then Something Else — Eveline's Poor 
 Luck — Oh, Fie, a German Married Flirt ! — Sold, Most Beautifully 
 —Mother Does Not Know Daughter's Latest Conquest — Secoad- 
 handed Love — Judge Not 34 
 
 CHAPTER V. Gotham Society.-— The " Upper Ten One 
 Man as Good as Another — The Cachet — The President's Accessi- 
 bility— The "First Troop" — The Sole Qualification — « WaU- 
 Streeters" and "Knickerbockers" — Splendor of Two Kiads-x 
 
s 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Patroons — Petty Princes — Landed Aristocracy Fairy-Gold 
 
 — Real Estate — " Sets "— Mixture of the Clans 4 
 
 CHAPTER VI. Lager Beer.— Fifteen Years Ago — Pumper- 
 nickel- — Fair Beer Drinkers Limited to Bottled Stuff — Draft-beer 
 for Men — Beer Gardens Disreputable — Casino — Beer, Music and 
 Flowers — The Key to the Mystery — Smoking — "Who's Been 
 Here Since I've Been Gone?" — No Smoking in the Presence of 
 Ladies — The Cigarette — Woman's Place — Wife-beating 5: 
 
 CHAPTER VIL Inventions.— Words for Ideas— The Dude — 
 The World's Dude-ophagic Cat — Cranks — G. F. T. — Street 
 Preacher — "Millions In It " — Long-haired Men and Short-haired 
 Women — Little Noses Snatched from the Flames — Political 
 Cranks — Artemus Ward 5 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. Sunday In Gotham.— The Most Severe Pun- 
 ishment — Stolen Fruit Are Sweetest — Enforced Desecration of 
 the Sabbath — The Sunday of the Wealthy and the Sunday of the 
 Poor — The Artists' Club and the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion — Preferring Drunkards to Slaves — Three Sexes — Rev. Dr. 
 Deems — Church Bells — My Sermon — My .Sunday 6 
 
 CHAPTER IX. Theaters.— Like Streets — Two Classes, Morally 
 
 — "Homes of the Drama" — Play-houses and Work-houses — 
 Places of Amusement {Sic!) — " Wallack's " — "English, You 
 Know" — "Daly's" — German, But You Are Not Presumed to 
 Know It — Comic Opera — Always Leg-itimate — Stoke's Place — 
 The Madison Square Church; Theatrical Department — Really 
 German — Milesia and Senegambia — The Opera — Negro Min- 
 strels — Music Halls — Gardens — Provision for the Poor — Ticket 
 Speculators — The Actor's Social Status — Brooklyn Tabernacle 
 and Plymouth Church 7 
 
 CHAPTER X. No Middle Class In Gotham. — Gothamization 
 Opposed to Healthy, Cheap Enjoyments — The Clerk and "His 
 Best Girl " — Memories of the Good Old Times Over the Wash-tub 
 
 — Dangers to Morality — Socialists — All Boys Born Presidents — 
 
 — Civil and Military Authorities — The Sacred Name of Mother. . 8 
 CHAPTER XI. The Press of Gotham.— The Only Omnipotent 
 
 and Omniscient Power On Earth — Why So Strong — Small Print 
 Read by Poor Light, in Jolting Conveyances, .i Cause of Myopia 
 
 — The Gothamite is a Reader — Its Effects on Conversation — 
 
 — Newspapers Keep Lovei's Apart — The General and the Journ- 
 alist — A Patent of Ignorance — Enterprise — Some Few Papers 
 Briefly Considered 8 
 
 CHAPTER XIL A Presidential Election. — Politics in 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 9 
 
 Gotham Are Incomprehensibly Profound — Party Feeling— " Ma- 
 ri-ah ! " — Continental Liar — How Gothamites Act Towards 
 Women — Peaceable Uprising of the People — Political Parties — 
 Centralization of Power and State Rights — A Fictitious Candidacy 
 
 — A Water Candidate — A Candidate of the Party of Short-haired 
 Women and Long-haired Men — Sensational Journalism in Politics 
 
 — Both Candidates Claiming to be Elected — Money Power in 
 Politics — Betting — The Return to the Even Tenor 93 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL Gotham's Local Politics.— The Cash Value 
 of Offices — Gentlemen Politicians — The Micks and the Macks-— 
 Mr. Brownstone's Adventure — McSly, the "Boss" — " Wurrldn' 
 the Dcestrick" — The Irish Need But Apply, and Only the Irish — 
 
 — Soft Snaps — The Delightful Tweed Charter — A Factory of 
 
 " Statesmen " — The Remedy m 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. Crazes.— Anglomania — Crazy- Work — Mani- 
 
 cure — Roller-Skating — Hot Water 120 
 
 CHAPTER XV. Ads.— Life Too Short to Pronounce Words in 
 Fxill — Extraordinary Means — Inviting Prosecution — Falsified 
 Cablegrams — Cat's Flesh Stewed In Rhinoceros' Milk — Cut Out 
 Your Mother's Heart — Pretty Girls as Advertisements — Cancer. 126 
 CHAPTER XVI. Signs.— Society for the Encouragement of 
 Wearing Clean Shirts— Soap — The Blue Monkey — Blackened 
 Eyes Painted in Their Natural Color While You Wait — Twenty- 
 five Cents Worth of German — Soda Water and Spiritus Frumenti 
 
 — The Erratic Stationers — Removals 130 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. Cheap and Nasty. — Lemonade — Bad Liq- 
 uors and Worse Cigars — Ice — No Elephant's Ears or Dynamite 
 Cartridges for Sale — Peripatetic Variety Stores — Fleas — Flowers 
 
 — The L's — Moral Improvers — That Owl — Mice — Peanuts- — 
 
 — Nahsty and Nice 1 33 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL Little Impositions The Joys of "The 
 
 Ave" — Private Efficiency and Official Imbecility — The Gotham- 
 ite's Amazing Weakness — The "Finest" — Garbage Carts — The 
 Grandest Avenue a Whirlwind of Dust — How The Aerial Transit 
 Company Accommodates the Public — Safe-moving — "Skids" — 
 The Britain and His Rights — How Mr. Blank Obtained a Seat at 
 
 the Company's Expense I^I 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. Gotham in 1986.— Cleanliness Everywhere — 
 Home that is Home — Bankruptcy in Business Only — Telephone 
 to Honduras — His True Wealth His Wife and Children — Naughty 
 Grandmothers — What Happiness the Century Holds — The Mil- 
 Uaixm — Th» Ogre» of tha Nineteenth Century— Van dor Bliiikaa 
 
10 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Redivious — History's Tricks — Amusements — Public Servants 
 Grown Affable— 45otli Street — Facilities — " Hell On Fits" — 
 Gemiithliclikeit — The Great American Theater — " Thim Gundoh- 
 lers" — Labor and Capital — The End of Slavery — No More Non- 
 
 CHAPTER XX. Hodge-podge.— Profanity— Hero Worship- 
 George Washington's Death Certificate — Gotham's Dirty Streets 
 — Boot-blacks — Enamoring a Hen — Sumpy's Death — Mr. Jabo- 
 cy's Reproof — Our Ignorance of Gotham — Safety of Life and 
 Limb — The Bartholdi Statue — Election Bets — " Sweet Violets "— 
 Oysters, Bicycles and Critics — Jews and Crime — No Slovens- 
 Starch — Conscience — The Writer Threatens the Reader With 
 Another Book i i6o 
 
 sense 
 
 148 
 
 CHAPTER XXL Conclusion 
 
 178 
 
GOTHAM AND THE GOTHAMITES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PREPARATORY. 
 
 The'Grumbling Foreigner — " Dutchmen " — Beards ana Chewing Tobaeco 
 
 Divorces " By Default" — Paucity of Trees Incieases Divorces and 
 
 Reduces Suicides — Elegance in Dress of Gotham's Daughters — Female 
 Beauties — Morality — Self-Confidence of and Confidence in the Fair 
 Gothamites. 
 
 The most disagreeable persons I met in Gotham were 
 foreigners, who had filled the important posts of scull- 
 ions, third-rate artisans or incapable business-men at 
 home, and not being able or desirous of making an 
 honest living in the lands of their birth, had fled to 
 America. 
 
 Their stupid criticisms of Gotham, that great key to 
 great America, nauseated me, and I oftentimes could 
 not control myself sufficiently to refrain from silencing 
 them with: 
 
 " If you are so disgusted with this country, why do 
 you not go home?" 
 
 Ah! they could not go home, or would not — for 
 excellent resisons. 
 
 Thirty-five years ago, wh«n I made my firat visit tQ 
 Gotham, a species of prejudice existed in the Gotham- 
 ite's mind against us, and this feeling was manifest in 
 calling us " Dutch," in derision. ' This probably arose 
 from the similarity in sound of the Hollander's patro- 
 nymic to our Deutsch, to figure the pronunciation of 
 which he who speaks English must write Doitsh — 
 certainly very much like " Dutch. " 
 
l8 
 
 PREPARATORY. 
 
 At present most of the Gothamites would like to 
 prove their Dutch descent. Tempora mutantur et nos 
 muiamur in illis! 
 
 At the time I am discussing, the silly prejudice against 
 us was in full blast, as is shown by the following little 
 anecdote. 
 
 One of my class-mates had opened a dry goods store 
 in what is now an unmentionable part of Gotham. As 
 now is the fashion in America to rear beards, so then 
 the beard was worn in Europe and tabooed in Gotham. 
 Karl Gumbiner wore a beard that might have provoked 
 Barbarossa's envy; in other regards Karl was Gotham- 
 ized — even to the extent of chewing tobacco. 
 
 One day one of his clerks came to him for aid in 
 waiting on a customer, who, after having the contents 
 of the store shown her, did not purchase even the 
 obligatory paper of pins. Karl's beard came forward, 
 Karl behind it, all urbanity, and, placing himself before 
 the lady, asked permission to show her some laces he 
 had just received. 
 
 She looked at him aghast, drew up her body and, I 
 fancy, shook her ample crinoHne, if such were then 
 worn, and said, angrily: 
 
 " I will not be spoken to by a man who is so shame- 
 less as to wear hair on his face, and much less a 
 Dutchman." 
 
 The lady, who considered a hairy face too suggestive 
 for her modest eyes, was the cause of a murder some 
 three months later. Her husband shot a man under 
 circumstances that need not be detailed, further than 
 that the bullet which passed through her lover grazed one 
 of her ribs. But that was thirty-five years ago; to-day 
 the husband would have quietly became the defendant 
 in a divorce suit, and would have allowed his faithless 
 wife to obtain a decree by default. The politeness of 
 the Gothamites to the fair ones goes to this extent. 
 
 Yet it is a mistake to presume that divorces grow on 
 trees in Gotham; they are now rather difficult to ob- 
 
PREPARATORY. 
 
 19 
 
 tain, and trees are painfully few, especially in the 
 thickly-settled- districts, where they are most needed. 
 Perhaps if there were more trees in Gotham, there 
 would be even less divorces; for many men who 
 become innocent, though willing, defendants, would 
 hang themselves if conveniences therefor were more 
 plentiful. I do not wish to assert that marital alle- 
 giance is scarce in Gotham, but there are other causes 
 for divorce that will be discussed further on. 
 
 Whoever walks that throbbing artery, Broadway, 
 which everybody knows too well to require a descrip- 
 tion, must hQ struck with one fact, viz: that no other 
 street in the world can produce as many well-dressed, 
 and, be it distinctly understood, tastefully attired, 
 women. If I were not married, I might supplement 
 this statement by saying that nowhere are so many 
 really pretty women seen. I will not say this, how- 
 ever, but I will think it until I draw my last breath.* 
 
 Beyond their physical beauty and tasteful garb, 
 Gotham's daughters wear an unmistakable and glorious 
 shield of self-confidence, which women of no other 
 nation can equal. Remember, traveler, whenever a 
 woman on the streets of Gotham returns your glance 
 wonderingly, as if she were endeavoring to recollect you, 
 she is a pure woman. When she affects diffidence, in 
 nine cases out of ten she will not be offended if ad- 
 dressed by a stranger. I run no risk in making this 
 statement to men of the world, who, as a rule, are 
 not easily mistaken. 
 
 That self-confidence, that steadfast walk, that grace- 
 ful, fearless bearing, are all the legitimate results of the 
 confidence that the Gothamite reposes in the fair sex. 
 Gotham's daughters are but human, and I pray,|for their 
 sake, that with the increase of European customs in 
 
 * My translator just tells me that a young lady of whom I thought when 
 I wrote this, is a sample of the Chicago girL I caimot believe this, as she 
 wears a visible shoe. 
 
20 
 
 ^qoxham's daughters.. 
 
 Gotham its women be not depreciated by the importa- 
 tion of the duenna. 
 
 But my pen is runniag away with me. I will pull its 
 liit back into its mouth and bring my lame steed down 
 to its normal pace in a new chapter — one which to^ a 
 man of good taste must be interesting because of it* 
 title, «Ycn if ita subjects are not well discussed. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 GOTHAM'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 A Bleak Outlook — Paternal Authority — Obedience is the First Duty of 
 a Father — His Child's Slave — His Recompense — An Aristocratic 
 Home — The Husband's Solitude — A Thousand Dolls and a Thou- 
 sand Dollars — Why Divorces are Few Among the Highest Classes — 
 The Old Dutch and Mayflower Families — Maternity and "Higher 
 Purposes." 
 
 She' was a pretty mite, perhaps eight years old. Her 
 long; golden curls fluttered in the chilly breeze from 
 beneath a coquettish cap. Her graceful body was 
 enveloped in a velvet cloak; and her little, daintily- 
 gloved hands were partially hidden in a Liliputian muff. 
 The rich claret color of all her raiment paled before the 
 beautiful tinge that glowed on her cheeks and lips, as 
 she stood before a display of dolls in a large show- 
 window. 
 
 " Come, Pet," said a tall gentleman, " let us trot 
 home; it is near dinner time." 
 The pet did not stir. 
 
 " Come, darling; you really must, little daughter/' 
 urged the father. 
 
 " I think — I like — the one in the Pompadour dress 
 best. It is elegant — plain, but neat, " mused the little 
 sprite, heeding her father less than she heeded the wind 
 as it blew a curl into her face. She raised her hand 
 and swept the truant lock back into its place. 
 
 " Come, baby; come at once, " said her father, assum- 
 ing a faintly authoritative tone. 
 
Gotham's daughters. 
 
 21 
 
 The little girl turned to her father, looked at him 
 slowly from head to foot, and from foot to head again, 
 and after a moment's deliberation stamped her foot and 
 quickly said: 
 
 " Oh, pshaw! what a tyrant you have become since 
 you married into our decent family. " 
 
 A glance at the gentleman showed that he had not 
 married into that little girl's family; for if a child ever 
 resembled her father, that one did m.ost strikingly. 
 
 I expected to see that pretty, naughty cherub 
 receive the chastisement that was due her, but her 
 father only laughed nervously, it seemed to me. 
 
 " Laugh all you please," said the httle girl, in a 
 determined manner, " I shall not stir from here until 
 you buy me that doll." 
 
 " I will, for Christmas." 
 
 " Christmas! " exclaimed the girl indignantly. " For 
 Christmas — one plain doll for Christmas! Dear me, 
 I expect a dozen dolls from you for Christmas, besides 
 many, many other presents. Go, get me that doll at 
 once." 
 
 The gentleman went into the store; the little one 
 stood firmly at her post and pointed out the doll she 
 wanted, as soon as her father appeared near it with a 
 salesman. A few moments later he emerged from the 
 shop, carrying a bundle. The Httle girl raised her 
 large, blue eyes to him and smiled. Then she took 
 his hands and chatted gayly, as she trotted by his side. 
 Suddenly she stopped and said in a commanding tone: 
 
 " Fix my bow," 
 
 He stopped to obey her command, when she 
 quickly dropped her muff, threw her arms about his 
 neck, kissed him and exclaimed: " Thank you, my 
 darling, good papa; I love you with all my heart." 
 
 He laughed when he found that her bow was not at 
 all disarranged, picked up his hat which she had 
 knocked off with her Rapturous embrace, arose and 
 Hstened to her merry chatter, as if he, her father, felf 
 
 2 
 
22 Gotham's daughters. 
 
 highly honored at being at all noticed by his own flesh 
 and blood. 
 
 The little comedy was but a repetition of what was a 
 daily occurrence at that Gothamite's home — a home 
 where the least comfortable room was his library, the 
 only one in which he dared assert his mastership when 
 he was alone — and when his wife did not need him as an 
 escort to places of amusement. There were his 
 sHppers and his dressing-gown; there were his pipe 
 and tobacco, but carefully hidden, lest his wife might 
 find these evidences of his " vulgar" taste. A sofa 
 stood there, too; he slept on it many a night when his 
 business kept him late at his office, and he was too 
 considerate to disturb his wife's slumbers. 
 
 When he returned, after a hard day's work, with 
 aching head and feverish pulse, and faint, because in 
 his rush after the Almighty Dollar he had not taken time 
 to dine, did he find a blazing fire, a warm meal, and his 
 slippers ready^ for him? No. All those things would 
 have been ready had his wife ordered her servants to 
 have them there; but she was tired; she had been at a 
 grand wedding feast the night before, and that evening 
 she had been busy with the latest novel, with looking 
 over the records of the missionary society of which she 
 is the secretary, with preparing her hst of visits for the 
 morrow, with making notes of her numerous require- 
 ments for the winter season — how could she then give 
 thought to so insignificant a matter as her toiling hus- 
 band's comforts? If he wanted meals at unseemly 
 hours, why did he not go to his club or a restaurant for 
 them? 
 
 Our friend takes a drink of whisky, smokes a pipe 
 and struts about the room to keep himself warm; but 
 he steps lightly, lest he wake his wife. Then he sits 
 on the sofa and knits his brows as the business cares of 
 the next day crowd upon him. With whom can he 
 commune, with whom discuss the weighty affairs? 
 With no one. There is not a being who is interested 
 
GOTHAM^S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 23 
 
 in him or his business. He alone must decide all. 
 He sighs. Then he makes a struggle, turns the gas 
 higher. On his desk lies a beautifully-mounted pistol. 
 He toys with it absent-mindedly for a moment, shud- 
 ders, and lays down the weapon. His eye falls on a 
 charming picture of his daughter. He takes it in his 
 hands and smiles. Then he imprints a kiss upon it. 
 It evidently nerved his heart to the world again, for he 
 smiles as he throws himself on the sofa, and, as his 
 thoughts subside to Morpheus' sway, he murmurs: 
 " Darling Bessie — if I can live but five years more, 
 you may have a thousand new dolls every day — all 
 Pompadours at that." 
 
 And then he dreams of dolls innumerable, in all sorts 
 of dresses, rising out of barrels of oil and sacks of 
 grain, and from beneath railroad ties; each doll smiles 
 upon him, claps her hands, throws kisses to him, and 
 looks love at him. Each doll first resembles the vig- 
 nettes on bonds, and then she rapidly changes into 
 Bessie — his beloved child. 
 
 In the morning he shivers as he changes his clothing, 
 for he is cold — cold without and cold within. Then 
 he seeks his little girl. To do so he must pass through 
 his wife's room. Does a word from her warm his soul? 
 She is awake, and looks at him silently in response to 
 his " good-morning, dear." 
 
 How he yearns for one of those glances which she 
 gave him before they had grown cold towards each 
 other! He waits. Perhaps, he thinks it was his fault 
 that they are so estranged, and he approaches the 
 bed. 
 
 " Charles," she says, calmly, *' I will need a thousand 
 to-day? " 
 
 " Yes, dear," he answers, meekly. 
 " When? " 
 
 " As soon as the bank opens." 
 
 " Why," she asks contemptuously, " have you not a 
 miserable thousand dollars with you? " 
 
GOTHAM'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 " No, dear; I do not carry that much money, " 
 
 " Much — money — " she sneers. Then she throws 
 herself on her side and sighs: " Oh God, why did I 
 throw myself away on a beggar! " 
 
 Is it surprising that this man, in those fev/ instants 
 of respite which his business allows him, gives thought 
 only to his child — his little tyrant? 
 
 And, reader, this picture is not overdrawn; it is the 
 sad, sad truth. Let us pray wjth Charles that his little 
 daughter may in time learn to treat her husband differ- 
 ently, so that both may be happy and not as miserable 
 as are her parents. 
 
 And why do they not separate? They belong to the 
 Gotham aristocracy. He has a Dutch name — her 
 ancestors came over in the Mayflower — they must 
 avoid everything that smacks of scandal. To-morrow 
 that pistol with which he toyed may go off, and then 
 the world will shower its sympathy upon the bereft 
 widow, who will weep as though her heart would break, 
 and — his creditors? Well, they will say, with delightful 
 unanimity: " We will be damned if we trust a van der 
 Blinken again. We might have known better — his 
 great-great-grandfather was a butcher from Rotherdam; 
 and now our noble suicide, after spending our money 
 on his wife's extravagances and in wild speculations, 
 turns up his nose to the daisies and leaves us in the 
 lurch." 
 
 His young widow weeps — Charles was so good! 
 And before he is quite cold, she has taken out letters 
 of administration, and lives gloriously on his inherit- 
 ance. But not one cent of the money she inherited 
 from him goes to rub the smirch from the van der 
 BHnken name. No, no; she is a Dollrymple; her 
 family is not touched; for she 07ily viarried Van der 
 Blinken — nothing more! 
 
 Truth compels me to add that Charles van der 
 Blinken, Dollrymple and Bessie are fictitious names — - 
 the story itself is true ! 
 
GOTHAM'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 25 
 
 Fortunately, not all of Gotham's aristocracy (I use 
 the word to please the Gothamites) is made up of 
 such families as the van dor Blinkens. There are 
 some delightful homes, where the father is head of the 
 family ; not the dictator, as among us, but the head. 
 
 " Papa," says the oldest son, a young gentleman, " I 
 should like to go to Europe for a year or so." 
 
 " So should I," answers the father. 
 I dare say you would," laughs the young gentle- 
 man, " but you have no rich father to ask for the 
 necessary cash. " 
 
 The old gentleman smiles. " I will play you a game 
 of billiards to decide whether you may go or not," says 
 the father. They play, and the young man sees at 
 every stroke that his loving father allows hiniself to be 
 vanquished, while making a great feint to win. 
 
 Before the year is over the young gentleman returns, 
 tired of sight-seeing, and settles down to work. Later on 
 he marries and rears a family, as his father did, provided 
 his wife be not a Miss DoUrymple. She need not be, 
 for there are many descendants of the Mayflower stock 
 who raise their daughters to fulfill their destiny. 
 
 Fully one-half of Gotham's daughters do not look 
 with joyous anticipation toward the time when they 
 will be wives and mothers. They strain for " some- 
 thing higher." What that " something higher" is, I 
 have never been able to elicit. As it stands at present, 
 most make a show of a literary education, a marvelous 
 grace in dancing, unexcelled taste in dressing; utter 
 ignorance of the culinary art and of needle- work, both 
 of which are obtainable for money, and an aversion to 
 that state which good wives delight in. 
 
 My wife became acquainted with a rather garrulous 
 female physician, who made some revelations in this 
 connection. 
 
 " You have many young lady patients, have you 
 not? " asked my wife. 
 
26 
 
 GOTHAM'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 " Yes ; and they are particularly solicitous for advice 
 shortly before they marry," answered the doctress. 
 " What kind of advice? " 
 
 " Well, I am sorry to say that the wealthier they are 
 the more anxious they are to learn how to avoid the 
 natural results of marriage — maternity." 
 
 " I should think they would yearn for it. " 
 
 " Not only are they anxious to remain childless, but 
 their mothers encourage the idea that all of the details 
 are animal and unaesthetic. " 
 
 " But they love their husbands?" 
 
 " Yes, if the husband has plenty of money and is 
 not anxious to perpetuate his name." 
 
 " Do you give them the advice they desire?" 
 
 "No; but others do — or even worse, assist them 
 when nature has asserted her rights." 
 
 " And then?" 
 
 " Why, then they become invalids, and those who 
 are ashamed to be in a state which makes a corset 
 uncomfortable go to my colleagues to be treated for 
 the results." 
 
 " And are they not diffident about discussing such 
 ailments with men?" 
 
 " Oh, no; why should they be? Physicians, you 
 know " 
 
 " Yes; but I infer that, as they are ashamed to 
 become mothers " 
 
 " They are, for they deem their share in the propa- 
 gation of the race vulgar and in bad form." 
 
 " What will be the result?" 
 
 " Rather ask, what is the result? Our women, the 
 mainstay of our society, are dying out. As soon as 
 they learn what is their destiny, they rebel against it, 
 and — large families are rare in this generation, and 
 ninety per cent, of our women are invahds. " 
 
 Comment is unnecessary. 
 
EDUCATION. 
 
 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 Its Limitations "Influence on Girls — Organic Chemistry and Potatoes 
 — Results — Breach of Pronrise of Marriage — InMchty — Oppor- 
 tunity Makes the Thief— The "Discreet Dressmaker" — Better to 
 Regulate the Social Evil — Cramming Education — Physical Effects on 
 Girls and Boys— Prevented in the Latter — Glorious Dissemblers — 
 Their Life is Not in Their Homes — Who is to Blame? — " Darning" 
 Wives for not Darning Stockings — The Boarding-House the Sub- 
 verter of the Home— Cooking Schools — Biddy, Gretchen and 
 Fran9ois, 
 
 I DOUBT whether another city anywhere spends as 
 much money upon education as does Gotham. Can 
 any other city boast that all manner of education, from 
 the most elementary to the most profoundly scientific, 
 is obtainable free by those who cannot pay for it? 
 Even art is taught free to those who will learn; in fact, 
 I do not know but that there are free dancing, rowing 
 and boxing schools. I wish I had fitttng words where- 
 with to do homage to the munificence of the Cooper 
 Union, where there are free classes in — well, it would 
 be easier to tell what is not taught there. I believe 
 that the great founder of that institute did not.leave a 
 bequest for tight-rope dancing, the only art (or is it a 
 science?) for which Peter Cooper provided no teachers, 
 to my knowledge. 
 
 The influence of free education on the youth of 
 Gotham is evident, especially on girls. What I shall 
 say now I do not wish to apply to exceptional girls 
 with strong constitutions, capable of bearing all 
 strains, but to the majority. 
 
 I met a vast number of them who knew more trigo- 
 nometry than I every learned, but not one of them 
 could sew on a buttom or darn a stocking, even as well 
 as I can. They could repeat by rote, word for word, 
 
28 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 exactly as laid down in the texts, all of the complex 
 formu ae in organic chemistry, but they knew not how 
 to boil a potato. Theoretically they knew that heat 
 coagulates albumen, but not one would know how to 
 cook an egg. 
 
 To follow their studies, " to keep up with their 
 class, they must needs study, when they should 
 Irohc about .or play at housekeeping, under their 
 mother s direction. It is natural that all of the youn^ 
 ladies who graduate each year cannot become teachers 
 not all have business ability wherewith to utihze thei^ 
 mainly theoretical acquirements, and but few have for- 
 tunes which justify their continuing to study and pass 
 through life alone. ^ 
 
 The natural result is that marriage is accepted, not 
 with hopes of finding happiness therein, but as a bitter 
 necessity. How true this is, is shown by the numerous 
 suits for breach of promise. In these the maiden's 
 disappointment has a monetary value attached to it- 
 she sues for ivhat she has lost: the comforts of a pros- 
 pective home ; not a home as we call it, but a good 
 house in which to live, and a husband to provide all the 
 
 However, in justice to the Gothamite's wife, I must 
 say that marital infiddity on her part is the exception 
 the very rare exception. This is not due to his vigi- 
 lance, nor to her affection for him, but — ask ohvsi 
 Clans In a book like this I may say no more than that 
 the sys em of education affects the fair Gothamite 
 principally by developing her intellectual life at the ex- 
 pense of her physical. The Gothamite who violates 
 tZ7l"f rr exception, also; he must toi 
 
 from early to late to supply the wants of his family 
 and consequently has neither time nor energy fo; 
 
 vefv lltH. '''' and sfeep " 
 
 very little of the latter. ^ 
 
 All languages have the proverb: " Opportunity 
 
EDUCATION. 
 
 29 
 
 makes the thief." Yet this is not true in Gotham. It 
 offers many opportunities, as witness the advertisements 
 I cut from several newspapers: 
 
 Quiet. — A widow, hving alone in a flat, and em- 
 ploying no servants, will rent a handsomely-furnished 
 room to discreet, quiet parties, by the day, night or 
 longer. Meals served in room if desired. Address 
 Two Dollars. 
 
 Security.— Rooms in a family that miuds its own 
 business. Admirably suited for people from the 
 country desiring a quiet, retired, secure place. Address 
 Reasonable Terms. 
 
 Safe. — Elegant room, with bath attached, for lady 
 and gentleman. Board for lady only. Address NON- 
 INQUISITIVE. 
 
 These advertisements are selected from a number of 
 others, because they are the least suggestive of their 
 class. 
 
 At one time my wife and I decided that we would 
 take up our residence in a boarding-house, and in 
 looking through the papers, I came across the adver- 
 tisements I refer to. My curiosity, though, was most 
 excited by the following: 
 
 " A true lady, who desires to increase her income 
 slightly, will rent rooms to a lady and gentleman, by 
 the day or week. Address DISCREET Dressmaker." ' 
 
 I wrote for particulars and received a prompt reply, 
 inviting me to call. The " Discreet Dressmaker" lived 
 in a flat-house, and received me most courteously, in 
 a rather sumptuously-furnished sleeping apartment. I 
 asked whether she had no parlor or reception-room. 
 
 " No, sir," she answered, smiling at what she 
 seemed to construe into a humorous remark; " my 
 patrons do not meet here to discuss politics or business, 
 and, consequently, need no parlors." 
 
 " But you are a dressmaker, are you not? " I asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir," she said; " if a lady wishes a dress, 
 
30 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 I make it for her — I think as well as any dressmaker 
 in Gotham; but unless she is young and pretty, she 
 will not visit me again, as I charge too much." 
 
 " What kind of patrons have you? " I asked. 
 
 " Well, of course, I cannot give you references. But 
 this is a wicked, wicked world," the Discreet Dress- 
 maker laughed, "and — well, poor things, I do not 
 blame them." 
 
 " That is rather vague." 
 
 The D. D. looked at me in surprise. I felt that to 
 obtain the information I desired, I must needs lie to 
 her a bit; therefore I added : " Well, to come to the 
 point, I must tell you that a lady and I love each other 
 very much " 
 
 "Yes;" the D. D. smiled and grew interested at 
 once. 
 
 " And we are married " 
 
 " I understand — you are married, but not to each 
 other; yes, yes. Well, I will endeavor to make you 
 comfortable. I would show you my little home, if it 
 were -not that five of my rooms are occupied now." 
 
 " What, so early? Why, it is only an hour before 
 noon," I exclaimed in astonishment. 
 
 " The best hours for shopping " she said affably, " are 
 between ten in the morning and five in the afternoon." 
 
 II And at night?" I asked. 
 
 " Well, trade is dull at night in establishments like 
 mine. We all find it so." 
 " You all?" I asked. 
 
 " Yes; there are over a hundred discreet dressmakers 
 in Gotham; of course my place is the safest, because I 
 am very particular whom I admit, and the house is so 
 arranged that disagreeable meetings are impossible. " 
 
 I feigned to be satisfied with the arrangements, and 
 was about to leave, when she said: " I shall call you 
 Major Brown, if you wish, and —" she smiled again, 
 " I know you gentlemen; you are dreadfully naughty; 
 therefore, whenever it is not quite convenient for your 
 
EDUCATION. 
 
 31 
 
 lady to meet you, and you wish to spend a pleasant 
 hour or two with some one else, just let me have the 
 description. " 
 
 " What class of companions do you provide?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Well," she said ingenuously, " there are a number 
 of ladies who are not happily married; the fear of 
 scandal keeps them from having a lover; therefore they 
 find me out, or I find them, and they meet strangers 
 here. To throw the gentlemen oft" the track, all ladies 
 must consent to receive a little present, say a ten- 
 dollar bill, from the gentlemen whom I present to them. 
 A part of this goes to me, and the rest they can use as 
 extra pin money or for religious purposes, if they 
 choose," 
 
 " Is this traffic limited to married people?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, no, but they are the majority," she answered. 
 
 " And how about being discovered?" I asked. 
 
 " Make an appointment and you will see how safe it 
 is," responded Ihe fi^end. 
 
 I will not attempt to describe what I felt when leav- 
 ing that beautiful den of horrors. Open, shameless 
 prostitution is better than this. And the keeping of 
 brothels is forbidden by law in Gotham, while the " Dis- 
 creet Dressmakers" ply their vocation undisturbed and 
 undiscovered. 
 
 Is this a result of the manner in which the fair Goth- 
 amitcs are educated ? No ; it is a picture of the innately 
 corrupt minority. If, however, men will be immoral, 
 would it not be better if the law were to take direct 
 cognizance of the " Social Evil," as it has been called, 
 and to deal with it for sanitary purposes? 
 
 This is a subject which should be relegated to moral- 
 ists, I know, and for people who would close their eyes 
 to facts — one which no mere traveler should discuss. 
 Yet, on the score of moraUty, I ask, could the Discreet 
 Dressmakers exist if it were law that — 
 
 First, all immoral establishments were confined to 
 
32 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 one district, and not allowed to contaminate respecta- 
 ble neighborhoods? 
 
 Second, if all of the poor unfortunates were under 
 the strict surveillance of a sanitary police and under the 
 protection of the law? 
 
 The patronage of the Discreet Dressmakers depends 
 upon the safety from contamination with a disease that 
 affects " even unto the third and fourth generation. " 
 Could this horrible traffic continue if men were other- 
 wise safe? 
 
 In 1873 a law covering these points was enacted in 
 St. Louis, a town near Chicago. The result was a 
 reformation of a large number of girls. Yes, reader, 
 that grand, glorious result was obtained. Kind treat- 
 ment by the physicians employed as inspectors was the 
 main means, and this alone would have a million-fold 
 paid for the expenditure of any amount of dollars. But 
 it cost the city nothing. The high salaries paid to 
 respectable people to engage in this grand work, as 
 well as the other expenses, were willingly defrayed by 
 the subjects of the law, and the balance was applied to 
 the construction of a special hospital, at the cost of 
 $200,000. 
 
 I am sorry to record that the law which reduced 
 disease, which protected . the poor outcasts, which 
 helped them to return to morality, which bankrupted 
 many, if not all of the discreet dressmakers, was re- 
 pealed in 1875, through the influence of clergymen 
 and fair members of their congregations. The soiled 
 doves hung their wings in despair, and then — marvel 
 at it if you will — employed the same physicians to con- 
 tinue their offices, and to-day yet practically abide by 
 the behests of an abrogated law. 
 
 Gotham, the world's metropolis, needs such a law, 
 but a false delicacy prevents Gothamites from express- 
 ing the necessity. 
 
 Let us leave this unsavory subject and return to 
 education. 
 
EDUCATION. 
 
 33 
 
 The fact that, irrespective of individual capacity, 
 both sexes are crammed with Icnowledge from infancy 
 up to the time they cease to be students, destroys 
 many constitutions and wrecks many bodies. It is 
 curious, that as soon as a boy shows that his health is 
 suffering, he is taken from school and put into some 
 occupation that will contribute to his restoration, while 
 girls are indefinitely crammed with either ornamental 
 accomphshments, or scientific profundities, that fit 
 them only for that " higher destiny," of which I have 
 confessed my ignorance before. 
 
 This wrecks constitutions, and begets a dissatis- 
 faction with life that makes them shadows of women 
 and parodies of men. Yet how strong, mentally and 
 morally, must the fair Gothamites be, or what glorious 
 dissemblers, if their conduct on the street or in society 
 is noted! Away from home (if there is such a word in 
 the Gotham vocabulary) is the Hfe of those beautiful 
 butterflies; they are created and reared for others ; 
 how, then, can they be expected to give themselves to 
 their husbands? 
 
 I spoke thus compassionately to a Httle Gotham 
 beauty, and she said in answer: " Baron, what 
 becomes of us when we marry your countrymen?" 
 
 " Well, miss," I answered, " I must confess that you 
 then make splendid house-wives. " 
 
 " Then do not blame our parents, but our husbands, 
 if we/nW, instead of seeing to it that our bosses and 
 proprietors have all of those plaguey buttons they 
 imagine they need, and ' darn' us for not darning their 
 stockings." 
 
 Was she not right, in a measure? Who has ever 
 heard, or even thought, among us of a young man 
 marrying unless he can give his wife a home, or unless 
 her parents can give her one? Could our steady 
 minds ever conjure up that subverter of the family life, 
 the boarding-house — so characteristic of Gotham life? 
 
 I know numberless people in Gotham who have 
 
34 
 
 FLIRTING. 
 
 never had a home, but spend their lives in boarding- 
 houses, of which I shall speak in another place. Ask 
 the reason, and you will be told that the wife has not 
 been educated as a servant, forsooth, and that she is a 
 lady! 
 
 What would these ladies say of our nobility — 
 which they would so strenuously emulate — that rears 
 its daughters with home notions and ofttimes makes 
 them see actual service — frequently of a menial 
 character — in hotels, where cookery, house-cleaning, 
 bed-making and all sorts of domestic economy are very 
 thoroughly acquired. 
 
 True, there are cooking-schools in Gotham, and 
 sewing-schools, too. But in the first construction of 
 custards, pizen things, pickles and other destroyers of 
 digestion are taught, while students in the latter learn 
 principiy that fashionable kaleidescopic incomprehensi- 
 bility called "crazy-work." The useful, soHd things, 
 the manufacture of garments, their repairs, etc., are 
 relegated to vulgar bread-winners, as Biddy, Gretchen 
 and Franfois are left in charge of the materials where- 
 with to combine palatable articles for building up the 
 mental and physical power of coming generations. 
 
 But Gotham, that little giant, that tremendous 
 pigmy, is still a suckling infant; and when it approaches 
 maturity, or long before, it will learn to teach its youth 
 what it really needs. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FLIRTING. 
 
 AviFine Art "'You Ought to Have Seen Mamma Flirt » With a Stranger 
 — Depth of Real Love — Jennie Wants a Beau and then Something 
 F?^-;.™^''^^ ^^""^ Luck — Oh. Fie, a German Married Flirt! — 
 bold, Most Beautifully — Mother Does Not Know Her Daughter's 
 Latest Conquest ^ Second-Handed Love — Judge Not. 
 
 I DO not believe for a moment that Sara Hutzler is 
 an American, as she would have us accept her. Her 
 style, her mode of thought, as expressed in her writ- 
 
FLIRTING. 
 
 35 
 
 ings, are too purely German; yet her pictures of 
 American society are truly American, viewed with 
 German eyes. It is a wonder to me that so few of her 
 works have been translated into English, while they 
 have an extensive sale in their Dutch, Bohemian, Hun- 
 garian and Russian versions. I am led to think of 
 her by what now occupies my mind; not that I would 
 accuse her of ever having been a flirt; but my fair col- 
 league (if I may aspire to this honor) certainly describes 
 flirting in her pretty story, " American Flirtations." 
 But why American ? Everywhere " attentions without 
 intentions," as Max O'Rell puts it, are given and re- 
 ceived. 
 
 Perhaps, though, there is no place in the world where 
 flirting has been so highly developed, almost to a fine 
 art, as in Gotham. I do not believe that a man or 
 woman ever lived in Gotham who did not indulge in 
 the pastime, which is simply amusing and nothing 
 more. And yet it is wrong, for it is playing with the 
 holiest of holies — Love. 
 
 What would non-religious people, who respect the 
 faiths of others and envy them their belief, think of 
 men or women who would enter consecrated edifices 
 and take sanctified implements from the altars and in- 
 dulge in a mimicry orapersiflege of religious ceremo- 
 nies? And this particularly in Gotham, where rehgion 
 is so highly respected? Yet, in that same Gotham, 
 Love, the basis of all religion, the foundation of the 
 morality of families and of the integrity of governments, 
 is openly made a toy. 
 
 I heard a child say: " Oh, papa, you ought to have 
 seen mamma flirt with a gentleman!" And the inter- 
 ested parties all laughed, as at a huge joke. Yet, the 
 Gothamites may laugh at the idea of a wife and a 
 mother flirting, for there is no danger in it to either 
 party. I wish there were, for if people can play at 
 love, their real love cannot be very deep. Perhaps, 
 
36 
 
 FLIRTING. 
 
 though, in the instance I quote, the husband knew his 
 wife too well to heed the prattle of a child. 
 
 Flirting, or the tendency thereto, arises very early 
 ih the Gothamite's breast. I know no little boy of five 
 and no little girl of six who does not flirt, much to the 
 displeasure of the little beau or sweetheart. It has 
 been said that there are no young Gothamites. The 
 following would seem to prove the assertion: 
 
 Little'jennie Brown comes to her mother in tears. 
 
 " Why, what is the matter, darhng? " asked her 
 mamma, in deep solicitude. 
 
 " All the little girls in my class got a beau, and I 
 ain't got none," the babe sobbed. 
 
 " Do not weep, darling; you shall have a beau, too. 
 
 " May I? " asked the little one, and smiles shone 
 through her tears as the sun glistens through rain-drops 
 just before he dissipates an April shower. 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 " Who shall be my beau? " asked the Httle girl. 
 " Whoever you wish." 
 
 " Well," mused the little one, " I have been flirting 
 with Johnny Jones and Bobby Bliss. I think I will 
 have Bobby, even if his hair is red, 'cause Johnny is 
 so rough. " 
 
 Whenever a little or full-grown, fair Gothamite deter- 
 mines upon her selection, the selection finds it well to 
 accept the situation and seek to convince himself and 
 others that it is the culmination of his desires. 
 
 Bobby Bliss became Jennie Brown's beau, and the 
 child's comedy was played to everybody's content for 
 the normal period, that is, three weeks. Then again 
 Jennie's little heart is stirred with anxiety for a new 
 diversion. This time she wishes — - a divorce. 
 
 Among some Gothamites, marriage itself is consid- 
 ered a kind of flirtation. 
 
 " Why, how do you do, Annie? I have not seen you 
 for a year. " 
 
 " Pretty well, dear; and how are you?" 
 
FLIRTING. 
 
 37 
 
 " Fair; you know I was married ten months ago? " 
 
 " No, were you? And how did you make out? " 
 
 " So-so, only; we moved to Chicago; lived there 
 three months, and now I get twelve hundred dollars 
 alimony." 
 
 "Is that all?" exclaims the other, in dismay. 
 " Well, I wish you better luck next time." 
 
 But, good reader, I fear that I am putting myself on 
 record as a woman-hater, and I wish it distinctly un- 
 derstood that I am anything but an enemy of the sex, 
 especially when Gotham's fair sisters are concerned. 
 Let me tell a little story in this connection. 
 
 Count Georg Johann von Schweiger came to 
 Gotham at a period that is not essential to state, and, 
 with what he deems courtly manners, a title of nobiHty 
 and a plentiful supply of funds and excellent letters of 
 introduction, soon became a well-known figure in 
 Gotham's hospitable circles. 
 
 Among many others, he was introduced to Miss van 
 Stokfis, a great-granddaughter of old Jan van Stokfis, 
 one of the founders, I believe, of Gotham. At all 
 events she was wealthy, and a thorough type of the 
 accomplished Gotham's upper-tendom. 
 
 Count Georg was in what we call *' his best years," 
 not employing the term in its facetious sense; that is, 
 he was about thirty-five, and just conscious and perhaps 
 a little proud of the few gray hairs that made their 
 appearance at his temples. He was thoroughly at 
 home in his dress-coat and all its concomitants. His 
 extensive experience in society was set at naught by 
 the curious adventure he almost sought with Miss van 
 Stokfis. She was all grace, all brilliancy, and lacking 
 but a coronet to make her an amiable yet self-conscious 
 ruler. Count Georg almost fell in love with her; I say 
 almost — but I anticipate. 
 
 Miss van Stokfis made him feel thoroughly at ease 
 in her society, yet she did not gush over him; nor did 
 she toady to his title or wealth. He was anxious to 
 
 8 
 
38 
 
 FLIRTING. 
 
 see her again, yet could not rid himself of a vivid but 
 undeniable recollection that she had given him no en- 
 couragement whatever. He soon met her at another 
 reception and hastened to greet her. The evening 
 passed hke the previous one: she was brilliant, quick in 
 retort, ever elegant, but — she did not invite him to 
 visit her. She seemed uncomfortably obliging in the 
 facility with which she favored him with introductions 
 to other ladies, none of whom could equal her. Count 
 Georg grew desperate. He had not met such a woman 
 before. Her skill in directing the subjects of conver- 
 sation, especially when he approached the border-line 
 of too marked compliments, fitted her for a diplomatic 
 post. 
 
 A third time he met her, and still no invitation. If 
 he had not suffered from a temporary aberration, he 
 would not have asked for permission to visit her. 
 
 " I shall be very glad," she responded, " and I hope 
 that you will not neglect to bring me the photographs 
 you told me of — you remember those you took on 
 your walks through Germany." 
 
 He was glad that she remembered something he had 
 told her, yet felt annoyed that she was so frigidly 
 anxious to see the photographs, 
 
 " I am delighted to know that you are interested in 
 my native land," Count Georg responded, somewhat 
 coldly. 
 
 " I am," she responded, " for several reasons, one of 
 which is that I have a very dear German friend." 
 
 " Have you? " asked the Count, feeling quite piqued. 
 " Perhaps he is a mutual friend " 
 
 " Yes," answered Miss van Stockfis, " it is just 
 possible that she is a mutual friend." 
 
 " Oh, it is one of my fair countrywomen — one of 
 those whom we sing about — until we know the fair 
 Gothamites. " Miss van Stokfis seemed to be thinking 
 so intently of her German friend that she apparently 
 
FLIRTING. 
 
 39 
 
 did not observe his rather general, if not ambiguous, 
 compliment. 
 
 That fertile subject for conversation — a mutual friend 
 — was adroitly avoided by Miss van Stokfis. A few 
 days later the Count visited her and was more enchanted 
 than ever; but again he went away with the conviction 
 that he had made no impression upon his charming 
 acquaintance. Tuis nettled him and drove him to 
 most rash resolutions. 
 
 Rather sooner than social etiquette allows, he called 
 again, with the pretext of showing her more pictures 
 She was as affable, yet as uninvitingly, tantalizingly 
 frigid as before. When he was about to depart, he 
 was astonished to hear her ask: 
 
 " Count, if you are not engaged to-morrow at three 
 in the afternoon, I should be glad to have you escort 
 me home from Grand Central depot; I must go to New 
 Rochelle in the morning. May I " 
 
 " I am sure I shall be more than delighted," the 
 Count exclaimed, full of glee. 
 
 " Our carriage will be there waiting for me," said 
 his fair torturer. 
 
 He did not sleep much that night. He set the very 
 phrases, which the half-hour's ride would allow him to 
 lay vigorous siege to that young, yet obdurate heart. 
 It was evident that he had made an impression, for why 
 should she ask him to meet her, when she could nov 
 possibly require a protector during the afternoon, and, 
 furthermore, was to be taken home in her own carriage? 
 The impropriety of her course would have been evident 
 to him, had he not been so intoxicated by even the 
 recollection of the perfume that the very air about 
 her breathed. 
 
 He was faithful to the tryst. She descended from 
 the train, looked about anxiously — he was enough of 
 a flirt to keep from her sight for a few seconds — then 
 she almost ran to him, shook his hand quite cordially, 
 
40 
 
 FLIRTING. 
 
 and asked him to return to the car with her, to meet a 
 friend. 
 
 He flushed with anger at the apparent deceit, yet he 
 contrived to conceal the evidences of his disappoint- 
 ment. They entered the car, and a moment later two 
 lovely arms were thrown about his neck, and many 
 warm kisses were pressed upon his lips. The owner 
 of these arms and lips was — his wife, the Countess 
 von Schweiger. 
 
 " Now, Katchen," said Miss van Stockfis in exquis- 
 ite German, " I must report that the Count was very 
 brave in the vortex of Gotham society during your two 
 months absence. Is it not curious, Count von Schweiger, 
 that my former schoolmate, Katchen, should be your 
 wife? Do you know, Katchen," she chatted on gayly, 
 " that the Count and I have grown real good friends, 
 on your account?" 
 
 I do not recollect how the interview ended. I can 
 not, for — well, my wife has forgiven me, and she con- 
 fesses that if she were a man, she would not be ashamed 
 to tell the tale, substituting another name for the 
 principal actors — " for Eveline is such a lovely girl and 
 such a true friend." My only daughter's name is 
 Eveline, and I hope that she will grow up as lovely a 
 woman as is her god-mother. I will not tell who Mrs. 
 Eveline is, now, for like all brilliant Gothamites, when 
 they marry a titled foreigner, she is the life of one of 
 the most aristocratic circles in our country. Moreover, 
 she is an excellent wife and mother, keeps her husband 
 in a perpetual honeymoon, and still finds time to write 
 books that attract merited attention on both sides of 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 Perhaps my age now causes me to deprecate the pro- 
 miscuous flirting that is in vogue in Gotham, one form 
 of which is certainly most reprehensible. 
 
 I was chatting with my landlady one evening in the 
 hall-way, when the bell rang. Mrs. Hawley opened 
 
FLIRTING. 
 
 41 
 
 the door and admitted a young man, who, in lieu of all 
 other salutation, asked: 
 
 " Is Miss Nellie in? " 
 
 " Yes, sir; step into the parlor," answered Mrs. Haw- 
 ley. 
 
 " Thanks," said the young man, and, after hang- 
 ing his overcoat and hat on the rack, entered the par- 
 lor. Just then the hall-boy came to respond to "the 
 hell. 
 
 " Tell Miss Nellie," said Mrs. Hawlcy, " that a gentle- 
 man wishes to see her." 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," said the boy. He went into the 
 parlor, took the young gentleman's card, and carried it 
 to Miss Nellie's room, without showing it to Mrs. 
 Hawley, as if it concerned her as little as it did me. 
 
 A few moments later our landlady's pretty daughter 
 descended the stairs, bade us good evening, smiled 
 sweetly, entered the parlor, and closed the door firmly 
 after her. This astonished me, and I could not resist 
 the temptation to ask Mrs. Hawley whether she would 
 not prefer to continue our conversation in the parlor. 
 
 " No, sir," she answered; " but pardon my keeping 
 you standing here; come into my sitting-room." 
 
 After we were seated, I said: " Excuse the question, 
 but is Miss Nellie engaged to be married to that gentle- 
 man in the parlor? " 
 
 " Oh, dear me; I think that is nothing more than a 
 mere flirtation. I believe I have seen his coat and hat 
 on the rack before — at least, they look quite familiar. " 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me that you do not know the 
 man. who visits your daughter in a closed parlor? " 
 
 " No," answered Mrs. Hawley, firmly; " but I know 
 my daughter; you see, you Germans do not treat such 
 matters as we Gothamites do." 
 
 " Thank God that we do not," I thought, as visions 
 of visiting a young lady in my fatherland returned. "We 
 have not less faith in our daughters than the Gothamites 
 
42 
 
 FLIRTING. 
 
 have in theirs, but we parents will insist upon knowing 
 the persons who enter our house. 
 
 " I suspect, though," continued Mrs. Hawley, " that 
 Nellie is engaged to a Mr. Marion, who has taken 
 her to theaters, the opera, and several balls. I do not 
 imagine that she would go out with him so much, nor 
 stay up so late with him, if the matter were not assuming 
 serious dimensions. " 
 
 I stared at Mrs. Hawley, speechless with astonish- 
 ment, but I almost fell from my chair when she added: 
 
 " I expect that Mr. Marion will soon be introduced 
 to me, so that he can begin propitiating his prospective 
 mother-in-law. " 
 
 " You suspect," I gasped, " that your daughter is 
 engaged to be married to a man whom you do not 
 know?" 
 
 " Well, / am not going to marry him," she laughed. 
 " In fact, I am positive that Nellie has been engaged 
 several times, but broke off the affairs when she dis- 
 covered either that she did not like the gentleman 
 sufficiently or learned some objectionable feature in his 
 character. I have distinctly noticed all of the symp- 
 toms of a love affair in NeUie; but as she presented 
 none of the gentlemen to me, nor invited them to 
 dinner, nothing came thereof. But with Mr. Marion, 
 I think the matter will be settled. You see it has 
 lasted nearly six months, and I notice many bouquets 
 and other presents, with his card attached, in her 
 room." 
 
 I could devise but one explanation to these most 
 extraordinary statements, and I offered it in this ques- 
 tion: 
 
 " Miss Nellie is your late husband's daughter?" 
 
 Mrs. Hawley dumfounded me by answering cheerily: 
 " Well, I should think that her appearance shows she 
 is my own flesh and blood, too." 
 
 I held myself in my chair. Soon I gathered my 
 wits sufficiently^ to ask: " And these flirtations and 
 
FLIRTING. 
 
 43 
 
 multifancus engagements are arranged by your 
 daughter alone, behind closed doors?" 
 
 " Should /, her mother, insult her by ever suggest- 
 ing the possibility of her saying a word that required 
 watching? Oh, no, sir. I would be ashamed to own a 
 daughter who required supervision." 
 
 After leaving Mrs. Hawley, I could not but doubt 
 the wisdom of what I had heard was the usage of all 
 classes of Gotham society, but had never seen practi- 
 cally exemplified before. For some reason, perhaps 
 prejudice, I could not be as cordial in my congratula- 
 tions to Mr. Marion at his marriage with Miss Nellie, 
 some months later. At all events I did not envy him 
 his bride, who had been engaged several times before 
 and who was but eighteen years of age. 
 
 The lady whom I dubbed Mrs. Hawley once was a 
 member of Gotham's highest circles ; her husband's 
 death and a mismanagement of his estate reduced her 
 to the necessity of establishing a private boarding- 
 house, certainly one of the finest in Gotham. She 
 presided over the handsome, yes, luxurious household, 
 as a born lady and a refined one would — but this affair 
 with her daughter is certainly incomprehensible to me. 
 Her daughter, Mrs. Marion, and her husband are a 
 very happy couple. I have seen them frequently since 
 their marriage, and no one would suspect that her heart 
 had ever been touched by any other love than that she 
 bears her Edward. 
 
 Later on I grew quite well acquainted with the young 
 couple, and one evening that I spent with them I en- 
 deavored to investigate his feelings on the matter. I 
 was surprised how easy it was to get him to tell his 
 talc. 
 
 He suspected that Miss NeUie was engaged to be 
 married, or " nearly engaged," when he fell in love 
 with her. One evening he called on her, and a servant 
 opened the door for him, not knowing that Miss Nellie 
 was in the parlor with another gentleman. He entered, 
 
44 
 
 FLIRTING. 
 
 and the heavy carpet deadened his footsteps. The 
 couple sat on the sofa, their arms about each other, 
 and their lips glued together in a loving kiss. He 
 coughed; they heard him not. Then he took a chair 
 noisily. They started, separated, and while he made 
 sheepish endeavors to look unconcerned, she arose, the 
 very picture of calmness, and greeted Marion most 
 affably, as she smoothed her dress, that had become 
 somewhat rumpled during the saccharine operation he 
 had just witnessed, 
 
 " And just think, Mr. Karlstein," said Mrs. Marion, 
 " Edward did not have the delicacy to go away and 
 leave us, but remained as late as Mr. Thompson did. 
 I just hated him then, did I not, dear?" she added. 
 
 " Yes, darling," responded her husband, " and I just 
 loved you then, and — well, I cut out Mr. Thompson, 
 'with neatness and dispatch,' as the tailors say." 
 
 And the happy couple laughed heartily over the 
 reminiscence, which I should think they both would be 
 most anxious to convince themselves had never existed. 
 
 I spoke to other people about such matters, and one 
 gentleman told me : 
 
 " Karlstein, judge our institutions, our country, and 
 whatever else as you will, you will be sure to do us 
 justice ; but do not attempt to judge our women and 
 their prime prerogative, flirting, until you have hved 
 among us for at least three generations." 
 
 I think it will be well to follow his advice. 
 
GOTHAM SOCIETY. 
 
 45 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GOTHAM SOCIETY. 
 
 The " Upper Ten One Man as Good as Another. The Cachet — The 
 President's Accessibility — The First Troop — The Sole Qtialification 
 
 " Wall-streeters " and " Knickerbockers " — Splendor of Two Kinds 
 
 — The Patroons — Petty Princes — Landed Aristocracy — Fairy- 
 gold — Real Estate — "Sets" — Mixtures of the Clans. 
 
 Is there any " society" in Gotham — any one " set " 
 which is undoubtedly " the upper ten"? With us, of 
 course, such a question is no more difficult to answer 
 than whether a man has brown hair or black ; but 
 here, where one man is as good as another, in theory 
 (or, in his own estimation, a httle better), where there 
 is no court to set the cachet y where any one may walk 
 into the White House and shake hands with the 
 President, and such a thing as hereditS.ry ancestry is 
 unknown, at least to the law, can any class claim to be 
 really not only the upper, but the " very uppermost "? 
 
 Among the regular mihtia of a neighboring State is 
 a small body of cavalry, known as The First Troop, 
 formed by a company of gentlemen of wealth and posi- 
 tion, during the war of the Revolution, and still retain- 
 ing the picturesque uniform of silver-laced jacket, high 
 boots and crested helmet, which it then wore. It 
 served with great distinction during those dark days, 
 acting as the body-guard of Washington. It is still 
 recognized as the personal guard of the President of 
 the United States ; at every inauguration of a Presi- 
 dent, be he a RepubHcan or Democrat, the Troop 
 escorts his carriage, and holds the right of the line, 
 taking precedence of the regular army. In the pan- 
 elled walls of the banquet-hall, in its splendid 
 armory — built at the expense of its membeiS, and 
 beyond all comparison the finest cavalry armory and 
 
GOTHAM SOCIET^c 
 
 riding-school in the country — are displayed the shot- 
 riddled flags and guidons carried by it in every war in 
 which the country has been engaged, and in its 
 archives are letters of approval and commendation 
 from great generals and distinguished foreigners, like 
 Lafayette. What are the qualifications for member- 
 ship in this unique body? First of all, the candidate 
 must be a native-born American, to obtain even a 
 hearing ; a gentleman, to be acceptable to its mem- 
 bers ; for, although afterwards sworn into the service 
 of the State, one must first be elected, as to any other 
 club ; a man of means, of necessity, since he must 
 furnish horse, equipments and uniform, besides bear- 
 ing his share of the expenses of keeping up the armory. 
 But the most vital point still remains: Was one of his 
 ancestors an officer of the American army during the 
 Revolution ? If he cannot answer this question affirma- 
 tively, the wealth of a Vanderbilt and the courtesy of 
 a Bayard will avail him nothing ; he is as ineligible as 
 a Chinaman. 
 
 This seems like a digression, but possibly it may not 
 prove fruitless. 
 
 I think Gotham society may be said to be composed 
 of two great bodies — the " Wall- Streeters " and the 
 " Knickerbockers."* The former is chiefly noted for the 
 wealth, enterprise and " dash " of its members, com- 
 posed of rich men — native or nacurallzed Gochamites 
 — who have made their fortunes in Wall street, in the 
 gold mines of California, or the pork or grain markets 
 of Cincinnati or Chicago; who delight in " cornering 
 stocks," or getting up a " squeeze " in cotton; or, pos- 
 sibly " wrecking a railroad; " who are clad in the most 
 gorgeous of purple and the finest of fine linen; who 
 
 * Diedrich Knickerbocker was the non de plume under which Washing- 
 ton Irving wrote his charming burlesque, " History." It has beeii adopted 
 to designate the Dutch settlers of New Netherlands, and their descendants, 
 as distinguished from the English and others. It happens, also, to be the 
 real name of one of the old families who, in keeping with their lack of per- 
 ception of humor, were irate thereat. 
 
GOTHAM SOCIETY. 
 
 47 
 
 drive the fastest horses and own the winning yachts; 
 who support the Jockey clubs and the Yacht clubs; 
 give the most costly entertainments, and win or lose a 
 fortune with the nerve and coolness of a Napoleon; 
 who, in a word, pass their lives in a whirl of business 
 and pleasure; make a great show and have what they 
 would describe as " a first-rate time." If I call them 
 "fast," I do not mean it in an invidious sense. The 
 men are, as a rule, brave, and the women fair and good. 
 That they are charming, also, goes without saying; but 
 I employ the term by way of contrast to the Knicker- 
 crbockers. It is this set which the foreigner, if so for- 
 tunate as to be well introduced, will be most like to get 
 into, and certainly he will enjoy all that lavish hospital- 
 ity, aided by boundless ingenuity and backed by prac- 
 tically unlimited means, can offer; and he, too, will have 
 " a good time." 
 
 And yet — and yet — as he spins through the park 
 behind its fast trotters, or sits in its choice boxes at the 
 opera^^ he will soon become aware of the existence of 
 another " set," whose dress and equipage are not less 
 costly and elegant, though less showy; whose horses 
 are undeniably blooded, if not " flyers; " whose car- 
 riages have a better right to bear coats-of-arms, and 
 whose occupants are characterized by that indefinable 
 but unmistakable air with which he is so familiar at 
 home. Observing a Httle more closely among his 
 hosts, he may fancy he perceives an occasional false 
 note in the music — a crumpled rose-leaf in the 
 sybaritic couch on which he reclines — and finally he 
 asks himself: " Is this really the set, or is there not 
 something beyond? " 
 
 Well, yes, there is; beyond the glare and glitter and 
 noise of Wall street, secure in the consciousness of 
 more than two centuries of solid and unbroken pros- 
 perity, Hes the stronghold of the Knickerbockers; 
 their wealth is, as a rule, more real, their hospitality as 
 splendid, if more stately, and their conversation is as 
 
48 
 
 GOTHAM SOCIETY. 
 
 marked as its absence is noticeable among " the Wall- 
 streeters." And although there is some English blood 
 there, yet the old Dutch element gives the prevailing 
 tone, and exercises the controlling influence. Such a 
 power as this calls for a word of explanation. 
 
 When the territory of which Gotham is part was 
 occupied by the Dutch, grants of land were made to 
 settlers from the mother country. These, of course, 
 were comparatively small in Gotham, whose population 
 was always commercial, first of all; but beyond its 
 borders, the Lords of the Manor, or " Patroons," as they 
 were called, ruled, with practically unhmited and irre- 
 sponsible authority, vast estates, in some cases cover- 
 ing a space of twenty miles square, within whose 
 borders they exercised almost every species of power, 
 except only that of life and death, over their tenants 
 and dependants; while from the stranger or traveler 
 they exacted such acknowledgments of their supremacy 
 as pride or fancy suggested. One of these petty 
 princes, for example, within whose manor lay au island 
 in the Hudson river, built a fort thereon, and hoist- 
 ing his own flag over its ramparts, compelled all 
 passing vessels to strike their topsails, under penalty 
 of being fired upon by his cannon! In fact, it was 
 the nearest approach to a complete feudal system that 
 was ever seen in America; and, although necessarily 
 modified as time went by, yet so strong was its grip 
 and so oppressive had its power become to the free 
 and healthy growth of the country, that but about 
 forty years ago the insistance, by the last Patroon, on 
 some of his manorial rights, caused open insurrection, 
 which was only suppressed by the military authorities 
 after much bloodshed and confusion, and which 
 actually compelled a change in the Constitution of the 
 State in order to prevent similar troubles in future. 
 
 But whether these settlers were lords of a hundred 
 thousand acres, or owners of a garden patch in Gotham, 
 they all, as a rule, were alike in this — they held on to 
 
GOTHAM SOCIETY. 
 
 49 
 
 their land, and their descendants have marvelously 
 profited thereby. Most of the colossal fortunes of the 
 old Gothamites are due to the enormous rise in the 
 value of the real estate on their Island. The gardens 
 and little farms of their ancestors, now covered by 
 street upon street of brown-stone residences, or block, 
 upon block of stately warehouses, have made their 
 fortunate owners ten-fold millionaires, and every year 
 only adds to their value. Yet, curiously enough, this 
 prosperity has been forced upon them, one might 
 almost say, against their will — certainly in the vast 
 majority of cases without any co-operation on their 
 part. Their intense conservatism and disHke of 
 novelty led them to oppose all change and to resist 
 all innovation; this was more marked in the country. 
 Naturally, the building of the Hudson River Railroad, 
 running between Gotham and the Capital, was bitterly 
 opposed by the old residents through whose lands it 
 ran, and who hampered its building by every known 
 legal technicality. If told that the road would make 
 the property immensely more valuable, the owner's 
 answer would be, that he didn't care for that — he 
 didn't want to sell his land, and objected to having his 
 water front spoiled; and there is at least one town on 
 the river that forced the railroad to struggle up the steep 
 bluff, instead of being built along the bank, as it 
 naturally should be, because the owners of the land 
 refused to sell a foot of it at any price. 
 
 It is easy to see, even from this hasty sketch, how 
 little this set can have in common with the Wall Street- 
 ers, upon whom they look with an indifference that is, 
 perhaps, too thorough even for open expression of 
 disapproval — whose ways they dislike, and whose 
 wealth they, in their secret hearts, regard as the fair> 
 gold that may at any time turn into withered leaves; 
 whose ostentation they condemn, and whose enterprise 
 ^.s, to them, a restless, if not mischievous innovation or 
 speculation, or worse. They are not dazzled by great 
 
Gotham society. 
 
 fortunes, for they have money enough, and, what they 
 value perhaps even more, land — real estate — which 
 cannot be dissipated. Their class feeling is so strong 
 that they would rather entertain some old " Van " from 
 the wilds of the Helderberg — careless in dress, per- 
 haps not too punctilious in table etiquette — than the 
 greatest magnate in Wall street. 
 
 It is always a mistake to judge a man by his clothes 
 — but especially would you miss it if you undertook 
 to form too hasty an opinion of the aforesaid " Van." 
 I can show you, on Broadway, one who might have 
 sat to Rembrandt as a burgomaster of Amsterdam, 
 wearing an old slouch hat, and clothes that a Chatham 
 'street dealer would think dear at ten dollars; and 
 yet that man is the owner of thousands of acres 
 of rich meadow and fertile uplands, and rows of 
 Gotham buildings. At his quaint old manor house, 
 nestling snugly on the sunny slope of a hill crowned 
 by forest trees, he entertains much and liberally, 
 and keeps high days and holidays in good old-time 
 fashion. If you are lucky enough to be his guest, you 
 will find his hospitable board laden with silver brought 
 from Holland by his ancestors; you drink fabulous 
 Madeira out of the heavy crystal of by-gone days; and 
 if he find you have an appreciation of such things, he 
 may open his queer old iron strong-box — no safes for 
 him — and show you the original grant under which 
 he holds his broad acres, but for any trace of which 
 you would search the county archives in vain.* 
 
 He has seen much of the world, too, in his own queer 
 way, on both sides of the water, and known many of 
 the men worth knowing, in his own country and this. 
 He is a scholar, too, and a great lover of the classics, 
 in the original, and you may often find him in his 
 library, reading his Horace or chuckling over the anti- 
 deluvian wit of Piautus; fond of his cows, his horses, 
 
 *A11 deeds of real estate are required by law to be recorded in the 
 office of the county in which it is situated, as a protection to purchasers. 
 
 \ 
 
GOTHAM SOCIETY. 
 
 and constantly building a new bridge here, or another 
 barn there, and in various ways improving the land, 
 not a square foot of which would he sell were you to 
 pile it with gold. 
 
 His Gothamite brother has had some of his sharp 
 angles rounded off, some of his eccentricities removed, 
 if you will, by the attrition of city life, but at heart he 
 is much the same. He is probably a man of leisure, 
 living far within his income, despite all he spends. You 
 will rarely find him in politics. Since the English 
 Conquest he has taken but little part in such matters, 
 though you will notice him, to some extent, on the 
 bench; if in active life at all, he will probably be a 
 lawyer, or, mayhap, a banker, of the old conservative 
 stripe. He belongs to the " St. Nicholas Society," the 
 qualification for which being, that his ancestors lived 
 here before the colony was wrested away by England; 
 and most likely, also, to that inner and mysterious 
 circle, the " St. Nicholas Club," into whose secrets no 
 profane outsider may prey. Into such a set as this, it 
 is needless to say, entry is most difficult, and practically 
 only attainable by marriage. The younger scions of 
 the house do sometimes form attachments for the sons 
 or the daughters of the Wall-streeters, if the match can 
 not be prevented, after strenuous opposition; their class 
 instinct, as a rule, enables them to absorb the new- 
 comer, and soon he is supporting them with the un- 
 measured zeal which characterizes the convert; though 
 it may, perhaps, be a question whether Van himself, 
 in his secret heart, ever looks on him as part of the 
 family. 
 
 Of course, these two sets do, more or less, mingle, 
 or rather touch, in the whirl of Gotham life; but, on 
 the whole, I believe my broad outlines are correct; and 
 with all his faults — and, being human, he has many — 
 I think it is difficult not to admit his claim — unasserted, 
 perhaps, because to question it would seem to him in- 
 conceivable — to be, in truth and in fact, the standard 
 
52 
 
 LAGER BEER. 
 
 of Gotham society. Nor is it easy to estimate; the 
 impulse for good which he has exerted in the restless 
 9,nd speculative community in which he is a silent but 
 mighty power. If he is not enterprising, he is safe; if 
 he does not build railroads, neither does he wreck them ; 
 if he floats no gigantic scheme of finance, neither does 
 he break savings banks, nor make fraudulent assign- 
 ments; if he is loth to sell his land, even for so-called 
 improvements, he does not rush into speculative build- 
 ing, and see his property foreclosed under mortgage, 
 or sold for taxes; if he does not " fix his Deestrick," or 
 work " for the good of the party. " He may always be 
 relied on to vote for good, honest government; inde- 
 pendent, absolutely without pretense, sternly honest 
 and truthful, he laid broad and deep the sure founda- 
 tions of the greatness of that Gotham which is yet in 
 its infancy. He has ever been the balance-wheel in the 
 machine, the sober, second-thought amid the turmoil 
 of daring and of the reckless enterprise; and it will be 
 an evil, and, let us hope, a far-distant day, when his 
 influence shall diminish or his example and counsel be 
 slighted in the city he loves so well, and of which he is 
 so justly proud. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LAGER BEER. 
 
 Fifteen Years Ago — Pumpernickel — Fair Beer-drinkers Limited to Bot- 
 tled Stuff — Draught Beer for Men — Beer Gardens Disreputable — 
 Casino — Beer, Music and Flowers — The Key to the Mystery — Smok- 
 ing— « Who's Been Here Since I've Been Gone? " — No Smoking in 
 the Presence of Ladies — The Cigarette — Woman's Place — Wife- 
 seating. 
 
 I DARE say that my countrymen, as well as others, 
 will be surprised at my heading a chapter in a book on 
 Gotham as this one is headed. But I have my reasons for 
 £,o doing; whether they are justifiable or not the 
 chapter itself will show. 
 
LAGER BEER. 
 
 53 
 
 About twelve or fifteen years ago it would have been 
 an insult, or at least a deep offense, to offer beer to a 
 lady in Gotham. Then the Teuton ways of life and 
 food and drink were still considered vulgar, and the 
 Teuton language coarse — like pumpernickel. Now 
 there are very few Gotham ladies who disdain pumper- 
 nickel, and they know that the word is a corruption of 
 bon pour Nicquel, the phrase with which one of Napo- 
 leon's soldiers scornfully derided our nutritous, solid 
 black bread. And the Gotham ladies drink beer, too, 
 and some even are connoisseurs in the article. But 
 they are limited to the use of bottled beer, as draught 
 beer is accessible only to men. 
 
 The objections to bottled beer may briefly be summed 
 up as follows: It is not as good as draught beer, and 
 it is dearer. Draught beer is dear enough at five cents 
 a small glass, but it is far better than the inferior stuff 
 that is bottled. 
 
 The reason for the anomaly, that there is an article 
 the Gothamite may enjoy, and which is forbidden his 
 wife, is found in the fact that Gotham has no beer- 
 saloons or concert-gardens where a lady may go with 
 propriety. I know that a number of ladies do go to 
 such places, but they do it at the risk of meeting dis- 
 reputable persons, or worse yet, of being mistaken for 
 
 such. , -r 1 
 
 It is true that the Gothamites have their beautiful 
 Casino, where they may witness superior operas and 
 enjoy classical music, while they drink their beer in a 
 gallery that recalls visions of the gardens of Semiramis; 
 but a man cannot take his wife there without the 
 expenditure of several dollars. 
 
 It is my opinion that a beer-saloon destined for the 
 use of famihes, where ladies could meet their husbands, 
 and where both could drop in to drink one glass of 
 beer each and listen to good music for a few minutes, 
 all for ten cents, and perhaps a pretzel, or some other 
 beer-food, thrown in, would reduce the drinks the hus- 
 
 4 
 
54 
 
 LAGER BEE 
 
 band takes, would make him seek his relaxation with 
 his wife, and — if objectionable characters were ex- 
 cluded — would not expose him to the allurements 
 which painted cheeks and meretricious glances have to 
 a man who is half-seas-over. 
 
 But marvel at what I shall tell you now, and I think 
 you will have the key to this mystery. A remnant to 
 the peculiar code of ethics that raised the Gotham lady 
 above all others in the world, even though the eleva- 
 tion be open to cavil, is, that a man usually does not 
 smoke in the presence of a virtuous woman, I know 
 men who leave their warm fireside and go out into 
 the bitter cold, or drenching rain, candidly telling their 
 wives that they are " going to take a smoke," and the 
 wives deem it quite natural that smokers should leave 
 them for the solace that enjoyment for the weed gives. 
 To what temptations does this not expose a good man! 
 There are women in whose presence he may smoke 
 without giving offense, but they are not women whom 
 he would wish his wife to know. 
 
 I am un-German enough to detest tobacco; but I can 
 readily understand how it is that a man who has just 
 smoked will not detect the flavor of a cigarette, which 
 hangs about his wife's room, when he returns after 
 taking his smoke. And it is, most probably, not at all 
 a case of " Who's been here since I've been gone? " 
 
 I witnessed a trial of a case in a poHce court that 
 exemplified the matter. 
 
 " John Byrne," said the judge, " Offier Brakebridgc 
 testifies that he arrested you on the charge of insulting 
 Miss Layton ; what have you to say ?" 
 
 " Well, your Honor," answered the prisoner, "the 
 facts in the case are these: I had dined with some 
 friends, and we were on somewhat of a * racket.' We 
 saw the young lady coming down the street with a man 
 who was smoking. Who could imagine that a gentle- 
 man would smoke in his sister's presence ? We 
 determined that it would be a huge joke to take a 
 
LAGER BEER. 
 
 55 
 
 fellow's girl away from him. One of us stopped him 
 and asked for a light, when I grasped the young lady 
 and offered her ten dollars more than the other fellow 
 would give. Her conduct showed the sad mistake I 
 had made ; but your Honor, it was a mistake that I 
 am not blamable for ; I feel that the fault lies with the 
 young lady's brother, who respected her so little as to 
 be seen smoking in her presence. I feel deeply 
 chagrined at the position in which I am placed ; but I 
 feel far worse at having confounded a lady with a 
 strumpet. I do not ask the court's clemency. Your 
 Honor will inflict the punishment that the law dictates ; 
 but in view of the circumstances, I beg your Honor to 
 tender my most regretful apologies to the young lady. " 
 
 The judge discharged the young man with the advice 
 not to judge by appearances in the future. When the 
 ex-prisoner left the court he caught a glimpse of the 
 young lady boxing her brother's ears. 
 
 When a Gothamite takes a lady to dine at a better- 
 class hotel or restaurant, he does not light a cigar or 
 even a cigarette, with his post-prandial coffee, for 
 unless the lady is known in the hotel, he exposes her 
 to overhearing a caution from the head-waiter, who 
 informs her escort that " only respectable ladies are 
 allowed to come here." 
 
 During recent years the cigarette, I am sorry to say, 
 has come quite in vogue in Gotham. My wife oft- 
 times surprised half a dozen young ladies, in artistic, 
 charming, but by no means aesthetic attitudes, as they 
 sent clouds of smoke heavenward. But woe to the 
 young man who would light a cigarette in the presence 
 of any of those young charmers; it would seem like 
 inviting a challenge from any one authorized to defend 
 the lady's honor and purity, with his life, if need be. 
 
 As soon as the Gothamites get over this silly preju- 
 dice, so soon will men seek at home the comfort of 
 dressing-gown, slippers and pipe; the wife and sister 
 will perhaps descend to the normal and noble state of 
 
55 
 
 LAGER BEER. 
 
 1 
 
 an adviser and helpmeet, but her descent will be 
 pleasant; for I cannot believe that there lives a woman 
 who is content with being made an inane doll by the 
 absurd custom of placing her half way to the clouds, 
 where she needs be as strong as a Gothamite, lest she 
 slip — and fall. 
 
 A Gothamite once told me: " If a woman falls she 
 falls lower than a man can, in obedience to a common 
 physical law, as she falls from a higher plane." While 
 I agree with my informer that woman innately occupies 
 a higher moral plane, I beheve that our friends, the 
 Gothamites, drive this idea to extremes that may 
 become dangerous to both sexes, 
 
 I cannot coincide with those who hold that woman is 
 man's hand-maid and nothiiig more. I hold that she is his 
 equal in many things, his superior in a few and his in- 
 ferior in an equal numlaer. Morally, she is " the link that 
 binds him to the angels;" but she should keep this fact 
 ever in mind, that she may fulfill her mission, which un- 
 doubtedly is to elevate her husband. If she insists that all 
 concessions are due her, even to the extreme of self- 
 sacrifice, only because she is a woman, she inflicts a gall- 
 ing yoke, while her safeguard should be a chain of roses. 
 
 The tendency in Gotham is to place good women 
 between the positions of petulant children and implac- 
 able tyrants. I know a man who never said " No " to 
 his wife. She once wanted a lace parasol, the price of 
 which was beyond his means. He bought it, and she 
 never used it, because when he handed it to her, she 
 broke it over his head. She was an unhappy person, 
 who drove him to suicide. Afterwards she married a 
 brute, who abused her unmercifully, and she was an 
 unexceptional wife to him. 
 
 Wife-beating is very rare in Gotham. I believe this 
 is due to the fact that the beer drank there is fairly good. 
 I was glad to hear one good remark in Gotham about 
 St. Louis (near Chicago) : the Gothamites acknowledge, 
 justly, that St. Louis produces good beer. 
 
INVENTIONS. 
 
 57 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INVENTIONS. 
 
 Words for Ideas — The Dude — The "World's" Dudc-ophagic Cat- 
 Cranks— G. F. T.— Street-Preacher — "Millions In It" — Long. 
 Haired Men and Short-Haired Women — Little Noses Snatched from 
 the Flames — Political Cranks— Artemus Ward. 
 
 Do NOT turn from this chapter in haste, for I shall 
 not discuss machinery, nor appliances, nor any of the 
 devices wherein Gotham is so prolific. No, I wish 
 now to speak of what might be called philological in- 
 ventions, while I will not do anything but treat of the 
 things that the words mean. This is certainly a serious 
 undertaking, where we must ofttimes substitute the word 
 for the idea it conveys; or yet, select a word that has no 
 earthly connection therewith. 
 
 But, really, in this regard we have but little to coni- 
 plain of now, for ladies no longer speak of their 
 " understandings" when they mean their feet, and gen- 
 tlemen unhesitatingly discuss trousers (before they 
 became Anglomaniacs they said pantaloons or pants 
 
 even breeches), when formerly they faintly breathed 
 
 "unmentionables." 
 
 The first thing in this connection I desire to describe 
 is the dude. He is not the grandson of the swell, nor 
 the son of the dandy. He is sui generis, if he was 
 generated at all. Perhaps it were better to say that it 
 is a bit of protoplasm flung loose upon Gotham-, where 
 it was not noticed at first, and consequently not puffed 
 out of existence with insect-powder. It grew, by cell- 
 prohferation, and then by segmentation it multiplied. 
 (I once was a student of biology, and take advantage 
 of this opportunity to ventilate the fact that I have not 
 Ibrgotten all of Prof. Heitzmann's teachings; by the 
 
58 
 
 INVENTIONS. 
 
 way, he is in Gotham now.) But this is not describing 
 the dude. Neither dictionaries nor encyclopedias 
 mention it; but, being a factor in the elements that 
 constitute Gotham, it may be touched upon here. 
 
 It is said that it received its first public notice from 
 the IVew York World, when it was governed by that 
 exquisite scholar, Mr. William Henry Hurlbert, who 
 now, I beheve, is dreaming away his young life in 
 southern France with a charming bride. 
 
 The World startled Gotham with the statement that 
 several dudes had been eaten by the cat in the Man- 
 hattan Club, and that several other dudes had fled and 
 left only men in the club. If this is true, it is one evi- 
 dence that cats can become insane, for no mentis compos 
 cat would think of nourishing itself on such unsubstan- 
 tial things as dudes. 
 
 A microscopic analysis of the dude would yield the fol- 
 lowing, from below upwards: Number ten feet crowded 
 into number six shoes; flagrantly-colored stockings; 
 phantom-like legs; a short coat, that is by no means of 
 the Seymour order, for nothing more is seen because of 
 the garment's brevity; a dwindling body, to which two 
 cramped arms are hinged, one of which has a bludgeon- 
 like cane attached, and all surmounted by a micro- 
 cephalic head. The entire thing is dressed hetero- 
 geneously, wound up and primed with a few idiotic 
 phrases and sent to walk the streets, ogle women who 
 are far too human to dispise it, and to infest otherwise 
 respectable drawing-room entertainments. 
 
 The dude has no ideas. It is not beautiful, nor does 
 it toil or spin. Its existence has no object, but it is a 
 menace to the virility of a manly nation. It is a threat 
 to the perpetuation of republican institutions, and is a 
 picture of the products of an effete aristocracy, without 
 any of its good features. The caricatures of the dude 
 do not do it justice; they attribute good qualities to the 
 thing which it never could possess, and, like the first 
 germs- of a pest, it should be stamped out of exist- 
 
INVENTIONS. 
 
 59 
 
 ence I hope that the good Gothamites will soon wipe 
 this 'blot from their fair escutcheon, as they strive to 
 obliterate the foci of moral and physical infection. 4 he 
 dude is an insult to the memory of the brave people 
 who reclaimed Gotham's site from the sea and con- 
 verted barren rocks into the first city of the world. 
 
 Another local invention is the crank. A reference 
 to Webster's dictionary will show that there is some- 
 thing in favor of the employment of this word, to 
 signify a person who, though he is not quite insane, 
 rides a very large hobby, badly. I do not beheve 
 that the crank is as well represented anywhere as in 
 Gotham. He is the natural outcropping of that tre- 
 mendous race after wealth, which still in a measure 
 means notoriety. The crank yearns for notoriety, 
 which he mistakes for fame. 
 
 Gotham was led to take cognizance of the crank by 
 the arch-crank that murdered President Garfield; he 
 was undoubtedly insane, but not insane enough to 
 prevent his distinguishing right from wrong. He 
 popularized the word " crank " in one of the most 
 remarkable trials the world has ever seen^ He 
 hungered and thirsted for notoriety and he achieved 
 it — on the gallows. ^ 
 
 A stroll through Gotham at any time will reveal any 
 number of cranks, so many indeed that the stroller 
 wonders if it would be safe to declare war against 
 them, as the enthusiasm that fires each one would 
 cause him to fight Hke ten. Fortunately these cranks 
 are so engrossed in their individualities, that they 
 would never understand the strength a umon of forces 
 would give them; therefore nothing is to be feared 
 
 from them. ,i t i. « c f 
 
 The greatest crank now living is called the bage ot 
 Madison Square." When he was sane he was called 
 Mr George Francis Train, and I judge from his history 
 that he was too highly educated for his mental caliber. 
 He is entirely inoffensive and spends his days in 
 
6o 
 
 INVENTIONS . 
 
 the park that has given him his title, feeding the 
 birds and talking to children. Sometimes he con- 
 tributes wondrously constructed poetry to newspapers, 
 and they are either below or above human compre- 
 hension. I cannot imagine what prompts the practical 
 press of Gotham to waste its space on such drivelings. 
 
 Another species of crank is the street-preacher. 
 He (there are many of him; it is convenient for me to 
 pluralize the pronoun now) stands in public places, 
 preferably before theaters, invites catarrh by taking off 
 his hat, and utters tirades against the wickedness of 
 attending amusements of any kind. Despite the jibes 
 of the crowd that assembles in Gotham on the slightest 
 provocation, despite the still larger crowds that ignore 
 his rantings, he mouths and screams with fiery earnest- 
 ness, as his eyes glare with fervor, that Gotham is 
 doomed to the eternal fire. Let us hsten to him for a 
 moment. 
 
 " Yes, you corrupt outcasts; you vile wretches; you 
 scum of the earth — I was like you; I indulged the 
 flesh in sinful pleasures. Weep, weep, weep for your 
 sins and come to Jesus! I know that my Savior lives 
 and I know that you are doomed to eternal, sizzhng 
 hell-fire and damnation. You, with your children, 
 will feel the marrow in your bones sputter and burn 
 forever and ever, because you go to see plays instead 
 of hearing me speak of the Savior. Come to Jesus 
 before it is too late; come, come, come! " 
 
 That is enough for a sample. He will remain in 
 that spot for an hour, or as long as people will listen 
 to him. He does not do this for money; he asks for 
 nothing but auditors and he gets them. Is that not 
 insanity? If not, it is an evidence that he is a crank. 
 
 Gotham is prolific with another species of crank, 
 who is exemplified on the stage by a figure called 
 Colonel Mulberry Sellers. This creature is the inven- 
 tor of marvelous machinery, of wonderful medicines, 
 of prodigious ideas, all of which are destined to revo- 
 
INVENTIONS. 
 
 6l 
 
 lutionize and reform the world; but above all to make 
 those who invest their money fabulously wealthy. There 
 is some method in this form of crank, but not quite 
 enough. Gotham is undoubtedly the key of the 
 land of inventions, and many have their heads turned 
 by the numerous successes attained by really valuable 
 discoveries. The consequence is that weak-minded 
 people concoct absurd schemes that in their minds 
 need only money to make them rich. I do not refer 
 to swindles now, and may cite one instance: An in- 
 ventor showed me carefully-drawn plans of a machine, 
 in which he desired me to invest, wliich in running 
 saved fifty per cent, in fuel, thirty per cent, in friction, 
 forty per cent, in repairs, and generated ninety per 
 cent, more of power, in all two hundred and ten per 
 cent, better than any other power generator. He was 
 a glib talker and had succeeded in causing some credu- 
 lous people to put their money against common sense. 
 
 It cannot be said too often that the Gothamite is 
 the brightest, most intellectual, most energetic being 
 of a nation that consists almost exclusively of bright- 
 ness, intellect and energy. The more surprising is it 
 then that the Gothamite is the most gullible victim that 
 feeds the predacious crank, even when he takes on a 
 dangerous form, as in the following instance: 
 
 There lives in Gotham an aged person, of un- 
 doubted education, a brilliant, impressive talker, who 
 once was a successful, reputable practitioner of medicine. 
 He is now far over seventy years of age, and is 
 undoubtedly a handsome, venerable-appearing person. 
 Some time ago he conceived the delusion that he is 
 in some vague sort of league with the apostle Paul, and 
 that he is empowered by some secret means to cure all 
 those diseases that physicians the world over have pro- 
 nounced incurable in the present state of medical 
 science. 
 
 I must here remind the reader that I do not set my- 
 
52 INVENTIONS. 
 
 self up as an arbitrator for learned disputes. I simply 
 condense from what I have read and heard. 
 
 Now, this venerable person, erst a reputable practi- 
 tioner, who studied both in Europe and m Gotham, 
 suddenly declares against the advances made by 
 sciences, discards all the instruments of precision that 
 tend to eventually reduce the study of diseases to a 
 mathematical nicety, and returns to indiscriminate 
 burning of the skin, called, I beheve, counter-irritation; 
 and alleges that by that means, using a counter-irritant, 
 the composition of which, like his other means, he 
 keeps a secret, he cures all diseases. This vagary 
 might be ignored and passed over with a pitying smile 
 for all concerned were it not that he has succeeded in 
 obtaining the written endorsement of many reputable 
 medical practitioners; by what means I cannot con- 
 ceive, except by his fervent plausibiUty; and many of 
 these physicians, mirahile dictu, have further stultified 
 themselves by investing money in an institution which 
 is conducted to further his vagaries. It is far from my 
 intention to decry the physicians of Gotham many of 
 whom studied in our own country, and who present 
 such a large number of brilliant lights. But they are 
 Gothamites, and I confess again that I do not under- 
 stand the pecuharity of the Gothamite's mental constitu- 
 tion that will allow him to become so easy a dupe to 
 any crank. 
 
 In justice to the old man I am now writing of, I must 
 say that he has arranged his contract so that he re- 
 ceives a large salary for directing the counter-irritant 
 establishment — therefore he is not insane; and, again, 
 he is a most sympathetic, kind and charitable person. 
 Who can reconcile these incompatibihties? They are 
 beyond me. 
 
 However, I am speaking of mere individuals, while 
 I should discuss classes or sets. 
 
 Gotham has numerous crank associations, which are 
 
INVENTIONS 
 
 63 
 
 more or less harmful, according to the peculiar notions 
 they abet or advocate. 
 
 I do not like to class the Liberal Club among the 
 cranks; still, one visit to a session of this club sufficed 
 to assure me that the idea of liberality was badly mis- 
 construed by the illy-dressed, yet well-behaved people 
 who assembled there. Most of the women wore very 
 short hair and spectacles, while the men shook long 
 manes down to their shoulders. And, excuse me, the 
 place smelled — well, badly. They seemed to be united 
 for the (purpose of subverting the existing order of 
 things. One aged person droled out a wearisome dis- 
 course on the absurdity of saying ten, twenty, thirty 
 and fifty, insisting that it would be more logical to say 
 onety, twoty, threety and fivety. And that Liberal 
 Club was kind enough to remain awake to listen to 
 such nonsense. 
 
 Then there are the Spiritualists — people of a similar 
 stamp as the Liberals. They meet to convince each 
 other and themselves, that after death they will come 
 to their old friends and kick tables. I suspect that 
 some advocate a sort of spiritual affinities during life, 
 which permit a sort of temporary marriage, in a 
 Pickwickian sense, perhaps. I saw no particularly 
 attractive ladies in the assemblage; therefore I did not 
 subscribe my name to " The Flying Roll," or whatever 
 it is called. 
 
 The " Revivalists " and " Salvation Army " are so 
 well known that I need but mention thei names to 
 provoke the smiles they merit. They flourish in and 
 about Gotham, and the Gotharaites have my sympathy. 
 
 The temperance associations are funny institutions 
 and strong elements of crankdom. They managed to 
 poll a heavy vote for one of their party at the Presi- 
 dential election of 1884. The blue ribbon is their 
 insigne, and it is certainly elevating — sublime — to 
 see girls, four years of age, wearing the badge which 
 is a voucher that they have sworn upon the Holy Bible 
 
64 
 
 INVENTIONS 
 
 that they would never again drink a drop of spirituous 
 or malt liquor! I do not know whether their little 
 noses are exhibited as brands snatched from the 
 flames. 
 
 I have a profound respect for the organizations that 
 are intended to make all the world kin, to abolish strife 
 and contention, and to inculcate tolerance and philan- 
 thropy. Many of these are secret societies, and I have 
 no objection to the fact that they are secret. To my 
 idea, secrecy gives them greater power for good, and I 
 can appreciate a man or woman who will give a part 
 of his or her time to such noble purposes. But when 
 such persons ostent the fact that they belong to those 
 societies, it becomes a farce or worse. I met a man 
 who wore the following badges on his vest, and throw- 
 back his coat that all the world might see them. They 
 were : 
 
 The badge of a third degree Freemason. 
 
 The badge of an Eastern Star. 
 
 The badge of a Rose Croix, 
 
 The badge of the Grand Army of the Republic. 
 
 The badge of Odd-Fellows. 
 
 The badge of Knights of Pythias. 
 
 The badge of Knights of Labor. 
 
 The badge of Knights of Honor. 
 
 The badge of Royal Arcanum. 
 
 The badge of D. P. 
 
 The badge of a Temperance Society. 
 
 The badge of Independent Order of Red Men. 
 
 And half a dozen others. 
 
 He was simply what I would call a " secret society 
 crank." 
 
 The political crank is the most pitiable of the horde 
 of his ilk. He is ever ready to mouth and vociferate 
 for his " party," and is as ready to accept any post that 
 party may choose to give him. Unfortunately, the poor 
 thing never learns that the real leaders, graphically 
 called " wire-pullers," consider him one of the voting- 
 
SUNDAY IN GOTHAM. 
 
 65 
 
 cattle, and useful for no other purpose than the name 
 implies. 
 
 # # * * * * # * * *# 
 
 So now, I have written a whole chapter under the 
 title of inventions, and have said nothing about them. 
 This reminds me of the American humorist, Artemus 
 Ward, who told the audience to whom he lectured on 
 " The Rose," that " in Africa there is but one kind of 
 rose — negroes. " 
 
 It was impudent, but it establishes a precedent for 
 my saying nothing about Gotham inventions. 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 SUNDAY IN GOTHAM. 
 
 The Most Severe Punishment — Stolen Fruits are Sweetest — Enforced 
 Desecration of the Sabbath — The Sunday of the Wealthy and the 
 Sunday of the Poor— The Artists' Club, and the Young Men's 
 Christian Association — Preferring Drunkards to Slaves — Three 
 Sexes— Rev. Dr. Deems — Church Bells — My Sermon — My Sun- 
 day. 
 
 Scalinger, after indexing Gruter's " Inscriptions," 
 speaks of his labor in the following epigram: 
 
 " Si quem dura manet sentencia Judicis dim, 
 Damnatum asrumnis suppliciisque caput; 
 Hunc neque fabrili lassent ergastula massa 
 Nec rigidas vexent fossa metalla manus, 
 Lexica contexat; nam csetera quid moror? Omnes 
 Poenarum facies hie labor unus habet. " 
 At the risk of spoiling the strength of the original, 
 I shall attempt a free rendition of his epigram for those 
 who have forgotten a httle of their Latin: 
 
 Whoever hath committed an odious crime 
 
 Like patricide, or blasphemed many a time, 
 
 Let him a dictionary make : no greater penitence, I ween. 
 
 Exists ; but if there be, let it be seen." * 
 
 Well, I claim the right of discovery of a greater pun- 
 ishment than that of being condemned to make a dic- 
 
 *The translator begs Scalinger's and von Karlstein's pardon for still 
 further maltreating the epigram, for the benefit{?) of those whose German 
 has grown rusty. 
 
.56 
 
 SUNDAY IN GOTHAM. 
 
 tionary. Send on your worst criminals to me; no 
 matter how odious or heinous their offense, I have a 
 punishment that will serve as a terrible example to all 
 other prospective evil-doers. It is simply this: I will 
 enact that thirty Sundays shall fall immediately upon 
 each ather's heels, without a single intervening week- 
 day, and then I shall condemn your vile sinners to 
 spend those thirty consecutive Sundays in Gotham. If 
 they do not commit suicide within one quarter of that 
 time, it will be because, long ere six days have elapsed, 
 they will be inmates of lunatic asylums, and will have 
 their bodies confined by straight-jackets. As I utter 
 this sentence, I shudder at the conviction that I am 
 worse than Torquemada, who burned his tens of thou- 
 sands alive; their end was a revelry of bliss compared 
 to what I propose. 
 
 Imagine, if you can, a great city of i ,500,000 inhab- 
 itants, and most of them bright, intelligent, energetic, 
 sensible people, who, on Sundays, would compel all 
 who spend the day in Gotham to go to church or to 
 stay at home. No other honest alternative is offered, 
 for the law closes all of the theaters and museums, and 
 strives hard to abrogate the Sunday free concerts in 
 Central Park. All kinds of business is forbidden on 
 Sundays, and the only establishments kept open are 
 drug-stores and restaurants. 
 
 It is a matter of regret that the bar-rooms are closed; 
 that is, nominally closed; for they all have side-doors, 
 which are open to the worst form of dissipation, namely, 
 surreptitious tippling. The wise legislators seem to 
 have forgotten the proverb anent the sweetness of stolen 
 fruit. 
 
 I believe it was in 1882 that an effort was made 
 to enforce the desecration of the Sabbath, by forbid- 
 ding all rest to the weary and interdicting the adora- 
 tion of God in his great free temple. The method to 
 be employed was the proposed prohibition of all cheap 
 conveyances, prohibition of the sale of newspapers and 
 
SUNDAY IN GOTHAM. 
 
 67 
 
 of all commodities of whatever character. This beau- 
 tiful attempt at wholesale proselyting meant a compul- 
 sion of the poor to remain over Sunday in their hor- 
 rible stench-laden tenements, and permission to the 
 wealthy to ride to church in their elegant carriages, I 
 am glad to say, that despite the powerful influence 
 employed to this end, the movement failed. 
 
 Still there is a large number of Gothamites who direct 
 their efforts to that one end, as witness the following 
 anecdote: 
 
 There is in Gotham a club of young men who are 
 employed during the entire week in work of all kinds, 
 and whose artistic tendencies have caused them to 
 unite for the study of painting in its various higher 
 branches. The Gotham ClubhdiS proven a success, and 
 several of its members are now the known authors of 
 some very creditable productions. Some time ago 
 the members of the club began the study of water- 
 colors, and engaged a prominent artist to act as their 
 professor. Quite naturally, they desired to study 
 water-colors in daylight, and to that end sent a com- 
 mittee to seek for proper rooms. They found them 
 in the magnificent building of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association, otherwise a very worthy institu- 
 tion, 
 
 " On Sunaay mornings? " asked the gentleman in 
 charge of the building, " No, sir; we are a godly 
 institution, and will not tolerate such desecration of the 
 Sabbath," 
 
 " But, my dear sir," said the spokesman, " we are 
 compelled to work all day for a living; at night we 
 study drawing and all work which does not require 
 daylight; if we may not study coloring on Sundays, 
 when shall we study it? " 
 
 " I am sorry for you, young man," answered their 
 interlocutor with oleaginous sympathy, " I am sorry 
 for you, that you cannot appreciate the value of your 
 souls over the mere gratification of the flesh; leave 
 
68 
 
 SUNDAY IN GOTHAM. 
 
 this place, and return when you can pray and weep for 
 your horrible intentions." 
 
 The young man neither wept nor prayed, but found 
 suitable rooms in a house that was not managed by a 
 
 bigot. \ J • 
 
 The gentleman who gave them such good(?) advice 
 is still in his place, and it is rather a disappointment to 
 me that he has not absconded to Canada with the 
 funds of the Association and with another man's wife 
 I have a very poor opinion of the morality of those who 
 continually strive to crowd their faiths down other 
 people's throats. 
 
 It would be the grossest injustice were I to leave 
 this Sabbatarian alone as an example of Gotham's 
 religious people. As an offset, I wish I could recol- 
 lect the name of the clergyman who said, when asked 
 to sign a petition to forbid the sale of all liquors in 
 Gotham: 
 
 "No; I would rather belong to a nation of drunk- 
 ards than a nation of slaves." 
 
 The gentleman who said these words is not a drinker; 
 in fact, he uses no liquors whatever, because he does 
 not Hke them; yet he is too much of a man to be a 
 party to any act that denies the Gothamite's capacity 
 to control his own conduct and will. 
 
 Although it has, perhaps, little bearing on the mat- 
 ter under discussion, and keeping in mind the courtesy 
 which the fair Gothamites invariably receive, because 
 they so richly merit it, I must mention that clergymen 
 are the recipients of curious concessions. In Gotham 
 the generality of divines buy goods cheaper, and are 
 admitted to exhibitions of all kinds, and purchase their 
 railroad and steamboat tickets at reduced rates, one- 
 third less than other people, I believe. This rather 
 imbricated sentence requires unraveling, and I will 
 endeavor to make my meaning plain, by quoting the 
 Reverend Doctor Deems, of the Church of the 
 Stranger, a most excellent gentleman, whom the breath 
 
SUNDAY L\' GOTHAM. 
 
 69 
 
 of slander has not even touched, though he is a shin- 
 ing mark. Dr. Deems says: 
 
 *' The assertion that we recognize three sexes, men, 
 women and clergymen, is an error, at least so far as I 
 am concerned." 
 
 Dr. Deems pays his way in full, like any other 
 gentleman. 
 
 The Gothamite, generally speaking, is a very intense 
 admirer of the church, and everything connected with 
 it. Perhaps this is why he, the shrewd merchant, is 
 ready to concede so much as thirty-three per cent, 
 reduction to clergymen, or perhaps it is because he 
 knows the influence of the clergy so well that he gladly 
 propitiates " the cloth." But this is " one of the things 
 that no fellow can find out," as a favorite Gotham 
 figure, Lord Dundreary, puts it. 
 
 It makes me shiver to think of Sunday in Gotham, 
 though I am three thousand miles away from it. In 
 the early morning " clang, bang," drone the bells that 
 call the faithful to church, and hurry the sick (faithful 
 or otherwise) to Heaven. I do not believe that a single 
 church-goer in Gotham owns no watch and does not 
 know at what time his or her particular service begins. 
 Why then does this clangor and " banger" continue? 
 It seems a defiance to those who would quietly pray, 
 and cannot or will not go to church. And those who 
 are ill or dying and to whom absolute quiet is an essen- 
 tial? They must bear it in " the land of the free and 
 the home of the brave. " Brave? Yes, the Gothamites 
 are brave, as are all Americans; but /r^^~well, I am 
 sure that there is not another people on the face of the 
 earth that will submit to so much tyranny, in the shape 
 of imposition, as the good-natured Gothamites. 
 
 I do not think that a sermon from me would have any 
 weight; but, as I am writing this on a Sunday, I should 
 so much like to preach one as follows; and I wish I 
 could preach it in that terse, strong, direct, " straight- 
 5 
 
70 
 
 SUNDAY IN GOTHAM. 
 
 from-the-shoulder " language that the Gothamites use 
 
 so effectually: 
 
 Oh, ye Gothamites! Concede to me for the nonce 
 the privilege and honor of saying: " Fellow Gotham- 
 ites." I want to preach to you about Sunday — the 
 day of rest. See your pale, pie-fed child, whose sHm 
 abdomen groans with dyspepsia, and whose aching head 
 throbs with a surfeit of integral calculus, or whatever 
 some terrible combination of figures is called. It is 
 Sunday to-day; the day of rest. God told us to rest 
 on this day, and you seek rest for your beloved child 
 by crowding its over-crowded mind with at least three 
 visits to your church, and I know not how many to 
 Sunday-school, while God's open fields and the glorious 
 environs of your great city cry out: " Come, come, 
 breathe in the gallons of oxygen. Come, come, gam- 
 bol on the green sward that covers my breast. Come, 
 come, float on my blue waters and adore God by ad- 
 miring his works! Do not stifle yourselves with 
 mephitic air and incomprehensible sermons that are 
 served in churches, but come to me! And when even- 
 ing falls, and you are refreshed from the toils and stud- 
 ies of the week, go then to the houses of worship, listen 
 to good music, have the holy word expounded to you 
 by sapient'men, so that you may learn theoretically 
 what you have enjoyed practically — the goodness and 
 greatness of the All-wise! 
 
 And the poor — but I have spoken of them before. 
 
 Gothamites, how do you like my Sunday, comparec? 
 to yours? Come, now; which is more desirable? 
 
tHEATERS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THEATERS. 
 
 Like Streets — Two Classes, Morally — "Homes of the Drama" — Play- 
 Houses and Work-Houses — Places of Amusement (Sic.') — " Wal- 
 lack's" — "English, You Know " — " Daly's " — German, But You 
 Are Not Presumed to Know It — Comic Opera — Always Leg-itimate 
 
 — Shakespeare — The Madison Square Church; Theatrical Depart- 
 ment — Really German — Milesia and Senegambia — The Opera — 
 Negro Minstrels — Music Halls — Gardens — Provision for the Poor 
 
 — Ticket Speculators — The Actor's Social Status — Brooklyn 
 Tabernacle and Plymouth Chiirch. 
 
 The theaters of Gotham are like its streets; some 
 are clean. They may be divided into two classes: 
 those to which you take your wife, forming the 
 first; those to which you take some one who is not 
 your wife, the second class. Of course, I speak now 
 of the real theaters — the recognized " homes of the 
 drama," as it is the fashion to call them. Lodging- 
 houses would be a more appropriate term. 
 
 Of these play-houses (though work-houses may be 
 substituted by the reader at liberty) there are some 
 twenty. Then there are concert halls, beer gardens 
 and other " places of amusement " (another American 
 misnomer) innumerable; and last, but not least, the 
 dime museums, Avhich are as much theaters as whales 
 are animals — the text-books tell us so. Let us treat 
 of the theaters proper first, the theaters improper 
 being included. 
 
 What the Theatre Fran9ais is to Paris, Covent Gar- 
 den or the Hay-Market to London, the Hoftheater to 
 Vienna, La Scala to Milan, or the Schauspielhaus to 
 Berlin, that is Wallack's Theater to Gotham. Why 
 this is so is not easily to be seen, except on the li^ais a 
 non lucendo theory. For while each of the other 
 theaters named appeals above all things to the patriot- 
 
THEATERS. 
 
 ism of its audiences, present native dramas or operas, 
 by native authors and composers, and employ native 
 artists alone in their presentation, " Wallack's " (as it 
 is curtly termed) avoids anything native, as if it were 
 contagious, and is English throughout. 
 
 I am told that an attempt was made to require Eng- 
 lish currency in payment for tickets, a year ago, and 
 that the following foot-note appeared on the evening's 
 programme for two nights, until a sudden eruption of 
 common sense ordered its discontinuance: 
 
 " At the conclusion of the performance the audience 
 will respectfully rise and remain uncovered while the 
 orchestra will render * God Save the Queen.' " 
 
 Be this as it may, Wallack's is, as I have said, thor- 
 oughly English in everything, especially the bad acting 
 one sees there. It is owned and managed by one Syl- 
 vester Wallack, whose father, I am told, was an 
 admirable actor and manager. The present proprietor 
 is neither. He appears, when rheumatism permits, 
 at odd intervals during each season, and insists upon 
 still ^'&^\xvs\\x\gjeune-premier roles, though he is a grand- 
 father. Rouge, wigs, a dyed mustache, and springs 
 in his boots are his stock in trade. But they pall. At 
 this theater one sees old EngHsh comedies (with occa- 
 sional new ones); and the general impression upon 
 leaving is, that one has attended a funeral of an old 
 friend whose features have sadly altered. 
 
 Daly's Theater — for in Gotham managers, like small 
 shop-keepers, are far from impersonal, delighting to 
 see their names above their doors — Daly's Theater is 
 to Wallack's as champagne to muddy ale. At the 
 former mirth and gladness; at the latter melancholy 
 and gloom. It is a comedy theater in the best sense 
 of the word, and would be, in its company and 
 repetoire, a credit to any capital of the old world. 
 Mr. Daly does not act, but he adapts from the Ger- 
 man the charming pieces of froth and sparkle in 
 which his company appears. Each member is accu- 
 
THEATERS. 
 
 'n 
 
 rately measured for the dramatic garments of a new 
 part — and the result is a perfect and becoming fit. It 
 is the one theater I have seen in Gotham where ladies 
 and gentlemen seem to be at home upon the stage; 
 and where, however furious and fast the fun of the 
 play may wax, you have no cause to regret that Miss 
 Mossrose or Madame Calla is by your side. 
 
 To reiterate once more the difference between the 
 two theaters I have named: A physician of my ac- 
 quaintance, who shall be nameless — though he is far 
 from being so — had just prescribed for a slight ail- 
 ment of mine. 
 
 " Had you been here a moment earher," he said, 
 " you would have met my prettiest patient. " 
 
 I voiced my regrets at my ill fortune. 
 
 " She is not seriously ill, I trust?" 
 
 " Not at all. Melancholy and mind-weary." 
 
 " And you prescribed?" 
 
 " Two hours of tincture of theater, before retiring. " 
 " I see. You sent her to Daly's, to laugh her 
 
 cares away?" 
 
 " Not at all. In her case I employed homoeopathy. 
 She is in mourning for a dear friend and needs sym- 
 pathy. I sent her to Wallack's." 
 
 The theaters devoted to what is called comic opera 
 are numerous. Of these the Casino is facile principe. 
 Of florid architecture and with gaudy appointments, 
 it is a worthy setting for the melodious trifles one hears 
 there. It is the only theater where one may enjoy 
 supper and a cigarette together, or quaff Culmbacher 
 and Strauss at a time. Below all is propriety— a 
 theater audience all formality — but above, in the 
 clouds, the roof has been transformed into a species 
 of hanging garden, and from a dizzy height the stage 
 maybe observed and the music enjoyed — no, not 
 enjoyed, heard; while one sips and smokes at ease. 
 
 Would I could say as much for the entertainments 
 afforded as for their location. But candor compels 
 
74 
 
 THEATERS. 
 
 me to announce that the comic opera of New York is 
 non-existent. To the manager's mind, as many pretty- 
 girls as his stage will hold, with as marked an absence 
 of costume as a tremendously strained law allows — 
 these with a comedian or two of the good old horse- 
 collar school, and an orchestra whose knowledge of 
 musical shading is confined to a rare descent from 
 fortissimo to forte, are all that are needed to present 
 Millocker, Genee or Audran to perfection. 
 
 I have been told I laugh easily; but that was before 
 I had seen comic opera in Gotham, and I confess that 
 a red nose and excessive adiposity are not to me 
 synonymous with humor. Still the Casino is the least 
 offensive of the musical boudoirs of New York. The 
 cornets and trombones and bass-drums are not used to 
 accompany all serenades and love duets; and it has two 
 artists in its employ: Madame Cotrelly and Mr. Hop- 
 per — to whom my thanks are due for much relief from 
 thoughts of suicide, engendered by their associates. 
 
 The Standard Theater — by far the loveliest in deco- 
 ration and the most comfortable in its appointments — 
 has as yet to find its specialty. In all it has undertaken 
 it has failed. The Bijou, where one sits on hard, 
 wooden chairs, like a scholar on his form, and sees no 
 scenery that does not merit the description of being 
 of Spartan simplicity, was long devoted to the female 
 figure, freely shown, and a comedian named Dixey. It 
 has produced but one — what shall I say? — piece of 
 nonsense, since I have been in Gotham, and that is a 
 harlequin or olla-podrida of all the music-hall jingles 
 and minstrel jokes that have merited retirement on 
 half-pay these many years. But the advantages for 
 the study of comparative anatomy are great, and this 
 Dixey is superlative. Graceful and easy in method, 
 elastic aud dainty in movement, a capital imitator and 
 a charming buffoon, he is an entertainment in himself; 
 and his supremacy in artistic fooling absolute. In his 
 
THEATERS. 
 
 75 
 
 present surroundings he is a diamond on a muck-heap, 
 and would repay translation. 
 
 But are not the works of Shakespeare playeo m 
 Gotham? you ask. Does not the drama of the heart 
 and hearth exist there? Yes, and no, I answer. 
 
 There are several theaters in New York; the largest 
 of all in point of size, Niblo's; the Star, the Fifth 
 Avenue, the Grand Opera House, and others, where 
 Shakespeare may at times be heard; but only when 
 some traveling company of actors seeks a temporary 
 rest from its journeyings through the country. At 
 these theaters appear the foreign stars who visit the 
 United States; and at these theaters, as well, appear 
 the peripatetic hordes of mountebanks who masquer- 
 ade as sons of Momus, in what it is the rule to style 
 the "provinces" — meaning thereby elsewhere than 
 Gotham. But as for the domestic dove of drama, it 
 finds no Ararat on which to perch in its home. Lurid 
 melodrama stamps, gasps, stabs, groans and anathema- 
 tizes; vapid burlesque grins vacantly at inane youth 
 who worships at her shrine; but the home-plays,_ the 
 comedies of sentiment and sensibilities — the " bits of 
 Nature deftly framed by Art," as Ludwig terms them— 
 are nowhere to be found. There was one theater, 
 erected as a branch of a church — the Madison Square 
 Theater — where the domestic drama was intended to 
 rule. For a year or two this stage was devoted to 
 purity itself. Sunday-school classes received tickets 
 thereto in place of tracts; and it had reached a stage of 
 upward progress when the substitution of pews for 
 stalls had been determined on, and the question of con- 
 tributions for foreign missions, between the acts, was 
 being seriously discussed, when pouf ! all Gotham was 
 horrified to learn that the world, the flesh and his Satanic 
 Majesty had triumphed once again; that religion and 
 the stage had dissolved partnership, and that the Madi- 
 son Square Theater would hereafter exchange its reputa- 
 tion for sancity for the applause of the worldly-minded. 
 
 1 
 
76 THEATERS. 
 
 The signs " No Laughing Allowed" were taken down, 
 and to-day broad farce is rampant on the boards, which 
 " saintly feet and good have erstwhile trod. " The 
 substitution of milk for liquor is undoubtedly a good 
 thing [ in many cases, but to deny one his daily or 
 nightly dram, and offer instead, not pure milk, but chalk 
 and water, is to insure the rejection of the substitute. 
 
 I have left myself but little room to speak of the nu- 
 merous other minor theaters, mostly of the second of 
 the classes originally enumerated; but a word must be 
 given to one which is suige7ieris, and a permanent rebus 
 to the thinking. In as large a city as Gotham, and one 
 which is so cosmopolite in its inhabitants, the pre- 
 ponderating nationalities are more than numerous. 
 The German element is the largest, of course; and 
 equally, of course, for it none but the customs of the 
 Fatherland will suffice. As a result, on the east side of 
 the city are two commodious play-houses in which 
 German artists present the successes of-Germany almost 
 as soon as scored, and from manager to call-boy all is 
 as German as if no ocean rolled between the exiles 
 and their home. 
 
 The two next largest elements in respect to nation- 
 ality are the Irish and the Senegambian contingents. 
 For these, too, has been erected a theater by Monsieur 
 Harrigan, an Irishman, and a bull-voiced, Senegambian 
 lady, Miss Antoinette Hart; and here are presented 
 only plays which appeal directly to the races in question. 
 Local in favor, broad in scope, they are faithful por- 
 trayals of the daily lives of those to whom they appeal; 
 and yet, such is the lack of nationalistic patriotism on 
 the part of the classes named, that they almost refuse 
 entirely their patronage to this theater, devoted exclur 
 sively to their use; and were it not for the support of 
 the upper classes, who materially evidence their sym- 
 pathy with the management's philanthrophy, the experi- 
 ment would be a vast financial failure. 
 
 There are two magnificent opera-houses in Gotham, 
 
THEATERS. 
 
 77 
 
 and in these grand opera is given for a few weeks each 
 winter. In the one Italian opera, in the other German 
 opera finds an asylum, temporarily. When the song- 
 birds have flown and the directors have ascertained 
 within a few hundred dollars how many thousands of 
 the same coin each subscriber must pay for his eight 
 or ten nights of Patti or Nillson, then the houses are 
 given over to masked balls, charity fairs, college 
 commencements and other entertainments, and music 
 becomes again one of the lost arts. 
 
 There have been numerous attempts to maintain in 
 Gotham a theater which should present negro-minstrelsy 
 alone, but permanency was impossible for such an 
 establishment. Thanks to a system of compulsory (to 
 a certain point) education, there are but few theater- 
 goers who cannot read; and it is much more economical 
 and quite as exciting to spell out a witticism in a patent 
 medicine almanac as to pay to hear a burnt-cork 
 comedian propound it. Wandering tribes, with black- 
 ened faces, occasionally descend upon some theater 
 which chances to be empty for a week, but their privacy 
 is rarely intruded upon to a marked extent. 
 
 The music-halls of New York do not warrant descrip- 
 tion. Suffice it to say that they have, in common with 
 those abroad, nothing save the name. The orchestras at 
 most are simply wretched, and the individual performers, 
 as a rule, coarse, vulgar and devoid of attraction. It is 
 to the credit of the Germans of the working class that 
 they neglect these halls and betake themselves instead 
 to gardens, where their wives and children need not be 
 elbowed by gamblers and courtesans, nor be forced to 
 listen to blush-bringing songs and speeches. Yet, sad 
 to relate, they have barely a sad-eyed fiddler and a 
 mild pianist to hear at such places. 
 
 Before I close this chapter, let me mention some of 
 the things which strike rne as most peculiar in con- 
 nection with the theaters of Gotham. First, then, I 
 am impressed with the provision made for the middle 
 
78 
 
 THEATERS. 
 
 and poor classes who may desire to be present. Not 
 in arranging for their attendance at the theaters patron- 
 ized by the aristocracy — not at all! But in the case 
 of all visiting stars and companies of acknowledged 
 merit, as a rule, two engagements are played success- 
 ively, or with a brief interval. One at a theater devoted 
 to the " upper ten " exclusively, where prices are high 
 and full-dress obligatory; and then at once, presto! 
 the following week the same company presents the 
 same piece, quite as carefully, at another theater in 
 a very different quarter of the city, at prices so low as 
 to be within the reach of all but the penniless. " Your 
 keenest critic of to-day," wrote John Kemble, " sits in 
 his shirt-sleeves in a Dubhn gallery; not in a stall in 
 Covent Garden; " and following the train of thought 
 suggested, it is the lower classes who are the drama's 
 stanchest supporters in Gotham. 
 
 Again: Nowhere else in the world do I believe 
 would the regular theater-goer be so completely de- 
 livered over, bound hand and foot, to so-called ticket- 
 speculators, as he is here. With a system of reserved 
 seats prevailing, each one being numbered and its 
 purchaser guaranteed possession, there has sprung up, 
 of late years only, a class of capitalists who think 
 nothing of buying all the seats for a distinguished star's 
 entire engagement, selling them again, of course, to 
 would-be auditors at an exorbitant advance upon the 
 regular prices. And the dear public tamely submits 
 to this outrageous imposition without a word. One is 
 told by the advertisement that he may obtain a seat from 
 which to hear Mr. Irving tear Hamlet to tatters, or 
 Miss (Madame?) Bernhardt dissect Camille at $2. 
 One presents himself at the theater office at the earHest 
 moment the seats are announced as for sale, and is 
 informed all have been disposed of. And one finds an 
 affable gentleman at his elbow, ready to accommodate 
 him with the desired chair for $5 — or $10 — if you 
 please. My chief regret has been, that I have not 
 
THEATERS. 
 
 79 
 
 been afforded an opportunity to subscribe to a service 
 of plate, to be presented to the before-mentioned 
 Mr. Daly for his constant warfare with these pirates in 
 the public's behalf. 
 
 And now three last words as to the standing of the 
 dramatic profession in society in Gotham. It has none. 
 A few, a very few of the oldest artists can be met with in 
 private life as welcome guests at home circles of worth and 
 position. But the enormous majority are outcasts. "But 
 does not their art compel their recognition?" you query. 
 Their art! It does not exist. Give the average actress 
 her choice between a friendly welcome in a quiet home, 
 where purity of taste, social position, education and 
 refinement are the components of its atmosphere, and a 
 drive to the races with some wealthy ass, libertine or 
 rotie though he be, and, to her mind, you offer her a 
 choice of death or life. Vive la vie! Evoe Bacche! 
 And so the papers teem with racy anecdotes and sala- 
 cious scandals; and little suppers are eaten, and glasses 
 clink, and diamonds glisten, and silks rustle, and cashiers 
 disappear, and wives' and mothers' hearts grow cold — 
 and my cigar goes out, and I remember I am not writ- 
 ing a sermon and end the theme. 
 
 Speaking of sermons reminds me that two theaters 
 have been left unmentioned. They are called the Brook- 
 lyn Tabernacle and Plymouth Church, respectively, and 
 are located in one of the many suburbs of Gotham. In 
 justice to the former, however, I must add that it par- 
 takes more of the character of a circus and menagery 
 combined than it does of a theater. 
 
 Still tbere are people who call them churches. 
 
So 
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 There Are None in Gotham — Gothamization Opposed to Healthy, Cheap 
 Enjoyments — The Clerk and His Best Girl — Memoirs of the Good 
 Old Times Over the Wash-Tub — Damages to Morality — Socialists 
 — ^AU Boys Born Presidents — Civil and Military Authorities — The 
 Sacred Name of Mother. 
 
 There is nothing so easy to describe as the middle 
 classes of Gotham, for there is no self-confessed middle 
 class. Apparently only the extremes exist, though 
 certainly there must be intermediary stages of society. 
 All of the working people, and there are very few- 
 wealthy folks who are not working people, strive and 
 struggle for more of the ease and luxury that money 
 brings. But there is no middle class, as we understand 
 it. There is none of that contented, jolly, though 
 somewhat noisy, yet well-behaved crowd, that drifts 
 out from its domiciles with wife and children to reap 
 large enjoyments from small expenditures. 
 
 Notice those residents of Gotham who live as our 
 middle classes do; who enjoy life in their modest way 
 and in whom there is nothing immodest; look at those 
 who are the real critics in the galleries of theaters and 
 operas, at the vast assemblage ■ that attend free or 
 cheap exhibitions — tkejf are mainly foreigners? As 
 soon, however, as they become Gotharaized, they give 
 up the pleasures of life and become slrugglers for the 
 dollar and unhappy apers of those who have fortunes. 
 
 What clerk, who earns ten dollars a v>/eek, would 
 think of taking " his best girl" to ths gallery of a 
 theater? No, it would cost but fifty cents for each 
 ticket to take her there; and she, who has a wonderful 
 knowledge of society as deplete^'' \n the fashion col- 
 
THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 umns of the newspapers, would scorn to go with him. 
 On the morrow she wants to tell her shop-mates how 
 much admiration she provoked as she sat among the 
 van der Pilks, the Nesturs and the Kickerbucks. If 
 they marry, they will wake up to the realities of life 
 that are exemplified by the wash-tub and scrubbing- 
 brush, during the exercise of which she may revel in 
 recollections of good old times. This extends to all 
 branches of life among the wage-workers. 
 
 How much better would it be for these people to go 
 to the gallery, where, instead of endeavoring to shine 
 among the wealthy, they would drink in the delights 
 that music and the play give. And they would go 
 home and dream of what they had heard and seen, 
 and would have the satisfaction that a growing bank 
 account gives. As it is, they cannot lie awake and 
 think of the glow and glitter which many, perhaps less 
 intelligent, people seem to enjoy, and which are denied 
 them. Is it surprising, then, that many young men 
 become thieves and young women worse? 
 
 But this is a state of affairs that is incidental to ^a 
 growing country. In a hundred years a proud middle 
 class will exist in Gotham and will be its mainstay. It 
 is a marvel, which no words can explain, that the 
 socialists who would convert liberty into license and 
 who would incite the laboring classes into revolution, 
 have ever failed in their vile intentions against Gotham's 
 peace and progress. 
 
 A knd that recognizes only equality in birth must, 
 it appears to us, be incongruous in its tendencies. 
 What, then, is there to keep the struggler within the 
 bounds of his poverty and cause him to submit to real 
 outrages? It is the hope that under laws that will 
 never be changed, his turn will come next. 
 
 No boy is born in Gotham whose parents do not 
 remember that Abraham Lincoln began life as a work- 
 ingman, and that Jay Gould, the arch-millionaire, was 
 once a peddler. Will they, then, rise against the people 
 
82 
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASS. 
 
 who within twenty-five years may be the associates of 
 their Jimmy or Tommy? 
 
 It is true that riots and small rebellions have occurred 
 in Gotham and some of her sister cities; but how small 
 were they, how insignificant were they when compared 
 to the uprisings that disturbed other countries! 
 
 In this connection I cannot do better than cite the 
 words of a lecturer on Central America, who quoted 
 the Salvadoranian poet, Don Juan J, Canas, thus: 
 
 " The greatness of Gotham and its advances depend 
 upon not showing the lower classes that they are con- 
 trolled. There are no gaudy uniforms; in fact, there 
 is no soldiery worth speaking of, except the mihtia; 
 and the martial forces bow to the civic powers most 
 marvelously. 
 
 " One Washington's birthday I was standing in a 
 crowd, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth 
 Street, waiting for the grand procession to arrive. 
 The first drums were heard in the distance, when a 
 young man, in his shirt-sleeves and hatless, passed 
 through the assembled multitude and addressed the 
 policeman who kept us back. 
 
 " * Officer,' he exclaimed, ' my mother is sick in a 
 house near Sixth Avenue; she has suddenly been taken 
 much worse, and the doctor says that if the procession 
 passes our house the noise will kill her.' 
 
 " ' O. K., young fellow,' said the policeman, and 
 left him to run up the avenue, where he stood some 
 twenty feet before the procession and screamed ' halt! ' 
 holding up a light rattan cane with both hands. 
 
 " The word was passed along the line, an adjutant 
 galloped forward, bent over his horse's neck and 
 exchanged a few words with the policeman. 
 
 " Suddenly the command: * Forward, march! ' was 
 heard, and the immense body of men proceeded to the 
 corner of Fourteenth Street, without any music, except 
 the lightest possible tapping of drums. Then came: 
 * Right wheel,' and nearly fifty thousand men, whom 
 
PRESS OF GOTHAM. 
 
 immense crowds were waiting to see and cheer, wheeled 
 up Fourteenth Street to .Broadway, and down Broad- 
 way they marched without music until they were be- 
 yond the distance at which they might disturb the sick 
 woman, 
 
 " No one asked why an army of well-drilled, admira- 
 bly-equipped men, many of them battle-scared veter- 
 ans, turned out of their path at the simple request of a 
 single policeman, armed with but a light rattan cane. 
 It would have been but a trifling matter for them to 
 take Gotham; but no, the General in command, when 
 he received the young man's thanks, reminded him 
 that his very natural request was addressed to gentle- 
 men and soldiers. And a gentleman, be he a soldier 
 or not, reveres the sacred name of mother." 
 
 I quote Don Juan J. Canas at length, because I deem 
 that he gives a good picture of the Gothamite; • but he 
 neglects to state a curious anomaly. 
 
 While the soldier unhesitatingly yields to the civic 
 authorities, the country's defender is the most esteemed 
 person in the land. The charge of " conduct unbecom- 
 ing a soldier and a gentleman," is a most serious one, 
 and one which, if sustained, is punished by dismissal 
 from the service in disgrace. He who has been so 
 dismissed must view life as a sad blank thereafter. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 PRESS OF GOTHAM. 
 
 The Only Omnipotent and Omniscient Power on Earth — Why So Strong 
 — Small Print Read by Poor Light in Jolting Conveyances a Cause of 
 Myopia — The Gothamite is a Reader — Its Effects on Conversation — 
 Newspapers Keep Lovers Apart. The General and the Journalist — 
 A Patent of Ignorance — Enterprise — Some Few Papers. 
 
 It will surprise the reader who has not been in 
 Gotham to know that if this book were intended for 
 publication in that metropolis, I would write just what 
 follows, and would not fear the result. 
 
 It is a well-established fact that Gotham's press is 
 
84 
 
 PRECS OF GOTHAM. 
 
 the only really omnipotent power in the world, and it 
 wields its sway fully conscious that it is a veritable 
 king-maker in the full sense of the word. So much do 
 I believe this, that I am convinced if but a few of the 
 principal journals of Gotham should determine upon 
 selecting one particular person, male or female, black 
 or white, to be the crowned, hereditary ruler of America, 
 the Republic would cease to exist. I may be mistaken ; 
 but if signs go for aught, I cannot be far from right. 
 
 The origin of this power lies in the Gothamite. 
 Among us it is nothing unusual for three or four 
 families to subscribe jointly to one paper, while in 
 Gotham very few families exist that read but one single 
 journal daily. Indeed, I know families consisting of 
 eight members who receive twenty papers every day, 
 and not only read them, but also a number of weekly 
 and monthly magazines. When it is remembered 
 that the Gothamites are a very busy people, and have 
 very large distances to travel in their ordinary business, 
 this fact is the more surprising. It accounts for the 
 sight no other city offers in its public and private con- 
 veyances. Every Gothamite reads, every one carries a 
 newspaper — a newspaper, do I say? Well, a Goth- 
 amite, no matter what his or her class, carries at least 
 half a dozen. 
 
 It is curious to note the Gothamite when he enters 
 a street conveyance, be it a horse-car, an omnibus, or 
 the elevated railroad. 
 
 He endeavors to board the vehicle before it has 
 stopped, steps in quickly and glances around it an 
 instant, not to seek familiar faces, as we would to 
 while away the time in conversation, but he looks for 
 an empty seat. As soon as he sees one he drops into 
 it, but on his way to it he has begun to unfold his 
 newspapers. He drops into his seat, and, in defiance 
 of small print, poor light, and the motion of the 
 vehicle, he skims over column after column. In those 
 street-cars which are provided with a conductor, he holds 
 
I'RESS OF GOTHAM. 
 
 85 
 
 his money in his hand, and when the official approaches 
 him, he, without removing his eyes from his paper, 
 extends his hand mechanically, gives his coin, receives 
 his change, fingers it for a moment, counting it thus, 
 without looking at anything but his paper, drops the 
 coins into his pocket, reading all the time. 
 
 Suddenly, something attracts his attention; he stops, 
 reads the paragraph more carefully, as he knits his 
 brow, and then either sneers, smiles, or, what is still more 
 rare, marks the place, and, in extraordinary cases, tears 
 the item from the paper. He finishes a paper in ten 
 minutes that we would need a whole day to read; then 
 he throws it on the seat beside him; he has read the 
 news that interests him and he does not trouble him- 
 self about what may become of the paper afterwards. 
 Generally, another passenger or the conductor has 
 taken it, while he is deep in the second journal. His habit 
 has taught him the places in each paper where he finds 
 something of what he desires to know. The process is 
 repeated with the other paper, and betakes up a third. 
 He is in the midst of an article that evidently interests 
 him very much, for he follows it intently; then he sud- 
 denly starts up, holding the place he was reading and 
 rushes out of the car, jumps off, and almost runs down 
 a cross-street, still reading. 
 
 Has he gone mad? Was the article he read so in- 
 flammatory that it suddenly turned his brain? No; 
 he has arrived at the street at which he must leave the 
 car, and he does not wait for the vehicle to stop. How 
 did he know that he had reached his destination? 1 
 cannot tell, for during his entire ride he did not once 
 glance into the street to determine his location, and 
 the conductor has not called the streets we passed for 
 fully five minutes. That man read one paper while he 
 shaved, another at breakfast, four on his way to busi • 
 ness, and at his lunch, if he lunches at all, he will read 
 two more. On his way home he will read three or 
 four evening papers, and, if he allows himself anv 
 
 8 
 
86 
 
 PRESS OF GOTHAM. 
 
 respite at dinner, he will run through half-a-dozen mag- 
 azines at night, and between this periodical literature, 
 by way of a rest, he will read two or three books each 
 week. 
 
 On my first visit to Gotham, thirty-five years ago, I 
 could distinguish my countrymen, even after they had 
 become Gothamized, by their use of spectacles; now 
 this sign fails, for even httle children, with great, thick, 
 short-sighted glasses, are almost the rule. Every prom- 
 inent street has several oculists, and Gotham supports 
 numerous specialists in diseases of the eye. Is this not 
 a result of the manner in which small print is devoured 
 wholesale in Gotham? 
 
 How absorbed the Gothamite is in his newspaper 
 was shown me by the gentleman whose conduct I de- 
 scribed above. He was one of my friends and a splen- 
 did entertainer, whose extensive reading gave material 
 for his charming conversational powers. When he left 
 the car he did not know that I was in it, nor that he 
 brushed by his father, almost stepped upon his broth- 
 er's feet, and knocked his knees against his partner. 
 They were busy with their papers and did not notice 
 him either. 
 
 Another gentleman declined to lunch with me one 
 day, because he had an appointment to take his bride 
 to a matinee. " Confounded bore, those matinees," he 
 said, with a regretful smile; " but, you know, when a 
 fellow is so near marriage, he is expected to steal a few 
 hours from business once a week or so." 
 
 He was to meet his inamorata in front of the thea- 
 ter, he told me. 
 
 I left him and went to his future father-in-law's office, 
 to settle a business matter with him. As I entered, 
 the young lady, who had called on her father, left. 
 After transacting my business with the old gentleman, 
 I determined to lunch up-town, and went in a street- 
 car. In a corner sat the young lady, reading a paper, 
 occasionally looking at her watch, and acting as if she 
 
^RESS OF GOTHAM. 
 
 feared to be late at her appointment. The car was 
 dragged along for several blocks, when her future hus- 
 band leaped aboard, looked around for a seat, sank 
 into it, brought forth a newspaper and read continu- 
 ously, only interrupting himself to look at his watch 
 occasionally; and thus they rode and read on, neither of 
 them aware that the loved one was less than six feet 
 off. 
 
 Suddenly he arose, and she beckoned to the con- 
 ductor. He occupied the door, but courteously made 
 way for her. " Thanks," she said, without looking at 
 him. Her eye was anxiously fixed on the people at 
 the corner; he raised his hat slightly, looked at her and 
 ejaculated: "Why, Emma!" 
 
 " Charlie, is it you? " she exclaimed. 
 
 He helped her off the car and she took his arm, oh, 
 so lovingly! 
 
 Emma and Charlie had ridden in a not at all crowded 
 car for twenty minutes, and neither had noticed the 
 other, each one was so much engrossed in the news- 
 papers. I am sure that would not have happened in 
 Germany or any other country. 
 
 Need I say more about the Gotham press? 
 
 I think not. 
 
 It may now be in place to discuss a few individual 
 papers, of the several hundred that are published in 
 Gotham. Of course, I must begin with the Herald, 
 that monstrous, journalistic giant. It has not its peer 
 in the world. It is edited and printed in a palace; 
 it has an army of employes, and owns even ocean 
 cables. It is said that its present proprietor has an 
 income of $1,000,000 annually from it. Think of it, 
 ye toiling workers in our land of brains: one man in 
 Gotham draws a revenue of four million marks an- 
 nually from a newspaper. Here, I will put it in figures: 
 M. 4,000,000 — does it seem possible? He deserves 
 such a reward for his enterprise, which encomprises 
 not only expeditions to the North Pole and to the 
 
88 
 
 PRESS OF GOTHAM. 
 
 heart of Africa, but I believe would not stop at 
 offering an Emperor a million dollars in compensation 
 for allowing himself to be interviewed; the same sum 
 to His Holiness for a half column article on the dogma 
 of infalHbility; $50,000 to a Napoleon for a scrap of 
 French secret history, and even a fabulous fortune to 
 a President of the United States for six lines on inter- 
 national politics, provided that these persons' pro- 
 ductions were purchasable. I say these things only 
 to show that the proprietor of the Herald will spend 
 any amount of money for information that money or 
 adroitness will buy. 
 
 The following anecdote is authentic, as are all 
 those I tell, unless otherwise expressed. Of course, 
 when I repeat the experiences of others, I endeavor 
 to exercise due caution to state only such occurrences 
 as I believe to be true. However, the tale I propose 
 to tell now, " has no marked inverisimilitude," as they 
 say in Gotham. 
 
 One of the generals of the army had convened a 
 number of artillery officers to Governor's Island (so 
 called perhaps because the Governor does not live 
 there), to test a new long range cannon. The order 
 was given in secret; but a reporter who was watching 
 events at the Battery followed the orderly, who went 
 about Gotham dehvering the messages. When the 
 orderly was about to return, he was stopped by a 
 martial-looking person (another reporter who had 
 been met and instructed by his colleague), who said: 
 
 " Comrade, my captain told me to catch you and 
 say that his orders do not state at what time it is to 
 come off." 
 
 " Three o'clock," answered the orderly. 
 
 " Delivered all of your messages? " asked Reporter 
 No. 2. 
 
 " Yes," responded the orderly. 
 
 " Let's take a drink, then," suggested the reporter. 
 They talked over campaigns and discovered that 
 
PRESS OF GOTHAM. 
 
 89 
 
 they had shared the hardships of the recent rebelUon 
 under the same General. The truth is, our friend the 
 reporter had fought on the Confederate side, but he 
 did not tell the orderly so. The amiable reporter 
 made time fly with agreeable reminiscences of hard 
 campaigns, and thoroughly agreed with the orderly 
 that times . of peace are dreadfully doleful. And then, 
 the General, " really he is a brick; he knows how to 
 keep those damned newspaper fellows off the Island, 
 when anything is going on — and " 
 
 " The devil, comrade," explained the orderly, "we 
 are in for it ; just look; it is a quarter past two, and I 
 am sure that your captain and the rest of the officers 
 have gone. How the deuce will I get to the Island? 
 The General will have me court-martialed. Damn the 
 luck ; I was to do the firing." 
 
 He rushed off to the Battery, and ran around there 
 in despair. 
 
 A kind gentleman (Reporter No. i) noticed him, 
 and, upon hearing his tale, said: 
 
 " Do not worry, my good sergeant ; I will take you 
 to the Island in my steam yacht, and I am sure that I 
 can persuade the General to pardon you." 
 
 He had bribed the men aboard of a yacht, at a cost 
 of five hundred dollars,* to let him act the owner of the 
 vessel. 
 
 He took the man to the Island, and interceded suc- 
 cessfully with the General for him, who forgave him, 
 as he was not three minutes behind time. 
 
 " Will you not remain to see the firing?" asked the 
 General, courteously. 
 
 " I should very much like to," answered the reporter. 
 
 " Well, then, order your yacht back, and remain to 
 - dinner with us," said the General. 
 
 * All newspaper men do not carry that much money at all times. Our 
 reporter had sent a messenger to the Herald office, and had received the 
 money during the orderly's trip. 
 
90 
 
 PRESS OF GOTHAM. 
 
 " Gladly, General," said the reporter," but I should 
 like to be in New York by nine o'clock. " 
 
 " I am going over before then," said the General, 
 " and will take you in my yacht." 
 
 The reporter remained, and witnessed the entire 
 proceedings. The General on his way to Gotham, 
 commenting on the occurrences of the day, said: 
 
 " Well, for once we have had a test without the 
 presence of any confounded newspaper scribblers." 
 
 " Do you think, General," asked the reporter, " that 
 to be a journalist is to carry a patent of ignorance? " 
 
 What the General said when he read the Herald's 
 
 three-column precise report of the test of the new gun, 
 
 is not known. He wrote a note, however, as follows: 
 
 "Mr. James de la Champe Retainer, 
 
 Herald Office: 
 
 Sir: — Your letter and copy of the Herald received. I agree with you 
 that to be a journalist does not — especially not in your case — give a man 
 a patent of ignorance. I hope that you will soon dine with me again. " 
 
 The orders of the Herald's owner are to obtain news 
 at any cost, and his employes comply with his orders. 
 
 What I say of the Heralds enterprise will apply to all 
 of the others, modified, of course, by the peculiar ob- 
 jects and tendencies of each paper. Thus, while the 
 Herald is looked to especially for foreign news, the 
 World is the essentially American and specifically 
 Gotham paper. The World, in about three years, under 
 the management of that more than astute Viennese 
 journalist, Josef Pulitzer, became a wonderful piece of 
 enterprise. It is marvelously aggressive and stops at 
 nothing to increase its circulation. While its dignity 
 was at first not high in all instances, it is always en- 
 tertaining, and just the paper you want when you desire 
 to know what your neighbor has done, and what he 
 (or she) should not have done. 
 
 Both the and the World have excrescences, 
 The first an evening carbuncle, called the Telegram; 
 and the second a morning satellite, called the Journal. 
 The Telegram is not a bad paper, but the Journal is. 
 
PRESS OF GOTHAM 
 
 91 
 
 It is a pity that it exists, and owes its life to the morbid 
 desire for sensational matter morbidly presented. 
 
 Then there is the " Trombone of the Tall Tower," as 
 the Tribune is called, which, wdth the Times, supports 
 the dignity of Gotham's journalism. The Smi claims 
 to be the workingman's paper, and is a good one, while 
 the Neivs, and its cousin-German, Die Tagesnachrich- 
 ten, provide the working classes with full details of 
 hangings, accidents, etc., for one cent. 
 
 Die Staats-Zeitung is the German prototype of the 
 Herald, and is full of news enterprise and Gotham- 
 ized German; in fact, I am surprised that it does not 
 go the full length, and report a news-item thus: 
 
 " John Miller, welcher de best gekhnownter Citizen 
 von seine Ward ist, un seit de bloody fourth mit 
 Intschein 33 geronnt hat, ist gestern nacht beinah auf 
 de spout naufgagangen, because er die light cxtin- 
 guishen wollt bei die gas ausblasen. Wenn er semen 
 kopf level gehalten hatte, konnte so etwas nicht hap- 
 penen. Glucklicherweise war Dr. Schnabenheiser an 
 die Hand und mit einer elektrisirmaschine ist Mr. Mil- 
 ler fiir seine fellovz-citizens gesaved worden. In die 
 zuckerhaftige nach-und-nach sollte Mr. Miller care- 
 fuller sein und nicht mit die ward-bummers die dis- 
 trickt roth painten wollen und somit nicht geluscht 
 nacht Hans kommen zu hahnekrah." * 
 
 Gotham has daily or weekly papers in all languages, 
 I believe. Their list alone would make a volume. 
 
 The Gotham periodicals called " magazines " are the 
 wonder of the world. They are too well known to 
 
 require mention. , 1 • t.^. 
 
 It is a curious fact, though, that the best and bright- 
 est Gotham journalists served their apprenticeships on 
 Western, notably Chicago, publications. 
 
 * I will not spoil this exquisite exaggeration by an attempt at 
 tion, — Translator. 
 
92 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 Politics in Gotham are Incomprehensibly Profound — Party Feelin? — 
 "Ma-n-ah!"— Continental Liar — How Gothamites Act Toward 
 Women — Peaceable Uprising of the People — Political Parties — 
 Centralization of Power and State Rights — A I ictitious Candidacy — 
 A Water Candidate — A Candidate of the Party of Short-Haired 
 Women and Long-Haired Men— Sensational Journalism in Poli- 
 tics— Both Candidates Claimed to be Elected — Money Power in 
 Politics — Betting — The Return to the Even Tenor. 
 
 I see no reason, why I should attempt to write an 
 immense encyclopedia; for, were I to discuss national 
 polities as exemplified in Gotham, I would needs indite 
 a many-tomed work, which, even were I capable of so 
 doing, would leave the reader like Faust — 
 
 " * * * And knew as much as I did before." 
 
 It would better subserve my purposes to tell some of 
 the things I saw on November i, 1884, as I stood for a 
 while in front of the St. Denis Hotel, at the corner of 
 Eleventh Street and Broadway, to see thousands of people 
 pass, who thus in procession manifested their adherence 
 to Governor Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candi- 
 date for the presidency. 
 
 Party feeling runs high in Gotham; but this cam- 
 paign engaged the opposing enthusiasm of the parties, 
 I was told, more than ever before. It was a curious 
 sight. Perhaps 100,000 men (the opposing party 
 acknowledged 8,000), from all walks of society, paraded 
 the streets that afternoon, and it seemed to me that no 
 other country could have enjoyed such a demonstration 
 withoat a riot. Near me stood a number of people 
 who hissed the procession and, wondrously emulated 
 the enamored cats that are allowed to ornament Goth- 
 am's back fences in their cries of " Ma-ri-ah! " 
 
A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 93 
 
 And then the staid men in the procession answered 
 in a curious monotone: 
 
 " Blaine — Blaine — 
 Jay Gould's Blaine — 
 Continental liar — 
 From the State — of Maine." 
 
 Each word seemed jerked forth, not viciously nor 
 angrily, not even with the slightest inflection; in fact, 
 if the words . were not understood, the refrain would 
 have sounded like a congress of many drums speaking 
 thus: 
 
 Bram — bram — 
 Bram — tam — tam — 
 Ratatata — ratata — 
 Ratata — tam — tam — 
 
 A number of other chants were sung by the parad- 
 ers and the people who looked at them, but the above 
 were the most characteristic. I will elucidate them — 
 with as much as I could draw from what was told me 
 by partisans of both candidates. 
 
 The Republican criers of *' Ma-ri-ah " claimed 
 that this is the first name of a widow by the name of 
 Mrs. Halpin, who was the mother of two or three 
 children when she and Governor Cleveland became 
 acquainted. A boy was born, who is said now to be 
 the inmate of a foundling asylum, while his mother is 
 a patient in a mad-house, and President Cleveland 
 will be married about a year after his inauguration. 
 Hence the indignant wail of " Mariah " from throats 
 many of whose owners cannot mention the legs of a 
 piano, lest any allusion to female extremities be in- 
 ferred. By the way, females (women and ladies are 
 discussed elsewhere) do go to great extremities in 
 Gotham, and in speaking of extremities I must say 
 that there are many exquisite opes. My wife soon 
 learned the ways of Gotham, and went to a curious 
 extremity, that showed us the Gothamites in one of 
 their true lights. 
 
 The crowd was dense where we stood, and my wife 
 could not see over the shoulders of the vociferous, not 
 
94 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 at all elegant people, who stood before us. She was 
 determined to see, and suddenly taking my hand — 
 it must have looked ridiculous to see a man of my size 
 led by such a mite as she — she pushed through the 
 people before us. 
 
 " Who the hell are you shovin'?" asked a vile- 
 looking wretch rudely; but as soon as he saw my wife, 
 he added hastily, " 'Scuseme, mum — here, you fellers, 
 
 let the lady see, can't you — you ?" I prefer to 
 
 discontinue a recital of his remarks. However, his 
 conduct showed that of the Gothamite of all classes 
 towards women. 
 
 " Blaine — Blaine — 
 Jay Gould's Blaine — 
 Continental liar — 
 From the State — of Maine." 
 
 The chant requires an explanation. J. G. Blaine is 
 the name of the Republican candidate for the presi- 
 dency, that was contested at the time I am writing of. 
 The reason given for calling him Jay Gould's Blaine lay 
 in the assertion that he was the willing and paid tool 
 of Jay Gould, an American millionaire, whose modes 
 of increasing his wealth did not seem to particularly 
 please the public at large. " Continental liar" cannot, 
 perhaps, be fully explained in the confines of a volume 
 like this. The expression " continental " is often used 
 in the United States, where the word " damned " 
 would be considered inelegant, and " liar," one of 
 the two epithets that in Gotham call for blood, was 
 given Mr. Blaine by one of America's, if not the 
 world's, greatest clergymen — the Reverend Mr. 
 Henry Ward Beecher. I will not presume to criticise 
 Mr. Beecher's choice of words, especially as this emi- 
 nent divine is undoubtedly an authority on their use, 
 and could act and prove his allegations. 
 
 " From the State of Maine" requires no explana- 
 tion, it is evident, as Mr. Blaine is a resident of the 
 State that rhymes with his name. 
 
A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 95 
 
 The doggerel in itself presents nothing noteworthy 
 except that those who chanted it could not at the time 
 tell whether they were not committing what in king- 
 doms would have been a "lese-majesty" And how 
 they chanted it! Imagine, if you can, thousands of 
 serious, well- dressed men, all wearing silk hats and 
 gloves, all carrying canes, not a smile on their faces, 
 and representing the heaviest interests in the country; 
 imagine them trudging the streets for over four hours 
 to pass before their candidate, and never ceasing their 
 chant. It was like the roar of the mighty ocean — "but 
 was it a menace against the peace of the land, if the 
 opposing candidate should be elected? A person who 
 did not know the Gothamites would tremble for the 
 result. Those thousands of faces were too earnest to 
 allow any trifling, but I have not the slightest hesitancy 
 in saying that if their candidate had been honestly 
 defeated, those men would have returned to their 
 offices, warehouses and factories, and would have 
 quietly said: " Well, we will beat the Republicans 
 next time." 
 
 The Republican and Democratic parties are the two 
 principal political divisions in the North American 
 republic. The essential difference between them is 
 the desire of the Republican party to center the power 
 of the land in Washington, while the Democratic party 
 advocates absolute self-government by each individual 
 State, combining, however, for all purposes of foreign 
 negotiation or dispute, under the head at Washington. 
 Other parties rise and fall, but the two original great 
 parties remain. In fact, every person who devises an 
 idea, a thought or invention, in the United States, 
 makes it the basis of a new religion, a " system " of 
 medicine or a political party. 
 
 During the election that I have mentioned, three 
 other candidates were ambitious for the first office in 
 the land. Among them was General Benjamin F. Butler, 
 the Governor of the State of Massachusetts, who called 
 
96 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 himself the workingman's candidate. He would have 
 polled a heavy vote had it not been shown shortly 
 before the election that his candidacy was a farce and 
 paid for by the Republican party, to draw votes from 
 Cleveland. 
 
 Another candidate was Mr. John P. St. John, also a 
 Governor, who based his hopes on obtaining many 
 votes upon the fact that he is the head of a party which 
 advocates prohibition of the manufacture, importation, 
 sale and consumption of spiritous and malt Hquors, 
 He did not expect to be elected, but he spent a great 
 part of his fortune to show the strength of the Ameri- 
 can water-drinkers, who wish to legislate intoxicating 
 liquors out of the country. I believe that he received 
 nearly 50,000 votes. 
 
 The other candidate was — a woman — Mrs. Belva 
 Lockwood. She is practicing law in Washington, and 
 rides about that town on a tricycle. I heard her lecture 
 — my ticket of admission cost $1.50 (six marks) — and 
 I was pleased with her earnestness and decided argu- 
 mentative abiHty; but I cannot, for the life of me, un- 
 derstand how an'advocate, who knows that she cannot 
 cast a ballot, can ask that ballots be cast for her. The 
 people who are called " short-haired women and long- 
 haired men," which graphically describes their appear- 
 tion, and who are American prototypes of our socialists 
 in their loudly-uttered desires to subvert the existing 
 order of things, were Mrs. Lockwood's supporters. 
 
 All of the parties were bitter in their opposition to 
 each other, and the bitterness lasted even after the 
 election, when the result was still in doubt, How- 
 strong the feeling was is best shown by an extract from 
 the Nezv York Hera/d of November 8th. I was told 
 that it never before had taken a positive stand upon 
 any matter, and that it always had but one tendency, 
 that of being " strong with the strong. " The heat "of 
 the struggle, I think, caused the Herald to exaggerate. 
 
A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 97 
 
 or even to create the danger to the public peace, which 
 I do not believe ever existed. 
 
 GUARDING THE STATE. 
 
 How the People Stood on Watch Yesterday. 
 
 THE BLAINE-GOULD RING BROKEN. 
 
 New York's Electoral Vote to Go to Cleveland and 
 
 Hendricks. 
 
 " Here you are; Blaine's funeral for five cents." 
 
 This was the cry of a hundred boys from early in the 
 morning to late in the afternoon at the corner of Fulton 
 Street and Broadway, where thousands and thousands 
 of people, passing and repassing, made it one of the 
 marvels of the period that scores were not trampled 
 under foot by crowds of men, mashed by wheels of 
 stages, knocked over by excited horses or tripped upon 
 the frozen pavement by pickpockets with nefarious 
 
 intent. 
 
 Pickpockets? 
 
 Yes, plenty of them. 
 
 New York yesterday was a, center toward which ras- 
 caKsm sent its multitudes. 
 
 What's all this talk about a riot? 
 
 Well, day before yesterday it bade fair to be some- 
 thing more than talk. The deep ground-swell, far be- 
 low the surface, gave evidence of a tidal wave, which, 
 had it come, as was feared, and had it gone in the 
 direction toward which it tended, would have turned 
 the fair face of metropolitan life into the grotesque and 
 horrible features of discord and torch-bearing rebellion. 
 THE VICIOUS UNDERTOW. 
 
 There were two features marked and notable in yes- 
 terday's development. On its face New York was as 
 calm and as cheery as so bright and prosperous a city 
 ought to be, but underneath there was a sullen feeHng, 
 which needed but a leader to break forth into some- 
 thing more than vociferation, something more difficult 
 
98 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 to handle than the ordinary peaceful gatherings that 
 have characterized the ongo of the present campaign. 
 Thursday night fists were shaken; Friday hands were 
 grasped. Few besides the police know how threaten- 
 ing a condition of affairs existed in the first city of the 
 Union during the long, silent watches of that turbulent 
 night. Few besides men in authority understand, even 
 now, when the papers of the day have told them partial 
 stories of apprehended outbreak, how serious was the 
 crisis. 
 
 Jay Gould and Blaine understood it. 
 
 Jay Gould's friends apprehended what might occur. 
 
 Jay Gould's servants and adherents and followers 
 saw the cloud in the sky, considerably bigger than one 
 man's hand, which menaced threateningly their chief, 
 whether rightful or not. 
 
 Many people are disposed yet to believe that the 
 extraordinary telegram sent by the head and front of 
 Wall street yesterday, was an evidence of fear for his 
 personal safety^ 
 
 How so? 
 
 Jay Gould has lived in this city many years. He is 
 mentally acute, bright, cautious, defiant, in times of 
 ordinary emergency, but when occasion confronts him 
 with physical danger, especially if that means loss of 
 property — his sore spot — he weakens, he seeks his 
 corner, he sulks like the ancient warrior in his den, he 
 resembles the late Rachel and refuses to be comforted. 
 After a few hours of this sentiment he backs down, 
 breaks down and utilizes his unquestioned expertncss 
 of brain and vast facility of resource in extricating him- 
 self from whatever scrape he may be in to the best of 
 his ability. 
 
 THE TART CONDITION OF THURSDAY. 
 
 What was the situation down to Thursday night? 
 
 Cleveland had been elected; Blaine had a fair chance 
 to receive the certificate. 
 
 Did that produce any effect? 
 
A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 99 
 
 It very decidedly produced a very decided effect. 
 The people of New York, without regard to party, 
 determined that that sort of thing had gone far 
 enough when it was hinted at. Good men and bad 
 men alike, as the profane vociferator in bar-rooms and 
 the pious exhorters in prayer meetings, agreed, " Thus 
 far shalt thou go, and no further," unless you want to 
 bring about you a mob determined, convinced, reso- 
 lute and prepared to abide by the consequences of their 
 acts. 
 
 Jay Gould's relations with the Western Union Tele- 
 graph Company are well known, and in some way the 
 people of the city and of the country at large became 
 possessed of the idea and solid in the conviction, that 
 it being to his interest to have Blaine from Maine made 
 Blaine in Washington, he would, in some way known 
 to his fertile brain, bring about the desired result. Not 
 that there was the faintest wish in the popular mind to 
 divert the honest vote of the people from a fair count; 
 not that they wished Blaine to be cheated; not that 
 their feelings were so extremely partisan as to traverse 
 their patriotic love of the nation's honor; but that as 
 they were willing to have Mr. Blaine declared the 
 choice of the United States, if such were the fact, so 
 were they determined that Cleveland should have his 
 rights, if the rights were his, and that the gonfalon of 
 victory should be waved over his head if he was the 
 victor. 
 
 Friday morning dawned. 
 
 The independent press and the Cleveland journals 
 agreed that New York State's 36 votes belonged to 
 Grover Cleveland. The Blaine partisan papers argued 
 the other way, and boldly flaunted a table of electoral 
 votes, showing that it was not only their wish, but 
 their determination, to hold all that was good and as 
 much as was bad as they dared in the face of the 
 popular will. 
 
 Then came the mutterings. Mutterings at first were 
 
A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 comparatively mild. They grew to storm proportions. 
 Here and there hand-to-hand fights were resorted to, 
 and the news of trouble in Boston and reports of riots 
 in Hocking Valley seemed to be a kind of suggestion 
 to tens of thousands of people, who, apparently having 
 nothing better to do, paraded the streets with shouts 
 and songs of hilarity. The talk about Jay Gould and 
 Jay Gould's house had fairly frightened the timid 
 citizen. Two ends were plainly in view — riot, blood- 
 shed, scoundrelism and the blackening of the fair fame 
 of the metropoHs on the one hand, and decent, good- 
 natured acquiescence in the will of the majority, which 
 would mean an immediate return to ordinary channels 
 of occupation and to normal planes of action, on the 
 other. 
 
 Jay Gould has been for 3^ears a student of human 
 nature — and of the stock market. 
 
 The book was never more widely opened than 
 yesterday morning. 
 
 Carefully he conned it; studiously he perused it. 
 The type was large; the matter leaded; its suggestions 
 pregnant and its warnings unmistakable. 
 
 Quick as a flash he turned, and as rapidly as the electric 
 current he controls could send it to Grover Cleveland, he 
 sent words of greeting and of cheer, congratulating him 
 that he not only carried the State over whose destinies 
 as a State he presides, but that thereby he had been 
 carried on the crest of the wave of popularity to the 
 highest pinnacle known to American ambition. This 
 was the despatch : 
 
 New York, Nov. 7, 1884. 
 Grover Cleveland, Governor, Albany, N. Y. : , , „^„r 
 
 I heartUy congratulate you on your election. All concede that your 
 administration as Governor has been wise and conservative, and in the larger 
 field as President I feel that you will do still better and that the vast busi- 
 ness interests of the country will be entirely safe in your hands. 
 
 Signed. Jay Gould. 
 
 What induced him to send this? Fear of personal 
 violence? 
 Not a bit of it 
 
A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 lOI 
 
 It was simply the quick move of a sharp speculator. 
 Through his control of the Western Union wires he had 
 full knowledge of the election of Cleveland and Hen- 
 dricks. He had held the news back, however, until 
 he had laid his plans in the market; then he sent out a 
 despatch through the Associated Press, over his own 
 signature, that Cleveland was elected. 
 
 Clever, wasn't it? 
 
 And he killed two birds with one stone; for, recog- 
 nized as the partner of Blaine, his despatch was intended 
 to be evidence from Republican headquarters that they 
 gave up the presidency, while at the same time he 
 hoped it would stem the tide of popular indignation 
 setting so strongly against him in this city. 
 
 Did it stem the tide? 
 
 It very decidedly did. 
 
 It stemmed it so far as its rush and flow and tre- 
 mendous impetus in the direction of violence were 
 concerned. It made Jay Gould solid for another term 
 of operations. It kept the great city of New York free 
 from scenes of brutal violence. It saved thousands of 
 women from hours of anxiety, and possibly preserved 
 the head of many a father to his little ones for years to 
 come. 
 
 Strange, isn't it? 
 
 Well, no, not particularly strange. Not that Jay 
 Gould or any other single man amounts to much more 
 than his fellows ; but, as the engineer whose hand is 
 upon the throttle of a locomotive, bound, with a 
 loaded train behind him, over a track at the rate of 
 sixty miles an hour, is of much more significance, so 
 far as general results are concerned, than any one or 
 any one hundred of the thousand passengers his 
 train is carrying, so it chances that this one man sits 
 in the place of presumed power, controlling the rumors, 
 the gossip, the information, the reports made by the 
 marvelous organization known as the Western Union 
 Telegraph Company, and his influence permeates every 
 7 - 
 
102 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 ofifice of the Associated Press throughout this broad, 
 enhghtened land. Whether it be true or whether it be 
 false that he has controlled in any way these reports, 
 it is the widespread, well-grounded conviction in a 
 million minds that that is precisely what he has been 
 doing ever since 4 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon. 
 Well was it for him that he stopped whatever he was 
 doing long enough to send that congratulatory telegram 
 to Grover Cleveland. 
 
 Thence on the city's kaleidoscope took anothter turn. 
 
 Although several bulletins in and about Printing 
 House Square told conflicting stories, there vvas no 
 doubt in the minds of the masses who stood there that 
 Grover Cleveland was elected President of the United 
 States. Although one bulletin after another placarded 
 in legible type that in all probability the State had 
 gone for Blaine, there was no doubt in the minds of the 
 people, who stood patiently for hours waiting for some 
 official announcement, that the Empire State had given 
 its vote for its present Chief Magistrate, and that the 
 certificate for that election would certainly be handed 
 to him. It is estimated that more than a hundred 
 thousand bets were made after the nomination in Chi- 
 cago, whose issue was to be determined by the vote on 
 Tuesday last. Bets on special counties, such as Kings 
 and New York, and on individuals, such as the Mayor 
 and the District Attorney, and minor candidates, were 
 declared settled, and the money paid, in many instances, 
 yesterday; but there was, and is, a general disinclina- 
 tion on the part of betting men in general, and amateurs 
 in particular, to accept anything but official returns as 
 their guide in deciding wagers. A prominent politician 
 in the Morton House yesterday paid a leading jour- 
 nahst in the city $1,000, won by the latter on the 
 fact that Cleveland carried New York County by over 
 40,000 majority. A great many bets on Kings County 
 and Brooklyn were declared settUjd and the money 
 paid. It is probable that to-day the Fifth Avenue 
 
A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 103 
 
 Hotel, the Hoffman House, the Astor House — in which 
 places tremendous sums of money were deposited, held 
 by the proprietors subject to the issue of the election 
 — will be very busy while the money changes hands. 
 
 PECULIAR TYPES SEEN YESTERDAY. 
 
 Yesterday's restlessness and excitement were of a 
 different type from anything we have seen in this city 
 for a long time. There was no possible cause for 
 apprehension of immediate danger, yet for all that a 
 close observer could not avoid detecting signs of readi- 
 ness for anything on the part of the people in that 
 crowd. It is the greatest commentary on the business 
 aspect of affairs in New York that so many scores of 
 thousands of people can afford to idle away their days, 
 hours and hours at a time, day after day, as they have 
 done since Tuesday morning last. Generally by noon 
 of the day following election the city is perfectly quiet, 
 the people are perfectly satisfied, congratulatory drinks 
 are imbibed, and business resumes its customary tread 
 along the highways and by-ways of commerce. Out- 
 side of the bar-rooms, New York has done compara- 
 tively nothing since Tuesday last. But, oh, how the 
 bar-rooms have captured the dollars of the daddies 
 who keep house between the Battery and Harlem 
 River. The scenes in these places absolutely " beggar 
 description." The facile pen of a ready writer would 
 need no better text for an applejack sermon or a John- 
 Barleycorn lecture than the picture of pandemonium 
 with which the chief " gin-mills " of New York overran 
 all day yesterday and all night, as they had all day the 
 day before and that night, and all day the day before 
 that and all night. 
 
 Two things are settled: 
 
 First — Grover Cleveland is elected President of the 
 United States. 
 
 Second — Voters now have a chance to make the 
 acquaintance of their families. 
 
104 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 The women and children of New York are always 
 interested in politics, to a certain extent. On this 
 occasion they have been excited to such an extent that 
 it would be absolutely impossible to define its limits. 
 This assertion is borne out by the crowds of women 
 and children who have been on the streets minghng in 
 the throng, particularly up-town, since the excitement 
 towered to its unaccustomed height. Newsboys say 
 they sold more extras on streets entirely devoted to 
 domesticity yesterday and day before than they ever 
 sold before. Even extras detailing reports of great 
 accidents and notable occurrences were comparatively 
 neglected. Every issue of the Telegram, for instance, 
 was swallowed by the community red-hot from the 
 press. Buckwheat cakes on a frosty morning never 
 disappeared down the hungry throats of farmers with 
 greater rapidity than the Telegrams were devoured by 
 the eager eyes and anxious, impatient, restless, dis- 
 satisfied people. The sun of peace and concord should 
 rise to-day. The blanket of certainty should smother 
 all apprehensions of violence and excitement, and uni- 
 versal humanity should seek solace each in the way of 
 his individual preference. Grumbling is not the cus- 
 tomary condition of the American people in general or 
 New Yorkers in particular. They find pleasure and 
 profit and comfort in accepting finalities; but nothing 
 seems to stir the innermost cockle of angry hearts so 
 absolutely and so vehemently as a belief that trickery, 
 treachery and unfairness, in some way or another, are 
 likely to defeat the will of a majority. That will has 
 been expressed, and in that will the universal people 
 acquiesce. 
 
 CAPTAIN WILLIAMS' ANTE-MORTEM OBITUARY. 
 
 No better evidence can be offered of the excited, 
 nervous state of the public yesterday than is furnished 
 in the eagerness with which various rumors of small- 
 sized riots here and there wer^ started and circulated 
 
A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 
 
 105 
 
 from one end of the city to the other. One of these, 
 which helped to sell quite a large number of " extras " 
 of a Blaine afternoon sheet, was to the effect that Police 
 Captain Williams had been shot and killed while at- 
 tempting to disperse a mob in the neighborhood of the 
 Democratic Committee headquarters. It was said that 
 his action in stopping the Democratic parade the night 
 before while closing his eyes to a number of al fresco 
 Republican turnouts had been the origin of the trouble. 
 It was in all the hotels, bar-rooms and business ex- 
 changes in an hour. Captain Williams laughed heart- 
 ily when a Herald reporter transmitted the tidings of 
 his demise to him and asked him if he was full of bul- 
 lets. He was engaged at the time in burning his own 
 funeral pyre, which was about five inches long and 
 looked as if it had come from Havana. He said there 
 had been no row in his vicinity. Everything was as 
 peaceful as a daisy, and had been all the morning. As 
 for the dear Democrats, he did not believe they desired 
 to have a hair of his head injured. 
 
 WHERE THE CROWDS GATHERED. 
 
 ENTHUSIASM AND BLUSTER AMONG UP-TOWN 
 
 PARTISANS. 
 
 Tranquility — comparatively soothing and compara- 
 tively restful after the pandemonium of the previous 
 nights — crept over the medley of high hats and winter 
 overcoats in the Hoffman House and Fifth Avenue 
 Hotel last night and lulled to peace no end of sore 
 throats and wearied tongues. It was accompanied in 
 each instance by a squad of police whose functions 
 were distinctly stated to be the prevention of political* 
 discussion. 
 
 They were*a godsend. 
 
 People had fretted and fumed till they were almost 
 out of their senses. Some had been for Heaven knows 
 how many consecutive hours ready to fly at one 
 
io6 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 another's throats or shake one another's arms out of the 
 sockets. The dainty bartenders, through excess of 
 orders, looked limp and woebegone, like busted lilies on 
 a used-up stem. Every one was fagged out. 
 
 " If this were to keep up," said " Ed " Stokes, trying 
 to get the wrinkles out of a soft hat, " if this were to 
 keep up, I'd be a wreck in no time. Three days of it is 
 too rich for my stomach. " 
 
 He was voicing the feelings of the crowd, and yet, 
 when rumor brought in word that the Republicans were 
 issuing brand new manifestoes and turning out a choice 
 job lot of fresh returns, every one picked up energy 
 somehow and the tongues fell to clattering with undi- 
 minished energy. People came swarming in. The 
 bronzes and tapestries about the walls seemed resting 
 on a floor of heads, and the fleshly tints of Bourgereau's 
 painting in the full flash of the gaslights were suffused 
 with a shifting cloud of tobaceo smoke. 
 
 And what was the complexion of gossip? 
 
 Frequently lurid. 
 
 " I'm an old man," said an old contractor to the swarm 
 that hedged him in, " and I've seen fighting. I've seen 
 a nation stolen once, too. But before I see it a second 
 time, old as I am, I'll shoulder a musket, and don't you 
 forget it." 
 
 " Pshaw!" cried Colonel Tracy, elbowing his way 
 along, with a volley of questions raking him right and 
 left. " What's the use of talking? Our man has been 
 elected. He will take his seat, and that's the end of it. " 
 
 EVERYTHING SAFE. 
 
 Senator Murphy was talking to another group. 
 
 " Everything's safe, and no one need worry. All 
 ^he lying that can be done now won't alter the result 
 an iota. Cleveland is, of course, to be the next 
 President." " 
 
 " But," said a betting man, " they do hold on 
 around there on Fifth Avenue by their teeth and toe- 
 nails." 
 
A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. IO7 
 
 " So they do," said another. " But if their claims 
 are worth anything, let them put them in the market 
 around the corner. They can get fifteen or twenty to 
 one on Cleveland there. If money tells, give it a 
 
 show." , , 1 i. u • 
 
 Every one in the neighborhood seemed to be in 
 the same frame of mind. Even in the Fifth Avenue 
 Hotel Cleveland's election was admitted as a certainty, 
 and people were only hoping for assurances that would 
 send the outside street crowds home. The latter were 
 massed on Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, eye- 
 ing the stereopticon. Evidently their enthusiasm was 
 pretty well worn out, but the small talk that prevailed 
 there showed that all doubt of the result was removed, 
 and that any hint at fraud would start a storm. _ 
 
 Twenty-fourth Street was fairly chocked with a 
 mighty throng that stood massed about the head- 
 quarters of the Democratic National Committee. 
 There was an easy assurance about the gathering that 
 showed its doubts were over, and whenever a new- 
 comer proposed a cheer, or any fresh bit of information 
 was announced, it was responded to with a ring that 
 was fairly ear-splitting. Time and again the assembly 
 were assured that there was no occasion for their 
 tarryincy longer ; that all was settled, and nothing mora 
 was to be learned. But those who dropped away only 
 made room for new-comers, and till midnight the street 
 was the very embodiment of hurrahdom. 
 
 DESULTORY ENTHUSIASM. 
 Pass from it to the headquarters of the Republican 
 State Committee, and one experienced a change of 
 sensations. There was a crowd there, too. On its 
 outskirts rumors were flying about a Blaine pluralitj^ 
 of 250. The closer one went to the headquarters the 
 larger the plurality grew, until in the vestibule of the 
 building it was 1,102, and inside about 1,600. There 
 were few people indoors. A squad of police stood on 
 the stoop to prevent the crowd from entering, and the 
 
I08 A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 assembly outside chiefly occupied themselves with 
 repeatmg the old, stereotyped campaign cries And 
 while desultory cheers rang out, proposed for some 
 one or something by voices in the crowd, newsboys 
 were loudly proclaiming on one side the election of 
 Cleveland and on the other the election of Blaine. 
 
 " In Heaven's name who is doing the lying?" asked 
 Tom Maguire, the old California theatrical manager. 
 
 Here Blame is President. Around the corner they're 
 making arrangements for Cleveland's inauguration " 
 
 1 Extra ! '' yelled a boy, thrusting one in his hand. 
 What s in it?" 
 
 " The latest. Blaine elected by 200." 
 
 But just then another was poked before him 
 
 " What's this?" 
 
 " Latest returns. Cleveland elected by i 400 " 
 "Go away!" cried Maguire, "go away! My 
 brains stood the pressure of a lot of campaign and 
 double-rehned Democratic lies. But this is too much 
 1 am sinking under the strain." 
 
 Down town where the electric lights had shown and 
 the multitudes had hustled and hurrahed themselves 
 hoarse, there was quiet for the first time since election 
 The assurances of the day that the contest was over' 
 the issue decided and nothing could deprive Cleveland 
 ot his right, had sent every one away confident and 
 content. 
 
 MR. WARREN TALKS. 
 
 Mr. Tames D. Warren, chairman of the Republican 
 State Commitree, was sitting in the Gilsey House last 
 evening, stoically fingering a Western Union envelope 
 and discussing ways and means with a fellow commit- 
 teeman when a Herald reporter approached him 
 
 Tv/r \xT°"'^ ^ ^ ^ to the Herald," said 
 
 Mr Warren, assuming a hedgehog air. " I am simply 
 but firmly not to be interviewed." 
 
 The reporter said he only wished to submit a des- 
 patch which had been received from Augusta, for the 
 
A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. I09 
 
 purpose of verifying the truth of the statement. The 
 despatch read as follows: 
 
 " The latest advices received here from New York 
 are to the effect that the Republican committees, State 
 and National, after a careful examination of the whole 
 ground, are satisfied that the State has gone for Blaine 
 and Logan. They say that a correct count will show 
 a small Republican plurality, and that they have taken 
 steps to establish the fact. " 
 
 Mr. Warren consented to read the despatch. 
 " Well," he said, handing it back, " I don't see any- 
 thing out of the way about that statement. " 
 
 " Did the committee send it out?" 
 
 " The committee, young man, are not sending out 
 things. We answer a great many questions put by a 
 great many persons, many of whom, I am sorry to say, 
 are reporters. So far as the State vote is concerned, 
 there is nothing to say until the official figures have 
 been canvassed. That will take a week yet. There is 
 nothing to do in the meantime but to quietly wait for 
 the count to take place. For my own part I beheve 
 that Blaine is elected, but the thing is not certain until 
 the official figures are all in." 
 
 " But have you not received them all?" 
 
 "We have not." 
 
 " What ones are missing?" 
 
 " That I cannot say. As for these estimates, between 
 you and I, I haven't the slightest confidence in them. 
 They are naturally (though honestly) colored by the 
 feelings of those who make them, and just as like as 
 not some unlooked-for peculiarity in a single district 
 will come in and upset all calculations. For this reason 
 I say we must wait for the official count. If that is 
 honestly made, I shall be satisfied. If it elects Cleve- 
 land by eight votes, let him be counted in. If, on the 
 contrary, it elects Blaine by even so few, he must be 
 given the place. But we shall insist upon a fair count, 
 
no 
 
 A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 and if any attempt at fraud is made we shall take 
 measures to prevent it." 
 
 " What steps have been taken to estabHsh * the fact * 
 of Blaine's election, as reported in this telegram from 
 Augusta?" 
 
 " I have nothing to say regarding any steps taken by 
 the committee. All we are interested in is to secure 
 an honest count. " 
 
 Mr. Warren said he should remain in New York for 
 several days — until the question was definitely settled.* 
 
 And how did it all end ? The votes were finally 
 counted officially, and Grover Cleveland was found to 
 have obtained 219 electoral votes, eighteen more than 
 he required to make him President of the United States 
 from March 4, 1884, to March 4, 1888, and the disap- 
 pointed supporters of the other candidates quietly went 
 to work by the side of those with whom a few days 
 before they exchanged the most terrific threats. And 
 who dare say that the Americans are cowards? Who 
 dare say that they will not fight? What foreign nation 
 will raise its hand against that infant Colossus, that has 
 not a serviceable man-of-war and almost no standing- 
 army? Woe unto any nation that would dare. 
 
 And I hold that the sudden collapse of political dis- 
 sension, the quick return to peaceful pursuance of the 
 avocations of hfe, is the most powerful evidence of 
 greatness that great hybrid nation could offer. 
 
 That I cannot speak so well of purely local politics 
 I regret, and leave to another chapter. 
 
 'Translator's Note. — The author adds many explanatory notes to 
 this clipping. As they contain only matters that are well-kno-\vn in the 
 United States, it is not believed necessary to reproduce them. 
 
GOTHAM'S LOCAL POLITICS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 GOTHAM'S LOCAL POLITICS. 
 
 The Cash Valuft of Offices — Gentlemen Politicians — The Micks and the 
 Macks — Mr. Brownstone's Adventures — McSly, the " Boss " — 
 « Wurrkin ' the Deestrick ' » — The Irish Need But Apply, and 
 Only the Irish — Softs Snaps — The Delightful Tweed Charter — 
 A Factory of " Statesmen " — The Remedy. 
 
 It is a curious anomaly, that while the men whom 
 Gotham chooses to fill the State offices, or to represent 
 it in the Federal Legislature, are as a rule above the 
 average, both in ability and integrity, its local politics 
 are a scandal to the city and a burlesque upon repub- 
 lican government. I say this boldly, because I find 
 the average Gothamite not only does not object to 
 my throwing stones in this direction, but will even — 
 if not too lazy — help me pick out the largest and 
 sharpest he can find for the purpose! There are 
 several reasons for this state of things — one is the 
 great value of the local officers; the highest State 
 official, the Governor, gets a salary of only $10,000 a 
 year, with the use of the executive mansion; but 
 there are many positions in Gotham which are 
 worth from $10,000 to $100,000 each, besides an im- 
 mense amount of political patronage. Naturally, 
 such prizes are worth striving for, and are not to 
 be gained without organized and systematic effort. 
 This means the expenditure of much money, more 
 time, and, if possible, even more political skill 
 and method. Now, the average Gothamite is not a 
 politician; if in active life he realizes perhaps more 
 thoroughly than any one else that " time is money;" 
 and he cannot, or thinks he cannot, afford to devote 
 any of it to looking after politics. If he is a man of 
 leisure, almost the last thing that enters his head is 
 
112 
 
 GOTHAM'S LOCAL POLITICS. 
 
 political ambition. He may yacht, or fish, or drive a 
 four-in-hand — or, if he \v'ants to imagine he is doing 
 something, he may pretend to be a lawyer, or go in 
 for art, if his taste inclines that way; but he is about 
 as likely to take a dive off an East River pier as to de- 
 scend — as he considers it — into the arena of active 
 politics. The natural consequence of this state of 
 things is the evolution and prosperity of the ward — or 
 district — " Boss. " Gotham has for the last fifty years 
 been a sort of dumping ground for the riff-raff of 
 Europe — the vast majority of all emigrants to this 
 country enter its gates, but unfortunately, as a rule, 
 the good ones only pass through them. The thrifty 
 German, with his few dollars of savings, makes at once 
 for the West, goes to farming, or at his trade, and is 
 from the very beginning a valuable addition to his 
 adopted land; but the Irishman, who also comes by 
 the hundred thousand, does not take to farming — or, 
 indeed, to any kind of work that he can help; he is 
 essentially gregarious, and prefers to remain where 
 others have already provided bread and whisky — 
 especially whisky — rather than to go to a new coun- 
 try and strike out for himself. He finds a host of his 
 fellow-countrymen here already. Very soon — entirely 
 too soon, as a rule — he becomes naturalized, and 
 gets his vote ; before long he will be keeping a 
 corner groggery ; and in due course of time he 
 will be able to control his hundred or his thou- 
 sand votes, and be recognized as a power in his 
 district, for every Irishman is a born schemer ; and 
 it is undeniable that he possesses a certain aptitude 
 for organization and combination: a low kind of ability, 
 if you will, but still, when united with a resolute 
 determination to carry his point, and an utter unscru- 
 pulousness in doing it, he is a really formidable 
 factor in society. Theoretically, of cour-se, the best 
 men are nominated for office, by the representatives of 
 the people, after due discussion and dehberation, 
 
GOTHAM'S LOCAL POLITICS. US 
 
 and elected by the free and untrammeled voice 
 of the voters at the polls ; practically, the Goth- 
 amite knows nothing of the candidate until he is 
 formally presented as the choice of his party ; and 
 goes to the polls simply to ratify the acts of the Boss. 
 These candidates are nominated at meetings held in 
 the various districts, known as primary meetings — 
 generally called primaries, for brevity. Every voter 
 is supposed to be informed of the time and place of 
 holdiiig these ; as a matter of fact, the notices are 
 apt to be printed in an out-of-the-way corner of some 
 obscure paper he never heard of, much less savv ; li 
 by accident he does hear of it, the probability is that 
 the appointed place is in or near a bar-room, owned 
 or controlled by the Boss; and if he conquers his natural 
 repugnance to going into such a den, he finds it so 
 full of the practical element, that it is plainly a waste 
 of time to stay there in the idea of accomphshing any- 
 thing The whole ticket or " slate " has already been 
 made up in secret caucus by the leaders, and the 
 primary is only held to comply with the requirement 
 of the law, and to put the official seal upon the cut- 
 and-dried programme. r ■ u 
 
 But most likelv the first he knows of it is when he 
 opens his paper 'at the breakfast table and reads with 
 unutterable disgust, that at the primary held last night 
 O'Forger was nominated for alderman. Very hkely 
 he swears that rather than support such a scoundrel -- 
 as O'Forger very likely is — he will vote the Republi- 
 can, or Democratic, ticket, as the case may be; but 
 when, a few days later, he reads that the other party 
 has nominated the equally notorious McDecoy for the 
 same position, he has no choice but to vote blindly for 
 the nominee of his own party, or — what is practically 
 the same thing, since it works on both sides -scratch 
 that name off the ballot, comforting himself with the 
 reflection that the candidate for Mayor and the Gov- 
 ernor are good men, and that he can't help the rest. 
 
114 
 
 GOTHAM'S LOCAL POLITICS. 
 
 For here is where the shrewdness of the Boss is con- 
 spicuously displayed. It matters comparatively httle 
 to him who IS elected Congressman or Governor, or 
 even Mayor — who is now not much more than a 
 respectable figure-head — but it is of very vital import- 
 ance who holds the office of Sheriff or County Clerk 
 or any of the " soft things " of Gotham. He there- 
 fore rarely attempts to interfere with the former class 
 of nominations, except so far as it may be profitable for 
 him, as intimating the weight he could throw against 
 them, in case his schemes were opposed; so a tacit if 
 not explicit, understanding is arrived at, by virtue 'of 
 which he casts his vote in favor of the Congressman— 
 who is gratified at the increased majority thus secured 
 — and receives in return the co-operation, or at least the 
 absence of opposition, on the part of the latter's sup- 
 porters, which enables him to attain his own ends. 
 
 Of course, as a stranger and sojourner, I owe 
 allegiance to neither of the great political parties, nor 
 liave 1 the right nor the wish to attempt to jud^e 
 between them; but I am convinced, from careful 
 observation, that the professional poHtician, whether 
 he dons the Hvery of the Republican or the Democrat 
 is the same at bottom; his methods, his principle — 
 or the lack of it — his aim and ambition, are identical 
 m al cases. Nor can either party claim to be bet- 
 ter than the other in this respect; in fact some of 
 the niost outrageous cases of legislative injustice 
 have been perpetrated by a union of this base element 
 of both; the thrice infamous Tweed charter, for instance 
 under the burden of which Gotham is to day groanin?' 
 was carried through the Legislature only by the help 
 of the Republicans, many respectable Democrats voting 
 against it, although it was a party measure. 
 
 This evil can be condemned by the most superficial 
 observer, but to suggest the remedy is by no means an 
 easy task. The founders of the Government could not 
 ot course, foresee the enormous flood of ignorant and 
 
GOTHAM'S LOCAL POLITICS. 
 
 vicious immigration that has been pouring in upon this 
 country for the last half century; had they done so, 
 doubtless they would have devised some limitation or 
 qualification of the suffrage, as did they of Rhode 
 Island — wiser or more fortunate in their generation — 
 but as it seems probable that universal suffrage is 
 now firmly established, the problem must be dealt with 
 as it stands. To do the Gothamite justice, he has been 
 trying lately to reform the system; but the path is a 
 steep and stony one, and well calculated, in his own 
 slang, to " make him weary." Many, suggestions, 
 more or less practical, have been made. 
 
 It is said that gentlemen should take " an active in- 
 terest in politics," and " all honest men should co-oper- 
 ate for good government;" but the trouble is that the 
 average gentleman or honest man finds most of his 
 time and energy required for his profession, his business 
 or trade, and cannot acquire the practical knowledge 
 or skill which would enable him to cope with the man 
 who makes poHtics his hfe; who stops at nothing, how- 
 ever infamous, so long as he can keep to the windward 
 of the law. To contend with such men on their own 
 ground, backed only by patriotism and courage, is 
 simply to play against the loaded dice of the gambler, 
 and with about the same chance of succeeding that an 
 oyster would have of winning the Grand Prix de Paris. 
 
 It is not very many years ago that all Gotham — 
 except the victim — was laughing over the mishaps of 
 one of these amateur reformers. Mr. Brownstone — let 
 us call him — was emphatically one of the " solid men" 
 of Gotham, a pillar of finance in Wall Street and an 
 ornament of society in Fifth Avenue. He enjoyed the 
 unfeigned esteem and respect of all classes of his fellow- 
 citizens with whom he came in contact. Although an 
 earnest supporter of his party, he had taken no part in 
 politics, save to " vote the regular ticket," and to con- 
 tribute more than hberally to the legitimate expenses 
 necessary to ensure its success. But of late years the 
 
Il6 GOTHAM'S LOCAL POLITICS. 
 
 conviction had been growing upon him that he ought 
 to do something more than merely cast his ballot or 
 draw his check; that he ought to devote some of his 
 time and personal influence to raising the standard of 
 political moraHty. In brief, he became converted to 
 the idea that the gentlemen should be the workers as 
 well as the voters. He resolved to take an active part 
 in the campaign which was just opening; and as he was 
 never a man to do things by halves, he determined to 
 begin at the very beginning, and attend the primary in 
 his district. 
 
 Having found out, with some little difficulty, the 
 place of meeting — which no Gothamite needs to be 
 told was in the back-room of a liquor store — he drove 
 down, in that after-dinner frame of mind which is the 
 natural result of an easy conscience and a perfect 
 digestion; arriving he found the air blue with tobacco 
 smoke and heavy with the fumes of whisky, and the 
 room packed with the henchmen .of the notorious 
 " Boss," who was presiding. The eye of the latter fell 
 upon the stately form of Brownstone, whose evening 
 dress made him more than usually conspicuous among 
 the shirt-sleeved throng. In a flash the wily politician 
 saw and grasped his opportunity; springing to his feet, 
 and hammering vigorously for order, " Gintlemen," he 
 said, " I have great playsure in welcoming wan who is 
 so well known to all of us, though in the twinty years 
 that I have lived in this deestrik I have niver seen him 
 at a primary befoore; but we must all rejoice when 
 gintlemen loike him are pathreotic enough to wurrk 
 with us; and if more of thim would do it, it would be a 
 happy day for our counthry. I think the laste we can do 
 to show our appreciation of Mr. Brownstone's coming 
 here to-night is to ask him to take the chair, which I 
 am proud to yield to him." And without waiting for 
 the formality of assent, he came down to escort Brown- 
 stone to the platform, the crowd falling back re- 
 spectfully, though with ill-concealed amazement, at 
 
Gotham's local politics. 
 
 this, to them, mysterious move on the part of "the 
 ould man. " Now Brownstone was undeniably gratified 
 at this reception; not merely because, in a place where 
 he was somewhat doubtful as to his standing, he 
 was received with that consideration to which he was 
 accustomed, but even more from finding his precon- 
 ceived ideas as to the influence that a gentleman might 
 exert in politics apparently confirmed. Taking the 
 chair with his usual dignity, the " Boss " seating him- 
 self by his side, but modestly a little in the rear, and 
 beaming through his gold-mounted spectacles, he in- 
 quired, in the bland tones with which the bank parlor 
 was so familiar, what was the further pleasure of the 
 meeting? 
 
 Sprang up, then, at a secret sign from the " Boss," 
 one of the " heelers," and moved the nomination of 
 Dinnis McStealum " as member of the Assembly;" a 
 dozen voices seconded the motion, and cries of" Ques- 
 tion! question! " arose on all sides. In vain did Brown- 
 stone, accustomed to the more stately deliberations of 
 his directors, try to make his voice heard in the tumult, 
 and to protest that he had never even heard of the pro- 
 posed candidate. The cries grew louder. The Boss, 
 in seemingly deferential whispers, assures him that 
 Dennis deserved well of the party, and hinted — what 
 the unlucky Brownstone knew only too well — that the 
 iron rule of parliamentary procedure left him no choice 
 but to put the question. For the first and only 
 time in his Hfe his clear brain failed him. Lacking 
 presence of mind to leave the chair, he complied. 
 A storm of ayes shook the walls, and the roar of 
 applause that followed would have drowned any 
 dissenting voices had they been raised — which they 
 were not. Then, in quick succession, followed the 
 nominations of O'Gougeum, McSwindle, and some 
 more of that ilk. Mechanically and half-dazed he 
 went through the performance, which was gradually 
 becoming like a horrible dream, until suddenly the 
 
 9 
 
Ii8 
 
 GOTHAM'S LOCAL POLITICS. 
 
 Boss rose to move a vote of thanks for the able manner 
 in which their honored fellow citizen had presided over 
 this important meeting — and an adjournment. This 
 was immediately carried, and Brownstone, attended to 
 his carriage by the throng of Micks, drove off amid 
 cheers, enthusiastic, if slightly tipsy. His feelings as 
 he rolled homeward were somewhat mixed, to say the 
 least; things hadn't gone exactly as he had expected; 
 still, he had done his part. Glad he went? Well, 
 yes, on the whole; but not quite sure whether it would 
 be necessary to go to another. At any rate, he had 
 fulfilled his duty, and it was over. Over, was it? The 
 next morning, and every day during the weary weeks 
 before election, the opposition press rang with indig- 
 nant denunciation and scathing sarcasm. " Politics 
 were bad enough before," said these merciless assail- 
 ants, " when they were avowedly in the hands of venal 
 and corrupt ward politicians; but what is to be said of 
 the appearance of such a man as Brownstone as the 
 open supporter of their methods? How are we to 
 account for his presiding over a packed meeting of Boss 
 McSly's creatures, and throwing all his influence to 
 secure the success of such an infamous gang of jail- 
 birds as the nominees who were then brought forward 
 for high and responsible offices?" 
 
 As a matter of fact, the ticket was no worse than that 
 usually presented; but such an opportunity could not 
 be slighted. 
 
 " What does Mr. Brownstone want?" they went on. 
 " He is not a child, but one of the shrewdest and ablest 
 men in a community which has hitherto held him in 
 honor and respect. It is impossible that he should 
 have taken such a step without some deep-laid pur- 
 pose, and it is naturally a cause for grave apprehen- 
 sion. We await, with an anxiety which we do not 
 attempt to conceal, the development of this new phase 
 in politics." 
 
 Nay, some of them went even further. 
 
GOTHAM'S LOCAL POLITICS. 
 
 119 
 
 " Is this man," they cried, with a twist ot virtuous 
 indignation, " fit to be at the head of a great financial 
 institution which daily handles millions of other peo- 
 ple's money? Can a man who has shown himself so 
 utterly destitute of the first principles of political 
 decency, not to say honor, be a safe guide in business? 
 Is he who deliberately tries to corrupt the morals of his 
 fellows to be trusted with their property? " • 
 
 And this to Brownstone! Brownstone, who, for 
 years, had been President of the great Gold Coin Bank, 
 whose operations were the wonder and the admiration 
 of the financial world; whose stock was practically 
 priceless, and whose lucky shareholders had been 
 enriched by innumerable dividends, quarterly as to 
 time and fabulous as to amount! Brownstone, whose 
 word was, if such a thing were possible, even better 
 than his bond — whose very name stood for punctilious, 
 almost Quixotic integrity! Nor were the papers of 
 his party much pleasanter reading. Those who hap- 
 pened to have any personal ill-feeling toward him — 
 and a man's foes, we know, may be those of his own 
 household — commented, with an affected regret^ that 
 was even more than open hostility, upon his unfor- 
 tunate position. They did not, of course, beheve for 
 a moment the insinuations of the opposition press; nor 
 did they think that the stockholders or depositors of 
 Gold Coin Bank need have any fears for their money — 
 and they firmly believe that all would be explained 
 some day, though in the meantime it certainly remained 
 a source of pain and wonder to his friends. 
 
 Even his most loyal supporters found the load a 
 heavy one, though they stood up valiantly for him 
 through it all; but it was up-hill and weary work. 
 
 Poor Brownstone! Fxe meant well, but he didn't 
 understand practical politics. It is proverbial that 
 good intentions make poor paving stones — as witness 
 — is it Chicago? but they are, if possible, even worse 
 material with which to build a solid political structure. 
 
120 
 
 CRAZES. 
 
 Of course, this evil system will be overthrown, how or 
 when I do not venture to say — being neither a 
 prophet nor the son of a prophet — but to doubt it 
 would be to doubt the triumph of 'republican institu- 
 tions and the future greatness of Gotham itself. 
 
 I am no longer a young man, but I have not yet 
 attained the limit of three score and ten allotted by 
 the Psalmist, and I trust — nay, I have faith to believe 
 — that before I do reach it, I may be gladdened by 
 seeing this poisonous parasite on the fair tree of liberty 
 blasted and shrivelled by the hghtning of honest indig- 
 nation and stern, though tardy, justice. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CRAZES. 
 
 Anglomania — Crazy-Work — Manicure — Roller Skating— Hot Water. 
 
 Gotham is pecuharly the home of "crazes," but 
 first, I must tell what a " craze " is. It is not a fashion, 
 as far as dress is concerned, but it is a species of con- 
 tagion that causes Gothamites to do something, or have 
 something done to them, that is markedly odd if 
 nothing else. 
 
 As is well known, a species of insanity has betaken 
 those in whom the Mayflower blood still flows, 
 attenuated to a greater or lesser degree of dilution; 
 they are accused of having spread the contagion that is 
 called Anglomania, a sort of travesty on English man- 
 ners, and modeled after most absurd types of the 'Enry, 
 Gawge and //edward style. The very English that 
 they would imitate is murdered by such phrases as 
 " Thahnks, awfully, ye know," or " Thahnks, verwy! " 
 Can anything sound more asinine than these mildest 
 examples? They are employed, of course, mainly by 
 the things called dudes, that are slightly stirred up in 
 these pages, and their rare counterparts, the dudines; 
 for, to their credit, be it said, but few fair Gothamites 
 
CRAZES. 
 
 121 
 
 will consent to appear absurd. I shall be glad to hear 
 a requiem over Anglomania in Gotham. 
 
 I may tell a few current anecdotes in this connection. 
 One happens at a prominent club. 
 
 " Hello, Ned! dining at two o'clock — what's the 
 matter! " 
 
 " D'ye see, me deah boy, nawthin', d'ye know. It 
 may be two o'clock heah, in Gotham, but it's eight in 
 Lunnon now; and everybody who's anybody dines at 
 eight in Lunnon, ye know. " 
 
 What an ass Ned is! 
 
 Here is another. It is a bright, charming day. 
 Hedward walks up Fifth Avenue with his pantaloons 
 (" twousahs," he says — it's English, ye know) turned 
 up, and an umbrella extended over his head. 
 
 " What's the matter now, Ned? " asks his friend as 
 he meets him. 
 
 " Oh, nawthin' — only we just weceived a cablegram 
 at the club that it's wainin' in Lunnon, an' I'm fixed 
 fah it, d'ye know." 
 
 And Ned struts on full of compassion for those who 
 laugh at him, thus demonstrating their sad ignorance 
 of what is proper for a true Anglomaniac. 
 
 An antithesis to this I heard, which is funny. 
 
 On a bright day a well known club-man " cwalls up 
 the Ave.," prepared as Ned was. 
 
 " Hello, Thompson; is it raining in London? " 
 
 Thompson produces a note-book, and mutters as he 
 writes: " Number seventeen. " 
 
 " Seventeen what? " 
 
 " Oh, I just bet Johnson a hundred dollars that be- 
 fore I reached Thirty-fourth Street twenty-five infernal 
 fools would ask me whether it is raining in London. 
 'Mawnin'. " 
 
 Enough of this disgusting craze. I am sorry for the 
 Gothamites' virility that I must record and perpetuate 
 even a recollection of this wretched cancer. Selah! 
 
 A craze that is not disagreeable, yet, mirahile dictu, 
 
122 
 
 CRAZES. 
 
 very popular, is one that frankly stamps itself as " crazy 
 work," a modification of the ancient patch-quilting 
 that years ago was so comforting to the body and so 
 repugnant to the eye. 
 
 " Crazy work" is alleged to be a utilization of all 
 stray bits of cloth of all kinds that cannot be used for 
 any other purpose. These are combined, without 
 system or order, carefully defying everything that 
 even faintly suggests symmetry, and their junctures 
 are covered with the greatest possible variety of 
 stitches, made of all kinds and colors of threaded silk. 
 
 So it started and proved really good and useful, for 
 many serviceable articles and ornaments were made 
 with kaleidescopic effects that could not but please, 
 because of their oddity. 
 
 But like everything else in Gotham, it soon " ran to 
 seed," which means that it either becomes " the fake" 
 of disreputable persons, or is developed into a means 
 of ostenting wealth. Crazy work shared the latter 
 fate; ladies made quilts or became their " responsible 
 editors," by causing deft needle-women to work for 
 them, and construct them of most elegant and expens- 
 ive bits of silks, satins and velvets, of heterogeneous 
 shapes, colors and arrangement, and ornamented with 
 most curious embroideries, so that to-day a " crazy- 
 quilt" containing $500 worth of material is nothing 
 rare. Imagine your honest German bed covered with 
 a quilt, the material whereof cost M. 2,000! not to 
 mention the handiwork. 
 
 I slept under one for one night, and shall never do 
 so again, for I dreamt that the central elephant put his 
 sky-blue trunk through the pea-green cormorant's 
 wing, and drew me out into a yellow grape-vine border 
 up into a moon of silver threads among the golden 
 stars. 
 
 Crazy-work infected even literary men. One of 
 them, whom I have condemned to translate this book, 
 if he can find a market for it, wrote a story, which I 
 
CRAZES. 
 
 123 
 
 would reproduce, so far as our language peimits, b^^^^^^ 
 as a moral lesson to him and m illustration of this 
 craze He poses as a reputable member of a most 
 reputable profession- and I am sorry for bim; there- 
 fore and out of consideration for his family, I desist. 
 
 When I expressed my compassion ^he writer of 
 this tale, he said it was uncalled for, as he had been 
 very well paid for his work. 
 
 Some time in 1882, I beheve it was, that a person 
 in Gotham discovered that the Gothamite s finger-nails 
 were not in a state manifesting aristocratic descent and 
 esthetic proclivities. This resulted in a craze, now 
 an institution, called the " mamcure." Gotham has a 
 number of manicure establishments, with elegant par- 
 lors, in which pretty girls take your hand, cut and trim 
 your nails, polish and burnish and anoint and perfume 
 them, while they chat pleasantly to induce you to 
 come again, for which amusement you_ pay from 
 
 Z upward. The toe-nails receive similar 
 
 attentions, I am told, but the attentions of the female 
 operators are Umited to the fingers. It is fun, and I 
 would advise all to waste a dollar this way occa- 
 sionally. 1 r 
 
 There are peripatetic manicures of all grades; from 
 those who work for fift>- cents to all kinds of prices. 
 
 The manicure craze is so popular that people who 
 have special nail-polishers or powders for ,f le, bave 
 published little text-books on manicuring, and cut- 
 lers and jewelers make elegant and very expensive 
 instruments for that purpose. I saw one case contain- 
 ing knives, files and scissors, all mounted m beautiful 
 mother-of-pearl, the price of which was $300. 
 
 It is an innocent, cleanly and neat " craze," gives 
 employment to many honest working people and arti- 
 sSis; therefore it should last. The people who 
 " makicure " (this verb has been manufactured to meet 
 the demand) themselves, spend hours at their fingers 
 
124 
 
 CRAZES. 
 
 that might Otherwise be given to the devil, who finds 
 evil things for idle hands to do. 
 
 I have often had cause to bemoan that Gotham has a 
 peculiar tendency to destroy whatever is good in pop- 
 ular things, and I am sure that nothing has suffered so 
 much as what once was a most desirable amusement 
 I refer to roller-skating. Since it became a " craze " 
 the rinks have become resorts that need police surveil- 
 ance, and many a young girl now must regret for all her 
 lile that she was ever allowed to go to a rink. 
 
 It is a pity, for I can conceive of no more healthful 
 pleasure, if m innocent, pure surroundings. I asked 
 the owner of a popular rink why he could not conduct 
 his place properly. He replied: " It would not pay " 
 Ihere is now a union of rink owners being formed to 
 eliminate the bad element and to purify the moral atmos- 
 phere about rinks. Until this union is accomplished, 
 the paying element that encourages the sale of bad 
 liquors in the rinks, and the maintenance of easily at- 
 tamableroomsator near them, is not frightened off for 
 as soon as the unionists have accomplished their sui- 
 cidal society, roller-skating rinks will cease to be 
 lucrative investments. 
 
 At present there is no town of two thousand inhab- 
 itants in the United States that has not at least one 
 rink There are several papers published in the interest 
 of roller-skating and the capital invested in the business 
 IS not under $26,000,000, now paying about one hun- 
 dred per cent, annually. 
 
 What an invasion this roller-skating " craze " can 
 make into family affairs is briefly portrayed by the 
 following, which I cut from a Gotham paper It is a 
 paraphraze of a once very popular temperance song: 
 
 THE LATEST FROM THE RINK. 
 Oh, mamma, dear mamma, come home with me now— 
 
 I wonder what papa will think ! 
 He 11 meet you to-night with a frown on his'brow 
 
 t or staymg so long at the rink. 
 No lamp has been lighted to-night in the haU, 
 
CRAZES. 
 
 125 
 
 'Tis dark and the baby's awake. 
 And — there ! I was sure, dearest ma, you would fall' — 
 
 Some night your poor neck you will break. 
 Come home, come home, 
 
 Oh, mamma, dear mamma, come home. 
 
 If this is not a terrible exaggeration, then the sooner 
 roller-skating is abolished the better; if this is one of 
 the meanings of women's emancipation, eastern serfdom 
 would be of more advantage to the family, which is 
 dependent as much as anything is upon the dignity of 
 the wife and mother — the reigning spirit of the home. 
 
 Home — that all-encompassing word, full of those 
 conceptions that are the germs of a nation's greatness 
 — is about to be subverted by the greatest nation that 
 speaks the language in which " Home, Sweet Home," 
 was written! 
 
 Am I going too far? At another time I may tell 
 what I learned about women's clubs and lodges in 
 Gotham. I am not in a humor to moralize just at 
 present. 
 
 I have spoken of ice, and told how inseparable it 
 is from the Gothamite in all states and conditions, and 
 thus have done my duty as a foreigner in decrying 
 what undoubtedly does vast injury. But now comes 
 a craze which, while it lasts, will do injury to the ice 
 trade ; I allude to the use of hot water. 
 
 Some years ago, some physicians began treating 
 diseases like others do, giving the proper^medicines and 
 exquisite care to the patient's diet. In chronic cases 
 this proved difficult, especially as all Gothamites are 
 vast consumers of ice. To amuse these patients all 
 cold drinks were prohibited and the craving overcome 
 by ordering specific quantities of hot water; not warm 
 water, but hot — nearly boihng. The theories ad- 
 vanced were so novel, and the real and imaginary 
 results so satisfactory (remember, pray, these doctors 
 insisted upon an easily-digested, nutritious, healthy 
 diet, proper exercise, rest, and so forth, for at least 
 six months), that the " Hot- water Cure " became 
 
126 
 
 ADS, 
 
 extremely popular ; and now, as the Gothamite's 
 tendency is always to fly to extremes, hot water is 
 drunk by the gallon for all kinds of real and imaginary 
 ailments. 
 
 There is nothing objectionable in this craze, as, even 
 if driven to excess, it injures no one, except him who 
 indulges in it ; it prevents his imbibing large quantities 
 of iced drinks, and, when under professional guidance, 
 causes the patient to lead a more natural life. But 
 if I continue to write on " Crazes," I shall have room 
 for nothing else ; therefore I cut the matter short here, 
 reserving the rest for when I write again, 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ADS. 
 
 Life Too Short to Pronounce Words in Full — Extraordinary Means — 
 Inviting Prosecution — Falsified Cablegrams — Cat's Flesh Stewed in 
 Rhinoceros' Milk — Cut Out Your Mother's Heart — Pretty Girls as 
 Advertisements — Cancer. 
 
 In Gotham, life is deemed too short to pronounce or 
 write lengthy words in full; thus advertisements become 
 ads., and a number of phrases are suggested only by 
 the initials of each constituent. 
 
 To what extent advertising is driven in Gotham 
 would be best described by detailing what I would do 
 if I were to attempt to sell a translation of this book 
 in Gotham. 
 
 Firstly, I would fill the newspapers with extracts 
 from and comments on this book, and then I would 
 seek extraordinary means to attract the attention of the 
 public to it. I would advertise that I would give 
 $i,ooo to any purchaser of the book who would guess 
 its author; I would have myself arrested for beating a 
 policeman because he did not know where I could 
 purchase a copy. 
 
 Then I would run in some doubtful passages and be 
 prosecuted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice. 
 At the same time I would have imitation cable des- 
 
ADS. 
 
 127 
 
 patches manufactured addressed to prominent people, 
 and delivered by boys dressed in uniforms resembling 
 those of the telegraph messengers. They would 
 deliver these messages to the persons addressed, and 
 would require them not only to receipt for them, but 
 to state the exact hour and minute that the message 
 was delivered. They could not but be astonished by 
 something like this: 
 
 CABLE MESSAGE. 1148 
 
 THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY. 
 
 All CABLE MESSAGES received for transmission must be written on 
 the Message Blanks provided by this Company for that purpose, under and 
 subject to the conditions printed thereon, and on the back hereof, which 
 conditions have been agreed to by the sender of the following message : 
 
 THOS. T. ECKERT, General Manager. 
 
 NORVIN GREEN, President. 
 
 NUMBER 
 
 SENT BY 
 
 rec'd by 
 
 NO. OF WORDS 1 
 
 FROM 
 
 24 G. 
 
 R. 
 
 s. 
 
 21. 1 
 
 Panama. 
 
 December 20, i886. 
 [Received at Central Cable Office, 16 Broad St., New York.] 
 To A. B. : 
 
 Do not believe accusations against wife. Read pages 18, 32, 128, 199 
 of Karlstein's " Gotham and the Gothamites," out to-day. 
 
 Other cablegrams, urging merchants to disprove that 
 they are about to fail, would cause them to read the 
 message through, which would advise them to buy my 
 book. 
 
 A procession on a rainy day would offer immense 
 opportunities for advertising my book. I would hire 
 men to paste " dodgers " and " gutter-snipes " on the 
 umbrellas of the assembled multitude, and would have 
 the " affixes " read something in this style: 
 
 Cat's Flesh Stewed in Rliinoceros Milk 
 
 is not an inviting dish. It has, perhaps, never been used; but if you 
 want to know all that is wicked, fiendish, naughty and outrageous in 
 gotham, read karlstein's gotham and the gothamites, out to-day. Price, 
 25 and 50 cents. Full of funny, spicy anecdotes. 
 
 With Chestnuts and Cheese 
 Free. 
 
 I must explain that " chestnuts and cheese," in the 
 Gotham siang, means stolen anecdotes. 
 
128 
 
 ADS. 
 
 I would also have dodgers printed in white letters as 
 follows, on very red paper, which always seems par- 
 ticularly ghastly. 
 
 CUT OUT 
 
 and run to the nearest bookseller and obtain at once Karlstein's Gotham 
 and the Gothamites; only 25 and 50 cents. It will please 
 
 YOUR MOTHER'S HEART; 
 
 AND 
 
 although you cannot 
 EAT IT 
 
 (the book, we mean), it will delight you, because it is served 
 WITH PLENTY OF SALT! 
 (Attic salt.) 
 
 I would also say something in the shape of pleasant 
 news about my American publishers, something in this 
 style: 
 
 CHICAGO'S VILLAINS ! 
 
 Incendiary Publishers. 
 Down With the Tyrants! 
 
 If you want to know all about them, invest a kvarter aff a tahler 
 (Samuel of Curtis for 25c.) in Karlstein's " Gotham and the Gothamites." 
 
 $100,000 in cash to any man or woman, over 90 or under 6 years of age, 
 who will read the book through once, and repeat its contents in ten min- 
 utes. 
 
 Then my ingenuity would lead me to hire a large 
 show-window, every ten blocks, on the most prominent 
 thoroughfares. Some of these windows I would have 
 decorated with tropical plants in gorgeous array; others 
 in the form of a most elegant parlor — called drawing- 
 room since Anglomania beset Gotham — and other 
 windows I would have still differently decked. In all 
 of them there would be an extraordinarily pretty young 
 Gothamite, a blonde of the loudest possible type, 
 dressed (is that the word?) as for a most aristocratic 
 reception. 
 
 She would recline in a handsome rocking-chair, or 
 swing in a hammock, reading a book the size and shape 
 
ADS. 
 
 129 
 
 of this one, and every fifteen minutes she would arise, 
 walk to one end of the window, and protrude her 
 tongue at full length opposite a pretty mirror. All this 
 time she would keep her right side carefully turned 
 from the multitude that would gather at the window. 
 Just when the audience begin to wonder what she will 
 do next, she turns around and exposes her right side 
 for three minutes, so all may read on her very hand- 
 some white brocade dress these words in glaring let- 
 ters: 
 
 " The mystery of this Sphynx is fully explained in 
 "Gotham and the Gothamites." 
 By Heinrich Oscar von Karlstein. 
 Price 25 c. in paper. 
 $1 cloth. 
 Read it ! Read it ! » 
 
 Large circus-wagons, with loud brass bands, elegantly 
 engraved fictitious wedding invitations, fancifully- 
 dressed negroes; even death notices could be advan- 
 tageously employed; not forgetting legal notices, sum- 
 monses to serve as jurors, witnesses, or even defendants, 
 and menacingly-worded injunctions, can all be employed 
 to the same end. Fictitious extras could be issued, 
 containing notices like this: 
 
 EXTRA ! 
 
 PRESIDENT CLEVELAND 
 
 NOT 
 
 DEAD 
 
 At 11.45 A. M. — He was seen sitting in his Hbrary 
 reading a copy of Karlstein's " Gotham and the Goth- 
 amites," laughing heartily. Though the alleged political 
 
 CANCER DOES ITS WORK, 
 
 we are grateful that our President has no fatal disease, 
 and may live many years to enjoy Karlstein's " Gotham 
 and the Gothamites," which is red-hot from the press 
 to-day, for 25 cents in paper, $1 in cloth, etc., etc. 
 
 The widest range of imagination will not supply the 
 means that can be and are employed in advertising in 
 Gotham. The above are merely samples, giving faint 
 outlines of what is done every day. 
 
139 
 
 SIGNS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 SIGNS. 
 
 Society for the Encouragement of Wearing Clean Shirts — Soap — The 
 Bhie Monkey — Blackened Eyes Painted in Their Natural Color 
 While You Wait — Twenty-five Cents Worth of German — Soda Water 
 and Spiritus Frumenti — The Erratic Stationers — Removals. 
 
 It may be an oddity on my part, or perhaps other 
 travelers are given to the diversion I invariably indulge 
 in — that of judging th# character of a city by the signs 
 that are intended to attract the eyes of passers-by. 
 
 As in advertising, signs, to be attractive in Gotham, 
 must be startling, either amusing or shocking the be- 
 holder, to be at all effective. The tendency to face- 
 tiousness is most strongly marked. 
 
 I feel myself on the way to profound disquisition on 
 my subject-matter, and as I have no desire to bore the 
 reader any more than he deserves, I will leap into 
 medias res, illustrating Gotham's peculiarities as far as 
 signs go, and magnanimously allow him who has paid 
 for this book, to draw his inferences. 
 
 A shirt-maker, whose extensive establishment seems 
 to indicate that he is doing a good trade, perhaps owes 
 his large patronage to a huge sign over his door that 
 reads: 
 
 " Office of the Society for the Encouragement of 
 Wearing Clean Shirts." 
 
 Gotham has societies for all conceivable purposes, 
 and many that are not at all conceivable; therefore, I 
 may be pardoned for supposing, when I first saw this 
 sign, that some philanthropist had selected this means 
 of obtaining a good living. I investigated the matter, 
 and the jolly head of the establishment told me that 
 my surmise was quite correct. 
 
SIGNS. 
 
 Another immense sign is rather a loud picture of a 
 bathing estabHshnient. From the half-open door pro- 
 trudes the body of an anxious-looking individual, par- 
 tially covered with a large towel, and from his mouth 
 extends that balloon-like arrangement with which 
 ancient drawings were made eloquent, inscribed: 
 
 "Soap! Soap! You Son-of-a-gun, Fairbank's Soap!" 
 
 Again I inquired, and the soap agent excused the 
 vulgarity of the sign by telling me that the grocers and 
 others who deal in soap have not a majority of refined 
 exquisites among them; therefore the sign was suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 Soap recalls the sign of Laugenashenbacher's Irish 
 laundry soap; and not a mile away is O'Halloran's 
 German soap-factory. While I am not positive that I 
 remember the proper names in these cases, I am sure 
 that the German manufactures the Irish soap, and 
 vice versa. 
 
 The drinking establishments, especially of our coun- 
 trymen, are dedicated to some home reminiscence, 
 which, I regret to say, are not particularly striking, 
 apt or well-selected. In " Little Germany," on the east 
 side of Gotham, where our language, or something that 
 resembles it, is spoken, the most vile absurdity in the 
 shape of a sign is that of a beer saloon dedicated to 
 " The Blue Monkey." 
 
 Of course I wanted to know the reason. I entered 
 through the light doors that allowed the wind and 
 weather to blow into the rickety den and found that 
 the owner of the place must have desired to describe 
 himself. Excessive drinking had swelled the veins in 
 his face to such an extent that it looked like that of a 
 very blue monkey. He was right. 
 
 Another drinking place is called " The Placid 
 Henry;" still another, " Hotel for Gentlemen," both in 
 regions where many arrests for lesser infractions of the 
 law are frequent. 
 
 A curious sign is one announcing that " Up Stairs, 
 
132 
 
 SIGNS. 
 
 Black Eyes are Painted While You Wait. " It must be a 
 capital business, as it does not require the sufferer to 
 leave his blackened eye, have it painted, and sent 
 home. The artist is extensively patronized by people 
 whose last night's spree left a mark on their faces. 
 
 In very many of Gotham's retail establishments 
 signs in the windows proclaim: " Hier wird Deutsch 
 gesprochen," " Aqui se habla Espanol," " Si parla 
 Italiano," and, to the credit of the Gothamite's good 
 taste, in some rare nook or corner a little placard is 
 hidden: " Ici 1' on parle Franfais." 
 
 A couple of Gothamized Germans who had been 
 celebrating Easter, or some such festival, were on their 
 home-tack, and saw a sign acquainting the world with 
 the fact that our mother-tongue was spoken within & 
 large Broadway establishment. They entered, and the 
 one who was the more sober of the two asked; 
 
 " Say, Mishter; you speak Yerman here?" 
 
 " Zu dienen, Mein Herr." 
 
 " Veil, denn," he said, placing a quarter of a dollar 
 on the counter, " speak me for twenty-fife sents vurth 
 of Yerman." 
 
 The bibulous Gothamite need not go to vulgar or 
 fine drinking saloons for his dram or ounce of whisky. 
 If he understands Latin he can avoid the imputation of 
 being a drinking man at such pharmacies as ostent 
 signs that they sell " Soda water and spiritus vini 
 frumenti. " 
 
 Will the reader pardon the hackneyed story of 
 Chinese politeness this sign recalls? 
 
 Wing y^c?— Illustrious and I exquisite Tsing Wa Him, I have a vile, 
 corrupt, disreputable, indecent, badly bred skunk of a son, whose insolence 
 goes to the extreme in desiring the hand of your heavenly, moon-eyed, 
 gorgeous, grand beauty of a daughter. 
 
 Tsing fVa Jlim — Most noble, refined and charming Wing Fo, I do 
 not comprehend how such a grand, intelligent, superb gentleman as your 
 high-bred and well-born son can desire the hand of such a despicable, 
 putrid, disgusting, lazy, good-for-nothing wench AS is my daughter, who Is 
 Bot worth the powder to blow her to atoms. 
 
 This is politeness in China. 
 
CHEAP AND NASTY. 
 
 I have mentioned some erratic signs before, but 
 I think that this one, which I copy, caps the climax: 
 
 ^ CAPPE AND DEMIE, 
 
 a Stationers and Printers. 
 
 -o- 
 
 The Highest Prices. 
 
 rt 0 
 fi 
 
 S The Poorest Work 
 
 'i S The Longest Delays. ° 
 
 J« : . _ %^ 
 
 o 
 
 We are determined to satisfy no Customer. ^ ^ 
 
 5 (J The Worst Possible Taste. ^ g. 
 
 We ensure disappointment. 
 
 S. & 
 
 n 
 
 ;3 
 o 
 
 Any one giving us a trial, will surely never employ us again. 
 o 
 
 Do not read this, and if you do, hurry away; we are a 
 bankrupt, rotten, swindling concern. 
 
 I think that I may rest upon my laurels as a sign- 
 collector by copying this one, that is so full of 
 transitions : 
 
 " Oh, for the first of May ! Furniture carefully 
 removed with neatness and dispatch. Also tape- 
 worms." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 CHEAP AND NASTY. 
 
 Lemonade — Bad Liquors and Worse Cigars — Ice— No Elephant's Ears 
 or Dynamite Cartridges for Sale — Peripatetic Variety Stores — Fleas 
 — Flowers — The L's — Moral Improvers — That Owl — Mice — 
 Peanuts — Nahsty and Nice. 
 
 " Here ye air, ice cool lemonade, centaglass; cheap 
 and nasty," cried a facetious vendor of the liquid 
 commodity, offering his wares on one of Gotham's 
 crowded thoroughfares 
 
134 
 
 CHEAP AND NASTY. 
 
 On a previous occasion, when coming from Coney 
 Island, I saw a sign inscribed, " Bad liquors and worse 
 cigars," and while waiting for a car to take me back to 
 Gotham I " sampled " both articles. Their excellent 
 quahty belied the seller's allegations. 
 
 Therefore I could not but test the lemonade vendor's 
 veracity. He stood by a little hybrid, a cross between 
 a street-booth and a wagon, containing a clean tub 
 in which floated and sparkled a large block of ice,* 
 and on the ice gracefully posed dainty slices 'of 
 lemon, surrounded by square blocks of very white 
 sugar and a luscious strawberry on the sugar. A 
 large, clean cocoa-ladle the vendor employed to dip 
 liquid to the thirsty multitude, who 
 quaffed the draft from tiny fine glasses. 
 
 " Why do you decry your lemonade as nasty? " I 
 asked, " for it is nice." 
 
 " Modesty's the spice of life," he answered, pushing 
 back his glistening white cap and laughing; " the other 
 fellows say theirs is nice and its nasty; I say mine's 
 nasty, and its nice — catch on? " 
 
 Not all lemonade dealers are like the one I speak 
 of. He was clean and his lemonade was good— at 
 least it tasted of lemons and was cold. But the 
 majority are by no means as inviting in appearance 
 nor as satisfactory in their goods. 
 
 As swallows are the fore-runners of summer, so the 
 lemonade-peddler's appearance in the streets of 
 Gotham brings conviction that the heated term has set 
 in. He usually is stocked with a quantity of citric 
 acid, a sad, solitary lemon for appearance's sake, 
 some sugar, or white earth that resembles sugar 
 plenty of water, a little ice and several tumblers in a 
 greater or lesser degree of griminess, in accord with 
 the manners and garments of the dealer. The degree 
 
 prnXTfe/thlS:^ it is a wonder that they do not stuff 
 
CHEAP AND NASTY. 
 
 of fastidiousness of the customers coincides with the 
 preceding. 
 
 Lemonade, cheap always, and ofttimes nasty, is by 
 no means the only odd article hawked about the streets 
 of Gotham; in fact, I cannot think of anything, except, 
 elephants' ears and dynamite cartridges, not offered for 
 sale by peripatetic peddlers. I will jot a haphazard list 
 of some of the articles, good and bad, that I have been 
 opportuned to purchase on the streets. There were 
 all kinds of stationery, books, soap, blacking, peanuts, 
 fruit, ice-cream, garters, lace, suspenders, canes, neck- 
 ties, tooth-picks, spectacles, cats, dogs, white mice and 
 rats, parrots, chamois-skins, cut and stamped paper to 
 ornament shelves, monkeys, real and artificial; bears, 
 aligators, tiger-cubs, mechanical toys of all kinds, bal- 
 loons, musical instruments, newspapers, tape-measures, 
 whips, good imitations of imported cloth, that the 
 vendors claimed were smuggled, etc., etc.; especially 
 the latter, suggesting the " verse " of — 
 
 Big fleas have little fleas; 
 Still smaller ones do bite 'em, 
 And these fleas have smaller ones, 
 So on ad infinitmn. 
 
 (To make this rhyme, the Latin must be pronounced 
 in the horrible insular fashion.) 
 
 The classes of goods sold on the streets vary with the 
 seasons, but at all times they seem to flourish. Spring 
 comes on, and with it the flower vendors, of all ages, 
 colors and both sexes — I do not say of all sexes, for 
 the Gothamites. though their language admits of no 
 neuter, claim three sexes, males, females and clergy- 
 men. — I have never seen clergymen peddling flowers; 
 but this absurd combination recalls the " Flower 
 Mission," which has for its purpose the disttribution 
 of flowers to the sick in hospitals — a pretty idea, and 
 one worthy of imitation. 
 
 The flower-dealers, outside of the regular florists' 
 stores, are ubiquitous. They stand at ferry-entrances, 
 on the steps that lead to the L's (Gotham's rapid life does 
 
136 
 
 CHEAP AND NASTY. 
 
 not allow time to say " Elevated Railroad stations"), 
 like pirates in the burlesque operas; they board street- 
 cars with their pretty weapons, invade theaters, restaur- 
 ants, everywhere and anywhere. I told one of these 
 flower dealers to carry some pretty Jacqueminot roses, 
 he was offering to my house. 
 
 " Kain'tbe did, boss," he answered, when I gave him 
 my address. 
 
 Why not? " I asked. 
 
 " 'Cause it ain't on my beat. " 
 
 These dealers do not invade each other's districts, 
 and make it a peculiar point of honor not to compete 
 with each other. I had to do without those particularly 
 nice " Jacks," or carry them myself. 
 
 Poetic thoughts ran through my mind of the refining, 
 ennobling influence that flowers exercise upon those 
 young ragamuffins, and of course I sought the source 
 whence all those gayly-colored, sweet-scented, moral 
 improvers are derived. Investigation in Gotham kills 
 poetry, even that which hedges about flowers. 
 
 The facts are simply these: Very prosaic florists 
 give certain quantities to the street vendors, obliging 
 them to return a specific quantity of money for them; 
 consequently we buy in small quantities, at advanced 
 prices, the flowers that are raised wholesale for the 
 trade. 
 
 Still, they leave room for speculation and mental 
 query. What becomes of the flowers after they are 
 sold? A belated husband in winter propitiates his wife 
 with a paste-board box containing fried oysters; in 
 spring and summer a bouquet of flowers is the means. 
 The effect is the same in both instances; curtain lectures 
 are quenched in their birth and a headache supervenes 
 in the morning. 
 
 Hearts may be won and lost by bunches of flowers; 
 won for the noblest and most ignoble ends; but, pretty 
 as the flowers may be, the one who gives them makes 
 the gift desirable or otherwise. 
 
CTTEAP AND NASTY. 
 
 Dogs, canary-birds and parrots are sold by the most 
 disreputable looking class of street vendors. I imagine 
 that these vendors keep their merchandise well plied 
 with morphine, because how else would the victims 
 bear the amount of handling and furbishing to which 
 they submit? The httle dogs and big dogs are combed, 
 brushed, squeezed and manipulated as if no^ " society 
 for the prevention of cruelty to animals " existed; the 
 birds stand dismally on the outside of their cages, and 
 seem to plead to be bought, and the parrots mope 
 wisely, like many-colored owls. 
 
 The mention of owls recalls a naughty little story I 
 heard in Gotham ; it will bear repetition in a modified 
 
 form : „ „ . 
 
 Two young fellows were " on a racket, or pamt- 
 ing the town red," as " going on a spree " is called — 
 if the explanation be accepted as less slangy than the 
 other phrases. Between them they had a dollar and 
 ten cents. With the dollar they bought an owl from 
 a street vendor, and then entered a beer saloon ta^ 
 spend the rest of their fortune. 
 
 " Swei beah! " called the one who carried the owl, 
 as grandiloquently as if his reserve capital would 
 suffice to purchase several hundred saloons. 
 
 " Only two ?" said the owl. " Where am I? " 
 
 "You don't want beer, do you?" asked the new 
 master. 
 
 " Of course I do," responded the owl, emphatically. 
 
 " I'll give you some of mine, if you'll only keep 
 still," pleaded the young scamp. 
 
 " All right," responded the owl, looking grave — if 
 an owl ever looks otherwise. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to explain that the young fellow 
 was a ventriloquist. 
 
 By a skillful twist of his arm he poked the owl's 
 beak into the foaming glass, and all this comedietta 
 was enacted for the benefit of a countryman, who 
 
138 
 
 CHEAP AND NASTY. 
 
 evidently was " taking in the town," as people who 
 come to Gotham have a way of doing. 
 
 " Say, Mister," said the hay-seed gatherer, " I'll give 
 yer four shillin' for that bird." 
 
 " Four shillings! " exclaimed our friend, as if he 
 were mortally offended. "Four shillings — fifty cents 
 for a talking owl — I wouldn't sell him for four hundred 
 dollars. " 
 
 However, he agreed to part with his pet for fifty 
 dollars, after much haggling. 
 
 " I say, my bucolic wanderer," he added as a part- 
 ing injunction, " if the beast wont speak, just blow in 
 his ear." 
 
 The countryman carried the owl home, and intro- 
 duced it " with much pomp and circumstance " to the 
 good wife, with minute instructions how to make the 
 bird speak. Then he left home to look after some 
 cows that his wife told him had strayed. 
 
 He had hardly left when the parson, who had 
 slipped into a closet on his entrance, came out, and the 
 farmer's wife and her friend at once proceeded to 
 develop the owl's loquacity. The result was that the 
 owl grasped the woman's lips with his claw and the 
 parson's nose with his beak, and despite their screams 
 refused to release either. 
 
 The farmer returned, and, seeing the state of 
 affairs, sang out in joy: " I'd have given a thousand 
 dollars for the owl, had I known that he could find out 
 in a minute what I've wanted to know these ten years." 
 
 The story was not told me exactly this way ; but it 
 will do as it is. 
 
 Speaking birds recall the curious query. Why does a 
 parrot that is well versed in profanity bring a higher 
 price in Gotham than a psalm-singing-son-of-a-parrot? 
 For the reason, I presume, that a person who will not 
 take the name of his Maker in vain points to the Bible 
 before him, referring to all the " swear-words " it con- 
 
CHEAP AND NASTY. 
 
 tains ^as a sort of lightning conductor for pent-up 
 
 anger 
 
 It is said that a certain prominent Gothamite, whose 
 name I will not repeat here, was asked anent the sin- 
 fulness of profanity. He said that he sometimes grew 
 so irate that he would have to either say " damn," or 
 burst, and that he preferred the former. 
 
 I think that quite an interesting book could be made 
 on Gotham's street vendors, whose wares are almost 
 always cheap, but not invariably nasty, by merely cut- 
 ting from the newspapers extracts like the followmg : 
 " The human eye is a delicate organ and tolerably 
 complex in its mechanism; yet, for all of that, the aver- 
 age man and occasional woman appear to find pleasur- 
 able recreation in straining, tantalizing and exasperating 
 its delicate tissues. Eye-glasses are sold " by the cord, 
 so to speak. Few shops are without a tray of eye- 
 glasses and spectacles; every chief street has its peri- 
 patetic vendor. Blue glass, gray glass, smoked glass, 
 plain glass, and glass of different thicknesses can be had 
 for a mere song, and are bought cheap and used until 
 blindness supervenes. 
 
 " Peanuts are a choice article of popular diet. Ihere 
 are peanuts and peanuts. Some are roasted, some are 
 raw, but all are bought and sold. The average peanut 
 manipulator hails from sunny Italy. Precisely why this 
 is so, who can tell? A hasty glance at the vendors, 
 whose oil-lamp smoke obscures the heavens on Printing 
 House Square and elsewhere, will show even the most 
 careless observer that Italy is the land of the peanutian 
 distributor. The outfit consists of a cart, an oven, a 
 bushel of peanuts, and patience. These combined make 
 the commonest Florentine wealthy and often swell the 
 accumulations of the humblest Venetian btyond the 
 
 dreani of avarice. ■, . 1 ■ ^i, 
 
 " Between roasted peanuts and mechanical mice there 
 \vould seem to be no room for normal rivalry; but the 
 fact is that wherever peanuts are displayed mechanical 
 
140 
 
 CHEAP AND NASTY. 
 
 mice insist upon running. Countrymen purchase both 
 articles in large quantities. The peanuts they crack 
 while the mice are on exhibition, and between the fra- 
 grant appetizing of the one and the cranky fascinations 
 of the other they attract the rural eye and deplete the 
 suburban wallet. 
 
 " Peddlers, like poets, to no age belong. We find them 
 here, there, everywhere, and of them all the street 
 variety is the most independent. From tin whistles to 
 flowers, from miniature bicycles to cravats, from parti- 
 colored fans to Chinese toys, from lemonade to gaiters, 
 from newspapers to shoe-strings, from hair-pins to en- 
 velopes, from gum arable to patent blacking, from 
 Stickwell's glue to checkers, and from lead pencils to 
 imitation lace, there is nothing of domestic use found in 
 bazaars and warehouses that street peddlers do not offer 
 at reduced rates and in quantities that suit purchasers, 
 upon the sidewalk." 
 
 In looking over this chapter I cannot but apprehend 
 that if a translator ever assails this book he will have to 
 render the heading " cheap and nasty," and will expose 
 me to cavil for the use of the last word. 
 
 In Gotham the word nasty implies filthy, instead of 
 merely " not deUcate," while in England the word is 
 held in its simple significance. 
 
 A young lady used the word " nice " in the presence 
 of Mr. Terry— no, Irving — the alleged English actor, 
 who told her it was ''nahsty to say nice. " 
 
 She quickly responded: " Is it nice to say nahsiyf" 
 
 Good reader, or bad one, for that matter, if you un- 
 derstand English, you will appreciate the fun in this, 
 and as a guaranty of its humor I may say that it never 
 appeared in the London Punch, I kno\v that this state- 
 ment will be apples and nuts to the Gotham hnmorous 
 papers. 
 
LITTLE IMPOSITIONS. 
 
 141 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 LITTLE IMPOSITIONS. 
 
 The Joys of The Ave." — Private Efficiency and Official Imbecility — Th* 
 Gothamite's Amazing Meekness — "The Finest" — Garbage Carts — 
 The Grandest Avenue a Whirlwind of Dust — How the Aerial Transit 
 Company Accommodates the Public — Safe-Moving — " Skids " — The 
 Briton and His Rights — How Mr. Blank Obtained a Seat at the 
 Company's Expense. 
 
 Every one has heard of the young Enghshman, who, 
 " making the grand tour" in the stately fashion in vogue 
 fifty years ago, arrived at Vienna, intending to pass a 
 month there, and who died there some fifty years 
 later without ever having passed beyond its enchanted 
 Hmits. 
 
 Gotham may not hope to vie with that most seduc- 
 tive of capitals, but that it possesses a fascination of its 
 own will not be questioned even by the foreigner who 
 has enjoyed its measureless hospitality. As for the 
 native, he would regard a residence in any other part 
 of the Union much as a courtier of Augustus would 
 look upon a banishment to Scythia; and even amid the 
 glitter of Paris or the imperial splendor of London, his 
 heart turns fondly to the joys of " the avenue " or the 
 excitement of " the street." 
 
 And yet, I doubt whether in any city in the civilized 
 world the line between private efficiency and official 
 imbecility is more sharply drawn, or the contrast 
 between the luxury of the house and the discomfort — 
 to put it mildly — of the thoroughfares is more strik- 
 ing. Indeed, the Gothamite puts up with a number 
 Und variety of great and little discomforts and imposi- 
 tions tlj.at are, in the aggregate, simply amazing. I 
 am satisfied that it is only because they are so numer- 
 
142 
 
 UTTLE IMPOSITIONS. 
 
 ous, that they are at all supportable. As the atmos- 
 phere presses equally in all directions on the human 
 frame, so do these so-called minor evils of life weigh 
 upon him with an equilibrium of discomfort that pre- 
 vents him from singling out any particular one as 
 worse than any other. Let us follow him through a 
 portion of one day on his way to his office: See him 
 as he comes down the stoop — fresh-colored and clean- 
 shaven, faultless as to gloves and immaculate as to 
 linen — trim and well set up, from the crown of his 
 glossy hat to the sole of his polished boot — and with 
 just enough left of his matutinal cigar to last him to 
 the station of the " Alleviated " Railway. Before he 
 has gone half a block he meets a platoon of " the 
 finest " on their way to their stations on Broadway — 
 marching, or rather sauntering, four abreast, and neg- 
 ligently swinging their clubs; they look as if they 
 owned the earth — as possibly, in their hearts, 
 they think they do, or ought to. Of course, 
 there is no excuse or reason for their thus taking 
 up the whole of the sidewalk ; but does the 
 Gothamite dream of objecting, or asserting his right 
 to the place? By no means ; meekness is one 
 of his greatest virtues, and he could give the 
 late lamented Moses seventy-five points up, and 
 double discount him at that ; so he stops quietly 
 behind a friendly stoop, and waits for his hired serv- 
 ants to pass by at their pleasure. A little further on, 
 an uncovered garbage-cart is drawn up alongside of 
 the curb, and a man is emptying a barrel full of ashes 
 into it ; of course the wind blows from behind gargage- 
 carts towards passers. A large quantity of these ashes 
 fly into his face, and cover him from head to foot 
 with soot and cinder. The idiotic absurdity of this pro- 
 ceeding can hardly be done justice to by mere words. 
 Why these carts should thus make their rounds during 
 business hoyrs, instead of at night, or early in the 
 morning, it seems impossible to imagine ; but the 
 
UTTLE IMPOSITIONS. 
 
 143 
 
 Gothamite is too accustomed to this experience even 
 to swear over it. Through his half-bHnded eyes he 
 sees dimly on the side of the cart the mystic letters 
 D. S. C, and recognizes the existence of a branch of 
 the civil government which he supports at an expense 
 of something over $1,000,000 a year, for the nominal 
 purpose of cleaning the streets. 
 
 Crossing what should be the finest avenue in 
 America, he is involved in a whirlwind of dust and 
 sand; what is the matter? Oh, nothing — nothing 
 special ; that is, only that the subterranean companj- 
 some weeks ago tore up the pavement to lay their pipes 
 for supplying everybody with everything. The law 
 required them to replace the paving-stones, this they 
 did ; also to sprinkle sand over them, to fill up the 
 interstices ; it is painfully evident that they have com- 
 pUed with this provision, also; likewise to sweep up 
 and remove the superfluous sand and dirt ; but, instead 
 of doing this, they managed to get into a technical 
 squabble with the Department of Public Works ; each 
 side consulted the lawyers, and by the time the latter 
 have come to a decision as to where the responsibihty 
 is, the dust will have been blown down the throats and 
 into the parlors of Gotham, and the company saves 
 the money it would have cost to remove it. 
 
 Reaching the avenue, which he must cross, in order 
 to get to his station, he becomes dimly aware of the 
 approach of a train in the opposite direction; occupied 
 as he is with plans for the day's business, he yet 
 instinctively halts — he is too wise in his generation to 
 pass under it; it is not that he fears to be decapitated 
 by the fall of a chance coupling, or crushed beneath a 
 casual timber; he knows, in a general way, that he 
 must die some day, and has probably already charged 
 up that item to profit and loss in his mental ledger; but 
 meantime he objects to having a live coal from the 
 engine dropped down his back, or his clothes soiled by 
 drippings of grease from the wheels, or cataracts of 
 
144 
 
 LITTLE IMPOSITIONS. 
 
 tobacco juice from the untamed brakeman. Toiling up 
 the long and steep flight of steps, he gains the platform 
 of his station, and presently enters his train. Does he 
 expect to find a comfortable seat? Well, there is still 
 some faith left in human nature — possibly, there were 
 people, even in Gotham, who actually believed in the 
 glowing vision conjured up by the promoters of the 
 Aerial Transit Company, who, in the guise of public 
 benefactors and suppliers of a long-felt want, succeeded 
 in getting franchises of enormous value, and in virtually 
 confiscating certain streets and rendering adjacent 
 property valueless, without paying a cent of compensa- 
 tion to the city or the unlucky real estate owners. 
 But the big dividends on the enormously watered 
 stock of this concern requires the road to be run at a 
 minimum of expense, and a maximum of discomfort to 
 the public — both of which requisites the Direction 
 has combined in the, for itself, happiest manner 
 imaginable. So the passenger stands up and holds 
 on to the strap, as he used to do in the surface cars — 
 constantly admonished by the yelling brakeman to 
 move up a Httle — " plenty of room in the forward part 
 of the car." But as this process is repeated from each 
 end of the car, there gets to be something not unlike 
 a crowd, in the middle of which he simmers, with 
 more or less impatience, until his destination is reached. 
 Gaining the start he is presently brought to a stand- 
 still; a large truck is ranged up along the sidewalk, and 
 men are engaged in hoisting a safe into the upper 
 story of a building. The rope crosses the sidewalk, 
 about two feet above it, leading to a windlass on the 
 truck; the safe has reached the second story, in its 
 journey, and swings menacingly above the heads of 
 the passers. Here the same Hne of unconscious 
 argument which led him to avoid passing under the 
 train, causes him to cross the street, dodging the 
 various vans and carts in so doing. Well, he has almost 
 got to his journey's end — but one more trial is in store 
 
LITTLE IMPOSITIONS. 
 
 145 
 
 for him. Turning down the crooked old street where 
 his office is, his way is barred by an obstruction which 
 is, I believe, peculiar to Gotham. Opposite to a large 
 grocery a wagon has stopped, and from it and right 
 across the sidewalk ten-foot long beams, or pieces of 
 timber, technically called" skids," are laid, along which 
 men are rolling barrels of sugar. This is, of course, a 
 very convenient thing for the drayman or grocer, but 
 it seems like nothing less than an outrage on the 
 passer-by, who has his choice of risking life or limb in 
 climbing over the skids, or, if more prudent, of madly 
 plunging into the mud and filth of the street, in going 
 round the obstruction. 
 
 Our friend has lost much of his dainty appearance in 
 consequence of all he has passed through; his hat is 
 ruffled, his coat dusty, his gloves soiled, his boots mud- 
 died — he rings for his porter to brush his coat, and 
 sends for the bootblack — and, very likely, also soothes 
 himself with a cocktail before entering upon the serious 
 work of the day. 
 
 That this sketch is not only not overdrawn, but 
 falls far short of the reahty, will, I am confident, be 
 emphatically, and perhaps profanely, admitted by 
 every Gothamite who is not in politics — or a Director 
 of Aerial Transit. It may be said that these things 
 are trifles. So they are; but existence is made up of 
 trifles. A few crumbs will make the most luxurious 
 bed uncomfortable, and a five-cent piece held close to 
 the eye will shut out the view of the Atlantic Ocean. 
 Life and property are tolerably secure in Gotham — 
 but so they are in Petersburg. These little things, so 
 called, are what make life supportable, or the reverse. 
 
 It is not for me, of course, to criticise; but I cannot 
 help regretting such a state of things, which seems to 
 me to be as unnecessary as it is grevious. Doubtless 
 the fault lies to a great extent in that system of local 
 politics to which I have alluded in a former chapter — 
 still, I think the individual Gothamite is largely to 
 
^4^ LITTLE IMPOSITIONS. 
 
 blame, also; good nature is all very well in its way but 
 It may, I venture to suggest, be carried too far' I 
 think. It might be better if the American had a little 
 more of the sturdy self-assertion of his Enghsh cousin 
 and was more firm in insisting on his rights, and get- 
 ting what he paid for. It seems to be considered bad 
 form to complain or to resist imposition, and I have 
 noticed that pubHc opinion appears rather to frown 
 upon the man who publicly asserts his rights This 
 seems to me a false shame and a morbid shirking of 
 independent action. It may seem absurd to spend a 
 thousand pounds in money and five years in time in 
 fighting a railway company for an overcharge of two 
 pence half-penny, as a recent Enghsh report informs 
 us was done by a sturdy Briton, who won his suit in 
 the end But I think that even this is more com- 
 mendable than a spiritless acquiescence in the violation 
 of undoubted rights. There is a little independence 
 however even in the Gothamite, and the officials of a 
 great railway have probably not yet forgotten their 
 experience with a friend of mine. Boarding the train 
 just before it started, he found every seat taken and 
 people standing in the smoking car; seeking out the 
 conductor, he compelled that worthy, much against his 
 will, to go through the train with him, in the, as it 
 proved, meffectual search for a place, for reasons which 
 will presently appear. Then, taking his place in the 
 center of a car, he uplifted his voice as follows • " Will 
 any gentleman sell me his seat?" . Men looked up 
 from their papers, smiled — and went on reading 
 
 wHl f;ir/°^^i''^i"i5''>"!''"''^ my friend, producing a 
 well-filled pocket-book; "my ticket entitles me to a 
 seat which I have not been able to find, and which the 
 conductor neglects or refuses to secure for me I do 
 not intend to stand up all the way to Blankville if 
 money will buy me a seat. And I propose to make 
 the Company repay me what I have to spend to set 
 one. I will pay five dollars for any seat in this car " 
 
LITTLE IMPOSITIONS. 
 
 14; 
 
 They laid down their papers then, and pricked up 
 their ears. Things were beginning to get interesting; 
 but no one responded. 
 
 " Ten dollars," went on my friend, in dispassionate 
 accents. There was a little stir now; but still " holders 
 were firm" in the belief in "higher prices," as the 
 market reports put it. 
 
 " Fifteen dollars. " 
 
 This brought out three or four offers. Selecting the 
 nearest, " Now, gentlemen," he said, " I may have to 
 sue the Company in this matter. I will therefore ask 
 that if there are any residents of Blankville here, they 
 will favor me with their cards, and oblige me by 
 appearing as witnesses if needful." 
 
 Half a dozen men stepped forward with cards in 
 their hands, and assured my friend of their willingness 
 to testify for him if necessary. 
 
 Arriving at Blankville, he sat down and wrote a note 
 to the superintendent, stating the case, and requesting 
 repayment. The next day he received a curt official 
 expression of regret and notice that if he would call at 
 the office the money would be refunded. This he de- 
 clined to do, in a note perhaps even more curt than the 
 superintendent's communication — saying that, as he was 
 the Company's creditor, it was for them to seek him out, 
 not for him to dance attendance upon them; and intimat- 
 ing that unless he received a check within twenty-four 
 hours, he should feel obliged to put the matter in the 
 hands of his lawyer. This brought the money before 
 the prescribed time had expired. It is true that my 
 friend was a well-known citizen, and also a millionaire. 
 Possibly this may have had something to do in influ- 
 encing such a prompt settlement. It is not every 
 one who has the tirne or the money to fight such a 
 gigantic corporation as the Transcontinental Railway; 
 still, I am sure that if this spirit was more prevalent, 
 the Gothamite would get more enjoyment out of life, 
 and the community would be happier. 
 
148 
 
 GOTHAM IN 1986. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 GOTHAM IN 1986, 
 
 Cleanliness Everywhere — Home that is Home — Bankruptcy in Business 
 Only — Telephone to Honduras — His True Wealth Plis Wife and 
 Children — Naughty Grandmother — What Happiness the Century 
 Holds — The Millenium — The Ages of the Nineteenth Century — 
 van der Blinken Redivions — History's Tricks — Amusements — Pub- 
 lic Servants Grown Affable — 450th Street — Facilities — " Hell 
 on Fits" — Gemiitlichkeit — The Great American Theater — " Thim 
 Gundohlers " — Labor and Capital — The End of Slavery — No More 
 Nonsense. 
 
 My regard for Gotham, my faith in the Gothamites, 
 and what judgment I may possess, entitle me to draw 
 a pen-picture of Gotham in 1986. 
 
 It is the type of a clean city. History speaks of the 
 old landmarks of filth and iniquity, but they exist 
 no more. A healthy, moral atmosphere surrounds 
 'the greatest commercial sea-board city in the world. 
 
 But the guide-books tell us all about the edifices, 
 the parks, the public institutions; let us look into the 
 inner life of Gotham in this year of our Lord 1986. 
 
 The business . man, by conveyances, the mention of 
 which in 1886 would have been deemed the vagaries 
 of a diseased mind, flies to a home, which is a home. 
 He is tired, worn, not by insatiable love of the 
 dollar; not filled with dread because he cannot satisfy 
 his wife's demands for cash — oh, no^ — those things 
 occured in the benighted nineteenth century, when men 
 and women did not understand each other. Fortunately 
 for John Gotham, this is the enlightened twentieth 
 century. Let us follow him. 
 
 " Oh, John, dear, home so early? " says his wife. 
 
 " Yes, Vangie," responds John, endeavoring to 
 smile. 
 
GOTHAM 1^ I9S6. 
 
 149 
 
 " What of Bangkok Central? " she asks, noticing his 
 depressed look. 
 
 " Down to two five-eighths," he answers, moodily. 
 " And Sumatra Pipe Line? " 
 " Down to three and a half.' 
 
 " Why, is the depression so general? " asks the wife, 
 who knows as much of her husband's business as he 
 does, and who advises him whenever he needs the 
 counsel of a friend who is another self to him. 
 
 " No; not quite so general " 
 
 " Oh. then, something has gone up," she says, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " But — " he hesitates, " that confounded Rosario — " 
 " Why — has that gone up? " she said, sadly. 
 " Yes, dear; just as it has for the last century. This 
 morning, before I went to the Board, I telephoned 
 Recachimba about prospects for rain in Honduras. 
 He answered, ' Very bad.' So, when the call opened, 
 I offered and sold at once a thousand Rosario at 592. 
 Half an hour later, the Rosario people announce that 
 they struck another bonanza, and the stock bounces up 
 to 618." 
 
 They are silent for a moment. Then she hesitatingly 
 asks: " Can v/e weather it? " 
 
 " We can save the name by impoverishing our- 
 selves." 
 
 " Thank God! " she almost shouts, gleefully. 
 
 "What — Vangie?" asks her husband; "remember 
 that I will be a poor man. " 
 
 " A poor man; how funny," she laughs. A poor man, 
 with your inteUigence, your industry, your honor! 
 John, you a poor man! — do you feel poor when you 
 think what a wealth I and our children are to you? " 
 
 Seated on his lap, her arms about his neck, she infuses 
 new courage, hope and manhood into him, and then 
 he recounts to her some ancient history that tells how 
 his great grandfather — that was just one hundred years 
 ago, in 1886 — lost everything, and howhis great grand- 
 10 
 
GOTHAM IN 1986. 
 
 mother spurned the poor man from her with contumely; 
 how she sought and obtained a divorce by his consent^ 
 of which the court was not cognizant, of course, and 
 how he disappeared afterwards, never to be heard from 
 again. 
 
 " If my great grandmother had been such a wife 
 as you are, darling," he continues, " my poor, great- 
 grandfather would have ended differently, providing 
 the reports of him are correct." 
 
 " Ah, yes, dear," she responds, " but you know that 
 m_ those days society in Gotham was differently con- 
 stituted. Girls were not raised properly; they were 
 not taught to believe that a woman's happiness lay in 
 being her husband's partner in everything; the sharer 
 of his sorrows as well as of his joys. The women did 
 not know what they wanted; and if they knew, it was 
 that vague " something else." 
 
 " How fortunate I am " he begins. 
 
 " Yes, dear; but think how fortunate / am; for with 
 such an indulgent husband as you are, if I had not been 
 properly raised, I might have been like my great-grand- 
 mother, poor thing! She married against her family's 
 wishes. Ma's grandfather was a very handsome, intel- 
 gent, but very nervous man. Her grandmother wor- 
 ried her and his hfe into uninterrupted misery by alter- 
 nately scolding him for no reason, and bemoaning her 
 fate. At times she would he in bed and groan and 
 moan and weep, and when asked what was the matter, 
 she would answer that she did not know what to do. 
 Her husband provided more for her than she was ac- 
 customed to have, or know what to do with; and he in- 
 dulged her in everything, except one — she wanted him 
 to kill himself, which he would not do. She loved him, 
 next to herself, as such a useless article of furniture 
 could, and perhaps would never have married again 
 after his death, but she wanted a sensation — excite- 
 ment — and nothing would satisfy the craving except 
 her husband's death in some violent, horrible manner 
 
GOTHAM IN 1986. 151 
 
 by his own hand. She was not satisfied and lost what 
 little mind she had in consequence." 
 
 I may interrupt the recital here for a moment to 
 remark that I set the millenium in the twentieth cen- 
 tury—how otherwise would man and wife discuss the 
 relative demerits of their ancestors? 
 
 Yes it is the millenium; for when his wife's sisters 
 hear of the misfortune, instead of emptying vessels of 
 wrath, illimitable quantities of bitterness, compared to 
 which gall and wormwood are toothsome morsels, upon 
 him, they freely discuss "brother John's" affairs 
 express their good wishes for him and strengthen his 
 wife, their sister, in what all agree is her duty— to 
 make his losses appear hght, and encourage him to 
 renewed vigor, to imbue him with spirit wherewith to 
 lace his losses, and to drown his sorrows and reverses 
 in what IS and ever should be the acme of intoxicating 
 bhss — his wife's kiss! For him there is no happiness 
 away from home, he takes no amusements unless 
 shared by his gods — his wife and children. 
 
 Ancient history, or what the intelligence of the 
 twentieth century has relegated to a forgotten past 
 has a tradition that until some time about the middle 
 of the nineteenth century there existed the legend of 
 an ogre called "Mother-in-law." This fiend perse- 
 cuted and abused the miserable wretch whose bad- 
 ness cropped out all over him, as soon as he had rid 
 her of a badly-raised daughter. The large number of 
 divorce suits, suicides, and the misery she wrought 
 recoiled upon her, and later on, after the middle of 
 the nineteenth century, the ogre mother-in-law became 
 a different creature, a somewhat negative character, 
 who, however, took excellent care not to interfere 
 between husband and wife. Still later she became a 
 positive blessing; a sweet, lovely, intelligent friend 
 and adviser. 
 
 Later yet, the sister-in-law arose in Gotham. She 
 thought it her duty to convince her married sister that 
 
152 
 
 GOTHAM IN 1986. 
 
 the entire family was humiliated and disgraced by the 
 new connection; that only the greatest possible wealth 
 — aye, impossible wealth — could but slightly amelior- 
 ate the injury that man had done by marrying into so 
 good a family, and that the poor sister wanted oceans 
 of sympathy for the stupidity that caused her to be 
 faithful to a man who was so brutal as not to die and 
 leave her independent. 
 
 Now, in the enhghtened twentieth century, when a 
 Gothamite makes his wife a present upon her birth- 
 day, or when another child comes to bind them still 
 more closely together and strengthen their love, they 
 say: " Oh, Vangie, how beautiful! I wonder if when 
 I marry I will have such a good husband as John is. 
 Really, dear, you must show him how much such a 
 man is appreciated by a good wife. Seek to merit his 
 love and to advance his interests, for he deserves it." 
 
 In the benighted nineteenth century they would 
 hardly have glanced at the jewel; and if remarking it 
 at all, would say: " Poor Vangie! to be compelled to 
 wear such an unfashionable bauble. Sadie Doll- 
 rymple's husband showered valuable and tasteful 
 presents upon her, and, moreover, did not trouble her 
 by his presence once a month; and further yet, he was 
 a van der Blinken, consequently she did not disgrace 
 her family by marrying him. Furthermore, he was a 
 real gentleman, for when misfortune and losses came 
 upon him, and when she quite naturally grew tired of 
 him, he had the delicacy to blow out his brains; giving 
 Sadie a chance while she was still young and attractive 
 to make another matrimonial venture; van der Blinken 
 was a gentleman! " 
 
 But this all is ancient history; we are in Gotham of 
 to-day — in the glorious twentieth century. And 
 perhaps, after all, those tales of the nineteenth century 
 are perpetuations of isolated, very bad cases, the 
 majority not having been so severe at all. We know 
 that history has a trick of reducing or magnifying facts 
 
GOTHAM IN 1986. 
 
 153 
 
 in accordance with the state of the historian's digestion 
 at the time he wrote. 
 
 John Gotham's wife makes him positively happy in 
 his misfortunes, and he is dehghted that he was born in 
 the twentieth century. Before dinner-time they have 
 resolved how they will live, now that they must 
 reduce expenses, and find immeasurable compensation 
 in their increased love for each other. 
 
 Let us follow them into the street a few afternoons 
 later, and see how the Gothamites of all classes amuse 
 themselves. 
 
 In the nineteenth century it would have been in 
 horridly bad form for a family to go out together — but 
 now the enlightenment of the age throws doubts 
 upon people who could enjoy anything unaccompanied 
 by the loved ones. 
 
 A goodly, jolly crowd they are, John's parents, 
 his wife and children, her parents and sisters, and all 
 of their admirers, some of them future husbands, take 
 carriages to the nearest station of the elevated railroad. 
 Carriages are so cheap, but ten cents a mile, that 
 everybody can use them. They enter a train, after 
 paying but three cents for each person's fare, and 
 instead of being snarled at by the employes of the 
 road, receive courteous answers to their polite ques- 
 tions. 
 
 The " guards " (this appellation sticks to them as a 
 remnant of Anglomania, which was rampant in Gotharri 
 in the nineteenth century) calls the stations clearly 
 and distinctly. In past ages he used to yell, as he 
 tore open the door : " StribbergabbergalHoth! skip out 
 there for squabberquatchelam, this train forrem!" 
 
 Now he says : " Four-hundred-and-forty-second 
 Street. Change at next station for Four-hundred- 
 and-fifty-ninth. This train for Bridgeport and points 
 beyond." 
 
 If an abstracted passenger has not understood him, 
 or asks for more explicit information, he does not say, 
 
154 
 
 GOTHAM IN ^1986. 
 
 as did his predecessor of the nineteenth century : 
 "Oh, cawm orf; cawm orf — take de flies outer yer 
 ears. Drink blue mud. Give us a rest. Go to Helen 
 Blazes." All this, in that savage age, was said in a 
 manner that would dazzle the passenger and impress 
 him thoroughly with the importance of the insolent 
 wearer of the Company's livery. 
 
 Now, since it has been found wise to make the 
 Government the owner of all public conveniences and 
 conveyances, the employes understand that they are 
 the public's servants, and that their tenure of office and 
 advancement in the service is dependent purely upon 
 good behavior. 
 
 But the services are really only a matter of courtesy 
 in the above regard ; for see that large, automatically- 
 changing sign, in plain sight of all passengers. 
 
 The next station at which 
 this car will stop is 
 450th Street. 
 
 Nearest station for Bliss- 
 ville by car, 5c. 
 
 Gotham Museum, free, 
 daily. 
 
 American Theater, free 
 on Sundays; other days 
 10, 15 and 25 cents. 
 
 Performance to-day: 
 George Washington, 
 A classical drama in 
 five acts. 
 
 An American Author. 
 
 This Theater employs 
 only the best American 
 talent. 
 
 Der nachste Anhalts 
 
 purkt dieses Waggons 
 
 ist an der 45oten 
 
 Strasse. 
 Nachste Station zu-. 
 
 Blissville, per Pfer 
 
 debahn, 5c. 
 Gotham Museum, freier 
 
 Entritt. 
 American Theater, 
 
 Sontags frei, Woch- 
 
 entage 10, 15 u. 25 
 
 cents. 
 Auffuhrung heute: 
 Geo. Washington, 
 Schanspiel in 5 aufzi- 
 
 gen, 
 
 von 
 
 Einen Amerikanischen 
 Schriftsteller. 
 
 Dieses Theater ver- 
 wendet bios das beste 
 Amerikanischen tal- 
 ent. . 
 
 La siguiente estaci6n 
 donde para este tren 
 esta en la calle 450. 
 
 Dicha estacion es la 
 mas proxima k Bliss- 
 ville, por tranvia, 5c. 
 
 Museo Gotham, entrada 
 libre. 
 
 Teatro Americano, en- 
 trada libre los Domin- 
 gos, los otros dias 10, 
 15 y 25c. 
 
 La funcion de hoy es el 
 gran drama en 5 actos: 
 
 George Washington, 
 por 
 
 Un Autor Americano. 
 
 Este Teatro emplea solo 
 el mejor talento Ame- 
 ricano. 
 
 These signs, that change at each station, give com- 
 plete directions in a dozen languages, and contain just 
 enough matter to be comfortably read in the half min- 
 utes that intervene between stations. 
 
GOTHAM IN 1986. 
 
 I have not the space to detail all of the conveniences 
 that are supplied the traveling public at great benefit 
 to it and at small expense. Suffice it to say that a 
 certain class of facilities, necessarily unmentionable in 
 polite literature, but which abound in Europe, and were 
 utterly unknown in Gotham in the nineteenth century, 
 are everywhere accessible for the payment of one cent. 
 That modesty and good taste that characterizes Gotham 
 in this the twentieth century covers and conceals these 
 little edifices by a front, in the window of which 
 flowers and other trifles are exposed for sale, and deli- 
 cacy can be subserved by every one who pays his or her 
 cent, also purchasing a flower to display on leaving the 
 establishment. It may be vulgar to quote the follow- 
 ing, but its advice is worth remembering: 
 
 " When nature calls, as well it may. 
 It will not do to bluff her; 
 So haste away, at night or day, 
 Or else you're sure to suffer." 
 
 Is it not remarkable that a traveler who copied this 
 doggerel in Gotham in the nineteenth century noted 
 that the Gothamites must needs suffer for the lack of 
 " facilities"? The same observer, such as he was, his 
 name was Heinrich Oscar von Karlstein, and he wrote 
 a book called " Gotham and the Gothamites," also 
 noted a great difference in regard to the relative mod- 
 esty of the Gothamites and their immediate progeni- 
 tors, the English, in what he considered a very funny 
 comparison. In it he mentions the fact that the 
 Gothamite of 1 886 or thereabouts would not brook the 
 thought even of physiological needs, while a work by 
 an English author, Charles Reed, entitled, " The 
 White Elephant," bore the advertisement of a patent 
 hygienic earth-closet on its back page, probably to 
 reduce the expense of publication. If I were writing 
 during the lifetime of said Karlstein, I would have to 
 wreck my brain to communicate the idea, without sug- 
 gesting the word. 
 
 The " facilities " which I describe are provided with 
 
GOTHAM IN 1986. 
 
 all that health, comfort and good taste can possibly 
 demand, and the walls thereof are not besmirched by 
 vile sketches, filthy doggerel or indecent advertise- 
 ments. Public morality in Gotham has risen so high 
 that even the quack's occupation is gone. 
 
 Speaking of quacks, reminds me of a Httle tale 
 about an itinerant nostrum-vendor, who tramped the 
 villages near Gotham in the nineteenth century. He 
 went from house to house, and yelled into each open 
 window: 
 
 " Got any heart disease, consumption, Hver com- 
 plaint, corns, ingrowin' nails, blotches, spotches or 
 motches on the skin " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Got any sore eyes, roometiz, high-strikes " 
 
 "ISTo." 
 
 " Got any fits " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Fm hell on fits! " 
 
 And then he passed on with the expression of one 
 who has done his duty by offering his valuable serv- 
 ices, and to whom no blame could attach if all the 
 world were to die, because his prodigious skill was not 
 employed. 
 
 But we left John Gotham and his family on the 
 elevated railway, on their way to a dinner of the most 
 gemuthlicJi character. If this book is ever to be trans- 
 lated, I shall inflict the worst possible punishment upon 
 the translator if he does anything but copy the word 
 gemutlick just as I have written it. In the nineteenth 
 century it was not known in lands where English was 
 spoken, and now it is incorporated, with all its glorious 
 meaning, into all languages — except French. 
 
 John and his family are let down from the elevated 
 station by a " hoist " that is driven by electricity, as is 
 the road; then they saunter through a tree-bordered 
 street to the Great American Theater. To describe 
 this edifice would require a poet's pen and an artist's 
 
GOTHAM IN 1986. 
 
 157 
 
 pencil. It is simply grand. Ten thousand people can 
 sit and see and hear plainly in all parts of the theater,' and 
 take an excellent dinner at a very low rate, meanwhile, 
 The performance begins at five and ends at nine; for, by 
 ten, everybody with good sense expects to be in bed. 
 Up to the end of the nineteenth century people in 
 Gotham were foolish enough to adhere to the stupid 
 European custom of converting night into day; but, 
 thanks to the spirit of common sense, that absurdity 
 has stopped. 
 
 A number of manners and customs have grown 
 since the era of common sense began in Gotham. 
 
 When people had coats-of-arms manufactured for 
 themselves; when Gothamites boasted that they were 
 more familiar with Europe than the grand resources of 
 their own great country; when they aped European 
 customs and manners; when they tried to forget that 
 they were descendants of those valiant people whose 
 courage, strength and morality caused them to build 
 the greatest coast city in the world on a wretched barren 
 rock; when, then, the wise men of Gotham saw that 
 those emasculated simpletons were endangering the 
 virility of the Republic, they came together and fed 
 the fish in the Hudson with the bodies of those upon 
 whom an ounce of gunpowder would have been wasted. 
 The sensible people remained and increased, and the 
 result is the admirable manner in which the Gothamites 
 of this twentieth century live. 
 
 What kind of people governed Gotham in the nine- 
 teenth century is well shown by the following, which 
 history has preserved, perhaps, as a means of compara- 
 tive study: 
 
 * Tbrrty gundohlers!" said the Milesian member of 
 the Aldermanic Park Commission; " forrty gundohlers ! 
 F'what de yez want to be afther buyin' that many fur? 
 Buy two av thim, a mayil an' a faimayil, an' thin let 
 naytcher talk her coorse." 
 
158 
 
 GOTHAM IN 1986. 
 
 John and his family— yes, his family, as his wife's 
 relatives even call themselves — enter the theater. 
 " Where shall we sit, Vangie?" he asks his wife. 
 "There," she says, "at that large table — where 
 Thompson and Milly are. " 
 
 Thompson is John's clerk, and Mrs. Milly Thompson 
 was a schoolmate of John's wife. True, their fortunes 
 are different; but in the present state of Gotham society, 
 mere money makes no difference in social rank. It 
 was different in the nineteenth century! 
 
 It is enough to say that John, with his friends, 
 spends a most ^^/^^^^/zV/? evening; how difficult it would 
 have been to make a nineteenth century Gothamite 
 understand the meaning of this phrase. Difficult? It 
 would have been impossible. 
 
 Bloodthirsty wretches, whose laziness made them 
 advocates of communism, anarchy and kindred insanity, 
 now go to Gotham no more. Their principal victims] 
 the workingmen, will not Hsten to them any longer] 
 but stand upon their dignity as men. 
 
 In times past much misery was wrought by the 
 laboring classes by a misinterpretation of the terms, 
 equahty and liberty. Now these people understand 
 their superiority over the drones. 
 
 To-day the workingman would scorn to wear the 
 cast-off garments of the milhonaire; his ambition is to 
 show that he is a model, honest, sober, cleanly laborer. 
 On Sunday he wears no absurd tile or badly-fitting 
 coat, the long tails of which are intended to deceive 
 him,_ and nobody else, that he is a lazy, good-for- 
 nothing lout. No, he wears a distinctive dress; his 
 blouse and cap are finer on Sundays than his rough 
 working habiliments, and he walks arm-in-arm with 
 his employer, whose broadcloth is only the more 
 respected because he has learned that beneath rough 
 garments can beat as noble a heart as beneath silk and 
 fine linen. And a laborer's cap can cover as much 
 and as good brains as can the finest tile. 
 
GOTHAM IN 1986. 
 
 159 
 
 Labor and capital no longer oppose each other; 
 slaves have ceased to exist! 
 
 This remarkable equalization is due mainly to the 
 systems that have supplanted those of the sad past. 
 
 Since 1900 employers are not allowed to pay 
 Avorkers for more than eight hours labor each day; and, 
 of course, the workingmen will labor only for the 
 hours that are considered in their compensation. The 
 time not required for rest and food are devoted to 
 improvement of the intellect. Nicely-kept reading- 
 rooms, in which the rich and poor sit side by side ; 
 well-conducted theaters and museums, open every day 
 in the week, Sundays included, offer healthy amuse- 
 ment, combined with instruction, while for those who 
 wish direct and specific information upon any subject, 
 the great system of free lectures, instituted by that 
 grand old man, Peter Cooper, are patronized by all. 
 Indeed, they are still called Peter Cooper lectures, in 
 memory of his sensible philanthropy. 
 
 That vile corrupter of the past, the boarding-house, 
 with its companion, the sky-scraping flat, has made 
 way, since rapid transit became really rapid, to myriads 
 of elegant httle houses, each one built and furnished 
 delightfully as far as taste and comfort are concerned. 
 The workingman has a home, and the young married 
 couple do not unite their fates before they can count 
 upon their own roof to cover them. 
 
 The insane race after inordinate wealth has made 
 place for honest, steady industry and increased intel- 
 ligent enterprise. What else could result but what I 
 have faintly outlined? 
 
 * ****** # # ^ 
 
 Reader, do you like my picture of Gotham of 1986? 
 Look back to 1886, and wonder with me how a people 
 who had all that marvelous strength of intellect could 
 have so many weak foibles and still hve! 
 
 Yet they lived and recovered from the many cancers 
 that gnawed at their vitals; to-day, in 1986, in conse- 
 
i6o 
 
 HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 quence of that recovery, there is no more corruption in 
 politics, the nouveaux riches b-yq not vulgar, and 
 the poorer classes have none of that false independence 
 that many of them delighted in to the detriment of the 
 general social state, and especially that of themselves. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 Profanity — Hero-Worship — George Washington's Death-Certificate — 
 Gotham's Dirty Streets — Bootblacks — Enamoring a Hen — Sumpy's 
 Death — Mr. Jabocy's Reproof — Our Ignorance of Gotham — Safety 
 of Life and Limb — The Bartholdi Statue— Election Bets — " Sweet 
 Violets"— Oysters, Bicycles and Critics — Jews and Crime — No 
 Slovens— Starch — Conscience The Writer Threatens the Reader 
 with Another Book. 
 
 We Germans, as a nation, receive the credit, that I 
 hope I do not offend modesty by asserting is due us, 
 of being very methodical, careful classifiers and labori- 
 ous plodders. For the sake of vanity, and in obedi- 
 ence to my innate laziness — I should like to say lack 
 of space — I shall here jot odd thoughts that I knew 
 not where else to place. 
 
 A subject that has always interested me in Gotham 
 was the profanity used there. It is by no means ele- 
 gant; it does not embeUish language; but it is, oh! so 
 forcible. 
 
 First and foremost stands the good old word damn. 
 By itself it amounts to little; but it lends a zest that 
 nothing else can convey. It is usually associated with 
 the Deity; and this is not so very wicked, for, as God 
 is Love, His condemnation must be tempered by love. 
 This shows the Gothamite's benign disposition, for none 
 of them would think of saying: " The Devil damn your 
 soul! " That would be really a severe malediction, for 
 if the Devil is as black as he is depicted, his bane must 
 be uncompromisingly and irretrievably bad. Yet the 
 phrase would sound absurd, and neither hurt nor offend 
 because of its very absurdity. 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 i6i 
 
 The word damn, despite its vigor, is not used in the 
 presence of ears polite, nor are any of our ordinary- 
 ejaculations, such as God! Jesus! The Devil! etc. 
 The epithet " liar" cannot be applied to a Gothamite 
 even in jest, for the offense would almost call for blood. 
 We may in fun call anyone a thief, or a rascal, but 
 never a liar. This speaks well for the dignity of the 
 Gothamites, who will allow doubts to be thrown upon 
 their capacity to judge between meum and teiinty but 
 never upon their veracity. 
 
 The most profound and unpardonable insult to a 
 Gothamite is conveyed in the assertion that his imme- 
 diate female progenitor is of the canine race. This is 
 the grandest of his many grand traits. It is the out- 
 cropping of his admiration for the female sex, which, 
 when his mother is thought of, becomes adoration, 
 most beautifully manifesting in this the almost idola- 
 trous manner in which George Washington's mother is 
 viewed. She is still discussed with rehgious reverence, 
 much as the Virgin Mary is mentioned by many. 
 What a glowing, grand tribute to the memory of 
 America's first great man! 
 
 I should hate to pose as an iconoclast, but speaking 
 of Washington I cannot refrain from repeating a 
 naughty tale told me by a senator in Gotham. He 
 said that he who is mentioned as " first in war, first in 
 peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen," did not 
 die of inflammation of the lungs, as history has it, but 
 that he perished from a severe, ulcerated sore throat 
 which he contracted by exposure on a cold, rainy 
 night, waiting for a charmer with whom he had a not 
 over-moral appointment. I hope that I may have a 
 son, for as soon as this statement becomes public I 
 expect that the house of Karlstein will be extinguished 
 so far as I am concerned, for the Gothamites are patri- 
 otic — or I may have to shoot a few thousand of them 
 for calling me a liar. Yet, even if this story is true, 
 what has it to do with his life as a public man? 
 
1^2 
 
 HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 Nothing, as far as I can see. I will not compare the 
 morality of rulers of other lands with that of the 
 country of which Gotham is the key; no, I hope that 
 I am too discreet. 
 
 But to return to profanity. A clergyman may, in 
 the pulpit, say hell, damnation, prostitution, God, 
 Jesus, and no Gothamite, even the most fastidious, is 
 shocked. The Gothamite plain, that is without sur- 
 plice or white necktie, must not say, think, or even read 
 these words. Even the newspapers, be they ever so 
 graphic in their reports, must not show these words in 
 type. Dashes take their place. The following is a 
 sample: 
 
 Judge — " Well, prisoner, what caused you to strike 
 her?" 
 
 Prisoner — " She said I was a , while all my 
 
 neighbors will testify that I am an honest, hard-work- 
 ing woman." 
 
 Judge—' What did you tell her? " 
 
 Prisofter — " I told her that all her children ' were 
 
 , and that if she did not shut 
 
 up head I'd kick the stuffing out 
 
 of her, and I did it, her soul to ." 
 
 Will my good reader tell me what difference there is 
 between these dashes and the words they do not spell, 
 but so clearly represent? 
 
 That I do not rely upon memory or imagination to 
 demonstrate my assertions, I will cut from the Gotham 
 World, of June l6, 1885, a brief report that w^ould 
 alone suffice to prove all I say in this connection. It 
 also shows that a man can be declared innocent when 
 he confesses himself guilty: 
 
 " In Judge Howe's court-room, at Sing Sing, there 
 was a motley gathering yesterday to hear the 
 case of the people against ex-Mayor B. Gedney 
 Tompkins, for swearing on the public streets. Smith 
 Lent appeared for the people, and William G. 
 Valentine for tijr sle/ense. About an hour was con- 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 163 
 
 stimed in getting a jury. Mr. Lent objected to every 
 man he thought in any way impecunious, as Mr. 
 Tompkms, the defendant, is a sort of curb-stone banker 
 and might have them in his clutches. Mr. Valentine 
 objected to every Irishman, as the complainant was 
 Irish, and he was afraid they might be prejudiced. 
 
 " Finally, six satisfactory men were found, and Mr 
 Lent opened the case. He said that it had been con- 
 tended on emment authority that there was only one 
 real hebitudinous crank in the world, and that he 
 resided in Cleveland, Ohio, but that Sing Sing could 
 boast another in the person of the ex-Mayor, the 
 illustrious defendant, and that when he was in his 
 greatest state of hebitudinosity he was wont to indulge 
 in language so pyrotechnic as to awaken the whole 
 town. One of these moods struck him on June 9 and 
 
 ^ °f language at Constable 
 
 Wilham Green so strong and fiery that the most dis- 
 reputable denizen of Sheol would have been abashed 
 thereby. 
 
 /' ^}}^^ ^^^^^^ J- C. Inslee, a Justice of the Peace 
 of bing Sing, who testified in substance that on the 
 morning of June 9 he saw the ex-Mayor, Constable 
 Green and others opposite the post-ofiice. Green had 
 shown Lawyer Valentine a summons he had in favor of 
 the ex-Mayor, when the ex-Mayor came up and said • 
 
 ' You fool, you! What in did you do 
 
 that for, you? You don't know the first 
 
 rudiments of your _ nefarious business. You 
 
 have shown my private papers to nearly every 
 
 in Sing Sing.' They had quite a 
 
 wordy war, when Mr. Green asked the ex-Mayor why 
 he didn-t pay what he owed. The ex-Mayor replied 
 that he didn't owe anybody. • Yes, you do,' said 
 Green ; * you owe Kopp.' 
 
 " ' You are a lying » 
 
 replied the ex-Mayor. ' 
 
 " • What's that you say? ' yelled Green. * I'll run 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 you in for using cuss words on the streets.' With this 
 Green grabbed ex-Mayor Tompkins, but Tompkins 
 resisted, and they had a scuffle. Green got the best 
 of it, and reached in his pockets for his handcuffs. 
 Tompkins saw the motion and heard the click, and 
 
 demanded * What in are you going to do? ' ' Put 
 
 the handcuffs on you,' said Green. 'Oh, I'll go 
 along,' replied Tompkins. With that Green took the 
 ex-Mayor to the lock-up. 
 
 " This testimony was corroborated by three other 
 witnesses for the prosecution, when the ex-Mayor took 
 the stand for the defense. He admitted that the story 
 of the affair already told was true, and retired irom 
 the stand. He then called four witnesses to corrobo- 
 rate this statement, and rested. The respective sides 
 then summed up. Neither side ever alluded to the 
 evidence. 
 
 " The defense made its main point on the fact that 
 Constable Green had not succeeded in being appointed 
 Chief of Police, and the prosecution attacked the 
 character of ex-Mayor B. Gedney Tompkins with great 
 ferocity. The fact that he only got five votes as the 
 People's candidate for President and nine votes m a 
 Democratic caucus for Assessor, were enlarged upon, 
 and the fact that he was once elected President of the 
 village was passed over by the statement that the 
 bubbles and seeds sometimes came to the top. 
 
 " Judge Howe then charged the jury briefly, when 
 they retired. In five minutes they returned into court 
 with a verdict of not guilty, in spite of the fact that 
 the entire quota of witnesses agreed in their statements 
 about the case. As the crowd slowly moved down- 
 stairs, one said to another: 'Well, by , swearing 
 
 is legalized in Sing Sing.* ' I'll be if it is, 
 
 replied the other. ' Be still,' said Editor Moran, of 
 the RegzsUr; * don't -use such language.' 'Oh, you 
 talk.' said a bystander. * How long is it since I hcara 
 you cussin' like a pirate.' 'You never did,' said 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 165 
 
 Moran. * I never swear except when I hit my thumb 
 with a hammer, or while I am putting up stove-pipe, 
 or when I pi a whole galley; then I regard it as 
 permissible.' " 
 
 I take no pleasure in recording these things; but as 
 I desire to be just, I must show both sides of the 
 picture. 
 
 # # # * * * * 
 
 Gotham's execrably filthy streets cannot but strike 
 an observer with dismay, yet the Gothamites spend 
 fabulous sums of money to keep those otherwise ele- 
 gant avenues of trade and fashion clean. The street- 
 cleaning contractors grow wealthy by not doing the 
 work they are paid to do, perhaps to favor the numer- 
 ous bootblacks who swarm everywhere. This trade is 
 apparently now going into the hands of the little 
 Italians, and the former wits of Gotham are limiting 
 themselves to traffic in newspapers. 
 
 Some time ago a bootblack, one of that tribe that 
 represent our shoemaker's boy, was asked. 
 
 " What is the newest slang, Jimmy? '* 
 
 " Whatcher mean; in de trade? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, we ain't got no more use fur slang; de 
 I — talian scabs is doin' all de work for nex'ter nawthin'; 
 we don't hev no gall to fix up nawthin' new." 
 
 How insolently funny these little fellows were before 
 the / — talian influx made them sad, the following 
 shows: 
 
 A bootblack had just finished polishing a very large 
 pair of shoes, and after haggling for the price of his 
 labor with their stingy owner, noticed that the latter's 
 face was covered with pimples. 
 
 " What's dat ye got on yer face, mister? " asked the 
 boy in mock solicitude. 
 
 " Chicken-pox," answered the man, acridly, starting 
 ©ff. 
 
 *' Hey, Mike, Red, Sheeney, Fiddler, Nasty Mose, 
 11 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 pike the galoot; he's been gummin' a hen," screamed 
 the boy at once. 
 
 Mike, Red, Sheeney and Companyat once surrounded 
 the victim, shouting all sorts of derisive questions, con- 
 gratulations and paternal advice, escaping his kicks and 
 blows with remarkable agility. 
 
 Many of those little fellows who seem to revel in inso- 
 lent chaff, blackguardism, rags and chewing tobacco, 
 are heroes in their way, and their way is then not a bad 
 one. How many support a sick mother, a weak sister, 
 or even a drunken father! 
 
 I wish I could tell a tale properly, and convey the 
 pathos I experienced during my last stay in Gotham. 
 
 I observed the quiet demeanor of a little fellow who 
 blacked my shoes laboriously, and was pained to hear 
 his deep cough and see the glaring flush that sur- 
 mounted his ghastly face. He answered my questions 
 in the usual street vernacular, but gave no information 
 about himself. 
 
 I patronized him several times and the boys who 
 frequented the neighborhood quickly learned to know 
 me. Whenever I approached that part of the city 
 none of them offered their services, but hastily called: 
 
 " Sumpy,* here comes yer hiket Prince Imperial." 
 
 And then Sumpy would drag himself towards me, 
 saying feebly: " Shine, Mister?" 
 
 One day, as I neared the place, I was not announced 
 by Sumpy's numerous chamberlains. 
 
 I was surprised and advanced to seek my proteg^. 
 An urchin approached me and said in a hollow voice: 
 " Lookin' for Sumpy, Mr. Schwumpengubenhauser?" 
 
 " Yes, Red; where is he?" 
 
 " Dunno, Mr. Schwumpengubenhauser, where in 
 hell he is," the boy almost sobbed. 
 " What do you mean?" I asked. 
 " Well, you know, Sumpy was kind o' queer, de 
 
 *I presume it is a pet name for consumptioo. 
 +GwmRn; I know not whj. 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 damndest kind o' queer; an' so last night he was dam 
 
 fool enough to hand in his checks; rough, aint it 
 
 rough as hell." 
 
 " Do you mean that he is dead?" I asked. 
 
 " Deader'n hell; an' his poor old mam is just 
 squeakin' like a son of a gun — rough on de ol' gal, 
 an' she ain't got de rocks to plant him; so we fellers 
 won't see Sumpy go to de pottery (Potter's field); so 
 we had a meetin' an' a caucus an' we resolutioned dat 
 we'd chip in all we make to-day an' give de son of a 
 gun a big plant; dat's de kind of cullyflowers we is 
 betcher life. " 
 
 His doleful voice precluded the possibility of a smile 
 at his, to say the least, curious speech. I asked per- 
 mission to contribute to Sumpy's burial fund. My 
 interlocutor looked at me suspiciously, and then said: 
 " Whatcher givin' us?" 
 
 " A square deal," I ventured, as a first attempt at 
 Gotham slang, taking forth a note." 
 
 "Hey, Mike, Red, Sheeney — hey, hey — old 
 Schwumpengubenhauser's chippin' in a sawbuck for 
 Sumpy's plant." The boy yelled it lustily, methinks, 
 to hide his emotion, for what else could the tears on 
 his dirty face mean? 
 
 " De hell he is," muttered the crowd that assembled 
 quickly. One took the bill, expectorated on it, and 
 put it into a box that contained a goodly number of 
 small coins. Then another came forward and said in 
 a defiant manner: 
 
 " Mr. Schwumpengubenhauser, Sumpy's caved an' 
 de rest of us is toughs from way-back Toughville. 
 We kin nail hell outen anything 'leven times our size 
 ^now, if dere's eny feller wot don't giveyer a square 
 deal, you jest let us know — ye hear me!" 
 
 I was compelled to avoid that neighborhood ever 
 afterwards; all of " de gang" battled to polish my 
 shoes and show me all possible attention, even to offer- 
 ing to carry messages of which my wife should know 
 
l6S HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 nothing, and with the dear understanding that no 
 coxnpensation would be accepted from me. 
 
 I learned that poor little Sumpy had dubbed me 
 Schwumpengubenhauser, and that is the name that 
 will be perpetuated by " de gang," as long as it with- 
 stands I — talian competition. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Shortly before my last trip to Gotham, I spent an 
 evening at a friend's house, where I met a Mr. Samuel 
 Jabocy, of Gotham. Mr. Jabocy had gone to Gotham 
 while quite a young man, with a large stock of energy, 
 brains and a good education. His industry and honor, 
 with his other qualities, bore their legitimate results; 
 he is now the Honorable Mr. Jabocy, treasurer of one 
 of the largest commercial exchanges in the world and 
 president of several financial associations, and withal 
 a most respected and honored member of Gotham 
 society. His title " Honorable" was forced upon him 
 by election to a public post he had not sought. 
 
 He sat near a pompous old gentleman whose ideas 
 of Gotham were crude enough to suit any bigot who 
 sees no good outside of the circle whereof his short 
 nose is the radius. 
 
 "Do tell us," said my countryman, "are life and 
 property really safe in Gotham?" 
 
 " Not at all," answered Mr. Jabocy, winking at me, 
 as he spoke. " Indeed, you see we have our trousers 
 xia.de with two hip-pockets, in each of which we carry 
 a revolver; besides we strap a bowie-knife or two 
 around our waists and we carry very heavy canes to 
 protect ourselves." 
 
 " Did I not tell you so?" exclaimed my countryman 
 in exultation. 
 
 " I must add, however, "continued Mr. Jabocy, " that 
 we complete our garments in that bellicose manner 
 when we go into the disreputable districts, which are 
 mainly inhabited by foreigners, recent arrivals. Such 
 things are not necessary in the regions where Gotham- 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 i6g 
 
 ites and Gothamized foreigners live; they are the 
 reputable parts of our village. " 
 
 My countryman could not have looked more flat if 
 an elephant had sat upon him. 
 
 I should like to know what allows those silly ideas 
 of Gotham to be perpetuated. It never was a lawless 
 city; more crimes are committed by foreigners there 
 than by natives, and the number of crimes is smaller 
 than those committed in our own country. If we re- 
 member our readiness to ship our paupers and outcasts 
 to Gotham, the comparison is not at all flattering to us. 
 I deem it well to cease considering the matter further. 
 I love my country and its institutions; but, if beside 
 the exchange of commercial commodities, we could 
 barter our good points for those of the Gothamites, I 
 think that we would be the gainers. 
 
 I am very anxious that none of my countrymen con- 
 tinue to pose as ignorami — that will do for the French, 
 whose briUiancy is quite properly confined to La 
 grande Nation — cataplum! 
 
 Speaki^ig of the French recalls that colossal work of 
 art, the Bartholdi statue. Mr. Bartholdi first offered 
 it, for a fair price, as a figure of Science to embeUish 
 and illuminate the Suez Canal. For some reason, the 
 unappreciative somebody — my friend, the Count de 
 Lesseps, perhaps — declined the work. Then it was 
 rechristened " Liberty Enlightening the World," and as 
 such was purchased by France and presented to Gotham. 
 The gift-statue was accepted, and then Gotham, 
 with its many unoccupied millions, found it difficult to 
 gather sufficient money to build a pedestal for Mrs. 
 Bronze Liberty. 
 
 Repubhcs are proverbially ungrateful; but I believe 
 it is due the Gothamites to state that many of them, as 
 individuals, endeavor to manifest gratefulness to France 
 for the Bartholdi statue. Most curious means were 
 employed to raise money to defray the expenses of a 
 pedestal 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 I copy the following from several Gotham papers 
 published shortly after President Cleveland's election' 
 I do not copy the names, as I cannot imagine that the 
 perpetuation of such records can be agreeable to the 
 parties concerned. 
 
 ELECTION BETS. 
 
 atH't J^''^^^ ^S^d 17. daughter of 
 
 Mr. M., bet Mr. Joseph J., the flour merchant, that 
 Mr. Blaine would be elected, and yesterday she paid 
 her bet, despite Mr. J.'s offer to let her off. The set- 
 tlement was as follows: Mr. J. sat in a wheelbarrow 
 Miss Jessica pushed the barrow through Broadway 
 from Fifty-fourth Street down to Fourteenth. They were 
 preceded by a band of music and followed by a number 
 of Miss Jessica's friends carrying tin cups, which they 
 extended to the crowds that viewed the scene, begging 
 for contributions to the Bartholdi Statue fund Three 
 hundred and thirty-six dollars and four cents were 
 collected. 
 
 Mr. Andrew L. bet on Blaine. 
 He was sorry for it yesterday. 
 Mr. John D. was glad. 
 
 At least he looked so, when he stood before the 
 large banking-house, surrounded by his friends, who 
 acted as a guard of honor to Mr. L. 
 
 Mr. L. ground " Sweet Violets " from, or rather on 
 an organ. . ' 
 
 Mr. D. and his friends collected money from all who 
 stood still to see a gentleman in full evening dress and 
 silk hat grinding out " Sweet Violets. " 
 
 "Sweet Vio-lets " — bah! 
 
 The Bartholdi fund was enriched by two hundred 
 and sixty-eight dollars and twenty-four cents in 
 consequence. 
 
 Mr.- L felt the absurdity of his position keenly 
 Perhaps he felt the absurdity of having bet on and 
 voted for Blaine more keenly. 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 171 
 
 The reporter asked. 
 
 "The deuce, no," answered Mr. L. ; " but what is 
 killing me is to have to hear that confounded " Sweet 
 Vio-lets " all day, and know that I am doing it. 
 Merciful heavens, will evening never cornel " 
 
 Evening came, and the questionable melody was 
 driven from the unfortunate better's memory by his 
 ex-tormentors to the tune of " Andy L. is a Jolly Good 
 Fellow." 
 
 Delmonico's was the place. 
 
 And champagne was the cause. 
 
 The journals contained many more notices Hke these. 
 Finally, the World showed its power and influence by 
 raising the required sum by popular subscription, and 
 the other Gotham journals were eloquently silent over 
 their inability to do likewise, or their lack of energy 
 and enterprise. 
 
 * # * * * # * 
 
 I know that I say many things in this book that may 
 cost me dear; they hurt, because they are true. I 
 shall say a few words now that will surely bring upon 
 me the contumely of every seaport in the world that 
 produces oysters. Well, I am willing to die in support 
 of the opinion that the oysters from Gotham are the 
 most luscious, fat and best-tasting in the world. The 
 best are almost brittle, large, delicate, and — with a trifle 
 of salt and some lemon-juice — Oh, ye gods and little 
 fishes — slubberebubbub — yes, I am willing to die, 
 provided I am fed to death on Gotham oysters. 
 
 Stranger, if you would enjoy life, go to Gotham 
 during the months that employ an R in their spelling; 
 but if you must go in May, June, July or August, eat 
 oysters. If you do not like them, learn to, and then 
 you will thank me for the advice. But eat them raw 
 ©nly, and add nothing to them except salt and lemon- 
 juice; you will bless me for the advice. 
 . It is said that Tennyson, after swallowing a Gotham 
 
1/2 
 
 HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 oyster that weighed something less than a pound, said 
 that he felt as if he had swallowed a cold baby. Then 
 cold baby as a steady diet must be inexpressibly good 
 I revel m our national dishes. I believe that they 
 keep us free from the " American disease," dyspepsia- 
 but if the Americans would hmit their food to the 
 Gotham oyster, they might lay in bed as long as thev 
 choose, and still be "healthy, wealthy and wise " 
 
 Oh those oysters — !!!!!! That is all I can 
 say about them, as individuals. Their influence, how- 
 ever, on those who grow too intimate with them is 
 curious and resembles only that exercised by bicycles 
 It may look flippant, and certainly would be unjust to 
 oysters, to contrast them with bicycles. I am not 
 discussing them, but the influence that excessive inti- 
 macy with them produces. I have watched the faces of 
 oyster-openers and of bicycle-riders ; the expression 
 IS the same. It has nothing fierce, but is a picture 
 rather of determination, coupled with a sad silence 
 Who ever saw a loquacious, jolly oyster-opener, or a 
 talkative, joyous bicycle-rider? Nobody. Therefore 
 to whatever straits I may be driven, I will never adopt 
 either occupation, despite the opportunities for the 
 display of grace and agility they offer. I would 
 rather write a book like this, and have myself drawn 
 and quartered by the critics in consequence. There ' 
 are some mitigating features to the latter torture for 
 one critic or another may read the book, and then a 
 fellow-feeling may make them wondrous kind. 
 
 So much for oysters, bicycles and critics, all of 
 which flourish in Gotham. 
 
 By the way, would it not be dreadful if the critics 
 should be afflicted with silence after reading this book? 
 Do not let me bark myself to death, dear Critic — 
 please don't. Let me lay the flattering unction to my 
 pen that I can make a stir of some kind, even if it be 
 only as a crank {vide Inventions). 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 The Jews need no apologist or vindicator; if they 
 did, they have too much talent in their race to require 
 the services of any one outside of it. Gotham has 
 numerous Jews of all kinds and one would think that 
 they would see to it that their religion does not suffer 
 the continued abuse that is heaped upon it in a most 
 curious way. It is a notorious and disagreeable fact, 
 that the Jews are woefully sensitive; and in a measure 
 this is expHcable, but why do they submit to having 
 their rehgion associated with crime, as the Gotham 
 press is very industrious in doing? Why do they not 
 exert their great power to prevent the appearance of 
 statements like these: 
 
 Moses Titschebacher, a Pohsh Jew, was arrested for 
 complicity in the Western Bank robbery. 
 
 Isaac Jacobsohn, a Hungarian Semite, is on trial for 
 swindhng the clothing-trade. 
 
 Benjamin Kalbsberg, a Russian Israelite, was arrested 
 by Officer O'Halloran for keeping an unHcensed pawn- 
 shop. 
 
 It is undeniable that a Jew in Russia is a Russian, 
 in France he is a Frenchman, in Gotham he is a Goth- 
 amite, and our war with France showed that we had 
 no reason to bje ashamed of our Jewish soldiers, I do 
 not recall any prominent Jewish warriors of this age, 
 but S cience. Art, Literature, Politics and Finance are 
 replete with Jewish names. Perhaps, then, when few 
 Jews overstep the bounds of the law, it is necessary to 
 mention the fact, lest the world at large judge that the 
 Jews are all saints. They are not; there are as con- 
 temptible, despicable people among the Jews as there 
 are among any other people, and the Jews have as 
 many, or perhaps proportionately more, bright, honest 
 minds, than other folks. 
 
 I object to the Jews being considered a race, for they 
 are not distinctive any more. The Jews who support 
 this idea are too tenacious of old prejudices, and they 
 are the ones who make the race prejudice; they are to 
 
174 
 
 HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 blame for the rantings of our old imbecile Pastor 
 Stocker, as they are to blame for that little rankling 
 feeling that is manifest in the clippings from the 
 Gotham press I have just cited. 
 
 That great institution, the " Press," especially the 
 American press, which I cannot cease to admire, should 
 be above such smallness, or at least let it be consistent 
 and publish its notices thus: 
 
 John Johnes, a Connecticut Methodist, was arrested 
 for sheep-steaHng. 
 
 Tom Brine, a California Calvinist, was hung for 
 murder. 
 
 Mike McFadden, an Irish Catholic, is in the Toombs, 
 waiting trial for violation of the excise (liquor) laws. 
 
 Peter Funk, a Gotham Episcopalian, has been 
 indicted by the grand jury for atrocious murder. 
 
 Tom Jones, a devout Dutch Lutheran from Wales, 
 was arrested for obtaining money under false pretenses. 
 
 A few Jews sandwiched among these will render the 
 report as spicy as may be desired, and will be just. 
 As the funeral advertisements say: " The Gotham 
 press will please to notice." 
 
 I thought I had said enough of the intolerance that 
 stains the grand, broad Hberalism of Gotham, but did 
 not expect to find it confirmed with such an exquisite 
 piece of the refinement of bigotry as is seen in the fol- 
 lowing advertisement which I cut from the Gotham 
 World of June 20, 1885: 
 
 TO GENTILES— Tappan Zee House, South Nvack, on the Hudson 
 — one hour from city, two minutes from depot — havmg changed hands 
 and been thoroughly renovated and refurnished, is now open for guests. 
 Large grounds, elegantly laid out in lawns sloping to the river; fine salt- 
 water bathmg, boating, etc. The house is kept in the very best style, 
 bpecial rates to parties coming early and remaining the entire season. 
 Send for circular. 
 
 C. E. Monroe, 
 
 Proprietor. 
 W. P. Monroe, 
 
 Manager. 
 
 From the Hebrew Journal. 
 We expected it ! The " No Tews Wanted " man has made his appear- 
 ance at last. His name is C. E. Monroe, and he runs the Tappan Zee 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 House at Nyack. But he is more refined than his fellow-bigots, and heads 
 his advertisement with the words, "To Gentiles." Mr. Monroe is, un- 
 doubtedly, a sensitive man and dislikes to wound the feelings of his Jewish 
 citizens. But Mr. Monroe ought to emigrate. If we hear of a good opening 
 for a hotel in Russia, Roumania or Morocco, we will be pleased to make 
 him aware of the fact. 
 
 Even our rabid pastor, Stocker, has not been guilty 
 of such vileness. His attacks, disgracing Christianity 
 and humanity as they do, are rabid and clearly appear 
 the outpourings of a debased and cruel mind; while 
 this Monroe fellow, with greater intelligence, indulges 
 in his spite that makes us ashamed of our religion — be 
 it Christianity or Humanity. 
 
 Justice, however, compels me to criticise the very 
 bad taste of The Hebrezv Journal (if there is such a 
 paper) in doing anything else than treat the bigot with 
 the silent contempt he deserves. " A snarling dog will 
 bark himself to death if left alone," I believe a Hebrew 
 proverb says; but if the Jews continue to pay any heed 
 to such fellows, they only invite and develop the abuse 
 that narrow minds delight in. It is, however, a sad 
 commentary upon the inteUigence of the Gothamites 
 of all stamps, shades and faiths. 
 
 ******** 
 
 The taste in dress and grace in motion of the fair 
 Gothamites has been commented upon, I am glad to 
 say that this extends to the privacy of the home. 
 Slovens are the exception ; a Gotham lady of whatever 
 social grade she be, is always presentable, even in her 
 wrapper. Be that garment of cheap material or of the 
 costliest, it always fits well. 
 
 Starch is the Gothamite's most striking characteristic, 
 and it is after dinner to a painful degree. I wonder 
 how a Gotham lover can visit his adored one and have 
 the heart to embrace her. He must do so in fear of 
 crushing so much loveliness and starch. 
 
 Yes, starch, for starch seems to be the great, growing 
 impediment ; — I have attempted to dry my hands 
 on starched towels, and have not prayed in conse- 
 
176 
 
 HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 quence. If I were writing that fair Gothamites might 
 read, I would not speak of starch, because it calls 
 shirts to mind, and the aforesaid fair Gothamites are 
 presumed to be ignorant of the fact that a man wears 
 a shirt. 
 
 By the way, if you wish well-fitting shirts, have 
 them measured and made in Gotham. The shirt- 
 makers there are sensible, for they sew no buttons on 
 the garment ; a man there is saved the pain of railing 
 at his wife for his buttonless shirt, for it has only 
 button-holes, and he is presumed to possess a number 
 of that kind of buttons that can be put in and removed. 
 This is good, for it prevents his losing his temper ; it 
 would be excellent if some one were to invent some- 
 thing whereby linen would need no repairs whatever ; 
 for if the fair Gothamite does not like to sew on but- 
 tons, she grows frantic over the necessity to darn, I 
 have been told. 
 
 When a shirt is received from the shirt-maker, it is 
 white, glossy, but, oh, so stiff! limiting one's motions 
 and exasperating one's temper. But the wearer should 
 not be rash, lest his execrations become exhausted 
 before the proper time, which occurs when one's gar- 
 ments are returned from a laundry. The entire- body 
 is starched as stiffly as is the bosom, and if the prime 
 condition of the shirt suggested a straight-jacket, it 
 now is a little less than a coffin. 
 
 In winter this is unbearable, despite the intense 
 cold ; but in summer, when Gotham notoriously pro- 
 duces the greatest heat in the world, it is terrible. It 
 is one of the Gothamite's peculiarities that he willingly 
 submits to torture. In that land of liberty a gentleman 
 dare not dress comfortably, despite the good example 
 given him by the numerous Chinese ; they know how 
 to dress. The Chinese, in their wide, light pajamas, 
 must laugh as they starch the Gothamite's clothes, to 
 do them up " allee same Melica laundly. " 
 
 Starch is the prevailing torture: starch in garments, 
 
HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 177 
 
 in tidies that make furniture unapproachable; starch 
 extends its influence on society at large and stiffens 
 what would otherwise be most pleasant social inter- 
 course. 
 
 Really, I do not see how a man can bend over to 
 whisper sweet nothings to his charmer while propped 
 up by his board-like linen. And then, how must an 
 embrace feel when he presses her starched form to hi^ 
 starched bosom! 
 
 *#******** 
 
 I wonder if a really good, comprehensive definition 
 of conscience can be given. The Gotham conscience 
 is peculiar, and I will not say of it that remorse enters 
 into it as a very strong factor, as some English writer 
 called remorse " mental dyspepsia. " I am really sorry 
 that I do not remember that writer's name; he would 
 be so convenient to hold up to obloquy or to souse in 
 panegyric as the humor takes me; I must let him rest 
 in peace. 
 
 Conscience in Gotham has led to the establishment 
 of a municipal conscience-fund, to which all may con- 
 tribute, and many do, even with compound interest, 
 after having swindled or defrauded the city. Occa- 
 sionally the sums paid in are quite large, and so recog- 
 nized is the fact that a regular form of receipt therefor 
 is used. Of course the payer's name is not mentioned 
 in the receipt, but the pleasant legal fiction of John 
 Doe is made the payer, thus: 
 
 Office of the Collector of Taxes, ) 
 
 Gotham, — , 188 — . > 
 
 Received this day from John Doe the sum of $ 
 
 as conscience money on account of personal tax of said 
 
 John Doe, overdue for some years. 
 
 , Collector. 
 
 ##******** 
 
 And now, what a muHtude of things crowd upon me! 
 
1/8 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Things I should have said and things I should have 
 left unsaid. 
 
 As the reader is my judge, he will decide whether 
 the defects shall be made up in another volume on 
 what is to me a pleasant, happy recollection, dear, 
 naughty, good, bad, great, purile, indescribable 
 Gotham ; a return to its hospitable shores is full of 
 blissful anticipations, and a departure from them hap- 
 piness, because of the hope that I may return soon. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 If the perusal of this book deters a single one of 
 my countrymen from visiting Gotham, then I shall have 
 failed in my purpose. 
 
 If any one who has looked towards Gotham with a 
 view to seeking a home where honest, serious labor 
 would receive just appreciation, and because of a single 
 line in the preceding pages has resolved not to go to 
 that modern marvel, then I shall regret having written 
 this book. 
 
 If any one shall speak ill of the Gothamites, because 
 of the freaks, notions and caprices of some of them, 
 as herein detailed, then I must deplore the stupidity 
 that forgets that " those who live in glass houses must 
 not throw stones." 
 
 Gotham's criminal statistics are not produced herein, 
 for an excellent reason. I do not wish my countrymen 
 to know how much better the Gothamites are than 
 they. 
 
 Gotham's buildings, parks, statues and public grand- 
 eur are not discussed, because it would hardly be fair 
 to compare the work of an infant barely a century old 
 with the adult, with its moss-grown maturity of several 
 centuries. It would not be fair, I repeat, but it would 
 be a just reproof to our slow old towns and should 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 179 
 
 make them blush with shame that young Gotham excels 
 its seniors in almost every particular. 
 
 There is a species of consolation in the fact that our 
 Gothamized countrymen and women have had so much 
 to do with the prodigious amazing development of 
 that city by the sea. 
 
 This book is very small, I know; but it is intended, 
 as the Gothamites say, " as a feeler." If the pubUsher 
 finds the work lucrative he will order another, and 
 another, and still more of books like this to be com- 
 pleted. 
 
 I have enough notes on Gotham to write fifty books 
 of this size, and all filled with matter fully as interesting 
 as I deem that I have herein mentioned. 
 
 You, good reader, will decide whether this is my 
 last appearance as an observer of men, matters and 
 morals of Gotham, 
 
 THE END. 
 
i 
 
 I