_Superintendent_—What is your desire, Mr. Hudson?
_Hudson_—Let Ross & Tousey have no more _Heralds_. They have offended
Mr. Bennett.
_Superintendent_—Is it possible? I’ll see that they get no more
_Heralds_. (He goes.)
(_Hudson goes to Bennett’s private room._)
_Hudson_—I have given your order, and it will be instantly obeyed.
_Bennett_—That will suffice. (Hudson retires.)
(To be continued.)
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Richard B. Connolly and other Conspirators against my Liberty.
In 1855, Richard B. Connolly said he would give me a clerkship in the
County Clerk’s Office, if I would not expose his unnaturalized alienage.
I declined his infamous proposition. He then got Alderman John Kelly to
read a letter to the Board of Aldermen, declaring that he was born in
Ireland, and first landed in Philadelphia, where he got naturalized in
Independence Hall, and that he valued the frame that contained the
evidences of his naturalization, more than any piece of furniture in his
house, and invited all to call at his residence, and behold its graceful
suspension on his parlor wall. I called, and his wife assured me that
her husband was absent, and that his naturalization papers were in a
trunk, and that he had got the key. Alderman John H. Briggs called, when
Connolly was at home, but he was not permitted to see the evidences of
his naturalization. Other citizens, and many of Connolly’s most intimate
friends called and desired to see his naturalization papers, but he
declined to show them. I then went to Philadelphia, and got certificates
from the clerks of all the Courts, that Richard B. Connolly, of Ireland,
was never naturalized in the Philadelphia Courts, and I returned, and
published the results of my visit to Philadelphia in the _New York
Times_, and other journals, and also stated that Connolly strove to
bribe me not to expose his alienage. At the election of County Clerk,
which followed these events, Connolly did not vote, and when taunted
with his refusal to vote by his adversaries, he excused himself on the
ground that he had bet largely on several candidates, and dared not
vote. This was the very small aperture through which he crawled. And
this is the scamp who is to impannel the jury by which I am soon to be
tried for the alleged libel of Tiemann and Cooper and Connolly’s most
sacred friend, Simeon Draper, with whom he was long a clerk, and with
whom he has been connected in schemes of plunder and political villainy
for nearly a quarter of a century. From Connolly’s notorious character
as a sly and cunning and treacherous rascal, and Jury Packer, and ballot
stuffer, and public robber, I have every reason to believe that he will
pack the jury that will try me. And he has four powerful motives for
packing my jury, and sending me to Blackwell’s Island: And firstly, to
avenge my exposure of his perjured alienage, and secondly, to prove his
fidelity to his old friend, Simeon Draper, and thirdly, to win the favor
of Tiemann and Cooper, and secure their support of him as Comptroller,
and fourthly, to incarcerate me while he seeks his nomination and
election as Comptroller, so that I cannot expose his perjured alienage
and nefarious crimes, during his efforts to obtain an office, which will
enable him to steal millions from the Treasury, and thus rob the toiling
millions of their bread and raiment and shelter from the pitiless
elements, and drive many a lovely virgin, of sick and indigent parents,
to the horrors of prostitution. In 1852, he was almost penniless, but
now he is worth a million of dollars, which he has stolen directly from
the pockets of the honest and laborious classes, for whom he professes
exhaustless love. With the Mayor and nearly all the Executive
Departments, and Connolly, Draper, Sickles, Hart, and the _Herald_,
_Times_, and _Tribune_, and other journals, and Peter Cooper, and
Ex-Mayor Kingsland, and other millionaires against me, it seems almost
impossible to escape a sojourn at Blackwell’s Island, but I have
confidence in God and truth and justice, and I defy all the powers of
earth to vanquish my soul. And I most fervently thank the Great Disposer
of Events, that if I am consigned to a felon’s cell, it will not be for
robbing the friendless multitudes, like such thieves as Tiemann, Cooper,
Draper, and Connolly, who may not be incarcerated and tortured for their
deeds of villainy while living, although a terrible retribution awaits
them beyond the grave. Stephen, of old, was stoned for his virtues, and
Socrates poisoned, and the Saviour crucified, and a poor, humble, and
friendless being like me, may be imprisoned, and forced to die in a
dungeon, for exposing the public robbers of the present generation. But
I will not murmur at the terrible ordeal through which I am about to
pass. For my fidelity to the people, I may lose my liberty. Be it so.
And when the public thieves have consigned me to a lonely and dreary
cell, and my frail form slowly wastes away, and I am forever gone, my
absent soul will only crave a humble mound, and the tears of the
virtuous, to bless and fertilise the pretty flowers that prance over my
grassy hillock, in the mild summer perfume.
Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.
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