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Doesticks Q. K. Philander
Doesticks: What He Says
Nothing
In a literary point of view this book claims nothing:
This is the manufacturer's assertion.
In a literary point of view this book amounts to nothing.
This will be the reader's conclusion.
And if any skeptical person insists upon investigating the matter for himself, he will eventually be compelled to acknowledge the verity of this remark; and will, at the same time, bear a strong testimony to the sagacity of the publisher, who has put his trust in nothing —for he will have bought the book.
This work simply professes to be sketches of various persons, places, and events – some of which have been published, and some hav'n't; some are bad, and some are worse; but all have a claim to originality in treatment, although the same things may have been better said by better people.
Some of these bubbles have been, for some time, floating on the sea of literature – the lightest froth of the restless wave; still there are many of them which have never met the public eye, and which are here, for the first time, set afloat.
And for their publication the writer makes no apology. Accident has brought these "airy nothings" into notice; and although many of the thoughts are not novel in themselves, but are merely whimsically put, and not a few of the whims are borrowed unhesitatingly from others, they are dressed up in a lingual garb so quaint, eccentric, fantastic, or extravagant, that each lender would be sadly puzzled to know his own.
It is undoubtedly this trick of phrase, this affectation of a new-found style, which has caused their widespread newspaper notoriety. And in the hope that people will buy the book before the trick is stale, and not suspect the secret of the joke until they read it on this page, the writer has authorized the collection of these roving unsubstantial ink-brats into their present shelter, and now presents the whole uncouth family for inspection, trusting that the experiment will "put money in the purse," not only of himself, but of his sanguine publisher.
This book, like Hodge's razors, was "made to sell;" and if the sometime good-natured world will pay the price, and have its huge grim smile over these unlicked fancies – although in a political, moral, or utilitarian sense it will have gained nothing – it will, in a literal if not literary view, lose nothing.
But if it is in a surly mood, and chooses to look with dignified contempt upon this avowed and candid literary humbug, some one will be disappointed to think he has miscalculated the fickle taste of the aforesaid world and some one will be out of pocket by its sulky humor; but of these persons, their whereabouts, their circumstances, or their names, the world can say nothing; because it will know nothing; no, nothing.
Q. K. PHILANDER DOESTICKS, P.B.
New York, June, 1855.
I
How Doesticks came to think of it
It is not pretended that this volume is a work of inspiration, or that any portion of it has been revealed by accommodating "Spirits" through the "Medium" of those crack-brained masculine women, or addle-headed feminine men who profess to act as go-betweens from Earth to the Spirit World.
No part of it has been "rapped" out by uneasy tables, or thumped out by dancing chairs; Doctor Franklin didn't dictate it; Lord Byron didn't write it; Napoleon wasn't consulted about it; Cardinal Richelieu didn't have a finger in it; George the Third hadn't anything to do with it; Shakspeare didn't suggest anything in it; and Benedict Arnold didn't know anything about it.
That these worthies might have afforded much valuable information, offered many important improvements, and enriched the book with a host of wise opinions, had some sapient "Medium" asked their assistance, is unquestionable. But as neither Andrew Jackson Davis, or any other spiritual call boy was at the elbow of the writer to summon these desirable but defunct individuals, they were probably left to pursue, in unmolested peace, their favorite and dignified occupations of "tipping" tables, knocking on partitions, drumming on floors, frightening old women and little girls into hysterics, and upsetting the propriety of whole parlors full of furniture, whole closets full of glass-ware, and whole cup-boards full of pots, pans and other kitchen gear. For in such intellectual and elevated employments are great men's ghosts engaged, when they pass into a more refined state of existence, if we may credit the assertions of the self-styled "Spiritualists."
But, unassisted, and alone, I, the writer, have undertaken this mighty work, instigated only by the Spirits hereinafter referred to, and by the representations of my publisher.
Although at present neither celebrated nor notorious, I have a presentiment that I am speedily about to become one or the other. Through an accidental rip in the curtain of futurity, I have caught a glimpse of the Goddess of Fame. I have heard her sing out from her rather elevated position for me to come up and take a "hasty plate" of glory; and I have not the heart to refuse the request of such a good-looking female, preferred in such elegant language. I am going to shin up the slippery rope leading to her aerial temple (for accurate dimensions and appearance, see engraving in the old Elementary Spelling Book), for the purpose of taking a hand in the game of literary renown, trusting that Nature has given me trumps enough to make the "game," and that Fortune will deal me all "the honors."
For weeks I have been haunted perpetually by a voice – not a "still, small voice" – but a large voice, a considerable voice; a voice vociferous, unctuous, and ever-present, and withal insinuating, and not wholly distasteful. It has been constant in my ear, suggesting pleasing hopes and fanciful desires; and though its notes were often varied, yet ever was the theme the same; and the constant burden of that ceaseless song was, "Write a book! write a book!"
And in dreams, too, visions of good-looking ladies with wings, came into my 7×9 chamber, and whispered in my ear, and they too said, "Write a book! write a book!" – and one I thought, with versi-colored plumage, with her finger on her lip, quoted the perpetually murdered Shakspeare prophetically, and, no doubt, with an eye to the success of the volume aforesaid, and said, suiting with a fairy-like gesture the action to the word, "I could a tale unfold." And plucking a snowy quill, she gave it to me, murmuring, as did all the rest, "Write a book! write a book!"
Awoke – put on my pantaloons and boots, and in my shirt sleeves sat down to cogitate. Result is, that I shall use the lengthy quill – I shall accept the pressing invitation of the Goddess of Fame; and in order most effectually to dis-tinguish or ex-tinguish myself, hereby with malice aforethought, and the penalty of a failure before my eyes, I sit down to write a book.
But my physician informs me that I have got the "cacoethes scribendi," which he says is as bad as the small-pox, toothache, and yellow fever. The disease, he says, must have its course – it may end in a malignant biography – result in an infectious broadsword and blunderbuss, yellow covered novel, or degenerate into a weak form of pseudo-sentimental verse writing, in which latter case, on the appearance of the first symptom he intends to order me a literary tombstone.
Having fully determined upon making this literary effort, it became necessary to make up my mind as to what should be the contents of the work. A mental cogitation ensued. Philander was puzzled to know what Doesticks was going to write about – Philander asked Doesticks – whereupon Doesticks, in order to satisfy Philander, replied as follows, upon hearing which reply Philander was content.
II
Doesticks satisfies Philander
What it will be all about, time alone will show, for although I have done a little of almost everything, it has in most instances been so little, that a premeditated autobiography would probably lack incident, and be deficient in interest. I have not as yet invented humbugs enough to earn a Prince-ly title, and not having made a fortune by ingenious trickery, metallic impudence and barefaced deception, cannot edify the "darling public," by telling how the thing is done.
Never having made fierce love to a lady against her will, followed her from place to place in the small-beer spirit of presumptuous puppyism, been outwitted by her at last, and left to cool my amorous passion in a prison, the story of my courtship and its consequence, would not prove attractive.
As I have ever been on good terms with my family, I feel no desire, under the guise of a fictitious narrative, to call any members of it miserly and mean, purse-proud and haughty, or to say that others are conceited, vain, selfish, silly, foppish, or weak-brained.
Novel writing is out of the question. I have tried that, but met with serious difficulties. I couldn't keep my hero of the same nation – in the first chapter I made him a Spaniard; two pages afterward he was an English nobleman; in the fourth chapter an Oriental juggler, balancing a bamboo ladder on his nose, and making a fig-tree grow out of the calf of his leg – and so on, successively, an Italian image-seller, a Dutch burgomaster, a South American Indian, and a Mississippi steamboat pilot.
I had as much difficulty in permanently locating the country of my fictitious favorite, as the Know-Nothing party of New York in the late election had, in determining the nativity of their candidate for Governor, whose chances of election were fair while he was thought to be an American, but who was finally defeated on the ground that he was a Hindoo, and owned stock in the car of Juggernaut. Poetry has been overdone; the gentle art has culminated in a recent "Spasmodic Tragedy," and in the sublime, whose matchless lays have won for him undying fame, and the admiration of several; and who so outruns competition that there is nothing left to be done in that direction.
In the play-writing vein, I have also failed; not from any lack of merit in my drama, as the manager solemnly assured me, but because he had not the menagerie requisite to its proper representation. Improving upon the hint offered by the managers of the "Thespian Wigwam," who have added an elephant and a circus company to their company of "gifted artists," I had introduced into my play a rhinoceros, a lioness, two hyenas, a team of "two-forty" reindeers, a couple of ostriches, and a muley-cow, – and even then there was but a slight obstacle – the manager might have procured the animals, but he was afraid the cow would quarrel with the rhinoceros, and so disturb the harmony of his establishment.
But this book, Philander, it will be impossible to class as strictly either classic, scientific, historical, humorous, or descriptive. Fantastic and extravagant it will be in many things; but we will do our best to make it agreeable to the palate of the public. I promise everything, like all book-makers, and I shall afterwards perform what is convenient, following the same reliable precedent.
My book shall be full of love and poetry to suit the "fast" young ladies, and shall be written in easy words of two syllables to meet the necessities of the "fast" young men.
I shall praise, flatter, and commend everybody and everything, that everyone may receive his meed of approbation; and I shall also censure, find fault, and criticise in an equally universal manner, that no one may escape his proper castigation.
I shall set forth a great multitude of fancies, theories, and hypotheses, that those who are fond of innovation may not lack gratification; and I shall immediately proceed to controvert and deny them all, that the conservative portion of community be not offended.
I shall cry down education and instruction, for there are those who consider all teaching an evil; and on the other hand, I shall advocate learning and science, for there is a very respectable minority which insist that the people may advantageously be taught something more.
I shall not stand up for love and charity, for it might induce people to love the wrong persons, and to give their pennies to imposters; and yet I shall not eulogize avarice and hate, for there are a few who think benevolence and kindness preferable even to these.
I shall not throw my influence in the scale of Protestantism lest the Catholics should take offence, nor yet shall strive to build up Catholicism, lest thereby the dislike of the Orthodoxy be incurred. Nor shall I show myself a partisan of religion of any kind, for the Atheist says it is all a farce. Neither shall I endeavor to inculcate principles of infidelity, for there is still an occasional prejudice in favor of Christianity.
It will be "a work which no gentleman's library should be without." It is considered necessary to the safety of the Union, that its democratic principles be thoroughly disseminated, and it is indispensable to the stability of the English throne that its monarchical doctrines be thoroughly comprehended. Every man, woman, child, canal driver, billiard marker, faro dealer, and member of Congress will be provided with a copy, thereby preserving the Union, destroying our liberties, and keeping unsullied the honor and dignity of "our flag."
I hope the public will be as well satisfied by this eloquent speech as Philander was, that this book is one of immense utility, and will consequently peruse the same with a huge degree of gratification.
III
Niagara
I was never given to accepting the decisions of others as gospel in any cases where it was possible for me to manufacture a home-made opinion of my own; and I did not greatly wonder at myself when I discovered that my emotions, when I first beheld that great aqueous brag of universal Yankeedom, Niagara, were not of the stereotyped and generally-considered-to-be-necessary – sort. The letter which follows, and which is all the reminiscence of my visit extant, was published soon after, and extensively copied, and was, in fact, the first article which bore the name of Doesticks.
IV
Doesticks on a Bender
i have been to Niagara – you know Niagara Falls – big rocks, water, foam, Table Rock, Indian curiosities, squaws, moccasins, stuffed snakes, rapids, wolves, Clifton House, suspension bridge, place where the water runs swift, the ladies faint, scream, and get the paint washed off their faces; where the aristocratic Indian ladies sit on the dirt and make little bags; where all the inhabitants swindle strangers; where the cars go in a hurry, the waiters are impudent, and all the small boys swear.
When I came in sight of the suspension bridge, I was vividly impressed with the idea that it was "some" bridge; in fact, a considerable curiosity, and a "considerable" bridge. Took a glass of beer and walked up to the Falls; another glass of beer and walked under the Falls; wanted another glass of beer, but couldn't get it; walked away from the Falls, wet through, mad, triumphant, victorious; humbug! humbug! Sir, all humbug! except the dampness of everything, which is a moist certainty, and the cupidity of everybody, which is a diabolical fact, and the Indians and niggers everywhere, which is a satanic truth.
Another glass of beer – 'twas forthcoming – immediately – also another, all of which I drank. I then proceeded to drink a glass of beer; went over to the States, where I procured a glass of beer – went up-stairs, for which I paid a sixpence; over to Goat Island, for which I disbursed twenty-five cents; hired a guide, to whom I paid half a dollar – sneezed four times, at nine cents a sneeze – went up on the tower for a quarter of a dollar, and looked at the Falls – didn't feel sublime any; tried to, but couldn't; took some beer, and tried again, but failed – drank a glass of beer and began to feel better – thought the waters were sent for and were on a journey to the – ; thought the place below was one sea of beer – was going to jump down and get some; guide held me; sent him over to the hotel to get a glass of beer, while I tried to write some poetry – result as follows:
Oh Thou (spray in one eye) awful, (small lobster in one shoe,) sublime (both feet wet) master-piece of (what a lie) the Almighty! terrible and majestic art thou in thy tremendous might – awful (orful) to behold, (cramp in my right shoulder,) gigantic, huge and nice! Oh, thou that tumblest down and riseth up again in misty majesty to heaven – thou glorious parent of a thousand rainbows – what a huge, grand, awful, terrible, tremendous, infinite, old swindling humbug you are; what are you doing there, you rapids, you – you know you've tumbled over there, and can't get up again to save your puny existence; you make a great fuss, don't you?
Man came back with the beer, drank it to the last drop, and wished there had been a gallon more – walked out on a rock to the edge of the fall, woman on the shore very much frightened – I told her not to get excited if I fell over, as I would step right up again – it would not be much of a fall anyhow – got a glass of beer of a man, another of a woman, and another of two small boys with a pail – fifteen minutes elapsed, when I purchased some more of an Indian woman, and imbibed it through a straw; it wasn't good – had to get a glass of beer to take the taste out of my mouth; legs began to tangle up, effects of the spray in my eyes, got hungry and wanted something to eat – went into an eating-house, called for a plate of beans, when the plate brought the waiter in his hand. I took it, hung up my beef and beans on a nail, eat my hat, paid the dollar a nigger, and sided out on the step-walk, bought a boy of a glass of dog with a small beer and a neck on his tail, with a collar with a spot on the end – felt funny, sick – got some soda-water in a tin-cup, drank the cup and placed the soda on the counter, and paid for the money full of pocket – very bad headache; rubbed it against the lamp-post and then stumped along; station-house came along and said if I did not go straight he'd take me to the watchman – tried to oblige the station-house, very civil station-house, very – met a baby with an Irish woman and a wheelbarrow in it; couldn't get out of the way; she wouldn't walk on the sidewalk, but insisted on going on both sides of the street at once; tried to walk between her; consequence collision, awful, knocked out the wheelbarrow's nose, broke the Irish woman all to pieces, baby loose, court-house handy, took me to the constable, jury sat on me, and the jail said the magistrate must take me to the constable; objected; the dungeon put me into the darkest constable in the city; got out, and here I am, prepared to stick to my original opinion.
Niagara, non est excelsus (ego fui) humbug est! indignus admirationi!
V
Seeking a Fortune – Rail Road Felicities
Young men in the west, when they get too lazy to plough, drive oxen, and dig potatoes, invariably either go to studying Law, Physic, or Divinity, or emigrate to New York to make their fortunes. Hence the inundation of two-and-sixpenny pettifoggers, the abundant crop of innocent-looking juvenile M.D.'s, and the army of weak-eyed preachers, whose original simplicity is too deeply rooted to be ever overgrown by the cares of after life. The portion of our country known as "the West" sends forth every year scores of these misguided innocents, who, had they stayed at home, might have grown up into tolerable farmers, or even been cultivated into respectable mechanics, but who, being once thrown into the whirl of city life, degenerate into puny clerks with not half salary enough to pay for their patent-leather boots.
It is a curious fact that two-thirds of the young men from the country, their first year in the metropolis, do not receive as a remuneration for their valuable services a sum sufficient to keep them in theatre tickets.
If a committee of their employers should be detailed to investigate the hidden pecuniary fountain whence these young men obtain the funds many of them lavish so freely, the said committee would be considerably astonished to find out how much more champagne and oysters the N. Y. merchants pay for than the most knowing of them are aware of; and their wives would be astounded to learn how many bracelets and diamond pins had been presented to ladies of the theatre and ballet, and bought with their husbands' money. And many a country mother would mourn to hear that her darling had, in the first six months of his city life, learned to practise more vices than she had ever heard of, and among his other attainments, had acquired the elegant city accomplishment of spending his employer's money as freely as if it was his own.
And in due course of time the writer of this paragraph, wearied of the eternal sameness of a country village, the same unvarying prospect of ox-teams, hay-scales, errant swine, and wandering disconsolate cows, took the roving fever and resolved to visit Gotham, looking for a cure.
Packed up my traps in a red box, kissed all my friends who had clean faces, and bade a long farewell to the aspiring village (which had long since assumed the name of city, but had never grown large enough to fit the appellation, and for this reason always reminded me of a boy with his father's boots on,) where I had vegetated for several years; took a last look at its town-pump, its grocery, and its court-house square without any fence round it; feasted my eyes for the last time upon the dusty charms of the seminary girls who are perpetually going to the story-and-a-half post-office for letters which never come; rode to the railroad for the last time in the four-wheeled smoke-house, which, from early youth, had been impressed upon my ignorant simplicity as an omnibus; and taking my seat in the cars, left without many tears the town where I had treasured up such stores of classic knowledge under the consistent inattention of teachers who had been paid to neglect my education.
Paid the man with the brass door-plate on him, sixteen dollars and a half for a dirty piece of pasteboard, – hung up my carpet-bag on a hook which immediately broke down, and let the aforesaid bag drop on the bonnet of a populous lady with a pair of twins, whom it completely demolished for the time – settled myself in my seat for a comfortable nap – was continually roused therefrom by the door-plate man, who seemed to have a mania for inspecting the dirty pasteboard every fifteen minutes – got my mouth full of dust and cinders, which I converted into a mortar-bed in my stomach by drinking warm water from the spout of a water-pot (brought round by the boy who expects you to buy his greasy apples and ancient newspapers as a compensation for the temporary dilution) – changed cars about twenty times, and had the satisfaction of seeing my trunk pitched about by the vindictive baggagemen at every step, as if they were under obligations to knock it to pieces in the least possible space of time. (When it arrived at the end of my journey the lock was broken, the hinges pulled off, and a large hole punched in the end, so that I found my clean shirts full of gravel, and that a piece of brick which had got in through the place where the lock had been, had been rubbed against a daguerreotype of my lady-love, thereby demolishing her left eye and scratching the top of her head off.) Rode all night; every time I would get into an uncomfortable doze the train would stop, more passengers come in, and I would have to vacate my seat to accommodate some woman with three children and a multitude of bundles (a woman in a railroad car always occupies four times as much room as she pays for, generally turning over the back of the seat next to her, and occupying one place for herself and the other three for her provisions and bandboxes) – then finding another place, and getting into an uneasy dream about earthquakes, wash-tubs, bass-drums, and threshing-machines, and waking up with a sudden choke when some unusually large cinder got into my mouth – coming to a sudden stop at some side station and finding my anatomical constituents in a most uncomfortable state of paralysis; my arms fast asleep and feeling like frozen sausages; my other extremities ditto, and with no more feeling in them than in a bass-wood log; having a dim consciousness that something was wrong, and endeavoring to navigate by means of the benumbed members before alluded to, and get out doors to see what the matter was, and in the attempt falling over the stove and knocking my teeth out against the coal-hod – being called at four o'clock in the morning to assist in the dismal farce of breakfast, and sitting down (with my hat on and my hands dirty in order to be in the fashion) at a long table where the crockery looks as if it had not been washed in a month, and the only visible viands are cold biscuits, hard-boiled eggs, and despairing mutton-chops struggling inextricably in a tallowy ocean – where the half-awake waiters bring you apple-pie in place of coffee, and pour the hot water down your back, and spill the sugar in your hair – where, in the midst of your second mouthful, you are called upon to suspend operations and pay half a dollar to a man with uncombed hair who gives you wild-cat paper and crossed quarters in exchange for your Yankee gold – and where, before the third morsel reaches your expectant lips, the bell rings, the malicious engine gives its vicious shriek, and you are hurried, swindled and starving, into the cars again.
In this delectable manner for two days and nights I was hurried, hustled, and tumbled towards my journey's end – reached my destination at last, crossed the North River in one of those ferry-boats which run either end first like a crab, and on my arrival was instantly attacked by a crowd of runners, was forcibly thrust into a hack, the remains of my trunk tossed at my feet, and in obedience to my panting request, I was driven to that hotel, the cognomen whereof is simultaneously suggestive of holy men and of the adversary.
VI
Seeing the Lions – Barnum's Museum
As soon as I had become comfortably established as a citizen of New York, and had replaced the straw hat with a green ribbon, which decorated my head at the time of my metropolitan advent, by a shining beaver with white fur on the under side; had run in debt for a new suit of clothes, and sold my trunk to buy a set of gold shirt-studs, I began to assume that knowing air of superiority which ever distinguishes the thorough-bred city man from his country cousins.
I made up my mind to devote the next six months of my valuable time, to seeing the sights, and becoming acquainted with the celebrities of the town. To this end I proposed to visit the various places of amusement, to go on excursions, join volunteer companies, run to fires, in short, to make myself ever present, wherever there was anything to be seen, to which the verdant eyes of a backwoods Wolverine were unaccustomed.
I addressed myself a speech wherein I remarked, "Phil, you have now been a resident of this city long enough to know something of the localities thereto appertaining – know where the City Hall is – ditto Hospital. Also where the Astor House is generally located – can tell the general direction of Mercer and Bowery streets from the Crystal Palace – and can at most times of day point out Trinity Church with a tolerable degree of accuracy.
"But there are, nevertheless, sundry other points of interest, with which you should become familiar, and divers other objects whose names you should remember, that hereafter you may not mistake a Grand Street stage for a perambulating Circus wagon; or again, point out the Wall Street Ferry House to a friend and assure him it is the Hippodrome building, but be able after this to give reliable and correct information on these points to all who ask."
Accordingly, since that time, I have striven hard to acquire such a knowledge of the city that I could find any of the theatres without a Directory, and get home at any time of night without the escort of a Policeman.
Have been to the Battery, for which I paid a shilling to the dilapidated Hibernian who attends the iron portal – afterwards visited (by particular desire,) the cocked-hat shaped Sahara known as the "City Hall Square" – saw the splendid fountain with its symmetrical basin filled with golden fishes (as I was credibly informed) – I could not exactly perceive them myself – in the midst of its elegant miniature forest (yet in its infancy) – gazed with admiration at the ancient structure denominated the City Hall – said to have been built by the ancient Greeks, of which I have not the slightest doubt, as all the avenues leading thereto were thronged with modern Greeks, whose general costume was not so classically correct as I could have wished – looked at the glorious fountain which adorns the centre of the spacious lawn – admired the magnificent proportions of the vast forest trees which rear their lofty forms therein – gazed long and earnestly at the glittering jet (not quite so lofty as I had been led to suppose,) of the magnificent fountain which embellishes the princely grounds – then turned to look at a circular edifice, which, I confess, did not strike me as being remarkable for architectural beauty, but which undoubtedly is exceedingly useful – then turned to feast my wondering eyes upon the diamond-glittering drops of a fountain near at hand; looked with much approbation upon the wide and spacious avenues, and the clearly gravelled walks, and also at a fountain near by, which I think I have before mentioned; surveyed the other fine buildings near at hand, which adorn and beautify that triangular piece of earth; and ever returned with constantly increasing gratification to view a beautiful lake in the centre thereof, from the midst of which burst forth in aqueous glory the waters of a fountain; soon, convinced that I had seen my money's worth, prepared to leave – casting one longing, lingering look behind (as my friend L. E. G. Gray says,) at the glorious old classic ruin, the hall, and the pluvial splendors of the fountain.
Went out, but looking back, perceived that in the splendid park I had just left, there rose in "misty majesty" (vide somebody,) the jet of a fountain. Resolved to return and have another look at the ivied and crumbling ruins, and also to inspect minutely a fountain which I now perceived hard by.
Wishing to be perfectly posted up, I went to the Post office (the Evening Post office), and obtained a paper containing the latest news of the day, and also a list of entertainments for the evening. Desiring to see the Museum, of which I had read, and also to behold Barnum, of whom I had heard some mention, in connection, I think, with one Thomas Thumb, and Joice Heth, an antiquated and venerable lady, colored (who afterwards died), I determined instantly to visit that place of delectation, "perfectly regardless of expense."
Arrived at the door, man demanded a quarter, but, like Byron's Dream, "I had no further change," so was necessitated to get a bill broke; offered him Washtenaw, but that was too effectually broke to suit his purpose. Got in somehow, after a lengthy delay, and some internal profanity.
Soon after my entrance, young man, attired in a dress-coat, a huge standing collar, and a high hat, introduced himself as "A. Damphool, Esq.," gentleman of leisure, and man about town. Having never before had any experience of a class of individuals who compose, I am told, a large proportion of the masculine population of the city, I eagerly embraced the opportunity of making his acquaintance.
He also presented his friend "Mr. Bull Dogge," and we three then proceeded to view the curiosities; we commenced with the double-barreled nigger baby (which Bull Dogge says is an illegitimate devil), – went on to the Rhinoceros (who is always provided with a horn, Barnum's temperance talk to the contrary nevertheless) – the Happy Family – the two-legged calf, (B. D. says it is not the only one in the city), a red darkey – a green Yankee – a white Irishman (Damphool says that this latter individual is an impossibility, and could only have originated with Barnum) – wax-figure of a tall man in a blue coat, with a star on his breast, (Damphool says it is a policeman, who was found when he was wanted; but Bull Dogge says there was never any such person, and that the whole story is a Gay fable,) found by the programme that it is supposed to represent Louis Napoleon; never knew before that he had one eye black, and one blue (Bull Dogge asserts that the usual custom is to have one eye both black and blue); wax model of the railroad man who swindled the community (now living on his money, and president of the Foreign Mission Society for the suppression of pilfering on the Foo-Foo Islands); wax figure of the abandoned, dissolute, and totally depraved woman, who filched half a loaf of bread to give her hungry children, and who was very properly sent to Blackwell's Island for it – also of the City Contractor who did clean the streets – (Damphool states that he is residing at Utica).
Saw a great multitude of monkeys, streaked face, white face, black face, hairy face, bald face (Bull Dogge prefers the latter), with a great assortment of tails, differing in length, and varying as to color, long tails, short tails, stump tails, ring tails, wiry tails, curly tails, tails interesting and insinuating, tails indignant and uncompromising, big tails, little tails, bob tails, (Damphool suggests Robert narratives), and no tails (Bull Dogge says that some effeminate descendants of this latter class now promenade Broadway, and he swears that they have greatly degenerated in intelligence); pictures, paddles, pumpkins, carriages, corals, lava, boats, breeches, boa constrictors, shells, oars, snakes, toads, butterflies, lizards, bears, reptiles, reprobates, bugs, bulls, bells, bats, birds, petrifactions, putrefactions, model railroads, model churns, model gridirons, model artists, model babies, cockneys, cockades, cockroaches, cocktails, scalps, Thomashawks, Noah's ark, Paganini's fiddle, Old Grimes's coat, autocrats, autobiographies, autographs, chickens, cheeses, codfish, Shanghais, mud-turtles, alligators, moose, mermaids, hay-scales, scale armor, monsters, curiosities from Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Beaverdam, Chow Sing, Tchinsing, Linsing, Lansing, Sing Sing, cubebs, cart wheels, mummies, heroes, poets, idiots, maniacs, benefactors, malefactors, pumps, porcupines and pill machines, all mingled, mixed, and conglomerated, like a Connecticut chowder, or the Jew soup of the Witches in Macbeth.
Upstairs at last, and into an adolescent theatre, christened a Lecture Room, (Damphool says it is known as the Deacon's Theatre, and that all his pious namesakes attend). Saw the play, laughed, cried, and felt good all over. Much pleased with a bit of fun originating in a jealous fireman, and terminating in a free fight.
Fireman Mose saw Rose, his sweetheart, with Joe, the hackman; got jealous, pitched into him – fun – thought of Tom Hood, and went off at half-cock – thus —
Enter Rose with Joe – sees Mose – Mose beaus Rose; Rose knows those beaux foes – Joe's bellicose – so's Mose – Mose blows Joe's nose – Joe's blows pose Mose – Rose Oh's – Mose hoes Joe's rows – Joe's blows chose Mose's nose – Mose shows Joe's nose blows – Joe's nose grows rose – Mose knows Joe's nose shows those blows – Joe goes – Mose crows.
Joe being whipped, and moreover being the only innocent one in the whole fight, was arrested by the vigilant and efficient police.
Damphool says that Joe treated the Emerald conservators of the public quiet, and is again at large.
Let Mose beware.
VII
Model Boarding Houses
Immediately upon my arrival in the city of Newsboys and Three-cent Stages, I proceeded, as is hereinbefore mentioned, to the white-faced Hotel which is surmounted by the bird called Shanghai, who seems from the top of his lofty perch where he roosts in unreachable security, to crow over neighboring boroughs, and exult in the great glory of the Manhattan Island. It required, however, but a few days to weary of the "constant noise and confusion" of this saintly mansion, and to become sick of the eternal presence of men in white aprons who are everywhere at the same time, and who are, mathematically speaking, a constant quantity.
These waiters are certainly ubiquitous; at the table there is one at each elbow, at night a stranger is escorted to bed by a grand procession, and one pulls off his boots while another unbuttons his shirt-collar, and a third lights the gas and turns down the bed-clothes; a waiter meets you at the door, another takes away your overcoat and gives it to a waiter who presents you with a brass check for it – there are waiters in the bar, in the washroom, in the barber-shop, in the cellar, in the reading-room; waiters running races through the halls all night; there is always a snowy neckerchief and an outstretched palm when you leave the premises, and on sunshiny days there is invariably a distant glimpse of a white-jacket on the roof of the house.
As soon after my arrival as I could collect my senses, and knew enough not to take every M. P. for a foreign ambassador, and pull off my hat to the Star, I deemed it advisable to search for lodgings more quiet, and not so expensive.
It took about a fortnight to restore my mind to its accustomed serenity, and then having become, to a certain extent, a fixture in this high old town, it became necessary to search out a fit habitation, wherein I might eat, sleep, change my shirt (Damphool blushes), and attend to the other comforts of the external homo, and the inner individual.
My friend Bull Dogge having deserted his late place of residence, (on account of the perpetual reign of salt mackerel at the breakfast table), we started together on a voyage of discovery. To describe all the dilapidated gentlewomen, whose apartments we inspected – all the many inducements which were used to persuade us to take up our quarters in all sorts of musty smelling rooms, and to recount how many promises we made to "call again," would take too much time.
Suffice it to say, that at six o'clock in the evening, wearied out and desperate, we cast anchor in the domicile of an Irish lady with one eye. She assured us that her boarders were all "rispictible, and found their own tibaccy, and that there was divil a bug in the place."
We took adjoining rooms, and resignedly went down to tea.
I noticed that my cup had evidently sustained a compound comminuted fracture, and been patched up with putty (which came off in my tea) – that the bread was scant – the butter powerful – the tea, "on the contrary, quite the reverse," – however, although matters looked somewhat discouraging – "hoping against hope" – we retired to our respective rooms.
Horror of horror!! O! most horrible!!! I was besieged – had I been Sebastopol itself I could not have been attacked with more vigor, or by more determined and bloodthirsty enemies.
For two hours I maintained a sanguinary combat with an odoriferous band of determined cannibal insects – armed only with a fire-shovel, I gallantly kept up the unequal conflict – but the treacherous implement broke at the critical moment; I thought I should be compelled to yield – despair filled all my senses – my heart failed me – my brain grew dizzy with horror – hurried thoughts of enemies unpardoned – of duties neglected – and of errors committed, rushed across my mind – a last thought of cherished home and absent friends was in my heart, and with a hasty prayer for mercy and forgiveness, was at the point of yielding, when my frantic eye caught sight of my cast-iron boot-jack. With an exclamation of pious gratitude to heaven, (Bull Dogge says it did not sound so to him), I seized it, and with the desperate strength of a dying man I renewed the battle, and eventually came off victorious and triumphant. Weary with slaughter, I fell exhausted on the bed, and slept till morning; Bull Dogge, who had been engaged in the same delightful occupation, appeared at the breakfast table with one eye black, and his face spotted like a he-tiger. We held a council of war, and resolved instantly to quit the premises of the Emerald Islander, who had agreed to "lodge and eat" us (the she-Cyclops), and who had so nearly fulfilled the latter clause by proxy.
Another search and another home. Here for a week things went on tolerably well; the steak was sometimes capable of mastication, the coffee wasn't always weak, nor the butter always strong; but one day there appeared at breakfast a dish of beef, (Bull Dogge asserts that it was the fossil remains of an omnibus horse) – it was not molested; at dinner it made its appearance again, still it was not disturbed; at tea fragments of it were visible, but it yet remained untouched; in the morning a tempting looking stew made its appearance, but, alas! it was only a weak invention of the enemy to conceal the ubiquitous beef; at dinner a meat-pie enshrined a portion of the aforesaid beef; it went away unharmed.
For a week, every day, at every meal, in every subtle form, in some ingenious disguise, still was forced upon our notice this omnipresent beef; it went through more changes than Harlequin in the Pantomime, and like that nimble individual came always out uninjured.
At the end of the second day Bull Dogge grumbled to himself; the third he spoke "out in meeting;" the fourth he growled audibly; the fifth he had an hour's swear to himself in his own room; the sixth, seventh, and eighth, he preserved a dignified silence; but his silence was ominous, on the ninth day we both left.
Our next landlady had a gigantic mouth, but her nose was a magnificent failure. We stayed with her a week, and left because she seemed to be possessed of the idea that one sausage was enough for two men. For a month longer we ran the gauntlet of all the model boarding-houses. We were entrapped by all kinds of alluring promises, and perpetually swindled without any regard to decency; we had a taste of Yankee, French, Dutch, and, I have mentioned it before, (ye gods!), Irish; and we lived four days in an establishment presided over by a red-eyed darkey, with a wife the color of a new saddle.
At last one day in an agony of despair I exclaimed, "Where, O where can humbugged humanity find a decent place to feed?" Echo answered, "In the eating-houses." We resolved to try it, and the result is glorious. We have achieved a victory, sir, an heroic, unexpected victory.
And now farewell, all scrawny landladies, ye snuffy beldames, with your wooden smiles; farewell, ye viviparous bedsteads, ye emaciated feather beds, and ye attenuated bolsters; a long good-bye to scant blankets and mattresses stuffed with shavings; farewell to hirsute butter and to ancient bread; good-bye (I say it with a tear,) ye immortal, everlasting beef; farewell to sloppy coffee and to azure milk (Damphool says, not yet); farewell ye antediluvian pies, and you lilliputian puddings; farewell you two-inch napkins, and ye holy table-cloths; farewell ye empty grates and rusty coal-scuttles; farewell ye cracked mirrors which make a man look like a drunken Satyr; farewell ye respectable chairs with dislocated limbs; farewell ye fractured teacups, ye broken forks, and knives with handsaw edges; farewell, in fact, all ye lodging houses, where you can't have a latch-key, and where you can tell when they get a new hired girl by the color of the hairs in the biscuit.
(I noticed this last remarkable fact a long time since.)
Give us joy, for we have found a place where things are done up right, where we can choose our own viands, where the beef is positively tender, where there are no little red ants in the sugar, where the potatoes are not waxy, and where, if anything goes wrong, we can inflate the waiter.
In fact, we are suited; if anything runs short, "John gets particular fits" and "nuthin' shorter;" where we can eat when we please, and call for what we please; where charges are moderate, and it is permitted to grumble at the waiter for nothing.
And here, in this Elysian spot, have Bull Dogge and I taken our daily bread (beans and butter included) for the past month, "without fear and without reproach."
As our poetical friend, Thomas Plus, has remarked,
"Joy, joy, forever, our task is done,
Our trials are past, and our Restaurant is some."
Damphool says my concluding quotation is not strictly correct, but what does he know about it?
VIII
The Potency of Croton Water, or an aqueous quality hitherto unknown
It has been a cherished superstition of our ancestors that water as a beverage is innocuous; I myself was laboring under this infatuated delusion when I left the shades of private life, and the sweet retiracy of the swamps of Michigan, to become a denizen of the Island City.
Believing that my previous experience in the article justified me in drinking freely of the treacherous liquid, I did not hesitate on my arrival here to imbibe on various occasions as much of the undiluted Croton as my thirsty body seemed to need.
How I was deceived in the potency of the fluid a single night's experience will show; I am confident that on this particular occasion I was bewitched by the mischievous God of the stream called the Croton, and that, if I had given him any further opportunities to exercise his craft, my name would positively have appeared in the Police Reports some morning, and Doesticks would have been therein stigmatized as "Drunk and Disorderly."
But the imputation would be slanderous, – I will lay before the public the events of a single night, and its verdict shall be a triumphant vindication of my character, – shall exculpate the Deity Bacchus (now resident in Ohio,) from the grave charge of leading me astray, – and lay the entire blame of the transaction upon the rascal River God.
Only once in my life have I been drunk. It was a youthful inebriation, caused by partaking too freely of cider made from apples with worms in them. At present I am sober. If, since my sojourn in this city, I have been intoxicated, then the time has arrived when any person who wishes to have a regular "drunk" need only apply to the nearest hydrant.
Heretofore I have supposed water to be a beverage innocent and harmless; but now – well; no matter – I will not anticipate. Listen while I relate a "plain, unvarnished tale."
I left my boarding-house in company with a friend, intending to witness the Shakspearian revival at Burton's – the "Midsummer Night's Dream." Before leaving the hotel, at his suggestion, we partook of a potable, known, I think, as punch —whiskey punch. I watched attentively the preparation of this agreeable beverage, and I am certain that there entered into its composition a certain amount of water – Croton water, as I have every reason to believe; and I am also sure that in that treacherous draught I imbibed the first instalment of that villanous liquid which produced the diabolical state of facts I am about to describe; and also that the second and third of those ingenious inventions (both of which we drank on the spot) were as guilty, in this respect, as their "illustrious predecessor!"
And I furthermore conscientiously state that my glass of brandy (one of a couple we ordered soon afterwards), and which, according to my invariable custom, should have been "straight," was also surreptitiously diluted with the same detestable fluid by the malicious bar-keeper, for I remember experiencing a slight confusion on going out, and mistaking a topsail schooner for the Broadway theatre.
We immediately entered another saloon to procure the wherewith to steady our nerves, when we partook of two gin cocktails and a brandy smash individually, and I state, according to the best of my knowledge and belief, that our principal ingredient in each and every one of these compounds was water – Croton water – culpably introduced therein by some evil-disposed persons without my knowledge or consent.
On leaving this saloon, I noticed that my friend, although a single man, had by some mysterious process of multiplication become two. I kept fast hold of both, and, after doubling, with a great deal of difficulty, a great number and variety of corners, we reached Burton's. Tickets being mysteriously procured, we entered, and eventually obtained seats. Finding, after prolonged trial, that it was impracticable to put my hat in my vest pocket, I placed it on the floor, and put both feet in it. The theatre generally seemed to be somewhat mixed up. The parquette, gallery, and dress circle were all one; and the stage was whirling round at a rate which must have been extremely inconvenient to the revolving actors.
At length, after a liberal allowance of overture, the curtain went up, and I was enabled, by the most unremitting attention, to concentrate the actors sufficiently to understand the performance. And many things which I hitherto deemed dramatically incorrect were presented to my wondering vision then and there.
"Hippolyta" was dressed in knee-breeches and brogans, and "Titania" did not, to me, present a very fairy-like appearance in a fireman's red shirt and a three-cocked hat. "Oberon" was not so objectionable (being a gentleman,) in a talma and plaid pantaloons, though even he might have blacked his boots and omitted the spurs. I fear I did not properly appreciate the rest of the fairies, who had their heads decorated with sunflowers and their hands full of onions.
At last the entertainment was concluded, and I remember consulting with my duplicated friend as to the feasibility of a return to Brooklyn, to our boarding-house. On our journey thither we witnessed many strange things about which I desire information.
In the first place, is it the custom, as a general thing, for the City Hall and Barnum's Museum to indulge in an animated contra-dance up and down Broadway in the middle of the night, accompanied in their fantastic movements, by the upper story of Stewart's and the Bible Society's building? For they certainly did on that eventful evening, and I feel called upon to enter my solemn protest against these nocturnal architectural saltatory exhibitions, as unworthy the dignity of the Empire City.
And I would, with all humility, suggest, that if the stony goddess of Justice, whose appropriate place is on the top of the City Hall, will desert her responsible post, she might choose a more becoming amusement than sitting cross-legged on the top of a Houston street stage, playing the jews-harp.
I am now convinced that Bowling-Green fountain is not permanently located on the top of Trinity Church cross; but that it was on that memorable night, my wondering eyes bore ample testimony.
I am sufficiently well acquainted with the city to know that the Astor House should be found on the corner of Barclay street, but I am ready to take my oath that on that particular occasion it plied as an opposition ferry-boat between Whitehall street and Hamilton avenue. The last thing I distinctly recollect is trying to pay the fare for three on this novel craft, with a single piece of money (which I now know to have been a Bungtown copper), and demanding two-and-sixpence change, which I didn't get.
In the morning I found myself in bed with my overcoat on, and afterwards discovered my boots under the pillow – my hat in the grate, with my pantaloons and hair-brush in it – my watch in the water-jug, and my latch-key in the bird-cage. I presume I had tried to write a letter to some one with my tooth-brush, as I found that article in my inkstand.
Now, if Croton water interferes with my susceptible system in this unaccountable manner, what shall I drink? I would resort to milk, but I fear our city edition of the lacteal contains sufficient of the aqueous enemy to again upset my too delicate nerves. I exclaim, like Cæsar, when he, too, was afflicted with superfluity of water, "Help me, Cassius, or I sink!"
What would be the effect of brandy and water without any water, and a little lemon?
IX
Modern Witchcraft
It has been asserted, that no humbug can be invented which is so improbable that it will find no believers. No theory is too ridiculous, no folly too great to turn the stomach of the modern wonder-seeking Public; it opens its staring eyes, perhaps, a little wider than usual at some transcendent tomfoolery, but its sapient optics have as yet discerned nothing in all the superfluous deceptions and jugglery of the age, too hugely nonsensical to be swallowed without even a single qualm.
Hence, all the "pathies" and "isms" of medical Empiricism, all the newly discovered charlatanry of the legal trade, and even the latest form of religious quackery, that new device of bashful, half-grown, bastard Infidelity, denominated Spiritualism, which would be impious if it was not idiotic, have all received from the wise ones of the nineteenth century belief and credence.
For at this time of triumphant and successful humbug – when indiscriminate puffery is freely used to boost into notice all kinds of sham, deception, and deceit, which thereupon grow fat and thrive – when vermin exterminators, lucifer matches, and patent blacking employ such high-flown language in commendation of their merits, that inventions of real merit and importance must resort to the basest bombast to keep pace with the foolery of their neighbors – when solid merit which would succeed, must vie in euphuistic phrase with brainless emptiness which will– when, in Literature, inane collections of stolen wit, diluted humor, and feeble fiction are spawned in scores from weak-brained fops and aspiring women, inflated by unsparing puffery into a transient notoriety, and palmed upon the public as works of sterling merit – when even these Doestick Letters are purchased and perused, it may easily be imagined that no impudent humbug, if properly managed, will turn the stomach of the enlightened Yankee Nation.
It is not astonishing, that, in a sort of gross imitation of the clairvoyants and spirit-seers, other persons not quite so intellectual perhaps, but fully as reliable should also profess to hold converse with invisible beings.
The fortune-tellers of the city are these, and they certainly deserve praise for attempting to apply their pretended knowledge to some practical use, instead of dealing entirely with abstractions. In New York these people are numerous, and they pick up as many coppers in quite as honest a way as their fellows in the art of table-tipping notoriety.
Having read the advertisement of a Grand street fortune-teller, who advertised herself the "seventh daughter of a seventh daughter," a lineal descendant from some one of the Egyptian magicians who couldn't kill the frogs – I straightway resolved to pay her a visit.
Since that memorable day my destiny is no longer a mystery. I know it all. I know what kind of a woman I'm to marry, how many children we're to have, how many will die of measles, and how many will be choked with the croup, and can calculate to a quart how much castor oil I shall have to lay in for family consumption. I've had my fortune told by a witch.
The witches of modern time do not frequent graves and gibbets at midnight – they hold no nocturnal orgies with dancing skeletons and corpses, brought by the black art back to temporary life – they now-a-days take no pains to conceal their trade, but advertise it in the daily papers.
Their believers are not now the great men and wise women of the earth alone, but chamber-maids and servant girls who want love-powders to win some noble swain – or some verdant countryman anxious to recover the pilfered eelskin which contained his treasured pennies. They easily satisfy these gullible customers, by promising the first no end of rich, handsome princes, who are to appear some day and carry off their brides in four-horse coaches; and the latter by an extemporaneous description of the thief, and a wish that he may suffer pains in his head, heart, liver, and all other important parts of his body, until the property is restored.
Witchcraft is rife in our midst, and we do not hang or burn the hags and beldames who practice it, or stick them full of needles, or duck them in the horse-ponds, as in the good old days of Salem – more's the pity.
In this day of railroads and three-cent stages, they have no occasion to perform their journeys upon broomsticks; and in our city, where cream is only traditionary, they cannot bewitch their neighbors' churnings, or throw their dire enchantments over the incipient cheese – so the protective horse-shoe is of no avail.
They have robbed the trade of all its mystery and romance; we hear no more of mighty magician, with hoary beard and flowing robe, with magic wand and attendant spirits; no more "weird sisters," with talon fingers and sunken eyes; not even romantic wandering gipsies – but ugly women, with unwashed hands, who can't spell.
The calling has degenerated, and the necromantic trade has passed into the hands of unworthy successors, who would steal their living, if cheating wasn't easier. And the trade thrives, and the swindling practisers thereof flaunt in silks, while honest virtue staves off destitution by making "hickory" shirts at eight cents a piece.
Went up town, found the house, rung the bell, and was shown into a shabby room by a stuttering girl, who informed me by instalments that her mistress would see me presently. Examined the furniture – rickety table, ditto chairs, bare floor with knot-holes in it, unctuous mirror, two hair trunks, a clothes basket, and a hat-box.
Enter mistress – minus youth, beauty, hair-pins and clean stockings.
She wore no flowing robe figured with cabalistic signs, she bore no sable wand of magic, but she was clad in a calico dress, and had a brass candlestick in her hand – she drew no mystic circle, she performed no inscrutable incantations, she spoke in no unknown tongue – but she put the candlestick on the rickety table, sat down in a cane-bottomed chair, and asked me what my name was, and what I wanted.
Told her I wanted to find out who I was going to marry, and wanted her to tell me a lucky number in the lottery, which should draw a prize big enough to support the family – also wanted a description of the man who stole my jack-knife, and a knowledge of the place where I could find the same.
Now she began to work – she did not consult the stars – she did not cast my horoscope – she did not even ask me where I was born, or what my father did for a living – she exhibited no strange paraphernalia of sorcery and conjuration – no obscure language, suggestive of a divination or enchantment, fell from her prophetic lips.
She only asked me if I had any moles on my person, and what I dreamed about last night – then plunging her hand through a slit in the side of her dress, she fished out from some unknown depth a pack of cards. Greasy were they, and well worn – the knave of spades had his legs torn off, the queen of diamonds had her face scratched with a thimble, two of the aces were stuck together with beeswax, and the king of clubs had evidently been used to skim flies out of the molasses.
After much shuffling of the royal and plebeian members of the pack, she got them fixed to her satisfaction, and I proceeded to draw therefrom nine cards, which she disposed in three symmetrical piles; then looked them over – bit her lip – stamped her foot; then told me that my knife had been stolen by a squint-eyed Irishman, who had disposed of it to his uncle for a dozen cotton night-caps, sixty cigars and thirty cents ready money, and that if I was anxious to reclaim it, I would find it at No. 1 Round the Corner.
Asked her if I was big enough to lick the Irishman, at which she waxed indignant, and for a moment I half feared she would turn me into some horrible monster; that, like Circe of old, she would exercise her magic power, and qualify me to play a star engagement at the Metropolitan Theatre by transforming me into an elephant, a she-wolf, or a Bengal tiger.
But, as my mouth didn't get any larger, my toe nails grow any longer, or my fingers change to claws; as I felt no growing appetite for blood, and my nose didn't elongate into a trunk, I soon recovered my equanimity.
Then she went on to say that No. 67 would draw me a prize in the lottery, and that I could get it of "Sam" – that I would marry a red-haired woman, who would die and leave me with a nursing baby – that I would then be "jilted" by a widow, and finally wed a lady whose description corresponds exactly with my present washer-woman; our family is to increase to seventeen; my second son is to be President, and my eldest daughter is to run away with the Czar of all the Russias. She wasn't exactly positive about the manner of my death, but from the looks of the jack of clubs, she "judged I should break my neck coming home from a clam-bake."
Gave her a dollar, and left. A month has passed – 67 seems a promising number – hav'n't got my knife yet, but live in hope – have seen my future wife, hav'n't yet proposed, but have reason to suppose she would not object.
She was in Catharine street, and had a basket on her head full of shrimps.
X
City Target Excursion
In this City, which, even in cholera seasons, is most heroically nasty, when the filth in Broadway gets so deep as to stop the stages and throw the cars off the track, men are sent round by the City to expend an infinity of labor in hoeing it into symmetrical heaps, like miniature fortifications. In fact, if plenitude of mud could avail to protect a town from invading foes, New York might bid the world defiance, for all the allied powers of all the earth could no more reduce our (in that case) impregnable City, than the late chivalrous Lord Forth could take Sebastopol, by lying flat on his back, and calling for his ma to come and take him home. As the City authorities content themselves with erecting these picturesque monuments, and do not trouble themselves to remove the same, but leave them to adorn the landscape, of course the first rain metamorphoses the fragrant mass from an embryo mountain to a diminutive lake, almost disgusting enough to make a street contractor sick. No lady attempts the perilous navigation of our streets, unless she has been a couple of seasons at Newport or Rockaway, and learned to swim like a mermaid. And any man who would black his boots in the morning, would be taken to the Lunatic Asylum before night. A search for a dry crossing would be a hopeless pilgrimage, and he who would find a get-over-able-without-getting-your-shoes-full-of-mud street in this metropolis, would wear his life out in a fruitless exploration, and be prematurely planted in Greenwood, with his object unattained. In ordinary times the ladies sweep the sidewalks tolerably clean with their trailing skirts, but now they seem to have thrown up their contract. Coming down town the other day in a stage, our reckless driver tried the depth of one of the above mentioned municipal lakes – the wheels stuck fast – the vehicle settled into the hopeless depth – one scream from the ladies – one unanimous curse from the men – one frantic, furious, ineffectual struggle of the horses, and in another instant we were floating a hopeless wreck. Every one for himself. I saw one of the ladies dragged safely out by the hair – men eventually reached the land in safety, but I rejoiced to see a malignant baby, (which during our journey had screamed and kicked one half the time, and the other half persisted in calling me "Daddy," and soiling my shirt-front with its sticky fingers,) go to the bottom amid a universal chorus of thanksgiving from the company. Got ashore myself, with my coat spoiled, my hat minus, my boots full of water, and my whole person "dripping from the recent flood," like a he-Venus rising from an odoriferous ocean.
As a consequence of my involuntary bath, I have since been afflicted with a severe toothache, pleading which comfortable and soothing ail, I obtained leave of absence for a day from the popular establishment where I have the honor to sell peanuts and pop-corn to the confiding public, and I resolved to employ the unusual holiday in attending one of the peculiar institutions of grown-up New York, denominated a "target shoot."
From the incongruous population of the village aforesaid, target companies spring up with the rapidity and profusion of mushrooms in an old pasture. In all other cities they are exotics, and never have a vigorous and healthy existence – here only are they indigenous, and on Manhattan Island do they flourish in native luxuriance.
The materials are varied – the ingredients sometimes curious – a company being sometimes composed entirely of journeymen tailors, blacksmiths' apprentices, master carpenters, clerks, porters, coalheavers, stagedrivers, candy-peddlers, pop-corn men, or those persevering individuals who roast perpetual chestnuts on the sidewalk in tin pans – fire companies, express companies, policemen, gangs of men from all kinds of mammoth shops – for wherever thirty or forty individuals work in the same house, they form themselves into a military company, and once or twice every year go to Hoboken and shoot for whiskey and other prizes.
When they want to make a full turn-out, the places of any missing members are filled by extemporaneous volunteers. It was in this capacity that I proposed to go. In these companies there are always more officers than men, more epaulettes than muskets – always a big band of music, and two darkies to carry the target. As to their marching, no two ever step together, and they always put a tall man by the side of a short one, so as to have the average length of steps come right. They go forth in the morning in high spirits, and return at night surly, dusty, discontented, dilapidated, and drunk. As the target is always carried in triumph through the streets, and afterward exhibited in the drill-room, the darkey invariably carries an auger with him, with which explosive weapon all the best shots are made. Every member has a whiskey-bottle in his cartridge-box, or a brandy-flask in his knapsack.
As a general thing, they turn their toes in, and are bandy-legged – they carry their guns over their shoulders at all conceivable angles, and so little do they know about fire-arms, that probably, if called to load their muskets in a hurry, two out of three would put their cartridges in their breeches pockets, and stick their percussion caps on the ends of their ramrods.
When they fire salute, and mean to all shoot together, the report is so near simultaneous that a stranger would think they were firing minute guns. They always select for judges of the shooting, the men who will give the most whiskey, and make the shortest speeches.
As these excursions come off just before election, the candidates for office generally pay for the prizes, and bear the expenses of a reporter for the press to puff the company. The judges carry out the rewards in the morning tied up in brown paper, and the soldiers wear them back at night, around their necks. Six or eight men, called pioneers, march in front, with muffs on their heads, leather aprons tied around their waists, and theoretical axes in their hands, which could never, by any possibility, be made to cut anything. The officers walk between the platoons, flourishing their dandy swords – their attention being pretty equally divided between keeping the men in the line, keeping the little boys out of the line, keeping their unaccustomed white cotton gloves on, and trying to keep step with the music. In single file the men march like a flock of geese on their winding way to the mill-pond, and six or eight abreast, they go with the regularity of a crowd of school-boys, effecting a masterly but hurried retreat from somebody's melon-patch. In order to make them form a straight line, it is necessary to back them up against a brick block, or make them stand between the tracks of a railroad.
Such was the company of which I became a member for a brief eventful time. Its cognomen was "The Lager-Bier American Volunteers, and Native Empire City Shillelagh Guards," being composed of Irish, Dutch, Spaniards, and Sandwich Islanders – the only Americans in the company being the colored target-bearers, and the undersigned.
Convened in the drill-room at 8 A. M. As I was a new member, and had borrowed my uniform, I had some difficulty in putting it on – buckled my crossbelt round my neck, got my cap on wrong side before, stuck my bayonet through my coat-tail – put my cartridge-box between my shoulders, and my priming-wire where my "pompon" should have been.
Ready at length to start – crossed the ferry – disembarked – proceeded to the ground and prepared to drill.
The captain finding it impossible to get into a straight line in the usual manner, at length ingeniously overcame this geometrical difficulty by ranging us against a board fence – he then proceeded to put us through the exercise: "Shoulder arms!" Got my gun on the wrong shoulder. "Order arms!" Brought it down on the toes of my neighbor. "Shoulder arms!" again. Got it on the right shoulder this time, but in so doing knocked off the cap of the man next to me, &c. Got through the rest of the drill without any serious mishap, except that in attempting to charge my piece, I bit off the wrong end of the cartridge, and swallowed the ball – spilled the powder on the ground, and loaded the musket with the paper only.
Now came the shooting. Nigger set the target at twenty paces – four volleys and not a ball in it – moved it up to fifteen – no better luck – moved it again, one ball put in it this time by a clumsy Dutchman, who shut his eyes when he fired, and hit by mistake. Finding that shooting was no use, captain adopted the usual plan – set the target at ten paces, blindfolded the men, and each one charged on it with the auger; where the point happened to hit, he bored a hole, and the one nearest the bull's eye took the prize. I could see a little through a hole in the cloth – consequence: hit the centre and took the first prize, (a plated cake-basket with a pewter handle, bought for silver by the sagacious Committee).
As the brandy had circulated pretty freely, some of the shots were rather wild – several missed the target entirely and knocked their heads against the trees; one bored a deep hole in a sand bank, and the first lieutenant was put under arrest for attempting to tap the captain.
The man who took the second prize did not come so near the mark by an inch and a half as another man, but he had a pretty sister whom one of the judges was in love with, so he took "the spoons." Ready to go home – Muggins, one of the judges, missing. After a long search found him wrapped up in the colors, fast asleep with his head in a hog-trough – stirred him up with a musket, when he called me "Mrs. Muggins," and swore at me for pulling all the sheet over to my side.
Marched home in as good order as circumstances would allow – the darkey bearing in proud triumph the perforated target, which had so many hits near the centre, as to excite the admiration of the deluded public, which, as a general rule, in such cases, can't tell a bullet mark from an auger-hole.
XI
A new Patent Medicine Operation
As I too desire to have a mansion on the Fifth Avenue, like the Medical Worthy of Sarsaprilla memory, and wished like him to be able to build a patent medicine palace, with a private chapel under the back-stairs, and a conservatory down-cellar, I cast about me for some means whereby the requisite cash might be reputably accumulated.
I feared that the Panacea and Cure-Everything trick had been played too often, but I determined to make one big try, and I think that at last my fortune is made.
Congratulate me – I am immortalized, and I've done it myself. My name will be handed down to posterity as that of a universal benefactor. The hand which hereafter writes upon the record of Fame, the names of Ayer, Sands, Townsend, Moffat, Morrison, and Brandreth, must also inscribe, side by side with these distinguished appellations, the no less brilliant cognomen of the undying Doesticks.
Emulous of the deathly notoriety which has been acquired by the medicinal worthies just mentioned, I also resolved to achieve a name and a fortune in the same reputable and honest manner.
Bought a gallon of tar, a cake of beeswax, and a firkin of lard, and in twenty-one hours I presented to the world the first batch of "Doesticks' Patent, Self-Acting, Four-Horse Power Balsam," designed to cure all diseases of mind, body, or estate, to give strength to the weak, money to the poor, bread and butter to the hungry, boots to the barefoot, decency to blackguards, and common sense to the Know-Nothings. It acts physically, morally, mentally, psychologically, physiologically, and geologically, and it is intended to make our sublunary sphere a blissful paradise, to which Heaven itself shall be but a side-show.
I have not yet brought it to absolute perfection, but even now it acts with immense force, as you will perceive by the accompanying testimonials and records of my own individual experience. You will observe that I have not resorted to the usual manner of preparing certificates: which is, to be certain that all those intended for Eastern circulation shall seem to come from some formerly unheard-of place in the West, while those sent to the West shall be dated at some place forty miles east of sun-rise. But I send to you, as representing the western country, a certificate from an Oregon farmer.
"Dear Sir: The land composing my farm has hitherto been so poor that a Scotchman couldn't get his living off it; and so stony that we had to slice our potatoes and plant them edgeways; but, hearing of your balsam, I put some on the corner of a ten-acre lot, surrounded by a rail-fence, and in the morning I found the rocks had entirely disappeared – a neat stone wall encircled the field, and the rails were split into ovenwood and piled up symmetrically in my back yard.
Put half an ounce into the middle of a huckleberry swamp – in two days it was cleared off, planted with corn and pumpkins, and had a row of peach trees in full bloom through the middle.
As an evidence of its tremendous strength, I would state that it drew a striking likeness of my eldest daughter – drew my youngest boy out of the mill-pond – drew a blister all over his stomach – drew a load of potatoes four miles to market, and eventually drew a prize of ninety-seven dollars in the State Lottery.
And the effect upon the inhabitants hereabout has been so wonderful, that they have opened their eyes to the good of the country, and are determined to vote for a Governor who is opposed to frosts in the middle of June, and who will make a positive law against freshets, hail-storms, and the seventeen-year locusts."
There, isn't that some?
But I give one more from a member of the senior class in a western college, who, although misguided, neglected, and ignorant, is, undoubtedly, as honest and sincere as his Prussianized education will admit of.
I have corrected the orthography, and revised some grammatical inaccuracies; but, besides attending to these trifles, inserting marks of punctuation, and putting the capitals in the right places, I assure you I have made no alteration.
"Sall Harbor, June 31, 1854.
"My Dear Doctor. [You know I attended medical lectures half a winter, and once assisted in getting a crooked needle out of a baby's leg; so I understand perfectly well the theory and practice of medicine, and the Doctor is perfectly legitimate under the Prussian system.] By the incessant study required in this establishment, I had become worn down so thin that I was obliged to put on an overcoat to cast a shadow – but accidentally hearing of your Balsam, I obtained a quantity, and, in obedience to the Homœopathic principles of this Institution, took an infinitesimal dose only; in four days I measured one hundred and eighty-two inches round the waist; could chop eleven cords of hickory wood in two hours and a half; and, on a bet, carried a yoke of oxen two miles and a quarter in my left hand, my right being tied behind me, and if any one doubts the fact, the oxen are still to be seen.
"About two weeks after this, I had the pleasure of participating in a gunpowder explosion, on which occasion my arms and legs were scattered over the village, and my mangled remains pretty equally distributed throughout the entire county.
Under these circumstances my life was despaired of, and my classmates had bought a pine coffin, and borrowed whole shirts to attend the funeral in; when the invincible power of your four horse-power balsam (which I happened to have in my vest pocket) suddenly brought together the scattered pieces of my body – collected my limbs from the rural districts – put new life into my shattered frame, and I was restored, uninjured to my friends, with a new set of double teeth.
I have preserved the label which enveloped the bottle, and have sewed it into the seat of my pantaloons, and I now bid grim death defiance, for I feel that I am henceforth unkillable, and in fact I am even now generally designated the 'Great Western Achilles.'
Yours entirely Ski Hy."
I feel that after this, I need give you no more reports of third persons, but will detail some of my own personal experience of the article.
I caused some to be applied to the Washtenaw Bank after its failure, and while the Balsam lasted the Bank redeemed its notes with specie.
The cork of one of the bottles dropped upon the head of a childless widow, and in six weeks she had a young and blooming husband.
Administered some to a hack-driver in a glass of gin and sugar, and that day he swindled but seven people, and only gave two of them bad money in change.
Gave a few drops gratis to a poor woman who was earning a precarious subsistence by making calico shirts with a one-eyed needle, and the next day she was discovered to be heir to a large fortune.
Gave some to an up-town actor, and that night he said "damned" only twenty-one times.
One of the daily papers got the next dose, and in the next edition but one there were but four editorial falsehoods, seven indecent advertisements, and two columns and a half of home-made "Foreign Correspondence."
Caused fifteen drops to be given to the low comedian of a Broadway Theatre, and that night he was positively dressed more like a man than a monkey, actually spoke some lines of the author, made only three inane attempts at puerile witticisms – only twice went out of his way to introduce some grossly indelicate line into his part, and for a wonder, lost so much of his self-conceit that for a full half-hour he did not believe himself the greatest comedian in the world.
Gave some to a news-boy, and he manufactured but three fires, a couple of murders, and one horrible rail-road accident in the next thirty minutes.
Put some on the outside of the Crystal Palace and the same day the stock went from 22 up to 44.
Our whole Empire City is entirely changed by the miraculous power of "Doesticks' Patent Self-Acting Four Horse Power Balsam." The gas is lighted on the dark nights, instead of on the moonlight evenings – there are no more highway robberies in the streets, or, if there are, the offenders, when arrested, are instantly discharged by the police magistrate. No more building materials on the sidewalks; no more midnight murders; no more Sunday rows; no more dirty streets; no more duels in Hoboken, and no more lies in the newspapers.
Broadway is swept and garnished: the M. P.'s are civil, and the boys don't steal any more dogs. In fact, so well content are we now with our City, that we feel, as the Hibernian poet so beautifully says:
"O, if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this – it is this."
Orders for my Balsam, accompanied by the money, will be immediately attended to; otherwise not, for my partner and I have resolved to sell for cash only feeling as did Dr. Young, who appropriately and feelingly remarks —
"We take no notes on Time."
Bull Dogge says I have piled it up too strong, and that no one will believe what he calls "that humbug about the newspapers, and the preposterous nonsense concerning the Broadway Actor." I am aware that in these instances my medicine has performed a modern miracle, but the facts remain "no less true than strange."
If I fail to accumulate a "pile" in this speculation, I shall start a Know-Nothing Newspaper, run it a month, and then fail and swindle the subscribers; get an overgrown woman or a whiskered lady, and exhibit her for twenty-five cents a head, or get up a Grand Gift Enterprise, with $20,000 prizes.
XII
Running with the "Masheen."
Since the "Grate old Squwirt" made to go by steam, and imported from Cincinnati to put to the blush Metropolitan Redshirtdom, and which couldn't raise steam enough to throw water to the top of the City Hall, has proved such a signal failure, the good old-fashioned "fire-annihilators" (not Barnum's) have been more popular than ever.
The "boys" say they will take the oldest and most primitive engine in the city, man it with fourteen small-sized news-boys on a side, and, with this apparatus, will throw more water, throw it higher farther, and to more purpose than any or all the clumsy steam humbugs yet invented in Porkopolis.
Ninety-seven's boys say they can run to a fire, get their water on, extinguish the conflagration, "take-up", get home, bunk in, and snooze half an hour before the "Squwirt" could get her kindling-wood ready.
Now I am not known by the cognomen of "Mose," nor do I answer to the name of "Syskey" – neither as a general thing do I promenade the middle of Broadway with my pantaloons tucked into my boots. Still, by way of a new excitement, I lately joined the Fire Department, and connected myself with the company of Engine 97.
Bought my uniform, treated the company, took up my quarters in the bunkroom, where I slept by night in a bed occupied in the day-time by a big yellow dog. First night, went to bed with my boots on, ready for an alarm. At last it came – seized the rope with the rest of the boys; started on a run; tugged and toiled till we got her into the 11th district, four miles and a half from home; found the alarm had been caused by a barrel of shavings, and the conflagration had extinguished itself; had to drag her clear back; tired most to death; it wasn't funny at all.
Turned in; half an hour, new alarm; started again – hose 80 laid in the same alley, got our apparatus jammed on the corner; fight; 97 victorious; got our machine out, and carried off the forewheel of 80's carriage on our tongue; reached the fire; big nigger standing on the hydrant; elected myself appraiser and auctioneer; knocked him down without any bidder; took water; got our stream on the fire; fun; worked till my arms ached; let go to rest; foreman hit me over the head with a trumpet, and told me to go ahead; children in the garret; horrible situation; gallant fireman made a rush up the ladder; battled his way through the smoke – reappeared with a child in each arm, and his pocket full of teaspoons.
Old gentleman from the country; much excited; wanted to help, but didn't exactly know how; he rushed into a fourth-story bedroom; threw the mirror out of the window; frantically endeavored to hurl the dressing-table after it; seized the coal-scuttle; hurriedly put in the poker, bootjack, and a pair of worn out slippers, carried them down stairs, and deposited them in a place of safety four blocks away; came back on a run, into the parlor; took up the door-mat, wrapped up an empty decanter in it, and transported it safely into the barn of the nearest neighbor; he kept at work; by dint of heroic exertions, he at various times deposited, by piece, the entire kitchen cooking-stove in the next street, uninjured; and at last, after knocking the piano to pieces with an axe, in order to save the lock, and filling his pocket with the sofa castors, he was seen to make his final exit from the back-yard, with a length of stovepipe in each hand, the toasting fork tucked behind his ear, and two dozen muffin rings in his hat which was surmounted by a large-sized frying-pan.
During the next week there were several alarms – fire in a big block full of paupers – first man in the building; carried down stairs in my arms two helpless undressed children, thereby saving their valuable lives; on giving them to their mother, she, amid a whirlwind of thanks, imparted the gratifying intelligence that one was afflicted with the measles, and the other had the Michigan itch.
Another fire; foreman took the lead, and ran down the street, yelling like an independent devil, with a tin trumpet. Company made a grand stampede, and followed in the rear, dragging old 97 in a spasmodic gallop. Found the fire in a boarding school; dashed up a ladder; tumbled through a window; entered a bed-room; smoke so thick I couldn't see; caught up in my arms a feminine specimen in a long night-gown; got back to the window; tried to go down; ladder broke under me; stuck adhesively to the young lady; and, after unexampled exertions, deposited her safely in the next house, where I discovered that I had rescued from the devouring element the only child of the black cook!
Fire in a storehouse – went on the roof; explosion; found myself in somebody's cellar, with one leg in a soap barrel, and my hair full of fractured hen's eggs; discovered that I had been blown over a church, and had the weathercock still remaining in the rear of my demolished pantaloons.
Fire in a liquor-store – hose burst; brandy "lying round loose;" gin "convaynient," and old Monongahela absolutely begging to be protected from further dilution; Croton water too much for my delicate constitution; carried home on a shutter.
Fire in a church – Catholic – little marble images all round the room in niches; wall began to totter; statues began to fall; St. Andrew knocked my fire hat over my eyes; St. Peter threw his whole weight on my big toe; St. Jerome hit me a clip over the head, which laid me sprawling, when a picture of the Holy Family fell and covered me up like a bed quilt.
Fire in a big clothing store – next day our foreman sported a new silk velvet vest, seven of the men exhibited twelve dollar doeskin pants, and the black boy who sweeps out the bunk room, and scours the engine, had a new hat, and a flaming red cravat, presented, as I heard, by the proprietor of the stock of goods, as an evidence of his appreciation of their endeavors to save his property.
I didn't get any new breeches; on the contrary, lost my new overcoat, and got damaged myself. Something like this – fire out, order came, "take up, 97;" took off the hose; turned her round; got the boys together, and started for home; corner of the street hook and ladder 100 (Dutch), engine 73 (Irish), hose 88 (Yankee), and our own company, came in contact; machines got jammed; polyglot swearing by the strength of the companies; got all mixed up; fight; one of 88's men hit foreman of hook and ladder 100 over the head with a spanner; extemporaneous and impartial distribution of brickbats; 97's engineer clipped one of 73's men with a trumpet; 73 retaliated with a paving stone; men of all the companies went in; resolved to "go in" myself; went in; went out again as fast as I could, with a black eye, three teeth (indigestible, I have reason to believe) in my stomach, intermingled with my supper, my red shirt in carpet rags, and my knuckles skinned, as if they had been pawned to a Chatham street Jew.
Got on a hydrant, and watched the fun; 88's boys whipped everything; 73's best man was doubled up like a jack-knife, by a dig in the place where Jonah was; four of 97's fellows were lying under the machine, with their eyes in mourning; hook and ladder took home two-thirds of their company on the truck, and the last I saw of their foreman he was lying in the middle of the street, with his trumpet smashed flat, his boots under his head, his pockets inside out, a brick in his mouth, a hundred and twenty-five feet of hose on the back of his neck, and the hind wheels of 20's engine resting on his left leg.
Four policemen, on the opposite corner, saw the whole row. On the first indication of a fight, they pulled their hats down over their eyes, covered up their stars, and slunk down the nearest alley. Got home, resigned my commission, made my will, left the company my red shirt and fire cap. Seen enough of fire service; don't regret my experience, but do grieve for my lost teeth and my new overcoat.
P. S. – Have just met the foreman of 73 – he had on my late lamented overcoat; ain't big enough to lick him – magnanimously concluded to let him alone.
XIII
Street Preaching – A Zealous Trio, and a Religious Controversy
During the first part of my sojourn in the metropolis I made the acquaintance of a portly personage from the "Providence Plantations," who invited me to visit his home, and take a look at little "Rhody." As I had been hustled round pretty constantly for several weeks, I had become fairly tired of New York, although it is a town of considerable consequence. Wanted to see the world; so started for the seven-by-nine State of Rhode Island. In the course of a thorough exploration of that delightful though diminutive state, which occupied me about five hours, I discovered that they shingle the houses all over outside and in, and put the windows in the roof; they make their rail fences out of cobble stones; the ducks roost on the fence, and hatch their young ones in the tops of the cherry trees; the men look so much alike, their wives often kiss the wrong individual, (Damphool says it's a way women have the world over).
Went to the city of Providence, where all the men make jewelry, and all the women believe in spirit rappings; where they've got a bridge wider than it is long, and Macadamized on both sides; where all the plaster busts of great men have grey wigs on; where they light the gas in the middle of the afternoon; where they drive five horses tandem; where the apples grow as big as washtubs, and the oysters obtain the enormous size of three-cent pieces.
Went into the woods after chestnuts; couldn't find any, but discovered a magnificent tree in the distance – rejoiced exceedingly thereat – started for it – three quarters of a mile away; went ahead over stones, ditches, fences, snakes, briers, and stone walls, until at last I reached it, and found it was an elm, no chestnuts on it – got very mad; walked round the state a couple of times, and took the first train for home.
Glad to see the old place again, and also pleased to perceive that something of unusual importance seemed to occupy the attention of the usually-hard-at-work-but-on-Sunday-loafing-about-the-streets-waiting-for-a-fire-or-a-row-to-turn-up population of the city.
Saw a big crowd in the Park – inquired about it, and was told the usual Street Screeching was going on – wanted to see the fun – got a good place on a fat Irishman's toes.
Enter Gabriel – tin horn – hole in his pantaloons – (Bull Dogge says that if Angels have wings they are also provided with tails – hence this last item); thought it extremely probable. Gabriel mounted one end of the City Hall steps, and after a preliminary overture on his horn, and a slight skirmish among the faithful, resulting in four black eyes, a damaged nose, and a broken leg, the religious services commenced – (Damphool was entirely carried away by his sympathies for this last martyr, but soon discovered that the fractured member was "purely vegetable," as the patent medicine men say, and the injury was speedily repaired by means of a few shingle nails and a piece of clapboard).
Gabriel went in to win, but, spite of the sanctity of his name and the holiness of his aforesaid breeches, he was not permitted a clear field.
A female, with bosom undressed in the latest fashion; petticoats (Damphool says skirticoats) not immaculate; stockings, through the texture of which her delicate ancles were plainly visible to the naked eye; whose hair resembled molasses candy; with a nose symmetrical as an overgrown sweet potatoe, and in hue not unlike the martyred lobster; and whose teeth reminded me forcibly of the "crags and peaks" mentioned by the man in the play, took up her station on the other end of the steps.
She, like Gabe, went in for giving the church of Rome "Jesse," but otherwise did not agree with him. Did not seem willing to go to heaven by his conveyance, but claimed to have discovered some kind of a northwest passage – some exclusive path "cross lots;" and she advocated her right of way with all her woman's power of tongue – in fact, they agreed only tolerably – "Arcades ambo" – both celestials, but of a different breed – (B. D. says that some time since they joined issue on the devil's head, one asserting that he has horns, and the other maintaining that his brimstone friend is a muley) – but they both pitched into the Pope, abused all foreigners, denounced the church of Rome, walked into the affections of the Catholics generally – talked learnedly of priests, inquisitions, dungeons, thumbscrews, martyrs, convents, nunneries, and other luxuries, as being the only legitimate offspring of the mother of abominations, the scarlet woman; and, in fact, seemed to be having the field entirely to themselves, when lo! a change came o'er the spirit of the gospel show, for in the midst of the crowd suddenly appeared a third combatant – his classic dress and intellectual face gave unmistakable evidence that he was from the "gim of the ocean." With the dignified and majestic bearing peculiar to his countrymen, he slowly mounted the steps, and took a position directly between the two, and in a voice strongly tinctured with the "sweet brogue," announced himself as a champion of that much slandered gentleman, the Pope of Rome.
At this astounding impudence, the woman for a single instant held her peace. Gabe was so taken aback that he seemed about to collapse, but rallied, played an "ad libitum" interlude on the tin horn, and all hands "pitched in."
Gabriel commenced the onset by asserting that the Pope is not strictly a bachelor, but has seven white wives in his parlor, thirteen ditto bound in law calf in the library, a hundred and forty-one golden-haired damsels in his private apartments, and a perfect harem of jetty beauties in the coal-hole.
Petticoats followed, by saying that he breakfasts on Protestant babies; drinks whiskey punch out of a Protestant clergyman's skull; has an abducted Protestant virgin to black his boots; fifty-seven Protestant widows to dig his potatoes and hoe corn; and that he rolls ten-pins every afternoon with the heads of Protestant orphan children.
Irishman indignantly denied all – said the country is going to the old Knick, and some fine morning we shall wake up, and find that the Pope, unable longer to endure our perverseness, has sunk us all forty miles deeper than ancient Sodom; said that his Holiness can send us all to perdition by one wink of his left eye; that he is the head of the Church on Earth; has all power to save or otherwise; could get us all out of Purgatory, and send us all "kitin' into Heaven," by wagging his little finger; that he could, like a Joshua No. 2, make the sun and moon stand still; make the planets dance an astronomical rigadoon; cause the hills and mountains to execute a mighty geological jig, while old ocean should beat the time against the blue vault of Heaven and applauding Angels encore the huge saltations.
Gabe said he didn't believe the yarn. Petticoats remarked something about the Star Spangled Banner being always right side up.
Irishman proceeded to describe the future home of the happy in another world, as a place where there shall be plenty of potatoes, no end of shillelahs, oceans of genuine whiskey; and where no Know-Nothing Yankee shall be allowed to come and kick up a plug muss.
At the word Know-Nothing, there was a great sensation. Symptoms of a free fight rapidly developed into an uncivil war. Petticoats got mixed up with the crowd, and presently emerged rather the worse for wear, barefooted, bareheaded, hair down, nose injured by collision, eye in mourning, mouth bloody, and her whole appearance reminding me of "a goose or goslin – stuffed." (I forgot who penned this apposite quotation, and asked Bull Dogge, who, being excited by the fray, angrily asserted that it is by "Nero or some other old fogy" – is it?)
Irishman was taken away by seven policemen, on his national carriage, a wheelbarrow. Gabriel came out unhurt, save that his elegant features were somewhat marred by the finger nails of Petticoats. Perceiving that the fun was over, I turned to go, leaving the self-elected Angel Gabriel, straddle of a hydrant, edifying the passers-by, by alternately sounding notes of victory upon his horn, and crowing like an overgrown Shanghae.
XIV
Disappointed Love
Although in the course of my western peregrinations I had frequently met with attractive-looking damsels, there was always some blemish on their personal beauty, which though perhaps slight in many cases, made their charms fall short of that exalted standard desirable in the fairer part of mankind. Being unusually fastidious in my taste it is not to be wondered at, that previous to last Wednesday night, I had never been in love.
Save an occasional fit of cholera-morbus, I had never experienced anything even remotely approaching the tender passion. But on the evening of the eventful Wednesday, Sandie Goatie invited me to go with him and see his sister.
Now my friend Sandie is not a scholarly person, and has never received that questionable blessing, a college education. He always says "cod-fish" instead of "bonâ fide," and calls "tempus fugit" "pork and beans;" the only "Jupiter" he knows is a sable gentleman, and his only idea of "Venus," is a colored washerwoman, who in early life got up his hebdomadal linen.
But his sister is eminently classic; she stoops fashionably, with the "Grecian bend" – has a Roman nose, and her name is Calanthe Maria.
I went to see that sister – I saw that sister – I surrendered.
That seraphic sister – to attempt a description of her beauty, would be insanity itself. I will only mention her hair, and when I have said that this was sublime and divine, I wish it distinctly understood that I use these feeble terms, because the poverty of our language does not afford adjectives of adequate force.
The instant I saw her, my presence of mind deserted me. I felt bashful – I was conscious that I looked like a fool in the face, and my apparel, (on which I had prided myself), seemed as unworthy to be seen in her presence, as if it had been bought second-hand in Chatham street. Beneath the glance of her brilliant eyes, my feet seemed to grow too short, and my legs too long – my coat too big, and my collar limpsy, and I discovered a grease spot on my vest. Never had I been so shamefaced in the feminine presence before, and my bashfulness only temporarily deserted me, when, after much tribulation, I achieved a seat on a clumsy looking foot-stool, which I understood was called an "Ottoman." Whether or not it had any connection with Turks, turkeys, and Thanksgiving, I failed to discover.
Left alone a short time, I had leisure to recover myself, and to note the individual charms of my fair enslaver. A partial inventory of her visible apparel is ineffaceably stamped upon my mind.
A silk dress, of a pattern which seemed to have been designed for a gigantic checker-board, made with a train to do scavenger duty, and short sleeves, with lace curtains underneath – her neck and shoulders hidden from view by a thin veil of transparent lace, of a pattern designedly made to attract attention – but particulars are omitted.
Suffice it to say, that she was dressed as the prevailing fashion seems to demand.
I essayed to speak to her, but my timidity returned upon me with double force. Mustered courage at length and asked her to sing, and stepped on her toes while turning over her music – praised everything in the wrong place – when she sung a false note, I exclaimed "delicious." She made a two-handed discord, which I pronounced "enchanting," and when at last, from excess of agitation, she broke flat down, I enthusiastically declared that I was "never more delighted in the whole course of my life."
Asked her to play a waltz, and handed her a choir-book – opened at "Corinth" and "Silver street" – found I was wrong, and turned over the leaf to "Sinners turn, why will ye die?" – discovered that all was not right yet, and then requested her to play some sacred music, and in my anxiety to get the right notes this time, placed before her the "Jenny Lind Polka," which she at once began to play – I attempting to sing the words of "Old Hundred," which didn't seem to jibe.
We tried to dance, but my confusion still continued. I "chassezéd" myself across a table, and into a music rack – "promenaded" my partner over the stove – "balanced" her into a side-board, and eventually attempted to seat her in a mirror, where I saw a sofa.
Then I essayed conversation, and I am confident I talked the most absurd nonsense for the rest of my call – distinctly remember speaking of Noah Webster's beautiful play of "Evangeline" – eulogising Shakspeare's "Robinson Crusoe" – Thackeray's generalship at Waterloo – attempting to explain the difficulties which attended Henry Ward Beecher's attempts to get his Opera of "Bohemian Girl" before the public – telling who had the blackest eye when President Pierce and Joan of Arc fought their celebrated prize fight in the Crystal Palace in New York in 1793 – and at last, breaking down in trying to explain why Admiral Elihu Burritt, and his right hand man Xerxes the Great, did not succeed in taking Sebastopol in a month, according to contract.
When I bid her "good night," she took my hand and set me crazy by the touch of her fairy, taper fingers.
I dreamed all night about Calanthe – got up in the morning, called the waiter "Calanthe," and said "my darling" to him as he handed me my coffee – gave my tailor an order for a new coat and two pairs of pantaloons, and told him to charge them to "Calanthe" – got a box of cigars and a demijohn of Scotch whiskey, and signed the drayman's receipt "Calanthe" – all the signs read "Calanthe" – every street was "Calanthe" street – all the stages belonged to the "Calanthe" line, and were going to "Calanthe" ferry – the ship "Calanthe" had arrived, the steamboat "Calanthe" had burst her boiler, and the brig "Calanthe" been seen bottom upward with her rudder gone. I saw, heard, read, dreamed, thought, and talked nothing but "Calanthe," and cannibal that I am, I verily believe I ate nothing but "Calanthe" for a month.
The day after I saw her first I felt so exceedingly amiable that I bought something of every pedler who came into the store – laid in a stock of matches, pencils, shoe-brushes, suspenders, bootjacks, and blacking, which will last me a short lifetime – bought so much candy that the office-boy had the colic every afternoon for a week – called the applewoman "my own sweet love," and said "thank you, darling," when she gave me pewter dimes in change.
Wrote spasmodic poetry about Calanthe's hair – lines to her raven tresses – stanzas to her locks of jet – odes to her ebon ringlets – verses to her sable curls – rhymes to her coal-black hair, and commenced a poem in 17 cantos, to her ebony-topped head, but on reflection I was led to doubt the propriety of the comparison.
Called to see her every evening – substantial victuals didn't agree with me – a kind word from her was a good breakfast – a tender glance has served me for a dinner many a time, and once when she pressed my hand I couldn't eat anything for a fortnight but oranges, cream-candy, and vanilla-beans.
We went to the theatre, endured the negro minstrels, and braved the horrors of a second-rate Italian Opera Company – in fact, everywhere, where there was anything to be seen or heard, there were Calanthe Maria, and her devoted Philander.
For a month I forgot my debts, neglected business, ignored entirely this mundane sphere, and lived in a rainbow-colored aerial castle, of the most elegant finish – surrounded by roses, attended by cupids, and just big enough for Calanthe Maria and the subscriber.
In that happy place there were no duns, no tailors' bills, no trouble, no debts, no getting up early cold mornings, no tight boots, no bad cigars: nothing but love, luxury, and Calanthe Maria.
Came down occasionally out of my airy mansion, to speak a few words of compassion to my companions in the office, who hadn't got any Calanthe, but I went right back again as quick as I could to that rose-colored dream-land where love and Calanthe were "boss and all hands."
At last, one fatal evening I was undeceived.
We were waltzing, and through some clumsiness on my part, her hair caught in a gas-fixture – some mysterious string broke, and those glossy ringlets, the object of my adoration, came off, leaving her head bald as a brickbat. Relating this scrape of the locks to a friend, he informed me that the rest of her charms would not bear minute inspection, for she wore false teeth, and bought her complexion at Phalon's; that her graceful form was the result of a skilful combination of cotton and whalebone.
This was too much. While I thought Calanthe a woman, I loved her, but the discovery of the fishy element excited a prejudice – as a female, she had my affection, and I contemplated matrimony – as a land mermaid, I had no desire to swindle Barnum and become her proprietor.
Coming as I did, from a section of the country where they have human women, and where they don't attempt to deceive masculine mankind with French millinery strategy, I was unprepared for counterfeits, and had been easily deluded by a spurious article. But I find that in New York, perambulating bundles of dry goods not unfrequently pass current as women – and the milliners now put their eccentric inventions upon these locomotive shams, to the great neglect of those revolving waxen ladies who used to perform their perpetual gyrations in the show-windows.
As an advertising medium, they possess facilities for publicity beyond any of the newspapers, having a city circulation, which is unattainable by anything dumb and unpetticoated.
The great staple of the south has not only "made" some of our first men, but has been discovered to enter largely into the composition of many of our first ladies.
My madness was now over – the intoxication of love was dissipated, and I was once more able to get about my business without having a feminine name constantly present to my eyes. The stages, the dry-goods' boxes, the streets and signs, were once more lettered in sensible characters. I was guilty of no more poetry, went to no more operas – in short, exhibited no longer any of the signs of insanity, but relapsed at once into my former unpoetical condition – the spell was broken – the blind fiend was exorcised – reason got back to her old bunk, and "Richard was himself again."
The difference in my mental condition occasioned my landlady considerable alarm; while I had lived on love, and paid five dollars a week for the privilege of sitting down at table only, she had considered me a profitable boarder; but the disappearance of beef and substantials generally, consequent upon my returning appetite, sensibly diminish her esteem for me. I fancy I can perceive a change in her treatment, for she sets the bread and butter as far away from me as possible.
P. S. – She has raised my board to eight dollars a week, and with a consciousness that I deserve it, I submit.
XV
Modern Patent Piety – Church-Going in the City
Persons from the rural districts – who are visiting the city for the first time, and who have all their lives been accustomed to no more pretentious religious edifices than the old fashioned country meeting-house, with a "steeple," either of the extinguisher or pepper-castor pattern; with great square hot-house windows, built expressly to concentrate and reflect upon the innocent congregation the hottest rays of the sun, as if religion was a green-house plant, and would only bloom beneath a forced and artificial heat – usually expend no small portion of their simple wonder upon the magnificent temples of the town, which aspiring congregations erect ostensibly for the worship of the manger-cradled Saviour.
It usually too requires some considerable time for such a behind-the-times person to lay aside all his antiquated notions of religion, in which love, charity, and good will to men were essential elements, but which primitive idea of Christianity has, in the more enlightened city precincts, been long since exploded, and adopt the more convenient and showy piety which fashionable city people wear on Sundays – the constituent parts of which are too often only ostentation and vanity, veneered with a thin shell of decency and decorum. Such church-going people are remarkably easy on the Bible – most of the doctrines therein inculcated having been long since explained away by their three-thousand-dollar clergyman, who measures his people for their religion, and fits them with as much nicety as their tailors or dressmakers do in the case of more visible wardrobe. One or two Sundays after my first appearance in this town of patent Christianity, I attended service for the first time.
Having seen the opera with detestation, the theatres with approbation, George Christy with cachinnation, and No. 2 Dey street with affiliation; having visited Castle Garden, the model artists, and the American Museum; in fact, knowing something of almost all the other places of amusement in the city, I resolved to complete and crown my knowledge by going to church, and I hope I may receive due credit for my pursuit of amusement under difficulties. I made known my heroic determination to my new-found friends, and they instantly resolved to bear me company – Bull Dogge by way of variety, and Damphool from force of habit – (Bull Dogge seldom goes to church, and Damphool always does).
Sunday morning came, and the aforesaid individuals presented themselves – B. D. looked pugnacious and pugilistic, and Damphool perfectly marvellous – in fact, majestic as this latter-named person had ever borne himself, and importantly huge as he had ever appeared, his coat tails were now so wonderfully short, his collar so enviably large, and so independently upright, and his hat so unusually and magnificently lofty, that he certainly looked a bigger Damphool than ever before.
Walked up Broadway through a crowd of people of all sorts, sizes, colors, and complexions; countrymen running over every third man they met; New Yorkers threading their way through apparently un-get-thro'-a-ble crowds without ruffling their tempers or their shirt collars – (By the way, I have discovered that no one but a genuine New Yorker, born and bred, can cross Broadway upon a dignified walk;) firemen in red shirts, and their coats over their arms; newsboys with a very scanty allowance of shirt, and no coats at all; Dutch emigrants, with dirty faces, nasty breeches, and long loppy looking pipes; Irish emigrants, with dirtier faces, nastier breeches, and short, stubbier pipes; spruce-looking darkies, and wenches arrayed in rainbow-colored habiliments – and at last reached the door of the church.
For about a quarter of a mile on either side of the entrance there extended a row of carriages, lined with satin, with velvet cushions; and on every carriage there were a couple of men with white gloves on, gold bands round their hats, a black rosette on the side, and a short cloak over their shoulders, with cloth enough in the multitudinous capes of each to make a full suit of clothes for a common-sized man, and three or four half grown boys. Bull Dogge informed me that these were the liveried flunkies of our republican aristocracy, and that it was made their business to sit outside the church and watch the lazy over-fed horses, while their owners were inside saying American "amens" to democratic prayers that liberty and equality may be established over all the earth.
The coachman spends his Sabbath hours in the pious occupation of cracking his whip at the little boys who are playing marbles on the side-walk, reading the Sunday papers, and saying hard words at the flies which make his horses shake their nettings off – while the genteel footman goes to sleep in the carriage, with his boots out of the window, and only arouses from his slumber in time to open the door for my lady, as she comes from her courtly devotions.
We passed the scrutiny of these gentlemen without exciting any audible impertinence, and reached the door of the church. Everything looked so grandly gingerbready that I hesitated about going in. Little boy in the corner (barefooted, with a letter in the post-office) told us to "go in," and called us "lemons." Did not perceive the force of his pomological remark, but "went in" nevertheless. Man in a white cravat showed us to a pew; floor covered with carpet, and seat covered with damask, with little stools to kneel down upon. Bull Dogge says that at one time the prevailing style of pantaloons nearly caused a division in the church, which was however compromised by an alteration in the litany, and allowing the gentlemen to stand during the performance of certain prayers instead of kneeling down, which latter feat was difficult of accomplishment, on account of the tightness of their straps. Some of the congregation were however so much offended that they stayed away, and used home-made prayers, instead of coming to church and dealing in the orthodox ready-made article.
Got inside; crowd of people; minister fenced up in a kind of back closet, in a pulpit trimmed with red velvet and gilt-edged prayer-books.
Pretty soon, music – organ – sometimes grand and solemn, but generally fast and lively enough for a contra-dance. (B. D. said the player got a big salary to show off the organ, and draw a big house.)
He commenced to play Old Hundred (Damphool suggests Ancient Century).
At first, majestic as it should be, but soon his left hand began to get unruly among the bass notes, then the right cut up a few monkey shines in the treble; left threw in a large assortment of quavers, right led off with a grand flourish and a few dozen variations; left struggled manfully to keep up, but soon gave out, dead beat, and after that went back to first principles, and hammered away religiously at Old Hundred, in spite of the antics of its fellow; right struck up a march, marched into a quick step, quickened into a gallop; left still kept at Old Hundred; right put in all sorts of fantastic extras, to entice the left from its sense of propriety; left still unmoved; right put in a few bars of a popular waltz; left wavers a little; right strikes up a favorite polka; left evidently yielding; right dashes into a jig; left now fairly deserts its colors and goes over to the enemy, and both commence an animated hornpipe, leaving poor Old Hundred to take care of itself.
Then with a crash, a squeak, a rush, a roar, a rumble, and an expiring groan, the overture concluded and service began.
First, a prayer; then a response; prayer; response; by the priest and people alternately, like the layers of bread and butter, and ham and mustard in a sandwich; then a little sing, then a little preach, then more petitions and more responses.
Damphool read the entire service, Minister's cues included, and sung all the hymns. I noticed that Bull Dogge gave all the responses with a great deal of energy and vigor. He said he always liked to come to this kind of Church, because when they jawed religion at him, he could jaw back.
Kept as cool as I could, but could not help looking round now and then to see the show.
Elderly lady on my right, very devout, gilt edged prayer-book, gold-covered fan, feathers in her bonnet, rings on her fingers, and for all I know, "bells on her toes."
Antiquated gentleman in same slip, well preserved but somewhat wrinkled, smells of Wall street, gold spectacles, gold-headed cane, put three cents in the plate.
Fashionable little girl on the left – two flounces on her pantalettes, and a diamond ring over her glove.
Young America looking boy, four years old, patent leather boots, standing collar, gloves, cane, and cigar case in his pocket.
Foppish young man with adolescent moustache, pumps, legs à la spermaceti candles, shirt front embroidered à la 2.40 race horse, cravat à la Julien, vest à la pumpkin pie, hair à la soft soap, coat-tails à la boot-jack, which when parted discovered a view of the Crystal Palace by gas-light on the rear of his pantaloons, wristbands à la stove pipe, hat à la wild Irishman, cane to correspond; total effect à la Shanghae.
Artificial young lady, extreme of fashion; can't properly describe her, but here goes: whalebone, cotton, paint and whitewash; slippers à la Ellsler, feet à la Japanese, dress à la Paris, shawl à la eleven hundred dollars, parasol à la mushroom, ringlets à la corkscrew, arms à la broomstick, bonnet à la Bowery gal (Bull Dogge says the boy with buttons on him, brought it in, in a teaspoon, fifteen minutes after she entered the house), neck à la scrag of mutton, complexion à la mother of pearl, appearance generally à la humbug. (Bull Dogge offers to bet his hat, she don't know a cabbage from a new cheese, and can't tell whether a sirloin steak is beef, chicken, or fresh fish.)
At length, with another variette upon the organ, and all the concentrated praise and thanksgiving of the congregation, sung by four people up stairs, the service concluded. I thought from the manner of this last performance, each member of the choir imagined the songs of praise would never get to Heaven if he didn't give them a personal boost, in the shape of an extra yell.
Left the Church with a confused idea that the only way to attain eternal bliss, is to go to Church every Sunday, and to give liberally to the Foreign Missionary cause.
Bull Dogge tried to convince me, that one half the people present, thought that Fifth avenue runs straight into Heaven, and that their through tickets are insured, their front seats reserved, and that when they are obliged to leave this world, they will find a coach and four, and two servants in livery, ready to take them right through to the other side of Jordan.
XVI
Benevolence Run Mad – Charitable Cheating
I was so much affected by the services of the Church, had my feelings so much excited, and all my benevolent and charitable nature so thoroughly aroused by the sermon, that I felt an irresistible desire to rush out and give somebody something.
For I know that I am charitable; I feel it in my bones, like rheumatism. I always give money to the begwoman, who has such a large family at home; and to the whiny boy, with a club-foot, who asks charity on behalf of his sick mother.
True, I have seen the old lady when she was evidently inebriated, and apparently disposed to harangue the crowd in high Dutch – but then she was in excellent company; noble-looking men, with stars on their bosoms – and I have discovered that the club-footed boy changes all his money into cents, and gambles it away, playing "pitchpenny" in Theatre-alley; still, I keep on giving.
But it is also a fact that I am not always able to comply with the demands upon my purse. Twice have I been invited to "calico" parties, and at the bottom of each note was a modest request that I would make my appearance arrayed in such apparel only, as I would be willing to donate next day to the Five-Points Mission.
Could have done like the others – bought a ready-made coat and vest and given them with the greatest pleasure – but the hint in the invitation seemed to include the entire wardrobe brought into requisition on the occasion, and when I thought of a Five-Points darkey in my ruffled shirt and gold studs, I was "suddenly indisposed," and sent my "regrets."
But I did go to a ball for the benefit of the poor – a two-dollar commingling of "upper-tendom" with "lower-twentydom" – an avalanche of exclusiveness, in a torrent of mobocracy – where the crowd was so great that faces lost their identity, and I was only conscious of a hustling mass of dressed up humanity – a forest of broadcloth wrecked in an ocean of calico. I barely escaped with life, and reached home in a state of collapse.
Afterward, went to a concert in behalf of the poor – where I sat all the evening in a hard seat with a number on the back to see a woman make faces at a well-dressed audience, and sing music which I could not understand – the people all applauded when she screamed, and threw bouquets at her when she made a noise like a swamp-blackbird.
But after listening to the stirring address before alluded to, I felt that I had not done enough; so, obedient to the promptings of my impulsive nature, I determined to give something more, and being so far cityfied in my habits that I desired to combine amusement with charity, and only give my money to the needy after I had received its worth in dancing, got its full value in foreign music at a high price, or eaten its equivalent in oysters and ice-cream at some kind of a pseudo-charitable gathering, I looked about me for some fitting opportunity to bestow my charity on the deserving poor, after making it previously pay for some delectation for myself.
It did not take me long to find out that there was soon to be a ladies' fair, in aid of the poor, given by the benevolent ladies of the Church of the Holy Poker.
Damphool (who can't give up city associations, and who wouldn't read his Bible if it wasn't printed in New York) had sent to me from his rural solitude to procure him a dressing-gown, a pair of slippers, and a crocheted worsted comforter.
Thought I couldn't have a better opportunity to purchase these, and so I went to the fair.
Got to the hall, paid my twenty-five cents at the door, went in – saw plenty of long tables, with ladies behind them playing "keep store" – tables covered with mysterious articles of baby linen, and complicated pieces of female harness, designed for uses to me unknown, and also all sorts of impracticable unnecessaries intended for gentlemen.
Slippers that you couldn't get on; smoking caps that could never, by any possibility, fit anybody (shaped like a Chinese pagoda, and full of tinsel and spangles to make them prickly); cigar cases, that you couldn't get a cigar into without breaking both ends off (perhaps they expect us to smoke "stubs," like the newsboys); pin-cushions, stuffed so hard they would turn the point of a marlin-spike; watch cases, just big enough to hold a three cent piece; pen wipers, that fill the point of a pen full of wool – and divers other nonsensical inconveniences fabricated by speculating females, the patterns being always very short, and the stitches very long (I suppose they think we don't know the difference), to palm off upon victimized gentlemen; and these latter resignedly submit to a price so exorbitant, that if a Chatham-street Israelite had the impudence to ask it they'd straighten out his fish-hook nose like a darning needle.
The prettiest looking girls are always placed where the least attractive-looking merchandise is displayed, and they ask the biggest kind of prices, trusting to the gallantry of the gentlemen "not to beat them down," flattering themselves, I suppose, that their pretty looks are "value received" for the exchange.
One consequence of this arrangement is, that every buyer spends all the money he has in his purse, taking in exchange therefor a lot of stuff so utterly useless, and so ridiculously absurd, that after having it on his table for a week or so to laugh at, he is fain to get rid of the rubbish, by giving the whole to his chamber-maid.
Sometimes your purchases will hold together till you leave the room, and sometimes not; you must show yourself a man, and "equal to either fortune."
There was a post-office; pretty girl called me; had a letter for me; bought it; paid ten cents; nothing in it – blank.
Solicitous young lady very anxious to have me give her twenty-five cents to tell me how much I weighed; paid her the money, and she told me within fifty-one pounds and a half.
Young woman wanted me to invest in the "grab bag;" gave half a dollar, and fished in; got, in three times trying, a tin whistle, half a stick of candy, and a peanut done up in tissue paper.
Went on to the auction table, where, after much competition with a ringleted miss (who was put there to make Peter Funk bids against probable purchasers), succeeded in bidding in a China vase, which I soon discovered had a hole in the bottom, and wouldn't hold water any more than it would bake pork. If I had bought it anywhere else should have thought I had been swindled, and have demanded my money back, but here I supposed it was an exemplification of some newly discovered principle of fair dealing with which I was not yet acquainted.
Was much amused with the way they disposed of the unsold goods – certain number of articles, (things left at the tables tended by the homely girls) and for each article twenty tickets were put into a hat, whence they were drawn out singly, and the last tickets drawn were to have the prizes – should have thought it was just the same as a lottery, if I had not been acquainted with the ladies, and known they wouldn't do anything so naughty.
Came to a place where an old lady, with steel spectacles, was cutting up a loaf of cake into particularly small pieces – asked what it meant – was told there was a gold ring somewhere in the cake, and they proposed to sell each piece for a quarter of a dollar, and give the ring to the lucky buyer – wondered if it wasn't another lottery on a small scale, but supposed it couldn't be – went to the supper-room.
It is a curious metropolitan fact, that at parties, balls, or wherever a refreshment-table is spread, every man seems to regard it as his duty to fill himself to the very lips with all the "delicacies of the season," and to accomplish it in the least time possible – as if he was a gun, and anxious to ascertain his calibre, and find out how quickly he could be loaded in case of necessity.
And the ladies are not far behind; this evening I learned how much a female can eat in a charitable cause.
A pale-faced ball-room belle is a modern Sphinx – a gastronomic problem, whose solution will probably never be satisfactorily expounded.
Under the impression that she would not eat more than I had money to pay for, I invited a lady to take some refreshments, and I certainly think that, like the countryman, she imagined she was bound to eat all the bill-of-fare called for.
She ate stewed oysters – fried oysters – boiled turkey with oyster sauce, celery – oysters on the shell – ice cream, sponge cake, and Charlotte russe – Roman punch, two water-ices, coffee, sandwiches, cold sausage, lobster salad, oysters broiled, also stewed again, and six on the shell – orange jelly, grape ditto, cake; she then hinted again at oysters, but as the supply had run out, she was obliged to go hungry – paid the bill with a certified check on the Merchants' Bank, which luckily covered the amount, and greatly relieved my mind; for I feared there would be a balance which I would have to give my note for.
Having previously procured the articles required for my friend, I immediately left – go home – got there, and proceeded to examine my purchases – found that the slippers – having been pasted together without the slightest regard to permanency, had come apart in my pocket, my comforter had ravelled out, so that I had about six inches comforter, and a wad of yarn big enough to make a horse blanket – my dressing-gown had been made of a moth-eaten remnant, and where there was any sewing, every stitch was as long as a railroad, but the sleeves had, I verily believe, been put in with court plaster, and the long seams closed with carpenter's glue.
Made up my mind that the objects of that feminine institution, a Ladies' Fair, are somewhat as follows:
Firstly, to give the ladies an opportunity to show their new clothes, and to talk with a multitude of unknown gentlemen, without any preliminary introduction.
Secondly, to beg as much money as possible from the gentlemen aforesaid, under the transparent formality of bargain and sale – which sale includes the buyer, who is really the only article fairly "sold" in the whole collection.
Thirdly, to give some money to the ostentatiously poor, if there is any left after paying expenses, and the Committee don't spend it in carriage-hire.
In New York, by a refinement in Benevolence, engendered by the hardness of the times, and the necessity of making the money go as far as it will, charity money answers a double purpose; procuring pleasure for the rich, and soup for the poor.
Thus if you pay three dollars for a ticket to the Opera or Ball, you can enjoy your Aria, or Schottische, with a double relish; and can eat oysters and turkey, and gulp down creams and ices till your stomach "strikes," in the labor of love, with the happy consciousness, that it is all for "sweet charity" – and if the three dollars, before it reach the needy, in whose behalf you gave it, dwindles to three dimes and a tip, you can, knowing you have done your duty, poetically exclaim, with the noble Thane, "Thou can'st not say I did it."
