Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Sweet Letter.

RAHWAY, May 15th, 1858.

STEPHEN H. BRANCH—

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

CARRIE JAMES,

Rahway, New Jersey.

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

The following meritorious gentlemen are wholesale agents for the Alligator.

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

Advertisements—One Dollar a line

IN ADVANCE.

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

B. LOCKWOOD.

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

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

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

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

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

THERE IS SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS

IN THE PICAYUNE.

You are sincerely warned not to look at THE PICAYUNE.

AVOID THE PICAYUNE!

SHUN THE PICAYUNE!

Or if you must have it, STEAL it.

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

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

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