Part 2

Under the genial, affable, and generous Joseph Gales, of the National Intelligencer, James Watson Webb is the senior editor of our country, and James Gordon Bennett is close at his heels, whose venerable and majestic forms will soon descend the dismal steps of the tomb, and their extraordinary souls appear in the awful presence of a Judge, from whom there is no appeal. Solemn thought! and almost paralysing in its contemplation. Webb was born in America, and Bennett on the mountains of Scotland, where one of his parents survives, to enjoy the success and protection of her faithful son. With James Watson Webb we never exchanged a word, which we can scarcely realise in view of our intimate relations, for twenty years, with other metropolitan editors. But with James Gordon Bennett we have had the closest relations, and we proclaim, with no ordinary emotions of pleasure, that he has treated us more like a brother than a stranger. In our memorable mnemotechnic controversy with Professor Francis Fauvel Gouraud, in 1843, when almost every editor in America was arrayed against us, and eternal ruin seemed inevitable, James Gordon Bennett came to our rescue, and, with George W. Kendall, of the New Orleans Picayune, George D. Prentice, of the Louisville Journal, and Mrs. Walters, of the Boston Transcript, we were sublimely victorious in that scholastic disputation. In consideration of his magnanimous conduct, we wrote to the _Herald_ about one hundred columns from Panama and California, when the civilized world was rocked, to its profoundest basis, with the dazzling gold discoveries, and on our return, he gave us money, and ever cheered us in our illness and penury. When we wrote the inflammatory Report of the noble Alfred Carson, against the Common Council of 1850, we gave it to Mr. Bennett, to the exclusion of the other editors, because he had been true in our adversity, when the hands of all mankind seemed uplifted to annihilate our pale and feeble frame. We had boarded with Horace Greeley, for seven years, at the Graham House, in Barclay street, and all our relations had been of the most friendly character; and yet we deemed it our sacred duty to send our Pilgrim letters to Mr. Bennett, and also give him Carson’s famous Report, to the exclusion of Greeley, because Bennett’s fidelity was next to our Father’s. Greeley was a formidable candidate for the Mayoralty, when Carson’s Report appeared, and if we had given it to him instead of Bennett, he would have been the successor of Mayor Woodhull. But in giving it to Bennett for publication one day in advance of Greeley, so exasperated the latter against Carson and ourself, that he attacked the Report like a ferocious bull dog, and slew himself, whose name was hardly whispered in the Mayoralty Convention that soon followed. Alderman Morgan Morgans, (President of the Board of Aldermen,) Alderman Robert H. Hawes, Alderman George H. Franklin, and Mayor Woodhull himself were also candidates. But as they were all severely denounced in Carson’s Report, for discharging culprits without examination or trial, and for other offences common to Aldermen in those days, they were all rejected by the Convention, when the oily Ambrose C. Kingsland entered the arena, and was nominated and easily elected, which proved to be the saddest municipal calamity of that period, as he was in collusion throughout his term with official scoundrels, and made more money than any Mayor who preceded him, as one of our Aldermanic pupils often assured us; and if Kingsland will publicly deny our accusations, we will adduce our informant’s name, and paralyse him. And to be briefly explicit, our informant was connected with Kingsland and Draper’s operations to rob the city of the Gansevoort property. Kingsland’s appointment of Matsell as Chief of Police partially corroborates the assertion of the Alderman who imparted his precious information. Kingsland’s appointment of Matsell was effected thus: According to his custom, with Mayors elect, Matsell invited Kingsland to a ride into the Metropolitan suburbs, on the morning after his election, and in passing a gaudy edifice, the Brandon Chieftain halted and exclaimed: “Kingsland, my boy, is not that a fascinating mansion?” Kingsland crimsoned, and gazed rapiers and scabbards, and in baffled accents, mildly ejaculated in the expressive language of Jemmy Twitcher: “Vell, vot of it?” “O, nothing,—only I thought I would inquire how you enjoyed yourself in its rainbow halls on Friday evening last. And, by the way, how about the appointment of Chief of Police? Have you resolved whom to appoint?” “Certainly I have. You well know my ancient love for you, and that you are my choice for Chief, beyond any being living or dead. I was elected to eject you, but I shan’t do it, my boy. ‘Thou art the man!’ Ha, ha, ha! Give us your hand, old boy. Ha, ha, ha! A very fine day, ain’t it Matsell?” “Kingsland, you have really got a magnificent Palace in the Fifth Avenue, but I think your front parlor requires a five thousand dollar clock, to render it thoroughly gorgeous and enchanting.” “Chief, what in the name of mud are you driving at?” “I am driving for my life to Burnham’s, for his choicest brandy and Ice Cream.”

More delicious Ice Cream next week.

Our Country’s Ruin.

The seed of wide-spread corruption is culminating here, at Albany, and Washington, with the velocity of light, (which is about two hundred thousand miles per second,) which may rend the Union to fragments during the present generation. And the present leaders of parties will be the immediate cause of our country’s downfall, through their sly winks and blinks at the robbers of their respective parties, to seize the public booty to elect their municipal, State, and national officers. Horace Greeley, with all his professions of purity, justice and humanity, will shield an anti-slavery thief at every peril of his conscience, and scourge the thieves of all other parties like Tacitus, or Diogenes, and so will the leaders of the American and Democratic parties. It is not the struggle for the boundaries of slavery and freedom that will rend this Union to atoms, but the miserable, thievish, aspiring, and traffic politicians who use the Negro and Satan, to seize the public treasure and official honors. It is the ungodly grab of lazy men for gilded booty, to enable them to revel in indolence, and control the elections and magic wires of all the parties, that will consummate our dissolution and eternal ruin. And Greeley and Bryant know this, and so does that puritannical, mercenary, penurious, white handkerchief’d, and stiff-necked old Presbyterian, Gerard Hallock, of the Journal of Commerce, and those thieves of thieves, and Catalinian conspirators, and overshadowing plunderers, Simeon Draper and Thurlow Weed, whom God, or man, or fiend should drive to the wilderness, or smite from the face of the earth, and, if possible, from its profoundest bowels. For their stabs at the heart of our free institutions, and their pernicious example to the youth of this generation, they should be hurled from the summit of the Rocky mountains. There is no honor or patriotism in these demons. If there were, they would rally like our Fathers for the preservation of our glorious Union, and the Municipal, State and National Treasuries, whose plunder they counsel and shield in the infamous persons of their political confederates, and share their spoils in darkness, with only the Devil present, but the Great Invisible in the awful distance, whose retribution will be terrible when it comes, beyond the grave; and worms may partially devour their vile carcases, before they die, as with Biddle and Nero, and Caliglula. All leaders of parties are plunderers, and thus directly advocate the subversion of our liberties and the public dishonor. God, alone, from the Revolution to the present hour, has shielded the Americans from foreign and domestic adversaries, with his beneficent arms expanded over our fertile vales, and fields, and plains, and forests, and noble mountains, and has rescued us from the Burrs and Arnolds, and Goths and Vandals, who strive to paralise our progress in a pure and sacred civilization. But our disunion and subversion are as inevitable as the advent of the morning sun, unless some Washington, or Cincinnatus, or Brutus the First come forth, and stab the incarnate devils down, and trample their worthless bodies in the dust. Thieves, rapes, incendiaries, assassins, and traitors teem like the Egyptian locusts throughout our borders, and the odious vices, and bloody strife, and crumbling ruins, and all the horrors and havoc and universal chaos of the Roman Empire, and other ancient States, will be our awful doom, unless the wisdom, and virtue, and firmness of our country rally in the Forum, and impart the principles of integrity and patriotism to the people, and immolate the leading scoundrels and traitors of the age. Thus only can we avert the overshadowing evils that flit like midnight spectres through every street and habitation, and will soon spread through every meritorious fireside. And thus only can we avert the execrations of our posterity, for being recreant to the Roman Fathers of the Revolution, and for not resisting with our lives, the barbarians of the present generation.

NICE AND MODEST.—The son and son-in-law of Peter Cooper as Mayor and Street Commissioner of the largest city of the Western Hemisphere, worth half a million per annum.

Aminidab Sleek, (Without a shriek For freedom, Or bleed ’em, Or Sodom, Or Gotham,) Could make that sum at least, And for life have a feast. The office-holding Coopers Are worse than the Hoopers, So fat grow they, On pap all day, Throughout the year, Which seems so queer, For Reformers, Or Performers, Which was always so, In this vale of dough: Our eyes are wo! O! O!! O!!!

Dev’l-in a Bakery.

Hawes, the New York baker, says: “Branch, do you know Charley Devlin?” “Yes.” “Well, Branch, I was a baker apprentice with him, and also a journeyman. He was burned and floated out of his bakery in the Fourth Ward some years since, and he desired to bake for his customers in my oven until his own was repaired. I, of course, consented. Subsequently, he became a primary politician, and for several years past has besought me to sell my bakery, and become a contractor. I hesitated for a long period, but last year, (finding that he had acquired wealth very fast,) I resolved to dispose of my bakery, and join him as a contractor. A neighbor learned my purpose, who assured me that, to his sorrow, in early life he was a politician, and that if I joined Devlin as a contractor, I would be compelled to take at least three false oaths a day throughout the year, (for which people are sent to States Prison ten years, and forever lose their suffrage,) which so alarmed me, that I abandoned my intention and narrowly escaped the portals of a dungeon, and the loss of my patronage as a baker, and my reputation as an honorable man, for which I devoutly thank the Great Disposer of Events.” We congratulated our honest friend Hawes, and warned him to beware of the Dev’l-in a bakery.

THE HAPPY FAMILY.—How cunning for Peter Cooper and Mayor Tiemann to send Hopeful to the Democratic General Committee, and beat Elijah F. Purdy by one vote for Chairman; and then for Daniel and Edward (the sons of Peter) to turn up Mayor and Street Commissioner. It is the more cunning, as Peter Cooper and Daniel F. Tiemann have held Municipal offices since 1828, and now, with Hopeful, have two of the most lucrative and honorable offices in America. In view of all this, Peter can well afford to give two or three upper stories of a Bowery edifice to the city for educational purposes, without feeling it very keenly. Besides, the immortality of the gift is of some moment. Verily, the Tiemanns and Coopers should be a very Happy Family; and if Death do not confuse and thwart their successful and extraordinary tactics, as with poor Joseph S. Taylor, (who, with all his faults, had a heart as big as a mountain,) they will doubtless acquire sufficient from the public teats, which they have sucked so long, to render them comfortable in their superannuation.

For Pale Students, and Romantic Virgins.

In 1780, Washington defrayed the educational expenses of a youth, who was an immediate descendent of Pocahontas, and procured his passage to Scotland, where he became a student in its noble highlands. In his class were two youths, whom he loved with enthusiastic fondness. One was from Damascus, and the other from the Oriental Empire, who was born beneath the native village skies of Confucius, to whom he traced his blood. On the eve of graduation, and just prior to their departure for the remotest portions of the globe, they fondly rambled in the woods and groves, where they oft had wandered, and ascended majestic mountains, on whose celestial peaks, (with the pale moon in her zenith roaming,) they sung these pensive lines, in their favorite Alpine bowers:

When shall we three meet again? When shall we three meet again? Oft shall glowing hope expire; Oft shall wearied love retire; Oft shall death and sorrow reign, Ere we three do meet again.

Though in distant lands we sigh, Parched beneath a hostile sky; Though the deep between us rolls, Friendship shall unite our souls; Long may this loved bower remain; Here may we three meet again.

When the dreams of life have fled; When its wasted lamp is dead; When in cold oblivion’s shade, Beauty, wealth and power are laid; Where immortal spirits reign, There may we three meet again.

They soon departed for their respective countries, and never met again! Alas!

“The human heart, like the muffled drum, Is ever beating funeral marches to the grave!”

WANTED—Temperate, energetic, and impulsive young men to canvass the city for the Alligator, who can be carriers on those routes where they obtain subscribers. There are thousands of masters and misses, and fathers and mothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers who will take the Alligator. So, young men, off with your coats, and fly through the city like a tornado, for subscribers to the Alligator. And first visit the Astor, Saint Nicholas, Metropolitan, Lafarge, Everett, and other splendid Restaurants and Oyster Saloons, not one of whose proprietors will refuse the Alligator. But if they should, just let us know, and we may, in our wrath, blight their custom with our fatal jaw. And visit the Reverend Doctors Potts and Taylor, and see Brown, the fancy Sexton, and ask the loan of his magic whistle, which will guide you to victory like a wand of enchantment. If Potts and Taylor salute you like Diogenes, and Brown declines his festive and mausoleum whistle, we may haunt them with a peep through their private windows on the first dark and boisterous midnight. So, boys, look aloft, and arouse yourselves, and select your own routes without our consultation, until you desire our Alligators to serve your ecstatic patrons.

The following was written, in 1854, by Stephen H. Branch, for Ald. Orison Blunt, then Alderman of the Third Ward, but is now Supervisor from the Fifteenth Ward:

Captain Robert Creighton: Sir: I am authorized by the Corporation of the City of New York to extend to you the Freedom of the City, together with a gold box, as a testimonial of their regard for you. I might linger on the thrilling incidents connected with your fidelity to suffering humanity, from the moment you discovered the San Francisco, until you rescued from a watery grave, more than 200 distracted beings. I might touchingly allude to your tears from day to day, as witnessed by your sailors, because you could not sooner relieve the unfortunate. I might speak of the fearful responsibility you assumed in violating the insurance of your ship and valuable cargo, by deviating from your specific course; of your fearful perils amid the howling tempest; of the four inch stream of water pouring in upon you, which caused both pumps to be constantly wrought before you discovered the wreck; of the disadvantages of four hundred tons of iron, and large quantities of merchandise, in a ship of only seven hundred tons burthen; of the loss of every sail before you saw the wreck, save your foresail and mainsail. I might dwell on these historical truths, and on your affectionate regard for the rescued, but I forbear. All this, and even more, is on every tongue, and uttered around every fireside, and cannot be glorified by me. The contemplation of the good you have effected will ever be a delightful solace to you, and your humanity will be a precious inheritance to your consanguinity. The wives and children of those whose lives you have preserved will ever love you, and transmit your name to their farthest posterity. The mariners of every ocean will strive to imitate your meritorious example. The noble youth of our country will read of your heroic deeds, and resolve to emulate your manly virtues. Little children already lisp your name in terms of praise. Tears of gratitude are freely shed for you by either sex, and fervent prayers go up to Heaven from the habitations of all this land, that your valuable life may be long preserved, and that health, happiness, and prosperity may ever be your lot. And your name will be revered by coming generations, when every being who beholds the sun of this day, shall be a tenant of the tomb!

Advent Record—One dollar a line.

George W. Matsell was born in Brandon, England, and weighed 15 pounds at birth, and won the first premium at the Brandon Baby Show. Robert Dale Owen visited Brandon on the day after his birth, and gave him some sugar plums and a silver porringer.

Richard B. Connolly was born in Bandon, Ireland, (R., for Rogue, being the only difference between Matsell and Connolly’s birthplace), 20 miles west of Cork, and will leave with his parents for Independence Hall, Philadelphia, where he will be naturalized. Richard is a handsome and promising child, and opened his expressive eyes and sweetly smiled, and said Mum and Pap when two days old, when his astounded Mum dropped him into the lap of Bridget, and screamed and swooned and fell and rose with dishevelled hair and projected tongue and frothy mouth and distended nostrils and run into the neighbors, with Pap after her with gigantic strides. Three days after birth, little Dick said

Slippery- Dicery, Hickory- Trickery,

when his confounded Mum scampered to the Fortune Teller, and Pap to the Physician for worm seed, and to the Nurse of the Infant Lunatic Asylum, for a strait-jacket for the little scamp, when the medicine and jacket soothed him into a gentle slumber, with Mum and Pap slowly expiring on his precocious lips.

And as he lay, All the lone day, In a cradle, Like a stable,

in his starts and stitches and solliloquies, he often roared to Pap and Mum the words “County Clerk,” “Contractor,” “Silent Alms House Governor,” “Ex-officio Record Commissioner,” “Comptroller,” and inquired for Simeon Draper,

Whose clerk he would like to be, In the land beyond the sea, Called the Free America, Where there’s “lots of trickery.”

Dickey may be a model Comptroller, unless he prematurely dies with proboscis paralysis.

Richard Busteed was born near Tipperary, Ireland. His eyes reflected a thrilling flippancy on the fourth day. Will soon leave Tipperary with his Daddy and Mummy for New York. Will probably excel in the sophistry and metaphysics of law. Has prodigious conscientious developments, projecting like cliffs and promontories all over his skull. Will always desire to pay his debts before they are due. As he matures, he will be susceptible and impulsive to the 90th degree, and have marvellous compunction. Will never be rude nor impolite, nor snatch candy from other boys, although his bump of snatchitiveness may grow in wild Irish luxuriance, or through Catalinian pomatum, which may cause him to snatch pap from his Mummy’s breast, (while she is serenely snoozing, to recruit from his unreasonable demand for pap,) which may nourish and increase his hillock of diminutive snatchitiveness, and cause him to snatch like Bobby Morris, and thunder and lightning, when he grows to the size of a tailor, in America, where he will be naturalized through his father’s residence (?) And, altogether, little Dickey Busteed is a cute infant, and will soon be a rouser of a brat, and may rise from a petty-foggy lawyer, to a keen and pious Corporation Counsel, and might make a very shrewd Record Commissioner, but will always be poor, from his too moderate and compunctive legal fees.

Increase Record—One dollar a line.

None.

Decrease Record—One dollar a line.

Paupers Gratis.

None.

Marine Intelligence.

The _Clipper_ Stephen H. Branch arrived this morning in a tempest, with a cargo of Alligators, consigned to

Ross & Tousey, 121 Nassau street. Dexter & Brother, 14 Ann street. Hamilton & Johnson, 22 Ann street. Samuel Yates, 22 Beekman street. Madden & Company, 21 Ann street. Cauldwell & Long, 23 Ann street. Boyle & Whalen, 32 Ann street and Bell & Hendrickson, 25 Ann street.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

—A Table of Contents was not in the original work; one has been produced and added by Transcriber.