ILLNESS AND DEATH
In this class of news stories are included those concerning the illness
or death of persons known in the community or in the world at large,
as well as those dealing with illness, surgical operations, and deaths
that are sufficiently unusual to be matters of general interest.
Stories of this kind are primarily informative in character, but the
importance of the personal element permits effective human interest
development. Pathetic phases of illness or death sometimes give value
to news that otherwise would be of slight interest. The seriousness of
the subject demands dignity of treatment.
In writing an obituary the purpose should be not only to give
biographical facts but to bring out the significance of a personality.
A well written obituary is a constructive interpretation of the meaning
of a person’s life and work.
* * * * *
ILLNESS
_Kansas City Star_
NEW YORK, Nov. 23.--Ye Olde Caxton Book
Shop, Brooklyn, was closed long after 7 o’clock
yesterday morning. Nobody stirred behind the brown
paper curtains which hung on a coarse string over
an improvised cross wall of musty old volumes,
their titles long ago hidden beneath a layer of
dust.
Solicitous neighbors, tradesmen of the block,
children on their way to school peered eagerly, but
vainly, through the rain-streaked window, beyond
careless rows of less ancient authors and orderless
festoons of classical sheet music. Mere solicitude
increased to anxiety, and anxiety to fear that an
old man, loved by the neighborhood, had died among
his treasures.
Some one told the police and two men came to
force the door, with an ambulance surgeon from
the Bushwick Hospital, ready to give him aid if
needed. Richard Wright was not dead, but how much
longer he would have lasted if help had not come is
uncertain. He lay there on a rude couch, home made
and stretched across cases of books in the back of
his store. Hunger, added to the natural weakness
and feebleness of his 78 years, had almost claimed
him for its victim.
“No, no,” he feebly said. “Don’t take me to the
hospital; I’m too old. I don’t want to cause
trouble to anyone. I want to die quietly among my
books.”
Nailed against one of the bookcases was a small
notice on black tin, “We refer all needy cases to
the Brooklyn Charity Bureau.”
* * * * *
INDIAN DYING
_Milwaukee Free Press_
Tse-Ne-Gat is very weary.
Soon he must go on the long, long journey,
following the shadowy trail of all his people.
For the white man’s plague has laid its ruthless
hand upon him, and the white man’s plague has done
what the white man’s rifles and the white man’s
courts could never do. It has broken the spirit of
Tse-Ne-Gat, and the heart of sorrowful old Ma Old
Polk.
It was while he waited for the white man’s court to
sit, that the plague came to Tse-Ne-Gat. Justice
the white man gave him, but with justice came the
plague. This is the story of it:
Tse-Ne-Gat, so the government said, murdered Juan
Chacon, Mexican sheep-herder, and for the slaying
Tse-Ne-Gat must be hanged. Cowboys and ranchers
rode into the hills to take him, and Tse-Ne-Gat,
his father and a few followers fought them off.
They had sworn that they would not yield to all the
armed forces of the United States, for they knew
Tse-Ne-Gat had not killed the sheep-herder, and the
Ute should not die a shameful death unjustly.
Then Gen. Hugh Scott, U. S. A., rode into the hills
alone. He promised that the Indian should have
justice, and Tse-Ne-Gat was content. Out of the
hills he rode with Scott, out of the hills and into
the white man’s jail. There he waited until the
white man’s court should sit to grant him justice.
In the jail were other prisoners, and the great
white plague stalked silently among them.
Tse-Ne-Gat, pining for the hills and the arroyos
and the great open spaces of the Ute reservation,
was a shining mark for its unseen fatal arrows. So
Tse-Ne-Gat began to cough the cough that all men,
white or red, fear most of all, for it has not even
the swift mercy of the rifle bullet.
Attorney W. J. Kershaw, when the call for his
help came from Colorado, left his office in the
Germania building[C] to appear as counsel for
Tse-Ne-Gat, and before the court of United States
Judge Robert E. Lewis, in Denver, he acquitted him.
And Tse-Ne-Gat was free to go back again to the
reservation. Only, the order of the court could not
free him from the white man’s plague, which the
white man’s jail had given him.
[C] Milwaukee.
So Tse-Ne-Gat and old Ma Old Polk went to a
hospital, near Denver. Tse-Ne-Gat made for himself
a long whistle from the green stalk of a plant.
On it he whistled, imitating the calls of the
birds he knew, and so well did he do it that
the birds answered and came to the yard of the
great hospital. That sight the other sufferers
there loved, the sight of Tse-Ne-Gat wrapped in
his blanket, whistling softly to the birds that
gathered at his feet to eat of the crumbs he
scattered for them when they answered his call.
More troubles came. The white man’s doctor said
that he might not smoke and live. His cigaret
was banished. Ma Old Polk was determined that he
should not smoke, so she fought the craving with
him as she watched him. Neither did she smoke, for
his sake, and from the deprivation she suffered
more than he, only she could slip out to the reeds
by the river now and then when the demand seemed
irresistible.
Back at the reservation, Tse-Ne-Gat felt better.
The call of the woods grew stronger, and one
morning Ma Old Polk awoke to find that her son and
his gun were missing, gone no one knew where. That
night he returned, exhausted and broken, until he
could scarcely bear his gun. He wrapped himself
in his blanket, too tired even to whistle for the
birds. It was two weeks before the watchful mother
heard of the rabbits Tse-Ne-Gat had shot but had
been forced by weakness to throw away before he
brought them home.
That is the story that has come to Milwaukee and to
Tse-Ne-Gat’s attorney here, who cannot help him in
this fight. Tse-Ne-Gat still goes walking, but not
so far. He walks as one weary of long traveling.
Sometimes he disappears for half an hour or more.
If the doctors suspect that he is following the
example of his mother and stealing the smoke he
loves so well, they say nothing. They have nothing
but sympathy for Tse-Ne-Gat.
Tse-Ne-Gat has sympathy, too, for the judge who
gave him justice. For he has learned that on the
very day that the story of his own rapidly failing
life had been reported to Judge Robert E. Lewis a
telegram had come to the judge, telling him that
his father, Col. Warner Lewis, was dead. Col.
Warner Lewis was the only survivor of an Indian
massacre in 1863 near where Coffeyville, Kas., now
stands. And it was the son of that sole survivor of
Indian vengeance who gave justice and freedom to
Tse-Ne-Gat.
* * * * *
SURGICAL OPERATION
_Milwaukee Sentinel_
The surgeon’s knife instead of the reformatory; an
operation in place of an application of “the rod.”
Is this the manner in which wayward youths are to
be made good?
The strange case of Anton Heim, a 14 year old
Milwaukee lad, at least lends emphasis to the vast
possibilities for the skilled surgeon as a reformer
of certain criminally inclined persons.
As he came from a good family, there seemed to be
no hereditary reason why Anton should be addicted
to stealing and other mischievous acts. His case
was a puzzle until physicians learned that at the
age of 5 he had been the victim of an accident
in which a door had fallen on him and caused a
dent in his skull, and it was their theory that
the consequent pressure on the brain might have
unsettled his mind and thus affected his actions.
The operation was performed on Oct. 19 in Trinity
hospital by Dr. W. C. F. Witte.
Since then Anton’s taciturn, irritable disposition
has given way to ambitious and honest traits. The
operation has not only meant much for Anton Heim,
but is full of significance as to possibilities
along these lines.
Another case is cited by a Milwaukee physician
wherein a Norwegian youth who received a skull
injury in his childhood before coming to America,
has been relieved through a similar operation and
been changed from a dependent to a self-supporting
man.
“Persons suffering from such skull injuries,”
explained the physician, “are irritable, depressed
and subject to an idea that they are being
persecuted. This Norwegian lad previous to the
operation was thoroughly shiftless. Now he has
been holding a position for three years and has
recovered his ambition and desire to work and save
money.”
* * * * *
SURGICAL OPERATION
_Philadelphia Inquirer_
WASHINGTON, D. C., Aug. 19.--By massaging the heart
of a colored boy who was apparently dead, doctors
in the Emergency Hospital succeeded in reviving him.
The boy was under the influence of chloroform, and
the surgeon was operating on an infected knee,
when respiration suddenly ceased. The pulse died
and finally stopped; the body became cold, the
limbs rigid. Artificial respiration was resorted
to, but there was no responding pulsation of the
heart. After six minutes of suspense, during which
the physician resorted to every possible method to
revive the patient, he realized that there was only
one chance to save the boy’s life.
With delicate skill he opened the boy’s abdomen and
for seven minutes massaged the patient’s heart with
his fingers. Finally, when he was about to give up
all hope, the boy took a faint voluntary breath,
and for several minutes the heart pulsated gently.
Plying the heart with his fingers to stimulate
circulation of the blood, the physician after
eighteen minutes had the heart pulsating normally
and knew that he had succeeded in his almost
miraculous operation.
For a day and a half following the operation the
boy remained in excellent condition and every hope
was held out for his recovery. But the infection
of the knee had spread to the left side and had
infected the glands of the neck. Blood poisoning
set in and, despite all efforts to save him, the
boy succumbed.
The operation on the heart is regarded by medical
students as unique in the annals of medicine. It
also opens up a new field in surgery, and means,
physicians say, that many persons who expire while
under anesthetics may possibly be revived by such
methods.
Within a few months several eminent physicians
of this city will conduct vivisection tests to
determine how far the heart massage can be carried.
Dogs will be placed under anesthetics and allowed
to succumb, it is said, so that physicians may
determine after how long an interval an animal
apparently dead may be restored by heart massage.
* * * * *
SUDDEN DEATH
_Chicago Inter Ocean_
While joking with several fellow employes over the
recent baseball trade between the Chicago American
league baseball team and the New York American
league team, Robert Nash, 118 Webster Place, a
clerk employed by Sprague, Warner & Co., 600 West
Erie street, dropped dead from heart disease
yesterday in his place of employment.
Herman Schweitzer, 2849 Christiana avenue, a
department manager, and J. B. Willott, 508 Melrose
avenue, were hoaxing Nash about the trade. They
told Nash that the Chicago team had obtained Chase
of the New York team, a “hoodoo,” and that they
would be unable to win any more games.
Nash laughed at their joke and walked to a chair.
He fell to the floor, and was dead when a physician
arrived.
Nash was one of the oldest employes of the
Sprague-Warner company. He had been in the grocery
company for thirty-seven years. Heart disease is
believed to have caused his death.
* * * * *
ENGINEER’S DYING REQUEST
_Boston Herald_
CHICAGO, Dec 21--Charles W. Walter, veteran
conductor on the Nickel Plate Railroad, died
yesterday on his run from Bellevue, O, to
Chicago, and members of the train crew fought snow
and slippery tracks to carry out Walter’s last
request that No. 1 be brought in on time, thereby
preserving his record of never having been late.
Walter took the train at Bellevue, where he lived,
at 7:55 a. m. yesterday. An hour later he became
ill and placed the train in charge of Samuel
Wilson, an extra passenger conductor.
“Be sure and bring her in on time, Sam, and keep
my record clean,” Walter requested. Stops were
shortened to a minimum. The engineer kept the sand
running on the slippery rails, and his fireman
hardly took his hands from the shovel.
Near Leipsic Junction, where doctors and ambulance
awaited, Walter died. No. 1 pulled into the
Lasalle-st Station, Chicago, on the dot. To the
dispatcher, who was surprised to see him report
instead of Walter, Wilson said: “Charlie has made
his last run, and be sure to put it down we’re on
time.”
* * * * *
WOMAN DIES ALONE
_Kansas City Star_
Police officers forced their way into the home of
Miss Mary R. Wilson, daughter of John H. Wilson, a
former mayor of Kansas City, at 961 Cane Street,
shortly before 6 o’clock yesterday afternoon, and
found her dead in bed in her room on the second
floor. Dr. Harry Czarlinsky, county coroner, said
that the cause of death was pneumonia brought on by
exposure.
Since the death of her mother seven years ago,
Miss Wilson had lived in the big house on Cane
Street alone. She kept no servants and her only
companion was a pet dog, Danny. Miss Wilson, who
was more than 50 years old, had ignored the advice
of friends, who believed she should live with
relatives.
She was last seen alive Thursday night, when Mrs.
B. F. Strong, wife of B. F. Strong, the vicar of
St. James Church, who lives at 965 Cane Street,
noticed her moving about in the rear of the house
with a lamp. Friday passed without either Mrs.
Strong or Mrs. Albert Hart, the neighbor north of
the house, seeing Miss Wilson. The snow had drifted
evenly over the front walk and the blinds at the
window were drawn.
Mrs. Hart telephoned Sanford B. Green and Porter
Home, Miss Wilson’s attorneys. Mr. Green called
several of Miss Wilson’s intimate friends and was
unable to find out anything of her whereabouts. He
then called the chief of police and asked that a
search of the house be made.
When the officers entered the room, they found
Miss Wilson attired in night clothing lying on her
bed. Her pet, Danny, was curled up at the foot of
the bed. Weak from want of food, he growled at
the officers. The coroner said that life had been
extinct twenty-four hours.
A small diary which Miss Wilson had kept for years
testified to her illness. An entry Tuesday read:
“I haven’t felt well all day.” Wednesday it said:
“I think the weather has brought on an attack of
grip.” Thursday’s entry was the last in the book:
“I know I’m in for a bad case of pneumonia.” No
explanation can be given why Miss Wilson did
not get medical attention when she knew she had
pneumonia.
Miss Wilson was a niece of the late David Brewer,
associate judge of the United States Supreme Court.
Her father figured actively in Kansas City politics
as a leader of the Democratic party and in 1874
was elected mayor of this city, a position which
he held two years. He was a widely known business
man. Miss Wilson’s only sister, Ella Wilson, died
in Leavenworth, Kas., in 1865. Her mother, Mrs.
Alice Strong Wilson, died in the family home on
Cane Street in 1907. Miss Wilson had no relatives
in Kansas City.
The body was taken to the Stine undertaking rooms.
* * * * *
DEATH OF VETERAN FIREMAN
_Springfield Republican_
William C. White, 72, veteran fireman, who was
retired from the active service of the fire
department last June after 35 years of continuous
service, died at the Wesson Memorial hospital
yesterday after a long illness. Mr White had been
identified with the fire service of the city for
more than 50 years. During his period of active
service, Mr White spent most of his time as
engineer, taking charge during his later years
of the engines in the North-street fire station.
During his 35 years of service, Mr White was
absent from his post only one month, and then on
account of illness. There was probably no man in
the department who was better known or who was
better liked by the men in the department. He was a
skilful machinist, and his worth to the department
was frequently recognized by the different chiefs
under whom he served.
Mr White was born at Amherst, October 11, 1842. He
removed with his parents to this city when he was
12 years old. He received his early education in
his native town, and after he came here he attended
the Union-street school. His first employment was
in the United States armory, where he practically
completed his trade as machinist. He subsequently
worked for Smith & Wesson for four years as
tool-maker, and it was there that he received the
training which fitted him for his work in the fire
department. While he was employed at the Smith
& Wesson shop, he became a call man in the fire
department. He was appointed to the permanent
service in 1872, just nine years after he became
affiliated with the department as a call man.
His first active duties were as hose-man. He was
stationed at the old fire station, formerly located
in the rear of where the Granite building is now.
His next work was as stoker on the Hanson No 2
engine, stationed on Sanford street. He later
became a full-fledged engineer on the old monitor,
George Dwight. Mr White was later assigned to the
Pynchon-street engine-house, where he served as
engineer on the No 1 engine. He was stationed there
from 1872 until 1876. In 1876 he was transferred
to the Bond-street engine-house, where he remained
until his retirement in June. It was a matter of
notable record in the fire department that during
all this time he ran the old No 1 engine without
experiencing any accidents or having his engine
tied up because of failure to work properly.
When Mr White first became affiliated with the
fire department there were but four companies,
with 26 men each, in service in the city. The
companies were located on Pynchon street, on the
Hill, near the old railroad station, and on Sanford
street. During the early ’70’s the system of
naming fire engines was succeeded by the present
system of numbering them. When Mr White entered
the service, L. H. Powers was chief engineer, and
he was succeeded by Hosea Lombard. It was during
his regime as chief that the present department
actually came into existence. It is a singular fact
that Mr White saw service in the department during
the period that Springfield experienced its biggest
fires. From the date of his connection with the
department until his retirement there were seven
very disastrous fires.
During his many years in the department he was
constantly drafted from one engine-house to
another to do repair work. His expert knowledge
of apparatus made him invaluable in this respect.
When the company at the Bond-street engine-house
was transferred to the North-street station several
years ago, he went with it and remained there until
his retirement, June 15 of this year. Mr White held
several patents on devices used on fire apparatus,
but never troubled to have them put on the market.
Some of these devices, however, have been used with
satisfaction.
Mr White was taken ill last May, and it was with
difficulty that he was persuaded to leave the
active list. He eventually went to the Wesson
Memorial hospital, where he remained constantly
until his death yesterday. Mr White was married,
and for many years lived at 961 Second street.
His wife died a number of years ago, and since
that time he has made his home at the North-street
fire station. He was a member of De Soto lodge of
Odd Fellows and of the Firemen’s aid association.
He leaves no near relatives, but Arthur Green,
secretary of the Putnam woolen mills at Putnam,
Ct., a cousin, is expected in this city to take
charge of the funeral.
The funeral will be held to-morrow afternoon at
Washburn’s chapel. Rev Dr Frank W. Merrick of Faith
church will officiate. The burial will be in the
Springfield cemetery.
* * * * *
DEATH OF A POLITICIAN
_New York Times_
Martin Engel is dead. This does not mean anything
to those unacquainted with New York politics,
nor to those whose political interests have been
quite recently developed, but to the “old-time”
politicians familiar with the days when “Boss”
Croker ruled Tammany Hall and “Big Tim” Sullivan
was the man highest up in the Bowery district the
death of Martin Engel means the passing of another
of the Tammany leaders who led when to be an east
side leader was greater than to be a silk-stocking
Republican.
At the age of 68, several years after he had lost
his leadership in the old Eighth District--“De
Ate,” to those who were of it and in it in the
“good old days”--Martin Engel died yesterday in
his home at 29 East Third Street. He made money in
his business of politics, and it is said that his
son, Alfred S. Engel, will inherit a comfortable
fortune. His death was due to Bright’s disease,
from which he had been a sufferer for some time.
Martin Engel rose to political power when the
immigrant Jews from Russia, Rumania, Bohemia, and
Hungary began to crowd the Irish out of the east
side. The son of a “kosher” butcher, he was born in
the Bowery and began life, after leaving the public
schools, in his father’s butcher shop. After the
death of the father he continued the business, and
even after his business became politics and his
“office” for all important purposes was in “Silver
Dollar” Smith’s Hotel, near the Essex Market Court,
he remained the nominal head of the market, from
which fact he became known in the east side as
“Butcher” Engel.
“Big Tim” Sullivan, Irishman, and Martin Engel,
Jew, were the combination that held the power
in “De Ate,” where fully 80 per cent. of the
fixed and floating voters spoke Yiddish. Engel
was apparently devoted to Sullivan, and was ever
faithful to “Big Tim” in matters political, and,
until the Republican leader, “Charley” Adler, began
to make trouble in the Eighth, he always “swung the
district” at election time.
Those who followed Engel as their political leader
could never, in their own opinion, exaggerate his
virtues. He was generous, as all Tammany leaders
of the east side have been, and he was successful
in “landing jobs” for those who served the party.
Also he was known to have a strong “pull” with
the police, and many an east side youth who “got
in bad” with the authorities owed his liberty to
Engel’s influence. Because of all these things he
was the leader, and because he was the leader he
cultivated the character and quality that enhanced
his leadership.
But to reformers Engel was the personification of a
vice that, though seen with disturbing frequency,
could never be even endured, much less embraced. In
“De Ate” was what was known for many years as “The
Red Light District.” Engel’s political enemies used
to dwell with views of alarm upon the protection
under which the district thrived, and Engel was
always named as the protector.
Those who have seen Engel remember as his most
striking facial characteristic a “dented” nose.
The bridge of his nose had been broken, and until
his death there was a depression in the centre of
his face that never failed to attract attention.
The scar was a mark of Engel’s rise to political
power. He received the original injury in a fight
years ago--and there have been stories of this
fight to Engel’s credit and to his discredit. The
only positive and printable fact is that a man who
became enraged against Engel struck him across his
nose with a bung-starter or some other equally
destructive weapon.
Besides “Silver Dollar” Smith’s hotel, which
later became the property of Engel himself, the
leader of “De Ate” had several “headquarters” in
the district where those who knew his habits and
haunts might find him. His home was at 29 East
Third Street, where he died; but in the days of
his power he could be found most often at some of
his “hanging-out” places--such as the clubrooms of
the Martin Engel Association, at Ludlow and Grand
Streets, or the old Café Boulevard, in Second
Avenue, where, for a number of years, he regularly
received his henchmen between noon and 3 o’clock.
Although the kind of politics accepted as
legitimate by Engel is passing for the good of
society, there are those in the east side who will
feel real regret for the death of their former
leader, for whatever his vices were, Engel was
sympathetic and generous in his own way and in
his moods, and many a family would not have eaten
had he not supplied a meal, many a man or woman
would have gone barefoot had he not furnished
shoes. Also, many a “down-and-outer” would have
gone thirsty if Engel had not “set ’em up” to the
drinks. So, somewhere east of the Bowery, where
there were not many of the Ten Commandments, and
where a man could raise a very great thirst, Engel
had his friends who will mourn him now.
* * * * *
DEATH
_New York Evening Post_
The odor from the chestnut roasters is as fragrant
as ever, the heaped-up mounds of lettuce and kale
on the mile of push carts are just as crisp and
green, and there is the same glistening sheen on
the pyramids of green and scarlet peppers, but,
nevertheless, things seemed altogether different
in Mulberry Bend to-day. There was less noise, the
hurdie-gurdies were not playing, and groups of
dark-haired women talked solemnly on the corners.
Down in front of No. 26 there were many children
looking into the window, but, unlike children of
the Bend, making no noise. That’s where the cause
of all this change was. For No. 26 is Charles
Bacigalupo’s chapel and undertaking rooms, where
for twenty-eight years the services for the
dead of the Italian colony have been held; and
now--Bacigalupo himself is dead.
He was much more than an undertaker. He was a
benefactor of the quarter, a man with a motto of
his own that he lived up to. It hardly could be
called a business motto, but Bacigalupo always
adhered to it in his business, and it was that no
Italian should be buried in the Potter’s Field, if
he could help it.
A north of Italy man and a devout Catholic himself,
“Charlie,” as the colony called him, never asked
what a dead man’s religion had been or whether he
was Sicilian, Neapolitan, or Genoese. The chapel
was always open, day and night, and there was
always a hearse and at least one carriage ready
whether there was anything to pay for them or not.
It was so in the beginning, twenty-eight years ago,
when Bacigalupo, who had come to the country when
he was thirteen, decided that he would no longer
work for undertakers by day and black boots on
Broadway in the evening, but go into business for
himself.
He had saved money enough then to buy a second-hand
hearse and a dilapidated hack. At the outset he
had to hire the horses, and the only room in which
he could do his work was the one room in which he
lived.
Within a week after this start an Italian was
murdered on Mulberry Street. Nobody knew him, and
the body, after the coroner had got his routine
description of all the knife wounds for repetition
in court, was to go to Potter’s Field--after the
usual custom. But Bacigalupo changed the custom so
far as Mulberry Bend was concerned. There was a
real funeral in his room for the unknown victim of
the stiletto, and the man who could not afford to
keep his own horses did all the work and paid all
the bills.
That was when the motto was adopted, and the
records at Bacigalupo’s chapel today show that
he has saved nearly a thousand “unknowns” and
“unfortunates” from the Potter’s Field.
Most of them were Italians, but some were the more
unfortunate white girls of Chinatown.
He prospered in spite of all this free service and
he has averaged three funerals a day for ten days.
From the one room his place developed into a whole
floor, and for the living room in which services
were held for that murdered Italian twenty-eight
years ago, there was substituted a fine chapel with
altar fires and many pictures and tapestries, which
Bacigalupo brought from Rome on his return from
frequent visits to his home country.
But as gorgeous and elegant as the place became, in
the eyes of the Italian quarter, it was still free
for all who could not pay.
Bacigalupo never talked about these things himself
when asked about his business life in the Bend. It
was his private business, the number of big black
hearses he sent, free of charge, for the laborers
who had died while out of work, and the number of
small white hearses with the angel figures on the
side which he had provided for the children whose
parents were penniless. Neither would he talk about
the times he had paid other people’s coal bills or
put a stop to dispossession proceedings by paying
the rent of people whom he simply knew as Italians.
And only his intimate associates knew that he owned
a half-acre in Greenwood Cemetery and another big
lot in Calvary, in which he put the bodies which
otherwise would have gone to the graveyard of the
morgue’s unknown.
All these things Bacigalupo was remarkably reticent
about. On the other hand, there were some things
that he liked to boast of. He used to say, for
instance, that the proudest day in his life was
that in which he drove, himself, the second coach
in Gen. Grant’s funeral. He groomed his own horses
for that procession.
And when Meucci, the Italian patriot who came over
with Garibaldi, died on Staten Island Bacigalupo
had charge of the big Italian funeral service, in
Tammany Hall, and it was the undertaker of Mulberry
Bend who prepared the revolutionist’s body for
shipment to Italy.
When King Humbert was assassinated Bacigalupo had
charge of the memorial service in this city. And
now the most conspicuous pictures at the entrance
to the chapel are those of the dead King and of
President McKinley, both nearly life size.
Bacigalupo also took a little pardonable pride
in the fact that his establishment had grown to
include a big stable with 250 horses, 10 hearses,
and many coaches; that he had the only automobile
hearse in town, and that it was he who introduced
the custom of having dirge-playing bands in the
funeral processions on the Bend.
Four years ago Bacigalupo went to Rome to present
to the Pope $5,000 which had been contributed by
the immigrants in the Italian quarter, and to the
money he added as his own gift a wonderful jewelled
robe for his holiness. The Pope granted him an
audience and gave him his picture and autograph,
which Bacigalupo brought back to Mulberry Street.
Then there was that wonderful Chinese funeral
several years ago when the bones of nine Chinamen
were removed from a Brooklyn cemetery and sent back
to the ancestral graveyards in China. Bacigalupo
had that affair, and it overtaxed even his stable
resources, for there were 300 coaches in the
procession that wound through the streets of
Chinatown, all filled with Chinamen, while the rest
of the Mott and Pell Street colony walked behind
over the route laid out for them by the Italian.
These were the things that the undertaker was
willing to talk about when he was asked what he
had done in America. But they are of secondary
importance on the Bend to-day. It is the coal
bills, and helps with the rent in hard times, and
the free funerals that everybody in the quarter,
including the policemen on their beats and the one
black native from Abyssinia who speaks Italian, are
talking about now that the crepe is on Bacigalupo’s
own door.
* * * * *
DEATH OF GREAT EDITOR
_Philadelphia Ledger_
KANSAS CITY, Mo., April 13.--Colonel William
Rockhill Nelson, founder, owner and editor of
the Kansas City Star, died at his home here this
morning. He was 74 years old, and had been
confined to his home since last December. Uremic
poisoning caused his death.
Colonel Nelson took an active part in the
management of the Star until about a month ago,
for even after his illness began members of the
Star staff gathered at his bedside several times
weekly for discussion of questions of editorial
policy. At these conferences he dictated editorials
and outlined ideas for cartoons and special news
articles. Although his physicians advised against
this activity, he reminded them that it was in the
building of the Star he had been happiest.
A day or so before he became unconscious Colonel
Nelson said to a friend:
“The Lord has been far better to me than I deserve.
I have had a long and happy life, with great
opportunities for usefulness. My only regret is
that I have not accomplished more. If this is the
end, I am ready.”
Throughout his illness the problem of the poor was
of intense concern to him. He made large gifts to
local charitable institutions and was absorbed in
the work of a soup kitchen, which his daughter,
Mrs. Kirkwood, inaugurated and conducted.
While no formal statement was made, it was
announced that “as far as is humanly possible, the
Star will be conducted in accordance with the aims
and ideas of Mr. Nelson.”
Although Colonel Nelson did not enter the newspaper
field until he was nearly 40 years old, he brought
to it such ability and energy that he built up one
of the greatest newspapers of the country. He was
born in Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1841, and was educated
at Notre Dame University. After a short experience
in cotton growing he became a general contractor.
When 34 years old he was Samuel J. Tilden’s Indiana
campaign manager.
His interest in political leadership caused him
to turn to newspaper work. He bought an interest
in the Fort Wayne Sentinel and a business reverse
caused him to decide to devote all his time to
journalism. He and his Fort Wayne partner, Samuel
E. Morss, went to Kansas City and started the
Evening Star on September 18, 1880. Mr. Morss
withdrew after a few months.
When the Kansas City Times failed, in 1901, the
Star bought that paper and its news franchise. The
venture proved a marked success, and the Star now
has a circulation, morning and evening, of more
than 200,000 a day.
In politics Colonel Nelson was, as he often said,
“independent, but never neutral.” He never would
consider any elective or appointive position.
* * * * *
DEATH OF COLLEGE DEAN
_New York Evening Post_
John Howard Van Amringe, former dean of Columbia
College, where for half a century he endeared
himself to thousands of students, who knew him best
as “Van Am,” died suddenly yesterday at the Keeler
House, in Morristown, N. J. Professor Van Amringe,
who was seventy-nine years old last spring, retired
from the Columbia faculty five years ago, and for
some time past his health has been failing. He
suffered a stroke of apoplexy just before luncheon,
and died within an hour. His daughter, Miss Emily
Van Amringe, was with him.
The story of the venerable ex-dean’s life is
almost a history of Columbia College for the last
fifty-odd years. To Columbia men he was more than
a teacher. As Charles Halsted Mapes remarked, when
the alumni presented a bronze bust of the dean to
the Columbia University Club, in 1913: “Van Am
has become more than a mere man to us; he is a
sentiment. What the Yale fence is to Yale, the ivy
to Princeton, Van Am is to Columbia--a tangible,
concrete expression of sentiment to which our
memories lovingly cling.”
He was born at Philadelphia, on April 3, 1836, the
son of William Frederic and Susan Budd (Sterling)
Van Amringe. His grandfather, Lionel Van Amringe,
was a soldier under Frederick the Great, and
emigrated from Holland in 1791. His family removed
from Philadelphia to New York in 1841. He received
most of his early education from his father, but
was later sent to the Montgomery Academy, Orange
County, N. Y., where his father was instructor for
a time. In 1854 he entered Yale, and would have
graduated in 1858, but left the College at the end
of his sophomore year and taught private pupils for
two years. In the fall of 1858 he entered Columbia
College as a member of the junior class, graduating
with the degree of B.A. in 1860.
Van Amringe, the undergraduate, displayed a
fondness for mathematics and debating, and in
after years these were always his favorite
subjects. Those who listened to him in more recent
years, addressing undergraduate mass meetings or
speaking at alumni reunions, or presenting some
distinguished candidate for this or that honorary
degree on commencement day, could trace his flow of
oratory back to its beginnings in the classroom,
where, as a student, he used to hold forth in the
presence of old Professor Nairne, who taught moral
and intellectual philosophy and literature. Nairne
had a way of holding impromptu debates in the
classroom, pitting one student against another. But
it was in mathematics that Van Amringe excelled,
and he taught this subject to generations of
Columbia men.
When Van Am came to Columbia he was possessed of a
brilliant head of red hair, which in later years
turned white. He also wore flowing moustaches, and
these became immortalized in the song that Columbia
men never tire of singing:
D’ye ken Van Am with his snowy hair,
D’ye ken Van Am with his whiskers rare,
D’ye ken Van Am with his martial air,
As he crosses the Quad in the morning?
CHORUS.
The sight of Van Am raised my hat from my head,
And the sound of his voice often filled me with dread,
Oh, I shook in my boots at the things that he said
When he asked me to call in the morning.
Yes, I ken’d Van Am, to my sorrow, too,
When I was a freshman of verdant hue.
First a cut, then a bar, then an interview
With the Dean in his den in the morning.
But we love Van Am from our heart and soul,
Let’s drink to his health! Let’s finish the bowl!
We’ll swear by Van Am through fair and through foul,
And wish him the top o’ the morning.
D’ye ken Van Am with his fine old way,
The Dean of Columbia for many a day?
Long may he live and long may he stay
Where his voice may be heard in the morning.
One of his undertakings at Columbia was the
organization of the Alumni Association of Columbia
College, which he began as soon as he had become an
alumnus himself. The Association was then more dead
than alive, but through his efforts it has become
the most flourishing and influential of all the
Columbia alumni organizations.
The dean had few outside interests; his life was
devoted almost entirely to Columbia, and the few
other activities in which he engaged were closely
allied to his work at the College. He was a member
of the American Mathematical Society and of the
New York Historical Society, and, at one time, was
president of the New York Mathematical Society.
He was also a fellow of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science and a vestryman of
Trinity Church. Some years ago he edited a series
of Davies’s mathematical works.
As prime mover in the organization of the Columbia
University Club, he was its first president, and
there never has been any other.
As an authority on matters relating to the history
of the University he was without an equal. He
wrote a “History of Columbia College,” and to the
volume known as “Universities and Their Sons” he
contributed the Columbia section.
One of the things that endeared him most to
Columbia men was his championship of football. In
1905, after Columbia had been severely criticised
for her football tactics, and the faculty, in a
historic meeting, decided that the sport should
be dropped, the Dean was the only friend the
undergraduates had. In that meeting he took
the stand of the undergraduates and earnestly
championed the game. After the close of the
football season of 1906 more than two thousand
students stormed the Faculty Club, where the Dean
was at lunch, and, after singing his song, demanded
that he make a speech to them on football. They
told him they wanted football, and he said: “I know
that, but you know I cannot give it to you. You
have behaved as I have always known you to behave,
with propriety and dignity, and if you keep on
there’s no telling what you may get.”
Football will be played once more at Columbia this
year, and more than one alumnus will regret that
the venerable Van Am is not in the stands when the
opening game is played on South Field.
At the time when Columbia began to expand from a
college to a university of many departments, the
proposal to do away with the college altogether,
and to convert Columbia into a group of graduate
schools, was considered. The idea “took” with
some of the authorities, and had it not been for
vigorous opposition, in which Van Am took a leading
part, it is not unlikely that the change would have
been made.
When it became known, in the spring of 1910, that
the dean was to retire, the students prepared a
petition to the faculty, asking them to place him
on the roll as dean emeritus. The parchment was
afterward framed and hung in the Trophy Room.
At the dinner given by the Columbia alumni to
celebrate Dean Van Amringe’s fiftieth year of
connection with the University, the presiding
officer read from Oliver Wendell Holmes’s class-day
poem, and turned to the venerable dean as he quoted:
Was it snowing, I spoke of. Excuse the mistake!
Look close--and you’ll see not a sign of a flake!
We want some new garlands for those we have shed,
And these are white roses instead of the red.