Part 1

Transcriber Notes

Obvious printer errors and missing punctuation fixed. Archaic and inconsistent spelling, variations in hyphenation 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.

James Gordon Bennett and Fanny 1 Elssler.

Richard B. Connolly and other 1 Conspirators against my Liberty.

My Trial. 2

National Degeneration! 2

Does Mayor Tiemann know what 3 became of the Lime Kiln Man? Most horrible disclosures! In God’s name, where are the People?

Bennett, Greeley, and Raymond. 3

The Peter Cooper Institute! 3

Advertisements. 4

Volume I.—No. 15.] SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1858. [Price 2 Cents.

James Gordon Bennett and Fanny Elssler.

FANNY’S PARLOR.

_Bennett_ (Softly knocks)—Fanny, dear, are you in?

_Fanny_—Who’s there?

_Bennett_—Thy friend.

_Fanny_—Thy name?

_Bennett_—James Gordon Bennett.

_Fanny_—Gracious Heaven! (She unlocks the door.)

ENTER BENNETT.

_Bennett_—Good morning, sweet Fanny.

_Fanny_—A kind salutation to my noble friend.

_Bennett_—Where’s Wyckoff?

_Fanny_—I don’t know.

_Bennett_—Will he return soon?

_Fanny_—I guess not.

_Bennett_—Then come and sit in my lap.

_Fanny_—I will. (She bounds to Bennett’s knees.)

_Bennett_—Now kiss me.

_Fanny_—There! (Smack! smack! smack! and the last on his lips.)

_Bennett_—O! how sweet!

_Fanny_ (archly)—You don’t say!

_Bennett_—Yes, I do.

_Fanny_—And so do I.

_Bennett_—Then give me another cluster of kisses.

_Fanny_—I’ll give you a dozen or a hundred, if you will only _puff_ me well, and fill the theatre every night.

_Bennett_—Have I not _puffed_ you well, my darling?

_Fanny_—W-e-l-l—y-e-s. Wyckoff says I am _increasing my popularity_ every day. And now if you will only continue to _puff_ me, my dear Mr. Bennett, I will hug and kiss you, and love you ever so dearly. And do you know that I intend to give your beautiful wife some precious jewels?

_Bennett_—Wyckoff said you contemplated a splendid donation to my fair lady.

_Fanny_—O yes, dear Mr. Bennett, the jewels are all purchased, and your dear wife shall have them soon.

_Bennett_—Hush! fair creature! Don’t talk so loudly. Is the door locked? I hear footsteps. Some one ascends the stairs. If you are seen in my lap, old Mordecah M. Noah will get hold of it, and put it in his Caudle Lectures, which bite me terribly.

_Fanny_—The door is locked, and you need not be afraid, as it is only the servant coming to bring me some wine and water, and to dust my parlor.

_Bennett_—Well, give me one more fervent kiss, and let in the servant, and I will depart, and return soon, unless you expect Wyckoff. It won’t do for us both to be here at the same time, you know, eh?

_Fanny_—I hardly think it will, although I love you both.

_Servant_—(Knocks.)

_Fanny_—Busy! (Servant goes down stairs.)

_Bennett_—Which do you love best—me or Wyckoff?

_Fanny_—I love you the best, dear Mr. Bennett. Most people call Wyckoff the handsomest, but I think you are the prettiest man I ever saw. Your voice is so sweet, and your complexion so fair, and your features so Grecian, and your smile so lovely, and your heart so kind, and your figure so commanding, and your eyes so expressive of a large humanity. O, Mr. Bennett, I most dearly love you, and now I desire to know if you love me, and how much? And before you tell me, there’s another luscious kiss on your fragrant lips. And now, dear friend, do tell me how much you love your grateful and affectionate Fanny?

_Bennett_—O, I love you most ardently, and I have a mind to give Wyckoff a touch of the Italian, and marry you, and hide ourselves in some deep mountain glen of my beloved Scotland.

_Fanny_—O, if you would only do all that.

_Bennett_—What! kill Wyckoff, and marry you, and desert my devoted wife and child?

_Fanny_—To be sure. Did you not say you would?

_Bennett_—O Heaven! Fanny! I am very nervous. Your extraordinary fascinations will ruin me, and I must fly.

_Fanny_—Whither?

_Bennett_—To my office.

_Fanny_—What! Havn’t you the pluck to kill Wyckoff, and marry me, and all my jewels, and the vast possessions I have acquired through my grace and agility?

_Bennett_—Darm it, Fanny, no more to-day. Give me a parting kiss, and I will go, and we will resume this delightful theme to-morrow, when Wyckoff is promenading Broadway, or arranging your affairs at the Theatre and the printing offices. So, good-by, my adored Fanny—farewell, my precious solace and incomparable divinity.

_Fanny_—A fond adieu, my charming admirer. Come again to-morrow, or I shall die. (She cries like a female Crocodile.)

_Bennett_—Farewell.

_Fanny_—Farewell—my benefactor. O farewell!

(He goes, and Fanny leaps, and dances, and laughs, and screams, and wildly rejoices over his departure.)

_The reader must now imagine the lapse of many years._

BENNETT’S OFFICE.

_Bennett_—Mr. Hudson, don’t let Ross & Tousey have any more _Heralds_ for their country agents.

_Hudson_—Why?

_Bennett_—Because I learn that they have got all my little private arrangements with Fanny Elssler stereotyped, and intend to publish my connection and black mail operations with Elssler and Wyckoff, which will mortify me extremely, and forever degrade me in the eyes of the people, and of my wife and children.

_Hudson_—I will see that Ross & Tousey obtain no more _Heralds_.

_Bennett_—Give the order immediately, to expel Ross & Tousey forever from our establishment.

_Hudson_—I will. (Rings the bell.)

ENTER PAPER SUPERINTENDENT.

_Superintendent_—What is your desire, Mr. Hudson?

_Hudson_—Let Ross & Tousey have no more _Heralds_. They have offended Mr. Bennett.

_Superintendent_—Is it possible? I’ll see that they get no more _Heralds_. (He goes.)

(_Hudson goes to Bennett’s private room._)

_Hudson_—I have given your order, and it will be instantly obeyed.

_Bennett_—That will suffice. (Hudson retires.)

(To be continued.)

Richard B. Connolly and other Conspirators against my Liberty.

In 1855, Richard B. Connolly said he would give me a clerkship in the County Clerk’s Office, if I would not expose his unnaturalized alienage. I declined his infamous proposition. He then got Alderman John Kelly to read a letter to the Board of Aldermen, declaring that he was born in Ireland, and first landed in Philadelphia, where he got naturalized in Independence Hall, and that he valued the frame that contained the evidences of his naturalization, more than any piece of furniture in his house, and invited all to call at his residence, and behold its graceful suspension on his parlor wall. I called, and his wife assured me that her husband was absent, and that his naturalization papers were in a trunk, and that he had got the key. Alderman John H. Briggs called, when Connolly was at home, but he was not permitted to see the evidences of his naturalization. Other citizens, and many of Connolly’s most intimate friends called and desired to see his naturalization papers, but he declined to show them. I then went to Philadelphia, and got certificates from the clerks of all the Courts, that Richard B. Connolly, of Ireland, was never naturalized in the Philadelphia Courts, and I returned, and published the results of my visit to Philadelphia in the _New York Times_, and other journals, and also stated that Connolly strove to bribe me not to expose his alienage. At the election of County Clerk, which followed these events, Connolly did not vote, and when taunted with his refusal to vote by his adversaries, he excused himself on the ground that he had bet largely on several candidates, and dared not vote. This was the very small aperture through which he crawled. And this is the scamp who is to impannel the jury by which I am soon to be tried for the alleged libel of Tiemann and Cooper and Connolly’s most sacred friend, Simeon Draper, with whom he was long a clerk, and with whom he has been connected in schemes of plunder and political villainy for nearly a quarter of a century. From Connolly’s notorious character as a sly and cunning and treacherous rascal, and Jury Packer, and ballot stuffer, and public robber, I have every reason to believe that he will pack the jury that will try me. And he has four powerful motives for packing my jury, and sending me to Blackwell’s Island: And firstly, to avenge my exposure of his perjured alienage, and secondly, to prove his fidelity to his old friend, Simeon Draper, and thirdly, to win the favor of Tiemann and Cooper, and secure their support of him as Comptroller, and fourthly, to incarcerate me while he seeks his nomination and election as Comptroller, so that I cannot expose his perjured alienage and nefarious crimes, during his efforts to obtain an office, which will enable him to steal millions from the Treasury, and thus rob the toiling millions of their bread and raiment and shelter from the pitiless elements, and drive many a lovely virgin, of sick and indigent parents, to the horrors of prostitution. In 1852, he was almost penniless, but now he is worth a million of dollars, which he has stolen directly from the pockets of the honest and laborious classes, for whom he professes exhaustless love. With the Mayor and nearly all the Executive Departments, and Connolly, Draper, Sickles, Hart, and the _Herald_, _Times_, and _Tribune_, and other journals, and Peter Cooper, and Ex-Mayor Kingsland, and other millionaires against me, it seems almost impossible to escape a sojourn at Blackwell’s Island, but I have confidence in God and truth and justice, and I defy all the powers of earth to vanquish my soul. And I most fervently thank the Great Disposer of Events, that if I am consigned to a felon’s cell, it will not be for robbing the friendless multitudes, like such thieves as Tiemann, Cooper, Draper, and Connolly, who may not be incarcerated and tortured for their deeds of villainy while living, although a terrible retribution awaits them beyond the grave. Stephen, of old, was stoned for his virtues, and Socrates poisoned, and the Saviour crucified, and a poor, humble, and friendless being like me, may be imprisoned, and forced to die in a dungeon, for exposing the public robbers of the present generation. But I will not murmur at the terrible ordeal through which I am about to pass. For my fidelity to the people, I may lose my liberty. Be it so. And when the public thieves have consigned me to a lonely and dreary cell, and my frail form slowly wastes away, and I am forever gone, my absent soul will only crave a humble mound, and the tears of the virtuous, to bless and fertilise the pretty flowers that prance over my grassy hillock, in the mild summer perfume.

Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 31, 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.

My Trial.

Mr. Sedgwick informs me that I will be tried on the first Monday in August. I shall be ready, and I dare Mayor Tiemann to meet me on that memorable day. It grieves me to know that my witnesses will overwhelm him with disgrace, because his wife and children will be degraded through all their posterity. But for Tiemann, and Peter Cooper, and Edward Cooper, I have no sympathy, because they have been recreant to the people, in their appointment of thieves and assassins to the most lucrative and honorable offices. Daniel F. Tiemann has been a hypocrite and a public thief, since he was Alderman in 1838. Peter Cooper has been a public plunderer since he was Alderman in 1828, and a heartless miser through all his days; and Daniel and Peter are training young Edward to imitate their pernicious example. Peter Cooper is the father of illegitimate children, who reside in the vicinity of his Glue Factory, at Bushwick, and Daniel F. Tiemann has long kept a mistress on Randall’s Island, and committed other deeds of hell, as I will prove on the first Monday in August. Let there be no postponement of the trial, as I yearn for a conflict, that will consign the foes of the people to undying infamy.

National Degeneration!

What a consummate band of scamps wield the destinies of this nation. From President to Treasurer, and Collector, and official Sexton, all is black-mail, fornication, ballot-stuffing, and unblushing robbery. Who can respect a President, who will permit such a villain as James Gordon Bennett to be a guest at his table, and dictate his domestic and foreign appointments, and demand the publication of the “List of Letters” in his chameleon and most infamous Journal, to the exclusion of the _New York Sun_, which has the highest city circulation, and which should publish the Letters according to the Acts of Congress. Did not Bennett first support George Law, and then Fremont, down to the last hour of the election? And did he not traduce Buchanan, as no other man in America? And why does Buchanan kiss the rod that strove to smite him? And why does he permit him to visit the White House, as his most distinguished guest? Is it because he fears he will expose the motive of his intimate relations with Daniel E. Sickles, and give some curious reminiscences of Fanny White’s notorious tour in Europe, while Dan was his Private Secretary and flying Minister to Spain? Ostensibly, it was Buchanan’s fear of Bennett’s hostility to his Kansas views, but in reality, it was his dread of Bennett’s disclosure of hellish domestic events, during Fanny White’s European pilgrimage, that induced Buchanan to proffer Bennett the freedom of the White House, and that forced him to unite Bennett and Sickles in perpetual friendship. I can show where Bennett squints at Dan and Fan and Buck in the _Herald_, which shook the White House to its deep foundation. Two famous harlots long kept Daniel E. Sickles and Emanuel B. Hart, and the latter lives with a woman now, on the principles of Turkish Free Love. Fanny White kept Sickles until he went to board with a dancing master, whose wife he soon allures from the bed of her husband, and drives him from his own house. He then seduces their daughter, a mere child, who became six month’s pregnant. He now fears the law, and gets Bishop Hughes to marry him to the lovely and youthful creature of his seduction. He then introduces Mayor Ambrose C. Kingsland to his wife’s mother, with whom Kingsland has sexual intercourse. He then asks Mayor Kingsland to give him a certificate, that he had been married six months before, to cover the pregnancy of his wife. Kingsland hesitates, when Dan threatens to expose his sexual intercourse with his wife’s mother. Kingsland becomes alarmed and gives Dan the marriage certificate, and all is tranquil. When Dan became James Buchanan’s Private Secretary, at the Court of St. James, Fanny White visited London, and was very intimate with Buchanan, and Dan gave her passports all over Europe, as Mrs. James Gordon Bennett. Bennett ascertained this, and hence the long and bitter quarrel between Dan and Bennett. Dan got the Hon. John Wheeler to give Fanny White letters of introduction to certain parties at Niagara Falls, as Mrs. James Gordon Bennett. Fanny White now lives in New York, and Dan is still friendly with her, although she is kept by another. Emanuel B. Hart was long kept by Eliza Pratt, who got tired of him, and discarded him. He subsequently took a notorious wanton, named Louise Wallace, from a house of ill-fame, and lives with her now, and introduces her into the first circles of society. Sickles is now a member of Congress, and the most influential man under Buchanan in the White House, and Hart was appointed by Buchanan, Surveyor of the Port of New York, which is considered next in importance to the office of Collector. And yet there are no earthquakes. And the people tamely submit to this monstrous degradation. And these revelations may lead to a scuffle of death between Sickles, Hart, and myself. But if I were sure that my brains were to be strewn upon the pavement, I would disclose to the American people, that their public servants are thieves, and fornicators, and ballot-stuffers, and black-mailers. Public men who will keep vile women, or (what is infinitely more degrading,) be kept and fed and clothed by concubines, like Hart and Sickles, should be exposed and loathed by all virtuous minds. And Buchanan should be more despised than Hart and Sickles, for his known intimacy with them for years, and with Fanny White, and for his appointment of Hart as Surveyor, and for chopping off the heads of a hundred worthy officials, at the instigation of such a notorious rake, and thief, and ballot-stuffer as Daniel E. Sickles. Buchanan fears Sickles, Hart, Bennett, and Fanny White! God of Heaven! How the national morals have degenerated during the present century. At a recent dinner at the White House sat the President, Bennett, Russell, Hart and Sickles. The President sat beside Mrs. Dan Sickles—Bennett sat next to Mrs. Judge Russell—Russell sat alone—Emanuel B. Hart sat next to his Mistress, and Sickles next to Fanny White. What a mournful sacrilege! Violated shades of Washington! Jefferson! and Jackson! O Vernon! and Monticello! and the Hermitage! may thy hallowed verdure be forever green and fragrant. And paralysed be the monsters who trample thy mounds, and blight thy pretty violets. And is there an American, or a naturalized foreigner whose cheeks do not crimson at a bacchanal like this, in the sacred atmosphere of great Washington’s mausoleum? What! Shall a gang like this be permitted to desecrate the halls and seats once occupied by the most illustrious patriots that ever graced the earth? O, Father of Heaven! Do not abandon the honest Americans, nor the patriot pilgrims to these happy shores, who still are grateful for Thy protection of their immortal Fathers, and who will strive to elect men to wield their destinies, who cherish Thee, and will legislate for the honor and welfare and glory of their beloved country. Do not desert them, O God! is the fervent prayer of millions of noble Americans, and of all naturalized foreigners, who truly love Thee, and the free and sunny land of their adoption.

Does Mayor Tiemann know what became of the Lime Kiln Man? Most horrible disclosures! In God’s name, where are the People?

William O. Webb, now Superintendent of Potter’s Field, who was appointed by the Ten Governors, sold and delivered last winter, five hundred corpses to the body snatchers, and has sold about the same number for several winters past, for which he and others received $17 for each corpse, forming an aggregate of $8,500 that was received each winter. The bodies are disinterred in the night, during the favorable tides, and carried from Potter’s Field to the Dead House, on the shore of Ward’s Island,—sometimes in a sleigh, and sometimes in a wheelbarrow,—and delivered to the body snatchers, awaiting their arrival at the Dead House. William O. Webb directs the grave diggers to give no corpses to the body snatchers, who died of small pox, or other contagious diseases, nor badly mutilated bodies. Michael Gilmore was an Assistant Grave Digger, and is now a clerk of the Superintendent of Potter’s Field. Wm. O. Webb’s salary is $800 per annum—a house free of rent—a farm—fuel, and provisions, from the Ten Governors—and four paupers and a servant to manage his farm. Sometimes he has fifteen paupers to work his farm. Webb’s clerk receives $400 a year, and his wife $200, and they have a large house and extensive grounds, and a servant and fuel and provisions from the Ten Governors. Webb employs a boy, about sixteen years old, who buries the dead, and who has $300 per annum. This boy receives the dead bodies, and selects such as the Doctors desire, immediately on their reception at Potter’s Field. Sometimes an arm or a leg is dissevered, and sold to the Doctors. After the bodies are removed, the coffins are sawed and chopped, and packed in bags, and taken to Harlem, and used as fire wood. The bodies are stripped of their dead clothes, and the best part sold in the city, as apparel, and the residue as rags, which constantly exposes the city to contagion. The Ten Governors are familiar with these facts, and have some knowledge of what is done with the money that is received for the dead bodies. William O. Webb has long been the warm personal and political friend of Governor Daniel F. Tiemann, whose mutual relations have been of such a _peculiar nature_ that, although Gov. Tiemann has often been apprised of Webb’s monstrous proceedings, yet he dared not advance a step towards his removal. Webb’s expenses as Superintendent of Potter’s Field are $5,000 per annum. A respectable man, with the best security, proposed to Mayor Tiemann, when he was Governor, to assume the management of Potter’s Field, for $1,000 per annum, without the salaries, houses, farms, paupers, and servants, fuel, and provisions that the Superintendent and Clerk, and their wives then and now receive, forming an aggregate of $5,000 per annum, exclusive of the $8,500 received by the Superintendent and others for dead bodies. And yet, such were the _peculiar relations_ subsisting between Gov. Tiemann and Mr. Webb, that the former dared not accept a proposition so favorable to the Treasury of the City, for whose economical disbursements Gov. Tiemann professes such anxious regard. One of the grave diggers refused to sell the body snatchers any more bodies, and informed Gov. Tiemann of his determination, who exclaimed, with much levity: “If you interfere with their business, there will be no inquest held over your body.” Webb sold the corpse of his wife’s uncle, whose name was Brown, a builder, and when Brown’s relatives desired his body for respectable interment, Webb placed another corpse in the coffin, and sent it to them, which they interred as their dear relative. The Lime Kiln Man was borne to Potter’s Field, and when his friends heard the sad intelligence of his death and pauper interment, they raised funds, which they gave to Webb, with directions to exhume and respectably inter him. But Webb could not find the Lime Kiln Man, and placed another corpse in a coffin, and buried it, and when the friends of the Lime Kiln Man came to Potter’s Field, Mr. Webb led them to a grave, which he assured them was the Lime Kiln Man’s. At my trial, on the first Monday in August, I shall summon the Doctor, and the body snatchers connected with him, and the superintendent, clerk, grave diggers, and all others engaged in this awful sacrilege, to unmask the scoundrels connected with our public institutions.

Bennett, Greeley, and Raymond.