Part 1

Transcriber Notes

Obvious printer errors and missing punctuation fixed. Archaic and inconsistent spelling retained. The table of contents has been created and added by the transcriber. Italics are represented by underscores surrounding the _italic text_. Small capitals have been converted to ALL CAPS.

Life of Stephen H. Branch. 1

A Primary Election at Peter 2 Cooper’s Funny Little Grocery-Groggery, at the corner of the Bowery and Stuyversant Street, in 1820.

A Precious Fossil. 2

Editorial Career of James 3 Gordon Bennett.

Fools. 3

Advertisements. 4

Volume I.—No. 13.] SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1858. [Price 2 Cents.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by

STEPHEN H. BRANCH,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

Life of Stephen H. Branch.

While Horace Greeley and myself were in conversation over our breakfast at the Graham House, Goss escorted Fred Douglas and lady to the table, who took seats near us. I knew not who they were, nor do I know that Greeley did, but I think he did. They had arrived the previous night, and this was my first knowledge that Goss kept colored boarders, who politely helped them, and took a seat beside them, and conversed on their favorite theme of anti-slavery. I stared at Goss and Fred and lady and at Greeley, who gave me a sly glance, and ate his bran mush and molasses as though nothing unusual was transpiring. I finished my mush, and retired, and felt that Goss had perpetrated a gross impropriety. And although I was then teaching negroes in the kitchens of New York, amid slush and kettles and frying pans, and thus evinced my warm desire to elevate the whole African race, yet my feelings were so grossly outraged by this unnatural and disgusting amalgamation, that I went to Major Mordecah M. Noah, (who published a daily evening paper,) and told him the whole story, who opened a tremendous broadside on Greeley, who dared Noah to reveal the name of his informant, although he knew I must be the man. I besought Noah not to disclose my name, as I did not desire to have a controversy with Greeley about Graham bread and Africans. Noah promised he would not, but he discharged such caustic and unceasing broadsides, and poked so much fun at Greeley, for breakfasting with negroes, that he again ferociously demanded Noah to disclose the name of his cowardly informant. I again implored Noah to stand firmly, and not to divulge my name. Noah said that he did not see how he could avoid it, as Greeley had made such a savage demand. But I induced him, after long and plaintive importunity, not to expose me, and Noah soon withdrew his forces from Africa, and attacked Greeley on his native hills of America, on the subject of the Tariff and other themes. And in their deluge of words and detraction, I did not molest Noah, nor any of his descendants, save to pawn some of my traps occasionally to pay Goss my weekly board. Greeley snarled and growled at me for weeks, but he had a conciliatory nature, and magnanimously forgave me, and, (as after the quarrels of two enthusiastic lovers,) we were better friends than ever. I admired the humor and genial nature of Major Noah, and I respected the transcendental talents of Horace Greeley, but I did not wish to be devoured by their gladiatorial collisions, although I was the sole origin of their editorial combat. Rhode Island was now on the verge of civil war. My father addressed the first assemblage at the old Town House, in Providence, against the revolutionary doctrines of Thomas Wilson Dorr, and harangued the friend’s of Law and Order in various parts of the State. My brother Henry came to New York, and told me that my father had received letters from the insurgents, warning him to prepare to meet his God, and was insulted by ruffians while crossing Providence bridge, who threatened to destroy his property, if he did not cease his inflammatory speeches against them, and that father defied them, and told them that they might burn his houses, but they could not burn his land. I went to Providence, and was saluted by father in tones of the purest affection. I slept at his house, for several nights, and joined the City Guards, and my company was assigned a position on the west side of the bridge, to guard the city from sunset till sunrise. News came that old General Green’s Kentish Guards, (cherished by Washington,) of East Greenwich, commanded by Captain Allen, had fired on the insurgents at Pawtucket, five miles from Providence, and killed and wounded half a dozen of the rebels, and my Company was immediately sent to relieve the Kentish Guards. Just prior to entering Pawtucket, the Dorr women belched from their doors and windows the most disgusting ejaculations, and I heard one virago exclaim: “An’t you a precious gang of soldiers? You look as though Providence had taken a powerful emetic.” This was a hard dose, but it came from one who bore the form and garb of a lady, and we had to swallow it without a murmur. Ex-Governor Earle came from Pawtucket on the wings of lightning, and told us it would be instant death for us to enter Pawtucket without more men, but, much to my regret, our Captain ordered us to follow him into the town, whose streets were crowded with desperate outlaws, who were hooting and hurling stones and fragments of iron at the Kentish Guards, who were literally surrounded by the mob. When Captain Allen saw our Company approach, he instantly arrayed us against the insurgents for fatal action, and, taking out his watch, told the beligerent thousands present, that if they did not disperse in ten minutes, he would fire upon them. I suffered more in these ten minutes, than in all my life, because I feared the rascals wouldn’t go, and we would have to fire at them. I had the dyspepsia most horribly, and had all my pockets stuffed with chunks of Graham bread, for a warrior’s rations, and was reduced to an utter skeleton, and could hardly hold my heavy musket perpendicularly, and my bones fairly rattled when the bloody words of Captain Allen fell upon my ears. I had never fired a gun but once, and that was at a snake at Topsfield, Massachusetts, and although the muzzle was within an inch of his head, the ball passed into the ground, and the snake fled before I could reload my gun. And yet I feared I might shed human blood, and perhaps kill one or more, if Captain Allen ordered my Company to fire at the Dorrites. And I was very sure I would fall like a dead man, from the effect upon my dyspeptic nerves of fright and thundering noise caused by the simultaneous discharge of one hundred muskets. And I actually envied the rebels who could escape from peril, while I could not, as I had a gun, cap and knapsack, and was hemmed in by my comrades. I could not exchange my clothes, and was closely watched by the insurgents, and if I left the ranks, I might be shot by my own companions in arms, and if I escaped their fire, the insurgents themselves might instantly dispatch me. The fatal ten minutes had nearly expired, and I supposed my time had come, as I felt sure if we fired, that two thousand ruffians would rush upon us, and hack us to bleeding fragments. I looked up to the brilliant stars, but with all their cheerfulness and fascination, I feared to have my soul approach their glittering realms. I looked down upon the green earth, and I desired not an eternal abode for my butchered carcase below its fragrant surface. To kill a man I thought would be horrible, and forever cause unpleasant dreams. But to be killed myself, by the enemy, seemed still more horrible. And I resolved to put nothing but powder in my gun, so that I could not kill or wound the Dorrites. I regretted that I could not slyly tell them of my humane resolves, so that they could evince similar clemency towards me, when we came together hand to hand, and foot to foot, and nails to nails, and nose to nose, and belly to belly, and teeth to teeth. The ten minutes elapsed, and the rebels remained and yelled and stoned and defied us. Captain Allen passed along the line, and told us we had got bloody work before us, and besought us to be firm, and reload our muskets quickly, and fire at the hearts of our adversaries, and we would conquer them, although they numbered thousands, and we only hundreds. I came near falling at this intelligence, and leaned very heavily against the soldiers on either side of me, who threatened to shoot me if I didn’t stand straighter, which straightened me mighty quick. Captain Allen spoke of American patriotism, and our duty to our native State, and to the United States, and of the valor of Green and Perry, but I scarcely heard what he said, as my terrified mind was contemplating the horrors of an instant and bloody doom, and my gloomy prospects beyond the grave. Captain Allen takes out his watch, and draws his sword, and I look towards Heaven, and engage in a most solemn silent prayer, as I now expect to die in about five minutes.

(To be continued to my last gun.)

A Primary Election at Peter Cooper’s Funny Little Grocery-Groggery, at the corner of the Bowery and Stuyversant Street, in 1820.

HALF AN HOUR BEFORE DAYLIGHT.

_Peter_—Well, Jack, where are all the boys you promised me?

_Jack_—They are asleep in the market.

_Peter_—Zounds! Jack! Arouse them, or we are lost.

_Jack_—They have one eye open, and the gilded stuff will soon open the other.

_Peter_—Jack, what do you mean? Have I not kept open house for three days and nights, and swilled yourself and comrades with liquor for a week, and haven’t you all been drunk at my expense for several days? By Jupiter! Jack! you won’t desert me, after drinking so much of my best rum, will you?

_Jack_—The boys won’t expose their eyes and nose, and teeth and skulls, and bellies to the sharp claws and big fists, and stones and clubs of your political adversaries, without some money in advance, to tickle the palms of the surgeon and nurses at the Hospital. For doctors and nurses won’t trust the poor, you know, and especially the boys who get their skulls cracked at the primary elections.

_Peter_—Well, Jack, tell the boys that I will fill them with good rum until the primary election is over, and then, if I am victorious in the Nominating Convention, I’ll reward them liberally with money.

_Jack_—(With his fingers whirling like a windmill over his nose)—The boys an’t so green as to trust the politicians until they have fought their bloody sieges, and elected them to offices where they can steal fortunes from the people, including many a chunk of choice grub from our own mouths. No, no, Peter. It won’t do. Down with the cash, and all will go well.

_Peter_—Have I not often got yourself and friends out of the Watch House?

_Jack_—And have we not long bought your grog, although you adulterated it more than other liquor dealers? And have we not fought your public battles, and exposed ourselves to imprisonment, and periled our lives to give you political influence to liberate us from the Watch House, when we got into a bad scrape on your account?

_Peter_—You lie, you thief and drunken vagabond, if you say I adulterated my liquor more than other rum sellers.

_Jack_—Have a care, Peter, have a care, for did I not catch you in the very act of pouring water by the pailfull into a rum hogshead last week, that was only about half full of spurious alcohol, when you began to adulterate it?

_Peter_—I was afraid the boys would drink so much, that they would not be sober enough to whip my political enemies to-day, if I did not adulterate my pure and strong rum, which came from Jamaica only last week.

_Jack_—That will do, Peter—that will do, for you always could tell a smoother and bigger lie than me, and I give it up.

_Peter_—Come, come, Jack—this won’t do. The sun will soon be climbing the eastern hills, and there’s no time to be lost. What’s to be done?

_Jack_—Fork over, Peter, and we’ll die, if necessary, in our effort to stuff the ballot boxes, and keep them stuffed all day, and drive your foes from the polls, and seize the boxes at sunset, and count the votes in favor of your delegates to the Convention.

_Peter_—Will you be true?

_Jack_—As money to the poor man.

_Peter_—Then awake the boys, and let them all come quickly, and get some stuff.

_Jack_ (Scampers to the market)—Get up, you lazy drunken thieves, and run for your lives to Peter Cooper’s, and get some precious stuff. (They all spring from the butcher stalls, and run like bloodhounds for Peter’s groggery.)

_Jack_—Here we are, Peter.

_Peter_—So I perceive. (They all slyly smile and wink, and screw their expressive mouths.)

_Jack_—Shall I help the boys to some grog, Peter, while you are counting out our primary wages?

_Peter_—O yes, but don’t give them too stiff a horn, Jack, as I fear they will all get dead drunk before sundown, and then I’ll surely be defeated, as the hardest fighting will be after the poles are closed. So, boys, please drink moderately until the election is over, and fight like bull dogs till the result is declared, and then, if I am the conqueror, you can all get drunk on my toddy for a week or month.

_Jack_—That’s the talk. Them’s our views, an’t they, boys?

_All_ (drinking)—Well—they are.

_Peter_—There, Jack, there’s your share, and now you divide the balance among your honest and noble companions.

_Jack_—Boys—do you hear the compliments of our candidate?

_All_—Well—we do, and he is a man of his word, and we’ll put him through.

_Jack_—(Putting all the money in his pocket)—Scissors! boys! Look down the Bowery! There come, on the full jump, about forty bullies with Ned, the murderer, at their head, screaming and beckoning his bloody gang to follow him.

_Peter_—O God! Stand by me, friends, or I’ll be murdered before the polls open. For Ned threatened to kill me yesterday, if I didn’t withdraw my name as a candidate. So, don’t let him and his desperate band murder me. For I’m sure they will, if you abandon me. O dear! Do stand by me, brave young gentlemen! Won’t you? Please do? (He begins to cry.)

_Jack_—Here they come, and they are armed with clubs, knives and pistols.

_Peter_—O Lordy! (And he crawls under the counter, and gets behind a rum cask, and is as quiet as a young rat.)

_Ned_ (bursting through the door, and his cronies smashing the windows)—I understand you stuffed the ballot-box last night for Peter Cooper, and intend to carry the election to-day, by spurious ballots already deposited.

_Jack_—You are a liar. (They close, and Ned throws Jack, and mauls him awfully.)

_Ned_—Go in, boys, and give no quarter, and drag Peter Cooper from behind the rum cask, under the bar, and give him a dreadful flogging, for not withdrawing in favor of my candidate.

_Peter_—O spare me, Ned, spare me, and I’ll withdraw from the field.

_Ned_—Shut up, Snarlyow. Give it to him, boys, and knock his teeth down his throat, and make his nose as red as his crimes, and his eyes as black as his heart. Hit him again, and avenge his robbery of his poor old Aunt.

_Peter_—O spare me, kind gentlemen, and I’ll give you all the rum I’ve got in the bar, and down cellar, too.

_Ned_—Close your jaws, Shylock. Your time is come. (Jack now rallies, and a bloody collision ensues, and two are stabbed, and one shot, and Peter is terribly beaten, and thrown into the cellar, but soon crawls up stairs, and Peter’s friends fly for their lives.)

_Peter_—(sitting on a rum cask, with his nostrils blocked with coagulated blood, and his face mashed to a jelly, and Ned and his bullies drinking, laughing, singing, and dancing)—O dear me, I wish somebody would come and relieve me from the clutches of these awful men.

_Ned_—(throwing a glass of rum in the face of Peter)—No impudence, Peter. Another insolent word, and I’ll skin you. (The Police now rush in, and, after a bloody struggle, arrest Ned and all his followers, and drag them to prison.)

(To be continued.)

Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1858.

STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S “ALLIGATOR” CAN BE obtained at all hours, at wholesale and retail, at No. 114 Nassau Street, (Second Story), near Ann Street, New York.

A Precious Fossil.

_Mayor Tiemann’s trickery and treachery to the Americans thoroughly exposed._

The following CARD was placed in every house and store and workshop in 1843, by direction of Daniel F. Tiemann, and was published in all the newspapers of that memorable period:

“TO THE VOTERS IN THIS HOUSE.

The inclosed Ticket is presented by the American Republican Party, for your suffrage—it is composed exclusively of Americans who have withdrawn from the great contending parties of the day, for the sake of the country and its institutions; their character and standing in the community is well known to be unexceptionable and highly honorable; they have pledged themselves, if elected, to support and carry out the principles of this party, which are as follows, viz:—

1st. We maintain that the Naturalization Laws should be so altered as to require of all Foreigners who may hereafter arrive in this Country, a residence of twenty-one years, before granting them the privilege of the Elective Franchise; but at the same time, we distinctly declare, that it is not our intention to interfere with the vested rights of any citizen, or lay any obstruction in the way of Foreigners obtaining a livlihood or acquiring property in this country; but on the contrary, we would grant them the right to purchase, hold and transfer property, and to enjoy and participate in all the benefits of our country, (except that of voting and holding office,) as soon as they declare their intentions to become citizens.

2d. We advocate the repeal of the present Common School Law, and the re-establishment of the Law, known as the Public School Law.

3d. We maintain that the Bible, without note or comment, is not sectarian—that it is the fountain-head of morality and all good government, and should be used in our Public Schools as a reading Book.

4th. We are opposed to a union of Church and State in any and every form.

5th. We hold that native Americans, only, should be appointed to office, to legislate, administer, or execute the Laws of their own country.

These are our principles—if you like them, we ask your support for the enclosed Ticket. We believe the time has come when we may, with truth, exclaim, “Delay is dangerous.” The above principles aim at _existing evils_, which have grown to such enormity as to threaten seriously our dearest and most sacred rights. We have waited long and anxiously for some movement from among other parties to check these evils, and we have waited in vain. The only hope that remains, is for Americans to organize a new party, to combat and counteract them. This we have done. The Presidential question we have nothing to do with.—We invite you to our Standard: it is raised in the cause of Civil and Religious Liberty, and no true American can fight against it. It is the same Banner that was raised by Americans in ’76.

DANIEL F. TIEMANN, _President_.

J. B. DENNIS, _Secretary_. New York, November 1, 1843.”

This will do pretty well for a man whose father is a Holland Dutchman, and cannot now speak the American language so as to be easily understood,—who is appointing the ejected garroters of European Capitals, to the most lucrative and honorable positions, while poor and honest and intelligent Americans (for whom he professed such boundless love in 1843,) are haughtily denied the humblest appointments in his gift,—who has toiled with sleepless vigilance,—since his recent election as Mayor by the Americans,—to reinstate the odious George W. Matsell, and who has, after an arduous struggle, succeeded in effecting the reappointment of Captain Leonard, a Canadian, and of Captain Dowling, an Irishman, (both of whose naturalization papers I would like to see, or the man who has seen them,) who were smuggled back to their old quarters by Cooper, Gerard, Tiemann, Bowen, and Stranaham, to cut the throat of Seward, and to diffuse poison through the Police Department, and to re-create the perjured carcase of Matsell on the ruins of Tallmadge and Wm. Curtis Noyes, his noble son-in-law. Tiemann aspires to the honors of a Governor, and himself and his brother Edward Cooper, (the Street Commissioner, and the own son of Peter Cooper,) are appointing all the ruffians of both hemispheres to office, to effect the nomination and election of Tiemann as Governor of the Empire State. But Peter, and Daniel, and Edward will be foiled. No man can attain the distinguished honors of America, who prostitutes his own integrity and that of his fellow citizens, to effect his ungodly designs. Aaron Burr and other ambitious rogues tried that experiment, and they were resisted and foiled by the God who loves and protects our beloved America, and they went down to ignominious graves, whose ashes will be loathed and trampled by a thousand generations. Mayor Tiemann is a ninny and a hypocrite—has basely disowned his native Holland skies—has never been naturalized—bamboozled the Americans in 1843 and 1857—loves neither American nor foreigner, nor his God—but adores himself and Peter Cooper, and fears George W. Matsell and his Matron Mistress on Randall’s Island, whom he forced and nearly strangled, while he committed a deed of hell, in the violation of her person, for which, in any city of Europe, he would be dragged to a dungeon or the block, and perhaps torn to pieces in the market place, by the indignant and phrensied populace.

Editorial Career of James Gordon Bennett.

JOHN KELLY’S HOME.

_Enter John in tears._

_John’s Mother_—Well, dear Johnny, why do you cry so hard? Where on earth did you come from? Have you been fighting, and did you act the coward, and get whipped, and run home? Speak, my darling boy, and speak quickly, so that your dear mother can sympathise with you.

_John_—(still crying)—Dear mother, my heart is so full of woe, that I cannot speak.

_Mother_—(begins to cry)—O, God! I fear something awful has happened to my adored son, and that he is injured internally, and will soon die. (Falls on her knees, and clasps her hands, and wails in piteous tones, and implores God to spare her son.)

_John_—(seizing her)—Don’t cry, dear mother, my heart, not my form, is bruised.

_Mother_—And who bruised your big heart? Did a ruffian throw a stone, or kick you, or strike your heart with his fist? O tell me quickly, so that I can fell him to the earth.

_John_—Neither, good mother, neither. I spoke figuratively, when I said my heart was bruised.

_Mother_—And an’t figures facts? How strangely you talk, dear Johnny. Did not your old mother go to school, and did she not cipher as far as Distraction? And when you say your poor heart is bruised figuratively, you talk from the Rule of Distraction, don’t you? Mr. Daboll used to say so, before you was born. Go to, my son, go to, for your old mother is not so far distracted as not to understand figures as far as Distraction.

_Father_ (just emerging from a profound nap)—What is all this row about?

_Mother_—Some rowdy has bruised Johnny’s heart.