Douglas Jerrold's day of labor may be sketched thus. At eight o'clock he

breakfasts on cold new milk, toast, bacon, watercresses, and perhaps

strawberries. Then he makes long examination of the papers, cutting out

bits of news. The study is a snug room filled with books and pictures;

its furniture is of solid oak. There work begins. If it be a comedy, he

will now and then walk rapidly up and down the room, talking wildly to

himself, and laughing as he hits upon a good point. Suddenly the pen

will be put down, and through a little conservatory, without seeing

anybody, he will pass out into the garden for a little while, talking to

the gardeners, walking, &c. In again, and vehemently to work. The

thought has come; and, in letters smaller than the type in which they

shall be set, it is unrolled along the little blue slips of paper. A

crust of bread and glass of wine are brought in, but no word is spoken.

The work goes rapidly forward, and halts at last suddenly. The pen is

dashed aside, a few letters, seldom more than three lines in each, are

written and despatched to the post, and then again into the garden,

visits to the horse, cow, and fowls, then another long turn around the

lawn, and at last a seat with a quaint old volume in the tent under the

mulberry-tree. Friends come,--walks and conversation. A very simple

dinner at four. Then a short nap--forty winks--upon the great sofa in

the study; another long stroll over the lawn while tea is prepared. Over

the tea-table are jokes of all kinds, as at dinner. In the later years

of his life, Jerrold seldom wrote after dinner; and his evenings were

usually spent alone in his study, reading, writing letters, &c.

Sometimes he would join the family circle for half an hour before going

to bed at ten; but his rule was a solitary evening in the study with his

books.

Dickens's favorite time for composition is said to be in the morning.

Powell, in his "Notices of Living Authors of England," says that he

writes till about one or two o'clock, when he lunches, and afterwards

takes a walk for a couple of hours; returns to dinner, and gives the

evening to his own or a friend's fireside. Sometimes his method of labor

is much more intense and unremitting. Of his delightful little Christmas

book, "The Chimes," the author says, in a letter to a friend, that he

shut himself up for one month close and tight over it. "All my

affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and I became as

haggard as a murderer long before I wrote, 'The End.' When I had done

that, like 'The Man of Thessaly,' who, having scratched his eyes out in

a quickset hedge, plunged into a bramble-bush to scratch them in again,

I fled to Venice to recover the composure I had disturbed." When his

imagination begins to outline a new novel, with vague thoughts rife

within him, he goes "wandering about at night into the strangest

places," he says, "seeking rest and finding none."

Bulwer accomplishes his voluminous productions in about three hours a

day, usually from ten until one, and seldom later, writing all with his

own hand. Composition was at first very laborious to him, but he gave

himself sedulously to mastering its difficulties; and is said to have

rewritten some of his briefer productions eight or nine times before

publication. He now writes very rapidly, averaging, it is said, twenty

octavo pages a day. He says of himself in a letter to a friend: "I

literatize away the morning, ride at three, go to bathe at five, dine at

six, and get through the evening as I best may, sometimes by correcting

a proof."

Charles Anthon, so well known to the classical students of this

generation, was accustomed, for many years at least, constantly to

retire at ten and rise at four, so that a large part of his day's work

was done by breakfast-time; and it was this untiring industry that

enabled him, despite his incessant labors both in college and in school,

to produce some fifty volumes.

Gibbon always studied with his pen in hand, and for the purpose of his

history he practised laboriously the formation of his style of writing.

The first chapter of his history he rewrote three times, and the second

and third chapters twice, before he was satisfied with them; but after

thus getting under way, the greater part of his manuscript was sent to

the press in the first rough draft, without any intermediate copy being

made. After completing his great history, he congratulated himself upon

having accomplished a long, but temperate labor, without fatiguing

either the mind or the body. "Happily for my eyes," he said, "I have

always closed my studies with the day and commonly with the morning."

When he had accomplished the labors of the morning in the library, he

preferred recreation and social enjoyments rather than any exercise of

mind. He gives the following account of his sensations on accomplishing

his great work. "It was on the day, or rather night, of June 27, 1787,

between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of

the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen,

I took several turns in a covered walk of acacias. I will not dissemble

the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the

establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober

melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an

everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion."

This reminds us of the emotions which Noah Webster describes as

overwhelming him when he reached the close of his dictionary. "When I

finished my copy," says Dr. Webster, "I was sitting at my table in

Cambridge, England, January, 1825. When I arrived at the last word, I

was seized with a tremor that made it difficult to proceed. I, however,

summoned up my strength to finish the work, and then, walking about the

room, I soon recovered."

Buckle, even more systematically and laboriously than ever did Gibbon,

devoted himself to the formation of his style of writing as a special

preparation for entering upon the composition of his history. In his

later years he abandoned the custom of writing at night, and it was his

usual practice to lay aside his pen by three o'clock in the afternoon.

When at home in London, he spent an hour or so at noon in walking about

the city, frequently dined out, and read an hour after coming home. He

went to dinner-parties exclusively, it is said, because they took less

time than others.

Sir William Jones while in India began his studies with the dawn, and in

seasons of intermission from professional duty continued them throughout

the day; meditation retraced and confirmed what reading had collected or

investigation discovered. With respect to the division of his time, he

wrote on a small piece of paper these lines:--

"SIR EDWARD COKE.

"Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,

Four spend in prayer,--the rest on nature fix."

"RATHER,

"Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,

Ten to the world allot,--and _all_ to heaven."

Of Chief-justice Parsons of Massachusetts, his son says: "It is

literally true that for fifty years he was always reading or writing

when not obliged to be doing something else. He had, fortunately for

himself, many interruptions, but he avoided them as far as he could; and

there were weeks, and I believe consecutive months, when he passed

nearly two thirds of his day with books and papers.... He very seldom

took exercise for exercise' sake. Excepting an infrequent walk of some

minutes in the long entry which ran through the middle of his house, he

almost never walked for mere exercise, until an attack of illness. After

that he sometimes, though rarely, took a walk about the streets or on

the Common.... His office was always in his dwelling-house. There he sat

all the day, but his evenings were invariably spent in the large common

sitting-room. He had his chair by the fireside, and a small table near

it on which the evening's supply of books was placed. There he sat,

always reading, (seldom writing in the evening or out of his office,)

but never disturbed by any noise or frolic which might be going on. If

anybody, young or old, appealed to him, he was always ready to answer;

and sometimes, though not very often, would join in a game or play, and

then return to his books.... I have never known him wholly unoccupied

at any time whatsoever. He was always doing something, with books, pen,

or instrument, or engaged in conversation."

Judge Story arose at seven in summer and at half past seven in

winter,--never earlier. If breakfast was not ready, he went at once to

his library, and occupied the interval, whether it was five minutes or

fifty, in writing. When the family assembled, he was called, and

breakfasted with them. After breakfast he sat in the drawing-room, and

spent from half to three quarters of an hour in reading the newspapers

of the day. He then returned to his study, and wrote until the bell

sounded for his lecture at the Law School. After lecturing for two, and

sometimes three hours, he returned to his study, and worked until two

o'clock, when he was called to dinner. To his dinner--which on his part

was always simple--he gave an hour, and then again betook himself to his

study, where in the winter time he worked as long as the daylight

lasted, unless called away by a visitor, or obliged to attend a

moot-court. Then he came down and joined the family, and work for the

day was over. During the evening he was rarely without company; but if

alone he read some new publication, sometimes corrected a proof-sheet,

listened to music, talked with the family, or played backgammon. In the

summer afternoons he left his library towards twilight. Generally the

summer afternoon was varied three or four times a week in fair weather

by a drive of about an hour in the country in an open chaise. At ten or

half past he retired for the night, never varying a half-hour from this

time. The exercise he took was almost entirely incidental to his duties,

and consisted in driving to Boston to hold his court, or attend to other

business, and in walking to and from the Law School. His real exercise

was in talking. His diet was exceedingly simple. His lectures were

wholly extemporary, or delivered without minutes, and no record was ever

made of them by himself. After an interruption of hours, and even of

days, he could take up the pen and continue a sentence which he had left

half-written, without reading back, going on with the same certainty and

rapidity as if he had never been stopped.

While Lord Jeffrey was judge, during the sittings of the court, the

performance of his official duties exhausted nearly his whole day, the

evenings especially; and his spare time, whether during his sittings or

in vacation, was given to society, to correspondence, to walking, to

lounging in his garden, and to reading.

John C. Calhoun was an arduous student, and very simple in his habits.

He avoided all stimulants. When at home, he rose at daybreak, and, if

weather permitted, took a walk over his farm. He breakfasted at half

past seven, and then retired to his office, which stood near his house,

where he wrote till dinner-time, or three o'clock. After dinner he read

or conversed with his family till sunset, when he took another walk. His

tea hour was eight. He then joined the family, and read or talked till

ten, when he retired.

Dr. Arnold of Rugby began lessons at seven; and, with the interval of

breakfast, they lasted till nearly three. Then he would walk with his

pupils, and dine at half past five. At seven he usually had some lessons

on hand; and "it was only when they were all gathered up in the

drawing-room after tea," says Mr. Stanley, "amidst young men on all

sides of him, that he would commence work for himself in writing his

sermons or Roman History." In a letter Dr. Arnold said: "from about a

quarter before nine till ten o'clock every evening I am at liberty, and

enjoy my wife's company fully; during this time I read aloud to her,--I

am now reading to her Herodotus, translating as I go on,--or write my

sermons, or write letters." His favorite recreations were

horseback-riding, walking, and playing with his children.

Florence Nightingale, in advising that the sick be not suddenly

interrupted so as to distract their attention, says that the rule

applies to the well quite as much as to the sick. She adds: "I have

never known persons who exposed themselves for years to constant

interruptions who did not muddle away their intellects by it at last."

Dr. Arnold seems to be an exception.

The elder Alexander, the Princeton theologian, was another exception to

Florence Nightingale's rule. It was his peculiarity that he seemed

incapable of being interrupted. Except in hours of devotion, his study

was always free to his children, even the youngest; noise made no

difference; their books and toys were on his floor, and two or three

would be clambering upon him while he was handling a folio or had the

pen in his hand. Nor was this while engaged in the mechanical part of an

author's work. His door was always open to the children; they burst in

freely without any signal, and he always looked up with a smile of

welcome; and he declared that he often could think to most purpose when

there was a clatter of little voices around him. His voluminous works,

which he commenced to publish late in life, do not indicate that he

underwent a "muddling" process.

Johnson used to assert that a man could write just as well at one time

as another, and as well in one place as another, if he would only set

himself doggedly about it.

Dr. Channing's habits of labor when at home in Boston are thus

described. "The sun is just rising, and the fires are scarcely lighted,

when, with a rapid step, Dr. Channing enters his study. He has been

watchful during many hours, his brain teeming, and under the excitement

of his morning bath he longs to use the earliest hours for work.... His

first act is to write down the thoughts which have been given in his

vigils; next he reads a chapter or more in Griesbach's edition of the

Greek Testament, and, after a quick glance over the newspapers of the

day, he takes his light repast. Morning prayers follow, and then he

retires to his study-table. If he is reading, you will at once notice

this peculiarity, that he studies pen in hand, and that his book is

crowded with folded sheets of paper, which continually multiply as

trains of thought are suggested. These notes are rarely quotations, but

chiefly questions and answers, qualifications, condensed statements,

germs of interesting views; and when the volume is finished, they are

carefully selected, arranged, and under distinct heads placed among

other papers in a secretary. If he is writing, unless making preparation

for the pulpit or for publication, the same process of accumulating

notes is continued, which, at the end of each day or week, are filed.

The interior of the secretary is filled with heaps of similar notes,

arranged in order, with titles over each compartment. When a topic is to

be treated at length in a sermon or essay, these notes are consulted,

reviewed, and arranged. He first draws up a skeleton of his subject,

selecting with special care and making prominent the central principle

that gives it unity, and from which branch forth correlative

considerations. Until perfectly clear in his own mind as to the

essential truth of this main view, he cannot proceed. Questions are

raised, objections considered, etc., the ground cleared, in a word, and

the granite foundation laid bare for the cornerstone. And now the work

goes rapidly forward. With flying pen he makes a rough draft of all that

he intends to say, on sheets of paper folded lengthwise, leaving half of

each page bare. He then reads over what he has written, and on the

vacant half-page supplies defects, strikes out redundances, indicates

the needless qualification, and modifies expressions. Thus sure of his

thought and aim, conscientiously prepared, he abandons himself to the

ardor of composition.... By noon his power of study is spent, and he

walks, visits, etc. After dinner he lies for a time upon the sofa, and

walks again, or drives into the country. Sunset he keeps as a holy hour.

During the winter twilight he likes to be silent and alone.... At tea he

listens to reading for an hour or more, leading conversation, etc.

Evenings he gives up to social enjoyments."

Mr. Buckle's method of making his researches, and preserving memoranda

of the results for subsequent use in composition, was similar to Dr.

Channing's, as we may infer from a note in his History. Dr. Channing

spent his vacations at Newport, where his time was thus allotted:--Rose

very early, walked, etc. Breakfasted on coarse wheat-bread and cream,

with a cup of tea. Then went to his study. Every hour or half-hour, more

or less, he threw his gown around him, and took a turn in the garden for

a few minutes. After a few hours of work he was exhausted for the day,

and read and conversed till dinner. The afternoon was given up to

excursions, and the evening to society.

Dr. Doddridge, in reference to his work, "The Paraphrase on the New

Testament," said that its being written at all was owing to the

difference between rising at five and at seven o'clock in the morning.

"A remark similar to this," says Albert Barnes, "will explain all that I

have done. Whatever I have accomplished in the way of commenting on the

Scriptures is to be traced to the fact of rising at four in the morning,

and to the time thus secured, which I thought might properly be employed

in a work not immediately connected with my pastoral labors. That habit

I have now pursued for many years.... All my Commentaries on the

Scriptures have been written before nine o'clock in the morning. At the

very beginning, now more than thirty years ago, I adopted a resolution

to stop writing on these Notes when the clock struck nine. This

resolution I have invariably adhered to, not unfrequently finishing my

morning task in the midst of a paragraph, and sometimes even in the

midst of a sentence.... In the recollection now of the past, I refer to

these morning hours, to the stillness and quiet of my room in this house

of God, when I have been permitted to 'prevent the dawning of the

morning' in the study of the Bible, while the inhabitants of the great

city were slumbering round about me, and before the cares of the day and

its direct responsibilities came upon me,--I refer to these scenes as

among the happiest portions of my life.... Manuscripts, when a man

writes every day, even though he writes but little, accumulate. Dr.

Johnson was once asked how it was that the Christian Fathers, and the

men of other times, could find leisure to fill so many folios with the

productions of their pens. 'Nothing is easier,' said he; and he at once

began a calculation to show what would be the effect, in the ordinary

term of a man's life, if he wrote only one octavo page in a day; and the

question was solved.... In this manner manuscripts accumulated on my

hands until I have been surprised to find that, by this slow and steady

process, I have been enabled to prepare eleven volumes of Commentary on

the New Testament, and five on portions of the Old Testament."

Isaac Barrow was a very early riser, and with two exceptions very

temperate in his habits. He indulged greatly in all kinds of fruit;

alleging that, if the immoderate use of it killed hundreds in autumn, it

was the means of preserving thousands throughout the year. But he was

fonder still of tobacco. He believed that it helped to compose and

regulate his thoughts. (He died, we may add, from the use of opium.) It

was his plan, in whatever he was engaged, to prosecute it till he had

brought it to a termination. He said he could not easily draw his

thoughts from one thing to another. The morning was his favorite time

for study. He kept a tinder-box in his apartment, and, during all of the

winter and some of the autumn months, rose before it was light. He

would sometimes rise at night, burn out his candle, and return to bed.

Zwingli is described as indefatigable in study. From daybreak until ten

o'clock he used to read, write, and translate. After dinner he listened

to those who had any news to give him, or who required his advice; he

then would walk out with some of his friends, and visit his flock. At

two o'clock he resumed his studies. He took a short walk after supper,

and then wrote his letters, which often occupied him until midnight. He

always worked standing, and never permitted himself to be disturbed

except for some very important cause.

Melancthon was usually in his study at two or three o'clock in the

morning, both in summer and winter. "It was during these early hours,"

says D'Aubigne, "that his best works were written." During the day he

read three or four lectures, attended to the conferences of the

professors, and after that labored till supper-time. He retired about

nine. He would not open any letters in the evening, in order that his

sleep might not be disturbed. He usually drank a glass of wine before

supper. He generally took one simple meal a day, and never more than

two, and always dined regularly at a fixed hour. He enjoyed but few

healthy days in his life, and was frequently troubled with

sleeplessness. His manuscripts usually lay on the table, exposed to the

view of every visitor, so that he was robbed of several. When he had

invited any of his friends to his house, he used to beg one of them to

read, before sitting down to table, some small composition in prose or

verse.

There is an interest of a peculiar nature in thus visiting the haunts

and witnessing the labors of scholars, philosophers, and poets, which

arises from the stimulus it affords us in turning again to our own

humbler but kindred work. Whatever brings us into sympathy with the

great and the noble thinkers enlarges and lifts our thoughts.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] In his youth he studied till midnight; but, warned by the early

decay of sight and his disordered health, he afterwards changed his

hours.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A QUACK.

IN TWO PARTS.

PART II.

I solemnly believe that I should have continued to succeed in the

virtuous practice of my profession, if it had not happened that fate was

once more unkind to me, by throwing in my path one of my old

acquaintances. I had had a consultation one day with the famous

homoeopath, Dr. Zwanzig; and as we walked away we were busily

discussing the case of a poor consumptive fellow who had previously lost

a leg. In consequence of this defect, Dr. Zwanzig considered that the

ten-thousandth of a grain of _Aur._[D] would be an over-dose, and that

it must be fractioned so as to allow for the departed leg, otherwise the

rest of the man would be getting a leg-dose too much. I was particularly

struck with this view of the case, but I was still more, and less

pleasingly, impressed with the sight of my quondam patient, Stagers, who

nodded to me familiarly from the opposite pavement.

I was not at all surprised when, that evening quite late, I found this

worthy seated waiting in my office. I looked around uneasily, which was

clearly understood by my friend, who retorted, "Ain't took nothin', Doc.

You don't seem right awful glad to see me. You needn't be afraid,--I've

only fetched you a job, and a right good one too."

I replied, that I had my regular business, that I preferred he should

get some one else, and pretty generally made Mr. Stagers conscious that

I had had enough of him.

I did not ask him to sit down, and, just as I supposed him about to

leave, he seated himself with a grin, remarking, "No use, Doc. Got to go

into it this one time."

At this I naturally enough grew angry, and used several rather violent

phrases.

"No use, Doc," remarked Stagers.

Then I softened down, and laughed a little, treated the thing as a joke,

whatever it was, for I dreaded to hear.

But Stagers was fate. Stagers was inevitable. "Won't do, Doc,--not even

money wouldn't get you off."

"No?" said I interrogatively, and as coolly as I could, contriving at

the same time to move towards the window. It was summer, the sashes were

up, the shutters drawn in, and a policeman whom I knew was lounging

opposite, as I had noticed when I entered. I would give Stagers a scare

anyhow; charge him with theft,--anything but get mixed up with his kind

again.

He must have understood me, the scoundrel, for in an instant I felt a

cold ring of steel against my ear, and a tiger clutch on my cravat. "Sit

down," he said; "what a fool you are. Guess you've forgot that there

coroner's business." Needless to say, I obeyed. "Best not try that

again," continued my guest. "Wait a moment,"--and, rising, he closed the

windows.

There was no resource left but to listen; and what followed I shall

condense, rather than relate it in the language employed by my friend

Mr. Stagers.

It appeared that another acquaintance, Mr. File, had been guilty of a

cold-blooded and long-premeditated murder, for which he had been tried

and convicted. He now lay in jail awaiting his execution, which was to

take place at Carsonville, Ohio, one month after the date at which I

heard of him anew. It seemed that, with Stagers and others, he had

formed a band of counterfeiters in the West, where he had thus acquired

a fortune so considerable that I was amazed at his having allowed his

passions to seduce him into unprofitable crime. In his agony he

unfortunately thought of me, and had bribed Stagers largely in order

that he might be induced to find me. When the narration had reached this

stage, and I had been made fully to understand that I was now and

hereafter under the sharp eye of Stagers and his friends, that, in a

word, escape was out of the question, I turned on my tormentor.

"And what does all this mean?" I said; "what does File expect me to do?"

"Don't believe he exactly knows," said Stagers; "something or other to

get him clear of hemp."

"But what stuff!" I replied. "How can I help him? What possible

influence could I exert?"

"Can't say," answered Stagers imperturbably; "File has a notion you're

most cunning enough for anything. Best try somethin', Doc."

"And what if I won't do it?" said I. "What does it matter to me, if the

rascal swings or no?"

"Keep cool. Doc," returned Stagers, "I'm only agent in this here

business. My principal, that's File, he says, 'Tell Sandcraft to find

some way to get me clear. Once out, I give him ten thousand dollars. If

he don't turn up something that'll suit, I'll blow about that coroner

business, and break him up generally.'"

"You don't mean," said I, in a cold sweat,--"you don't mean that, if I

can't do this impossible thing, he will inform on me?"

"Just so," returned Stagers. "Got a cigar, Doc?"

I only half heard him. What a frightful position. I had been leading a

happy and an increasingly comfortable life,--no scrapes, and no dangers;

and here, on a sudden, I had presented to me the alternative of saving a

wretch from the gallows, or of spending unlimited years in a State

penitentiary. As for the money, it became as dead leaves for this once

only in my life. My brain seemed to be spinning in its case; lights came

and went before my eyes. In my ears were the sounds of waters. I grew

weak all over.

"Cheer up a little," said Stagers. "Here, take a nip of whiskey. Things

ain't at the worst, by a good bit. You just get ready, and we'll start

by the morning train. Guess you'll try out something smart enough, as we

travel along. Ain't got a heap of time to lose."

I was silent. A great anguish had me in its grip. I might writhe and

bite as I would, it was to be all in vain. Hideous plans arose to my

ingenuity, born of this agony of terror and fear. I could murder

Stagers, but what good would that do. As to File, he was safe from my

hand. At last I became too confused to think any longer. "When do we

leave?" I said, feebly.

"At six to-morrow," he returned.

How I was watched and guarded, and how hurried over a thousand miles of

rail to my fate, little concerns us now. I find it dreadful to recall it

to memory. Above all, an aching eagerness for revenge upon the man who

had caused me these sufferings predominated in my mind. Could I not fool

the wretch and save myself? On a sudden an idea came to my

consciousness, like a sketch on an artist's paper. Then it grew, and

formed itself, became possible, probable, it seemed to me sure. "Ah,"

said I, "Stagers, give me something to eat and drink." I had not tasted

food for two days.

Within a day or two after my arrival, I was enabled to see File in his

cell,--on the plea of being a clergyman from his native place.

I found that I had not miscalculated my danger. The man did not appear

to have the least idea as to how I was to help him. He only knew that I

was in his power, and he used his control to insure that something more

potent than friendship should be enlisted on his behalf. As the days

went by, this behavior grew to be a frightful thing to witness. He

threatened, flattered, implored, offered to double the sum he had

promised, if I would but save him. As for myself, I had gradually become

clear as to my course of action, and only anxious to get through with

the matter. At last, a few days before the time appointed for the

execution, I set about explaining to File my plan of saving him. At

first I found this a very difficult task; but as he grew to understand

that any other escape was impossible, he consented to my scheme, which I

will now briefly explain.

I proposed, on the evening before the execution, to make an opening in

the man's windpipe, low down in the neck, and where he could conceal it

by a loose cravat. As the noose would be above this point, I explained

that he would be able to breathe through the aperture, and that, even if

stupefied, he could easily be revived if we should be able to prevent

his being hanged too long. My friend had some absurd misgivings lest his

neck should be broken by the fall; but as to this I was able to reassure

him, upon the best scientific authority. There were certain other and

minor questions, as to the effects of sudden, nearly complete cessation

of the supply of blood to the brain; but with these physiological

refinements I thought it needlessly cruel to distract a man in his

peculiar position. Perhaps I shall be doing injustice to my own

intellect if I do not hasten to state that I had not the remotest belief

in the efficacy of my plan for any purpose except to extricate me from a

very uncomfortable position.

On the morning of the day before the execution, I made ready everything

that I could possibly need. So far our plans, or rather mine, had worked

to a marvel. Certain of File's old accomplices succeeded in bribing the

hangman to shorten the time of suspension. Arrangements were made also

to secure me two hours alone with the prisoner, so that nothing seemed

to be wanting. I had assured File that I would not see him again

previous to the operation, but during the morning I was seized with a

feverish impatience, which luckily prompted me to visit him once more.

As usual, I was admitted readily, and nearly reached his cell, when I

became aware from the sound of voices heard through the grating in the

door that there was a visitor in the cell. "Who is with him?" I inquired

of the warden.

"The doctor," he replied.

"Doctor?" I said. "What doctor?"

"O, the jail physician," he returned. "I was to come back in half an

hour and let him out; but he's got a quarter to stay as yet. Shall I

admit you, or will you wait?"

"No," I replied. "It is hardly right to interrupt them. I will walk in

the corridor for ten minutes or so, and then you can send the turnkey to

let me in."

"Very good," he returned, and left me.

As soon as I was alone, I cautiously advanced up the entry, and stood

alongside of the door, through the barred grating of which I was able

readily to hear what went on within. The first words I caught were

these:--

"And you tell me, Doctor, that, even if a man's windpipe was open, the

hanging would kill him,--are you sure?"

"Yes," returned the other, "I believe there would be no doubt of it. I

cannot see how escape would be possible; but let me ask you," he went on

more gravely, "why you have sent for me to ask all these singular

questions. You cannot have the faintest hope of escape, and least of all

in such a manner as this. I advise you to think rather on the fate which

is inevitable. You must, I fear, have much to reflect upon."

"But," said File, "if I wanted to try this plan of mine, couldn't some

one be found to help me, say if he was to make twenty thousand or so by

it?"

"If you mean me," answered the doctor, "some one cannot be found,

neither for twenty nor for fifty thousand dollars. Besides, if any one

were wicked enough to venture on such an attempt, he would only be

deceiving you with a hope which would be utterly vain."

I understood all this, with an increasing fear in my mind. The prisoner

was cunning enough to want to make sure that I was not playing him

false.

After a pause, he said, "Well, Doctor, you know a poor devil in my fix

will clutch at straws. Hope I haven't offended you."

"Not the least!" returned the doctor. "Shall I send to Mr. Smith?" This

was my present name,--in fact I was known as the Rev. Mr. Eliphalet

Smith.

"I would like it," answered File; "but as you go out, tell the warden I

want to see him immediately about a matter of great importance."

At this stage, I began to conceive very distinctly that the time had

arrived when it would be wiser for me to make my escape, if this step

were yet possible. Accordingly I waited until I heard the doctor rise,

and at once stepped quietly away to the far end of the corridor, which I

had scarcely reached when the door which closed it was opened by a

turnkey who had come to relieve the doctor. Of course my own peril was

imminent. If the turnkey mentioned my near presence to the prisoner,

immediate disclosure and arrest would follow. If time were allowed for

the warden to obey the request from File, that he would visit him at

once, I might gain thus half an hour, but hardly more. I therefore said

to the officer: "Tell the warden that the doctor wishes to remain an

hour longer with the prisoner, and that I shall return myself at the end

of that time."

"Very good, sir," said the turnkey, allowing me to pass out, and

relocking the door; "I'll tell him."

In a few moments I was outside of the jail gate, and saw my

fellow-clergyman, Mr. Stagers, in full broadcloth and white tie, coming

down the street towards me. As usual he was on guard; but this time he

had to deal with a man grown perfectly desperate, with everything to

win, and nothing to lose. My plans were made, and, wild as they were, I

thought them worth the trying. I must evade this man's terrible watch.

How keen it was, you cannot imagine; but it was aided by three of the

infamous gang to which File had belonged, for without these spies no one

person could possibly have sustained so perfect a system.

I took Stagers's arm. "What time," said I, "does the first train start

for Dayton?"

"At twelve," said the other; "what do you want?"

"How far is it?" I continued.

"About fifteen miles," he replied.

"Good; I can get back by eight o'clock to-night."

"Easily," said Stagers, "_if_ you go. What is it you want?"

"I want," said I, "a smaller tube, to put in the windpipe. Must have it,

in fact."

"Well, I don't like it," said he, "but the thing's got to go through

somehow. If you must go, I will go along myself. Can't lose sight of

you, Doc, just at present. You're monstrous precious. Did you tell

File?"

"Yes," said I. "He's all right. Come. We've no time to lose." Nor had

we. Within twenty minutes we were seated in the last car of a long

train, and running at the rate of twenty miles an hour towards Dayton.

In about ten minutes I asked Stagers for a cigar.

"Can't smoke here," said he.

"No," I answered; "I'll go forward into the smoking-car."

"Come along, then," said he, and we went through the train accordingly.

I was not sorry he had gone with me when I found in the smoking-car one

of the spies who had been watching me so constantly. Stagers nodded to

him and grinned at me, and we sat down together.

"Chut," said I, "dropped my cigar. Left it on the window-ledge, in the

hindmost car. Be back in a moment." This time, for a wonder, Stagers

allowed me to leave unaccompanied. I hastened through to the back car,

and gained the platform at its nearer end, where I instantly cut the

signal cord. Then I knelt down, and, waiting until the two cars ran

together, I removed the connecting pin. The next moment I leaped to my

feet, and screwed up the brake wheel, so as to check the pace of the

car. Instantly the distance widened between me and the flying train. A

few moments more, and the pace of my own car slackened, while the

hurrying train flew around a distant curve. I did not wait for my own

car to stop entirely before I slipped down off the steps, leaving the

other passengers to dispose of themselves as they might until their

absence should be discovered and the rest of the train return.

As I wish rather to illustrate my very remarkable professional career,

than to amuse by describing its mere incidents, I shall not linger to

tell how I succeeded, at last, in reaching St. Louis. Fortunately, I had

never ceased to anticipate a moment when escape from File and his

friends would be possible, so that I always carried about with me the

funds with which I had hastily provided myself upon leaving. The whole

amount did not exceed a hundred dollars; but with this, and a gold watch

worth as much more, I hoped to be able to subsist until my own ingenuity

enabled me to provide more liberally for the future. Naturally enough, I

scanned the papers closely, to discover some account of File's death,

and of the disclosures concerning myself which he was only too likely to

have made. I met with a full account of his execution, but with no

allusion to myself, an omission which I felt fearful was due only to a

desire on the part of the police to avoid alarming me in such a way as

to keep them from pouncing upon me on my way home. Be this as it may,

from that time to the present hour I have remained ignorant as to

whether or not the villain betrayed my part in that curious coroner's

inquest.

Before many days I had resolved to make another and a bold venture.

Accordingly appeared in the St. Louis papers an advertisement to the

effect that Dr. Von Ingenhoff, the well-known German physician, who had

spent two years on the plains acquiring a knowledge of Indian medicine,

was prepared to treat all diseases by vegetable remedies alone. Dr. Von

Ingenhoff would remain in St. Louis for two weeks, and was to be found

at the Grayson House every day from ten until two o'clock.

To my delight I got two patients the first day. The next I had twice as

many; when at once I hired two connecting rooms, and made a very useful

arrangement, which I may describe dramatically in the following way.

There being two or three patients waiting while I finish my cigar and

morning julep, there enters a respectable looking old gentleman, who

inquires briskly of the patients if this is really Dr. Von Ingenhoff's.

He is told it is.

"Ah," says he, "I shall be delighted to see him; five years ago I was

scalped on the plains, and now"--exhibiting a well-covered head--"you

see what the Doctor did for me. 'T isn't any wonder I've come fifty

miles to see him. Any of you been scalped, gentlemen?"

To none of them had this misfortune arrived as yet; but, like most folks

in the lower ranks of life and some in the upper ones, it was pleasant

to find a genial person who would listen to their account of their own

symptoms. Presently, after hearing enough, the old gentleman pulls out a

large watch. "Bless me! it's late. I must call again. May I trouble you,

sir, to say to the Doctor that his old friend, Governor Brown, called to

see him, and will drop in again to-morrow. Don't forget: Governor Brown

of Arkansas." A moment later the Governor visited me by a side-door,

with his account of the symptoms of my patients. Enter a tall

Hoosier,--the Governor having retired. "Now, Doc," says Hoosier, "I've

been handled awful these two years back." "Stop," I exclaim, "open your

eyes. There now, let me see," taking his pulse as I speak. "Ah, you've

a pain there, and you can't sleep. Cocktails don't agree any longer.

Weren't you bit by a dog two years ago?" "I was," says the Hoosier, in

amazement. "Sir," I reply, "you have chronic hydrophobia. It's the water

in the cocktails that disagrees with you. My bitters will cure in a

week, sir."

The astonishment of my friend at these accurate revelations may be

imagined. He is allowed to wait for his medicine in the ante-room, where

the chances are in favor of his relating how wonderfully I had told all

his symptoms at a glance.

Governor Brown of Arkansas was a small but clever actor, whom I met in

the billiard-room, and who, day after day, in varying disguises and

modes, played off the same trick, to our great mutual advantage.

At my friend's suggestion, we very soon added to our resources by the

purchase of two electro-magnetic batteries. This special means of

treating all classes of maladies has advantages which are altogether

peculiar. In the first place, you instruct your patient that the

treatment is of necessity a long one. A striking mode of putting it is

to say, "Sir, you have been six months getting ill, it will require six

months for a cure." There is a correct sound about such a phrase, and it

is sure to satisfy. Two sittings a week, at three dollars a sitting,

pays pretty well. In many cases the patient gets well while you are

electrifying him. Whether or not the electricity cures him is a thing I

shall never know. If, however, he begins to show signs of impatience,

you advise him that he will require a year's treatment, and suggest that

it will be economical for him to buy a battery and use it at home. Under

this advice he pays you twenty dollars for an instrument which cost you

ten, and you are rid of a troublesome case.

If the reader has followed me closely, he will have learned that I am a

man of large views in my profession, and of a very justifiable

ambition. The idea had often occurred to me of combining in one

establishment all the various modes of practice which are known as

irregular. This, as will be understood, is merely a more liberal

rendering of the same idea which prompted me to unite in my own business

homoeopathy and the ordinary practice of medicine. I proposed to my

partner, accordingly, to combine with our present business that of

spiritualism, which I knew had been very profitably turned to account in

connection with medical practice. As soon as he agreed to this plan,

which, by the way, I hoped to enlarge, so as to include all the

available isms, I set about making such preparations as were necessary.

I remembered to have read somewhere, that a Doctor Schiff had shown that

you could produce remarkably clever knockings, so called, by voluntarily

dislocating the great toe and then forcibly drawing it back again into

its socket. A still better noise could be made by throwing the tendon of

the peroneus longus muscle out of the hollow in which it lies, alongside

of the ankle. After some effort I was able to accomplish both feats

quite readily, and could occasion a remarkable variety of sounds,

according to the power which I employed or the positions which I

occupied at the time. As to all other matters, I trusted to the

suggestions of my own ingenuity, which, as a rule, has rarely failed me.

The largest success attended the novel plan which my lucky genius had

devised; so that soon we actually began to divide large profits, and to

lay by a portion of our savings. It is, of course, not to be supposed

that this desirable result was attained without many annoyances and some

positive danger. My spiritual revelations, medical and other, were, as

may be supposed, only more or less happy guesses; but in this, as in

predictions as to the weather and other events, the rare successes

always get more prominence in the minds of men than the numerous

failures. Moreover, whenever a person has been fool enough to resort to

folks like myself, he is always glad to be able to defend his conduct by

bringing forward every possible proof of skill on the part of the man he

has consulted. These considerations, and a certain love of mysterious or

unusual means, I have commonly found sufficient to secure an ample share

of gullible individuals; while I may add, that, as a rule, those who

would be shrewd enough to understand and expose us are wise enough to

keep away altogether. Such as did come were, as a rule, easy enough to

manage, but now and then we hit upon some utterly exceptional patient,

who was both fool enough to consult me and clever enough to know he had

been swindled. When such a fellow made a fuss, it was occasionally

necessary to return his money, if it was found impossible to bully him

into silence. In one or two instances, where I had promised a cure upon

prepayment of two or three hundred dollars, I was either sued or

threatened with suit, and had to refund a part or the whole of the

amount; but most folks preferred to hold their tongues, rather than

expose to the world the extent of their own folly.

In one case I suffered personally to a degree which I never can recall

without a distinct sense of annoyance, both at my own want of care and

at the disgusting consequences which it brought upon me.

Early one morning an old gentleman called, in a state of the utmost

agitation, and explained that he desired to consult the spirits as to a

heavy loss which he had experienced the night before. He had left, he

said, a sum of money in his pantaloons-pocket, upon going to bed. In the

morning he had changed his clothes, and gone out, forgetting to remove

the notes. Returning in an hour in great haste, he discovered that the

garment still lay upon the chair where he had thrown it, but that the

money was missing. I at once desired him to be seated, and proceeded to

ask him certain questions, in a chatty way, about the habits of his

household, the amount lost, and the like, expecting thus to get some

clew which would enable me to make my spirits display the requisite

share of sagacity in pointing out the thief. I learned readily that he

was an old and wealthy man, a little close too, I suspected; and that he

lived in a large house, with but two servants, and an only son about

twenty-one years old. The servants were both elderly women, who had

lived in the household many years, and were probably innocent.

Unluckily, remembering my own youthful career, I presently reached the

conclusion that the young man had been the delinquent. When I ventured

to inquire a little as to his character and habits, the old gentleman

cut me very short, remarking that he came to ask questions, and not to

be questioned, and that he desired at once to consult the spirits. Upon

this I sat down at a table, and, after a brief silence, demanded in a

solemn voice if there were present any spirits. By industriously

cracking my big-toe joint, I was enabled to represent at once the

presence of a numerous assembly of these worthies. Then I inquired if

any one of them had been present when the robbery was effected. A prompt

double-knock replied in the affirmative. I may say here, by the way,

that the unanimity of the spirits as to their use of two knocks for yes,

and one for no, is a very remarkable point; and shows, if it shows

anything, how perfect and universal must be the social intercourse of

the respected departed. It is worthy of note, also, that if the spirit,

I will not say the medium, perceives, after one knock, that it were

wiser to say yes, he can conveniently add the second tap. Some such

arrangement in real life would, it appears to me, be very desirable.

To return to the subject. As soon as I explained that the spirit who

answered had been a witness of the theft, the old man became strangely

agitated. "Who was it?" said he. At once the spirit indicated a desire

to use the alphabet. As we went over the letters, (always a slow method,

but useful when you want to observe excitable people,) my visitor kept

saying, "Quicker. Go quicker." At length the spirit spelt out the words,

"I know not his name." "Was it," said the gentleman,--"was it a--was it

one of my household?" I knocked yes, without hesitation; who else could

it have been? "Excuse me," he went on, "if I ask you for a little wine."

This I gave him. He continued, "Was it Susan, or Ellen? answer

instantly."

"No,--No."

"Was it--" He paused. "If I ask a question mentally, will the spirits

reply?" I knew what he meant. He wanted to ask if it was his son, but

did not wish to speak openly.

"Ask," said I.

"I have," he returned.

I hesitated. It was rarely my policy to commit myself definitely; yet

here I fancied, from the facts of the case, and his own terrible

anxiety, that he suspected or more than suspected his son as the guilty

person. I became sure of this as I studied his face. At all events it

would be easy to deny or explain, in case of trouble; and after all,

what slander was there in two knocks! I struck twice as usual.

Instantly the old gentleman rose up, very white, but quite firm.

"There," he said, and cast a bank-note on the table, "I thank you";--and

bending his head on his breast, walked, as I thought with great effort,

out of the room.

On the following morning, as I made my first appearance in my outer

room, which contained at least a dozen persons awaiting advice, who

should I see standing by the window but the old gentleman with

sandy-gray hair. Along with him was a stout young man, with a decided

red head, and mustache and whiskers to match. Probably the son, thought

I,--ardent temperament, remorse,--come to confess, etc. Except as to the

temper, I was never more mistaken in my life. I was about to go

regularly through my patients, when the old gentleman began to speak.

"I called, Doctor," said he, "to explain the little matter about which

I--about which I--"

"Troubled your spirits yesterday," added the youth jocosely, pulling his

mustache.

"Beg pardon," I returned. "Had we not better talk this over in private?

Come into my office," I added, touching the lad on the arm.

Would you believe it?--he took out his handkerchief, and dusted the

place I had touched. "Better not," he said. "Go on, father; let us get

done with this den."

"Gentlemen," said the elder person, addressing the patients, "I called

here yesterday, like a fool, to ask who had stolen from me a sum of

money, which I believed I left in my room on going out in the morning.

This doctor here and his spirits contrived to make me suspect my only

son. Well, I charged him at once with the crime, as soon as I got back

home; and what do you think he did. He said, 'Father, let us go up

stairs and look for it, and--'"

Here the young man broke in with "Come, father, don't worry yourself for

nothing"; and then, turning, added, "To cut the thing short, he found

the notes under his candlestick, where he had left them on going to bed.

This is all of it. We came here to stop this fellow" (by which he meant

me) "from carrying a slander further. I advise you, good people, to

profit by the matter, and to look up a more honest doctor, if doctoring

be what you want."

As soon as he had ended, I remarked solemnly: "The words of the spirits

are not my words. Who shall hold them accountable?"

"Nonsense," said the young man. "Come, father," and they left the room.

Now was the time to retrieve my character. "Gentlemen," said I, "you

have heard this very singular account. Trusting the spirits utterly and

entirely as I do, it occurs to me that there is no reason why they may

not after all have been right in their suspicions of this young person.

Who can say that, overcome by remorse, he may not have seized the time

of his father's absence to replace the money?"

To my amazement up gets a little old man from the corner. "Well, you are

a low cuss," said he; and, taking up a basket beside him, hobbled out of

the room. You maybe sure I said some pretty sharp things to him, for I

was out of humor to begin with, and it is one thing to be insulted by a

stout young man, and quite another to be abused by a wretched old

cripple. However, he went away, and I supposed, for my part, that I was

done with the whole business.

An hour later, however, I heard a rough knock at my door, and, opening

it hastily, saw my red-headed young man with the cripple.

"Now," said the former, catching me by the collar, and pulling me into

the room among my patients, "I want to know, my man, if this doctor said

that it was likely I was the thief, after all?"

"That's what he said," replied the cripple; "just about that, sir."

I do not desire to dwell on the after conduct of this hot-headed young

man. It was the more disgraceful, as I offered but little resistance,

and endured a beating such as I would have hesitated to inflict upon a

dog. Nor was this all; he warned me that, if I dared to remain in the

city after a week, he would shoot me. In the East I should have thought

but little of such a threat, but here it was only too likely to be

practically carried out. Accordingly, with much grief and reluctance, I

collected my whole fortune, which now amounted to at least seven

thousand dollars, and turned my back upon this ungrateful town. I am

sorry to say that I also left behind me the last of my good luck, as

hereafter I was to encounter only one calamity after another.

Travelling slowly eastward, my spirits began at last to rise to their

usual level, and when I arrived in Boston I set myself to thinking how

best I could contrive to enjoy life, and at the same time to increase my

means.

On former occasions I was a moneyless adventurer; now I possessed

sufficient capital, and was able and ready to embark in whatever

promised the best returns with the smallest personal risk. Several

schemes presented themselves as worthy the application of industry and

talent, but none of them altogether suited my tastes. I thought at times

of travelling as a Physiological Lecturer, combining with it the

business of a practitioner. Scare the audience at night with an

enumeration of symptoms which belong to ten out of every dozen of

healthy people, and then doctor such of them as are gulls enough to

consult me next day. The bigger the fright, the better the pay. I was a

little timid, however, about facing large audiences, as a man will be

naturally if he has lived a life of adventure, so that, upon due

consideration, I gave up the idea altogether.

The patent-medicine business also looked well enough, but it is somewhat

overdone at all times, and requires a heavy outlay, with the possible

result of ill-success. Indeed, I believe fifty quack remedies fail for

one that succeeds; and millions must have been wasted in placards,

bills, and advertisements, which never returned half their value to the

speculator. If I live, I think I shall beguile my time with writing the

lives of the principal quacks who have met with success. They are few in

number, after all, as any one must know who recalls the countless

remedies which are puffed awhile on the fences, and disappear to be

heard of no more.

Lastly, I inclined for a while to undertake a private insane asylum,

which appeared to me to offer facilities for money-making; as to which,

however, I may have been deceived by the writings of certain popular

novelists. I went so far, I may say, as actually to visit Concord for

the purpose of finding a pleasant locality and a suitable atmosphere;

but, upon due reflection, abandoned my plan as involving too much

personal labor to suit one of my easy frame of mind.

Tired at last of idleness and of lounging on the Common, I engaged in

two or three little ventures of a semi-professional character, such as

an exhibition of laughing-gas; advertising to cure cancer; send ten

stamps by mail to J. B., and receive an infallible receipt, etc. I did

not find, however, that these little enterprises prospered well in New

England, and I had recalled to me very forcibly a story which my

grandfather was fond of relating to me in my boyhood. It briefly

narrated how certain very knowing flies went to get molasses, and how it

ended by the molasses getting them. This, indeed, was precisely what

happened to me in all my little efforts to better myself in the Northern

States, until at length my misfortunes climaxed in total and unexpected

ruin.

The event which deprived me of the hard-won earnings of years of

ingenious industry was brought about by the baseness of a man who was

concerned with me in purchasing drugs for exportation to the Confederate

States. Unluckily, I was obliged to employ as my agent a long-legged

sea-captain from Maine. With his aid, I invested in this enterprise

about six thousand dollars, which I reasonably hoped to quadruple. Our

arrangements were cleverly made to run the blockade at Charleston, and

we were to sail on a certain Thursday morning in September, 1863. I sent

my clothes on board, and went down the evening before to go on board,

but found that the little schooner had been hauled out from the pier.

The captain, who met me at this time, endeavored to get a boat in order

to ferry us to the ship, but the night was stormy, and we were obliged

to return to our lodgings. Early next day I dressed and went to the

captain's room, which proved to be empty. I was instantly filled with

doubt, and ran frantically to the foot of Long Wharf, where, to my

horror, I could see no signs of schooner or captain. Neither have I ever

again set eyes on them from that time to this. I immediately lodged

information with the police as to the unpatriotic designs of the rascal

who had swindled me, but whether or not justice ever overtook him I am

unable to say.

It was, as I perceived, such utterly spilt milk as to be little worth

lamenting; and I therefore set to work with my accustomed energy to

utilize on my own behalf the resources of my medical education, which so

often before had saved me from want. The war, then raging at its height,

appeared to me to offer numerous opportunities to men of talent. The

path which I chose myself was apparently a humble one, but it enabled me

to make very agreeable use of my professional knowledge, and afforded

rapid and secure returns, without any other investment than a little

knowledge cautiously employed. In the first place, I deposited my small

remnant of property in a safe bank, and then proceeded to Providence,

where, as I had heard, patriotic persons were giving very large bounties

in order, I suppose, to insure to the government the services of better

men than themselves. On my arrival I lost no time in offering myself as

a substitute, and was readily accepted, and very soon mustered into the

Twentieth Rhode Island. Three months were passed, in camp, during which

period I received bounties to the extent of six hundred and fifty

dollars, with which I tranquilly deserted about two hours before the

regiment left for the field. With the product of my industry I returned

to Boston, and deposited all but enough to carry me to New York, where

within a month I enlisted twice, earning on each occasion four hundred

dollars.

My next essay was in Philadelphia, which I approached, even after some

years of absence, with a good deal of doubt. It was an ill-omened place

for me; for although I got nearly seven hundred dollars by entering the

service as a substitute for an editor,--whose pen, I presume, was

mightier than his sword,--I was disagreeably surprised by being hastily

forwarded to the front under a foxy young lieutenant, who brutally shot

down a poor devil in the streets of Baltimore for attempting to desert.

At this point I began to make use of my medical skill, for I did not in

the least degree fancy being shot, either because of deserting or of not

deserting. It happened, therefore, that a day or two later, while in

Washington, I was seized in the street with a fit, which perfectly

imposed upon the officer in charge, and caused him to leave me at the

Douglas Hospital. Here I found it necessary to perform fits about twice

a week; and as there were several real epileptics in the wards I had a

capital chance of studying their symptoms, which finally I learned to

imitate with the utmost cleverness.

I soon got to know three or four men, who, like myself, were personally

averse to bullets, and who were simulating other forms of disease with

more or less success. One of them suffered with rheumatism of the back,

and walked about bent like an old man; another, who had been to the

front, was palsied in the left arm; and a third kept open an ulcer on

the leg, by rubbing in a little antimonial ointment, which I sold him at

five dollars a box, and bought at fifty cents.

A change in the hospital staff brought all of us to grief. The new

surgeon was a quiet, gentlemanly person, with pleasant blue eyes and

clearly cut features, and a way of looking you through without saying

much. I felt so safe myself that I watched his procedures with just that

kind of enjoyment which one clever man takes in seeing another at work.

The first inspection settled two of us, "Another back case," said the

ward surgeon to his senior.

"Back hurt you?" says the latter, mildly.

"Yes, sir; run over by a howitzer; ain't never been straight since."

"A howitzer!" says the surgeon. "Lean forward, my man, so as to touch

the floor,--so. That will do." Then, turning to his aid, he said,

"Prepare this man's discharge papers."

"His discharge, sir?"

"Yes, I said that. Who's next?"

"Thank you, sir," groaned the man with the back. "How soon, sir, do you

think it will be?"

"Ah, not less than a month," replied the surgeon, and passed on.

Now as it was unpleasant to be bent like a letter V, and as the patient

presumed that his discharge was secure, he naturally took to himself a

little relaxation in the way of becoming straighter. Unluckily, those

nice blue eyes were everywhere at all hours; and, one fine morning,

Smithson was appalled at finding himself in a detachment bound for the

field, and bearing on his descriptive list an ill-natured endorsement

about his malady.

The surgeon came next on O'Callahan. "Where's your cap, my man?"

"On my head, yer honor," said the other, insolently. "I've a paralytics

in my arm."

"Humph!" cried the surgeon. "You have another hand."

"An' it's not rigulation to saloot with yer left," said the Irishman,

with a grin, while the patients around us began to laugh.

"How did it happen?" said the surgeon.

"I was shot in the shoulder," answered the patient, "about three months

ago, sir. I haven't stirred it since."

The surgeon looked at the scar.

"So recently?" said he. "The scar looks older; and, by the way, doctor,"

to his junior, "it could not have gone near the nerves. Bring the

battery, orderly."

In a few moments the surgeon was testing, one after another, the various

muscles. At last he stopped. "Send this man away with the next

detachment. Not a word, my man. You are a rascal, and a disgrace to

these good fellows who have been among the bullets."

The man muttered something, I did not hear what.

"Put this man in the guard-house," cried the surgeon; and so passed on,

without smile or frown.

As to the ulcer case, to my amusement he was put in bed, and his leg

locked up in a wooden splint, which effectually prevented him from

touching the part diseased. It healed in ten days, and he too went as

food for powder.

As for myself, he asked me a few questions, and, requesting to be sent

for during my next fit, left me alone.

I was of course on my guard, and took care to have my attacks only in

his absence, or to have them over before he arrived.

At length, one morning, in spite of my care, he chanced to be in the

ward, when I fell at the door. I was carried in and laid on a bed,

apparently in strong convulsions. Presently I felt a finger on my

eyelid, and as it was raised, saw the surgeon standing beside me. To

escape his scrutiny, I became more violent in my motions. He stopped a

moment, and looked at me steadily. "Poor fellow!" said he, to my great

relief, as I felt at once that I had successfully deceived him. Then he

turned to the ward doctor and remarked: "Take care he does not hurt his

head against the bed; and, by the by, doctor, do you remember the test

we applied in Smith's case? Just tickle the soles of his feet, and see

if it will cause those backward spasms of the head."

The aid obeyed him, and, very naturally, I jerked my head backwards as

hard as I could.

"That will answer," said the surgeon, to my horror. "A clever rogue.

Send him to the guard-house when he gets over it."

"Happy had I been if my ill-luck had ended here; but, as I crossed the

yard, an officer stopped me. To my disgust it was the captain of my old

Rhode Island company.

"Halloa!" said he; "keep that fellow safe. I know him."

To cut short a long story; I was tried, convicted, and forced to refund

the Rhode Island bounty, for by ill luck they found my bank-book among

my papers. I was finally sent to Fort Mifflin for a year, and kept at

hard labor, handling and carrying shot, policing the ground, picking up

cigar-stumps, and other like unpleasant occupations.

Upon my release, I went at once to Boston, where I had about two

thousand dollars in bank. I spent nearly all of the latter sum before I

could prevail upon myself to settle down to some mode of making a

livelihood; and I was about to engage in business as a vender of lottery

policies, when I first began to feel a strange sense of lassitude, which

soon increased so as quite to disable me from work of any kind. Month

after month passed away, while my money lessened, and this terrible

sense of weariness still went on from bad to worse. At last one day,

after nearly a year had elapsed, I perceived on my face a large brown

patch of color, in consequence of which I went in some alarm to consult

a well-known physician. He asked me a multitude of tiresome questions,

and at last wrote off a prescription, which I immediately read. It was a

preparation of iron.

"What do you think," said I, "is the matter with me, doctor?"

"I am afraid," said he, "that you have a very serious trouble,--what we

call Addison's disease."

"What's that?" said I.

"I do not think you would comprehend it," he replied. "It is an

affection of the supra-renal capsules."

I dimly remembered that there were such organs, and that nobody knew

what they were meant for. It seemed the doctors had found a use for them

at last.

"Is it a dangerous disease?" I said.

"I fear so," he answered.

"Don't you know," I asked, "what's the truth about it?"

"Well," he returned gravely, "I am sorry to tell you it is a very

dangerous malady."

"Nonsense," said I, "I don't believe it,"--for I thought it was only a

doctor's trick, and one I had tried often enough myself.

"Thank you," said he, "you are a very ill man, and a fool besides. Good

morning." He forgot to ask for a fee, and I remembered not to offer one.

Several months went by; my money was gone; my clothes were ragged, and,

like my body, nearly worn out; and I am an inmate of a hospital. To-day

I feel weaker than when I first began to write. How it will end I do not

know. If I die, the doctor will get this pleasant history; and if I

live, I shall burn it, and, as soon as I get a little money, I will set

out to look for my little sister, about whom I dreamed last night. What

I dreamed was not very agreeable. I thought I was walking up one of the

vilest streets near my old office, when a girl spoke to me,--a

shameless, worn creature, with great sad eyes, not so wicked as the rest

of her face. Suddenly she screamed aloud, "Brother! Brother!" and then,

remembering what she had been,--with her round, girlish, innocent face,

and fair hair,--and seeing what she was, I awoke, and cursed myself in

the darkness for the evil I had done in the days of my youth.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] _Aurum_, used in religious melancholy (see Jahr,) and not a bad

remedy, it strikes me.

"THE LIE."

Many years ago--now more than two hundred and fifty--some one in England

wrote a short poem bearing the above emphatic title, which deservedly

holds a place in the collections of old English poetry at the present

day. It is a striking production, familiar, no doubt, to most lovers of

ancient verse, and, although numbering only about a dozen stanzas, has

outlasted many a ponderous folio.

I say, indefinitely enough, that this little poem was written by _some_

one, and strange as it may appear, the name of that one is still in

doubt. Its authorship was attributed, by Bishop Percy and others, to Sir

Walter Raleigh, and sometimes with the fanciful addition, that he wrote

it the night before his execution. The piece, however, was extant many

years before the world was disgraced by that deed of wickedness.

After a while it began to be questioned whether the verses were really

written by Sir Walter. Some old-poetry mouser appears to have lighted on

an ancient folio volume, the work of Joshua Sylvester, and found among

its contents a poem called "The Soul's Errand," which, it would seem,

was thought to be the same that had been credited to Sir Walter Raleigh

under the title of "The Lie."

Joshua Sylvester was in his day a writer of some note. Colley Cibber, in

his "Lives of the Poets," is quite lavish in his praise, and says his

brethren in the sacred art called him the "Silver-tongued." The same

phrase has been applied to others.

In his "Specimens of Early English Poets," Ellis "restores" the poem,

with the title of "The Soul's Errand," to Sylvester, as its "ancient

proprietor, till a more authorized claimant shall be produced."

Chambers, in his "Cyclopaedia of English Literature," prints the poem,

with the title of "The Soul's Errand," and he also gives it to

Sylvester, "as the now generally received author of an impressive piece,

long ascribed to Raleigh."

Sir Egerton Brydges, in his "Censura Literaria," doubts Percy's right to

credit Sir Walter with the poem of "The Lie," of which he says there is

a "parody" in the folio edition of Sylvester's works, where it is

entitled "The Soul's Errand."

The veteran J. Payne Collier, the _emendator_ of Shakespeare, has

recently put forth a work, in four volumes, entitled "A Bibliographical

and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language." In

this work he claims the authorship of "The Lie," "otherwise called 'The

Soul's Errand,'" for Sir Walter Raleigh, and rests his authority on a

manuscript copy "of the time," headed, "Sir Walter Wrawly his Lye." He

quotes the poem at length, beginning,

"_Hence_, soule, the bodies guest."

All other copies that I have seen read, "_Go_, soul," which I think will

be deemed the more fitting word.

Collier does not allude to Sylvester in connection with this poem, but

introduces him in another article, and treats him somewhat cavalierly,

as "a mere literary adventurer and translating drudge." "When he died,"

Collier says, "is not precisely known." He might have known, since there

were records all round him to show that Sylvester died in Holland, in

September, 1618. His great contemporary, Sir Walter Raleigh, was

beheaded in October, one month after.

(By the way, Payne Collier holds out marvellously. Here is his new work,

dated 1866, and I have near me his "Poetical Decameron," published in

1820, _forty-six_ years ago.)

Ritson, a noted reaper in the "old fields," supposes, that "The Lie" was

written by Francis Davison; and in Kerl's "Comprehensive Grammar," among

many poetical extracts, I find two stanzas of the poem quoted as written

by Barnfield,--probably Richard. These two writers were of Raleigh's

time, but I think their claims may be readily dismissed. Supposing that

"The Lie" was written by either Joshua Sylvester or Sir Walter Raleigh,

I shall try to show that it was not written by Sylvester, and that he

has wrongfully enjoyed the credit of its authorship.

Critics and collators have for years been doubting about the authorship

of this little poem, written over two centuries and a half ago; and, so

far as I can ascertain, not one of them has ever discovered, what is

the simple fact, that there were _two_ poems instead of _one_, similar

in scope and spirit, but still two poems,--"The Lie" _and_ "The Soul's

Errand."

I have said that Sir Egerton Brydges alludes to a "parody" of "The Lie,"

in Sylvester's volume, there called "The Soul's Errand." In that volume

I find what Sir Egerton calls a "parody." It is, in reality, another

poem, bearing the title of "The Soul's Errand," consisting of _twenty_

stanzas, all of four lines each, excepting the first stanza, which has

six. "The Lie" consists of but _thirteen_ stanzas, of six lines each,

the fifth and sixth of which may be termed the refrain or burden of the

piece. I annex copies of the two poems; Sir Walter's (so called) is

taken from Percy's "Reliques," and Sylvester's is copied from his own

folio.

On comparing the two pieces, it will be seen that they begin alike, and

go on nearly alike for a few stanzas, when they diverge, and are then

entirely different from each other to the end. I do not find that this

difference has ever been pointed out, and am therefore left to suppose

that it never was discovered. At this late day conjectures are not worth

much, but it would appear that, the opening stanzas of the two poems

being similar, their identity was at some time carelessly taken for

granted by some collector, who read only the initial stanzas, and thus

ignorantly deprived Sir Walter of "The Lie," and gave it to Sylvester,

with the title of "The Soul's Errand."

This, however, is certain: "The Soul's Errand," so called, of _thirteen_

stanzas, given to us by Ellis and by Chambers as Sylvester's, is not the

poem that Sylvester wrote under that title, and we have his own

authority for saying so. His poem of _twenty_ stanzas, bearing that

title, does not appear to have ever been reprinted, and it is believed

cannot now be found anywhere out of his own book. Ellis, it is plain, is

not to be trusted. Professing to be exact, he refers for his authority

to page 652 of Sylvester's works, and then proceeds to print a poem as

his which is not there. Had he read the page he quotes so carefully, he

would have seen that "The Lie" and "The Soul's Errand" were two separate

productions, alike only in the six stanzas taken from the former and

included in the latter.

We learn that Sir Walter Raleigh's poems were never all collected into a

volume, and, further, we learn that "The Lie," as a separate piece, was

attributed to him at an early period. Payne Collier, as I have said,

prints it as his, from a manuscript "of the time"; and in an elaborate

article on Raleigh, in the North British Review, copied into Littell's

Living Age, of June 9, 1855, the able reviewer refers particularly to

"The Lie," "saddest of poems," as Sir Walter's, and adds in a note that

"it is to be found in a manuscript of 1596." This would make the piece

two hundred and seventy years old. When and by whom it was first taken

from Sir Walter and given to Sylvester, with the altered title, and why

Sylvester incorporated into his poem of "The Soul's Errand" six stanzas

belonging to "The Lie," can now, of course, never be known.

I find that I have been indulging in quite a flow of words about a few

old verses; but then they _are_ verses, and such as one should not be

robbed of. They have lived through centuries of time, and outlived

generations of ambitious penmen, and the true name of the author ought

to live with them. Long ago, when a school-boy, I used to read and

repeat "The Lie," and it was then the undoubted work of Sir Walter

Raleigh. In after years, on looking into various volumes of old English

poetry, I was told that "The Lie" was _not_ "The Lie," and was not

written by Sir Walter Raleigh; that the true title of the piece was "The

Soul's Errand," and that the real author of it was a certain Joshua

Sylvester. Unwilling to displace the brave knight from the niche he had

graced so long, I hunted up Sylvester's old folio, and the result of my

search may be found in these imperfect remarks.

Frankly, I would fain believe that "The Lie" was written by Sir Walter.

It is true I am not able to prove it, but I think I prove that it was

not written by Sylvester. He wrote another poem, "The Soul's Errand,"

and he is welcome to it; that is, he is welcome to fourteen of its

twenty stanzas,--the other six do not belong to him. Give him also,

painstaking man! due laudation for his version of the "Divine Du

Bartas," of which formidable work anyone who has the courage to grapple

with its six hundred and fifty-odd folio pages may know where to find a

copy.

But Sir Walter Raleigh,--heroic Sir Walter,--he is before me bodily,

running his fingers along the sharp edge of the fatal axe, and calmly

laying his noble head on the block.

"The good Knight is dust,

And his sword is rust";

but I want to feel that he left behind him, as the offspring of his

great brain, one of the most impressive poems of his time,--ay, and

indeed of any time.

THE LYE.

BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

Goe, soule, the bodies guest,

Upon a thanklesse arrant;

Feare not to touche the best,

The truth shall be thy warrant:

Goe, since I needs must dye,

And give the world the lye.

Goe tell the court, it glowes

And shines like rotten wood;

Goe tell the church it showes

What's good, and doth no good:

If church and court reply,

Then give them both the lye.

Tell potentates they live

Acting by others actions:

Not lov'd unlesse they give,

Not strong but by their factions:

If potentates reply,

Give potentates the lye.

Tell men of high condition,

That rule affairs of state,

Their purpose is ambition,

Their practise only hate;

And if they once reply,

Then give them all the lye.

Tell them that brave it most,

They beg for more by spending,

Who in their greatest cost

Seek nothing but commending:

And if they make reply,

Spare not to give the lye.

Tell zeale, it lacks devotion;

Tell love, it is but lust;

Tell time, it is but motion;

Tell flesh, it is but dust;

And wish them not reply,

For thou must give the lye.

Tell age, it daily wasteth;

Tell honour, how it alters;

Tell beauty, how she blasteth;

Tell favour, how she falters;

And as they shall reply,

Give each of them the lye.

Tell wit, how much it wrangles

In tickle points of nicenesse;

Tell wisedome, she entangles

Herselfe in over-wisenesse:

And if they do reply,

Straight give them both the lye.

Tell physicke of her boldnesse;

Tell skill, it is pretension;

Tell charity of coldness;

Tell law, it is contention;

And as they yield reply,

So give them still the lye.

Tell fortune of her blindnesse;

Tell nature of decay;

Tell friendship of unkindnesse;

Tell justice of delay:

And if they dare reply,

Then give them all the lye.

Tell arts, they have no soundnesse,

But vary by esteeming;

Tell schooles they want profoundnesse,

And stand too much on seeming:

If arts and schooles reply,

Give arts and schooles the lye.

Tell faith, it's fled the citie;

Tell how the countrey erreth;

Tell, manhood shakes off pitie;

Tell, vertue least preferreth;

And, if they doe reply,

Spare not to give the lye.

So, when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing,

Athough to give the lye

Deserves no less than stabbing,

Yet stab at thee who will,

No stab the soule can kill.

THE SOULES ERRAND.

BY JOSUAH SYLVESTER.

Goe Soule, the bodies guest,

Upon a thanklesse Errand,

Feare not to touch the best,

The Truth shall be thy warrant:

Goe thou, since I must die,

And give the world the lye.

Goe tell the Court it glowes,

And shines like rotten wood;

Say to the Church it showes

What's good, but doth not good.

Tell Potentates they live,

Acting by others Action,

Not lov'd unlesse they give,

Not strong, but by a faction.

Tell men of high condition,

That in Affaires of State

Their purpose is ambition,

Their practice only hate.

Goe tell the young Nobility,

They doe degenerate,

Wasting their large ability,

In things effeminate.

Tell those that brave it most,

They beg for more by spending,

And, in their greatest cost,

Seeke but a self-commending.

Tell Zeale it wants Devotion,

Tell Love it is but Lust,

Tell Priests they hunt Promotion,

Tell Flesh it is but Dust.

Say Souldiers are the Sink

Of Sinne to all the Realme;

Given all to whores and drink,

To quarrell and blaspheme.

Tell Townesmen, that because that

They pranck their Brides so proud,

Too many times it drawes that

Which makes them beetle-brow'd.

Goe tell the Palace-Dames

They paint their parboil'd faces,

Seeking by greater shames

To cover lesse disgraces.

Say to the City-wives,

Through their excessive brav'ry,

Their Husband hardly thrives,

But rather lives in Slav'ry.

Tell London Youths that Dice,

Faire Queanes, fine Clothes, full Bouls,

Consume the cursed price

Of their dead-Fathers Soules.

Say Maidens are too coy

To them that chastely seeke them,

And yet are apt to toy

With baser Jacks that like them.

Tell Poets of our dayes

They doe profane the Muses,

In soothing Sin with praise,

That all the world abuses.

Tell Tradesmen waight and measure

They craftily abuse,

Thereby to heap-up treasure,

Though Heav'n thereby they lose.

Goe tell the vitious rich,

By usury to gaine

Their fingers alwaies itch,

To soules and bodies paine.

Yea tell the wretched poore

That they the wealthy hate,

And grudge to see at doore

Another in their state.

Tell all the world throughout

That all's but vanity,

Her pleasures doe but flout

With sly security.

Tell Kings and Beggars base,

Yea tell both young and old,

They all are in one case,

And must all to the mould.

And now kinde Host adieu,

Rest thou in earthly Tombe,

Till Christ shall all renew,

And then I'll thee resume.

THE BOWERY AT NIGHT.

Coming up from one of the Brooklyn ferries, after dark, on a sultry

summer evening, I take my way through the close-built district of New

York City still known as "The Swamp." The narrow streets of the place

are deserted by this time, but they have been lively enough during the

day with the busy leather-dealers and their teams; for this is the great

hide and leather mart of the city, as any one might guess even now in

the gloom by the pungent odors that arise on every side. The heavy iron

doors and window-shutters of the buildings have been locked and barred

for the night; and the thick atmosphere of the place appears to affect

the gas-lights, which burn sickly and dim in the street lanterns. Nobody

lives here at night. The footfalls of the solitary policeman give out a

hollow sound as he paces the narrow _trottoir_ of Ferry Street, in the

heart of "The Swamp." Over two hundred years ago, when Governor Peter

Stuyvesant pastured his flocks and herds hereabouts, the wayfarer would

have been more likely to mark a solitary heron than a solitary

policeman; for it was really a swamp then, and much earth-work must have

been expended in making the solid ground whereon the buildings now

stand. Neither is it probable that, even on the most sultry of summer

nights, the nose of old Mynheer Stuyvesant would have been saluted with

odors of morocco leather, such as fill the air of "The Swamp" to-night.

The wild swamp-flowers, though, gave out some faint perfumes to the

night air in those olden times; but the place could hardly have been so

still of a summer night as it is now, for the booming of the bullfrog

and the piping of his lesser kin must have made night resonant here, and

it is reasonable to surmise that owls hooted in the cedar-trees that

hung over the tawny sedges of the swamp. "Jack-o'-Lantern" was the only

inhabitant who burned gas hereabouts in those times, and he manufactured

his own. The nocturnal raccoon edged his way through the alders here, in

the old summer nights, and the muskrat built his house among the reeds.

Not a raccoon nor a muskrat is the wayfarer likely to meet with here

to-night; but the gray rat of civilization is to be dimly discerned, as

he lopes along the gutters in his nightly prowl.

There is something very bewildering to the untutored mind in the

announcements on the dim, stony door-posts of the stores. Here it is set

forth that "Kids and Gorings" are the staple of the concern. Puzzling

though the inscription is to me, yet I recognize in it something that is

pastoral and significant; for there were kids that skipped, probably,

and bulls that gored, when the grass was green here. "Oak and Hemlock

Leather," on the next door-post, reads well, for it is redolent of

glades that were old before the masonry that now prevails here had been

dreamed of. Here we have an announcement of "Russet Roans"; and the next

merchant, who is apparently a cannibal or a ghoul, deliberately notifies

the public that he deals in "Hatters' Skins." Many of the door-posts

announce "Findings" and "Skivers"; and upon one of them I note the

somewhat remarkable intimation of "Pulled Wool." Gold Street, also, is

redolent of all these things, as I turn into it, nor is there any

remission of the pungent trade-stenches of the district until I have

gained a good distance up Spruce Street, toward the City Hall Park. Here

the Bowery proper, viewed as a great artery of New York trade and

travel, may be said to begin. The first reach of it is called Chatham

Street; and, having plunged into this, I have nothing before me now but

Bowery for a distance of nearly two miles.

Leaving behind me, then, the twinkling lights of the newspaper buildings

and those of the City Hall Park northward along Chatham Street I bend my

loitering steps. Israel predominates here,--Israel, with its traditional

stock in trade of cheap clothing, and bawbles that are made to wear, but

not to wear long. The shops here are mostly small, and quite open to the

street in front, which gives the place a bazaar-like appearance in

summer. Economy in space is practised to the utmost. It is curious to

observe how closely crowded the goods (bads might be a more appropriate

term for most of them) are outside the shops, as well as inside. The

fronts of the houses are festooned with raiment of all kinds, until they

look like tents made of variegated dry-goods. Here is a stall so

confined that the occupant, rocking in his chair near the farther end of

it, stretches his slippered feet well out upon the threshold. It is near

closing time now, and many of the dealers, with their wives and

children, are sitting out in front of their shops, and, if not under

their own vines and fig-trees, at least under their own gaudy flannels

and "loud-patterned" cotton goods, which are waving overhead in the

sluggish evening breeze. Nothing can be more suggestive of lazily

industrious Jewry than this short, thick-set clothier, with the curved

nose, and spiral, oily hair, who sits out on the sidewalk and blows

clouds from his meerschaum pipe. The women who lounge here are generally

stoutish and slatternly, with few clothes on, but plenty of frowzy hair.

Here and there one may see a pretty face among the younger girls; and it

is sad to reflect that these little Hebrew maids will become stout and

slatternly by and by, and have hooked noses like their mothers, and

double chins. The labels on the ready-made clothing are curious in their

way. Here a pair of trousers in glaring brown and yellow stripes is

ticketed with the alluring word, "Lovely." Other garments are offered to

the public, with such guaranties as "Original," "Genteel," "Excelsior,"

and "Our Own." There is not an article among them but has its ticket of

recommendation, and another card affixed to each sets forth the lowest

price for which it is to be had. The number and variety of hats on show

along this queer arcade are very characteristic of the people, with whom

hats have long been a traditional article of commerce. Dimly-lighted

cellars, down precipitous flights of narrow, dirty steps, up which come

fumes of coffee and cooked viands, are to be seen at short intervals,

and these restaurants are supported mainly by the denizens of the

street. Shops in the windows of which blazes much cheap jewelry abound,

and there are also many tobacconists on a small scale.

The lights of Chatham Square twinkle out now; and here I pause before a

feature very peculiar to the Bowery,--one of those large, open shops in

which vociferous salesmen address from galleries a motley crowd of men

and women. One fellow in dirty shirt-sleeves and a Turkish cap

flourishes aloft something which looks like a fan, but proves, on closer

inspection, to be a group composed of several pocket-combs, a razor, and

other small articles, constituting in all a "lot." This he offers, with

stentorian utterances, for a price "a hundred per cent less, _you_ bet,

than you kin buy 'em for on Broadway." Other salesmen lean furiously

over the gallery railing, flourishing shirts, stockings, and garments of

every kind, mentionable and unmentionable, in the faces of the gaping

loafers below. Sometimes a particular "lot" will attract the attention

of a spectator, and he will chaffer about it for a while; but the sales

do not often appear to be very brisk. The people one sees in these

places are very characteristic of the Bowery. Many of them are what the

police call "hard cases,"--men, with coarse, bulldog features, their

mustaches trimmed very close, and dyed with something that gives them a

foxy-black hue. Women, many of them with children in their arms, have

come to look out for bargains. Near the entrance, which is quite open to

the street, there stands a man with a light cane in his hand, which he

lays every now and then over the shoulders of some objectionable youth

marked by him in the crowd. The objectionable youth is a pickpocket, or

a "sneak-thief," or both, and the man with the cane is the private

detective attached to the place. He is well acquainted with the regular

thieves of these localities, and his business is to "spot" them, and

keep them from edging in among the loose articles lying about the store.

He says that there area great many notorious pickpockets in the crowd,

and he looks like one who knows.

Here and there along the Bowery small, shrivelled Chinamen stand by

rickety tables, on which a few boxes of cheap cigars are exposed for

sale. These foreigners look uneasy in their Bowery clothes, which are of

the cheapest quality sold at the places just mentioned. Some of them

wear the traditional queue, but they wind it very closely round their

heads, probably to avoid the derision of the street boys, to whom a

Chinaman's "tail" offers a temptation not to be resisted. Others have

allowed their hair to grow in the ordinary manner. They are not

communicative when addressed, which may be due, perhaps, to the fact,

that but few of them possess more of the English language than is

necessary for the purposes of trade. Fireworks and tobacco are the

principal articles in which these New York Chinamen deal.

Everybody who passes through the Bowery, and more especially at night,

must have observed the remarkable prevalence of small children there.

Swarms of well-clad little boys and girls, belonging to the

shop-keepers, sport before the doors until a late hour at night. Here is

a group of extremely diminutive ones, dancing an elf-like measure to the

music of an itinerant organist. Darting about, here, there, and

everywhere, are packs of ragged little urchins. They paddle along in the

dirty gutter, the black ooze from which they spatter over the passers on

the sidewalk, and run with confiding recklessness against the legs of

hurrying pedestrians. Ragged and poor as they certainly are, they do not

often ask for alms, but continually give themselves up, with wild

_abandon_, to chasing each other in and out between the obstacles on the

sidewalk. Boys of a better class carry on business here. Watch this one

selling fans: he is so well dressed, and so genteel in appearance, that

it is easy to see his livelihood does not altogether hang upon a

commercial venture so small as the one in which he is at present

engaged. That boy has evidently a mercantile turn, and may be a leading

city man yet. Farther on, four smart-looking youngsters are indulging in

some very frothy beverage at a street soda-water bar. High words are

bandied about concerning the quality of the "stamps" offered by them in

change, the genuine character of which has been challenged by a boy of

their own size, who seems to be in charge of the concern. Numbers of

these cheap soda-water stalls are to be seen in the Bowery; and they

appear to drive a good business generally, notwithstanding the

lager-beer saloons that so generally abound. Many larger establishments

for the sale of temperance drinks are open here during the summer

months. I notice a good number of people going to and from a large one,

the entrance of which is so wide and high that it realizes the idea of

"open house," and within which there are a great number of taps from

which soda-water, ready mingled with all the various kinds of syrups, is

drawn.

Let us cross over the Bowery, and take a look at Division Street, which

diverges from it at the neck of Chatham Square, and is one of the

curiosities of the district. It is a narrow street, very brilliantly

lighted up on one side by the show-windows of the milliners' shops; and

a marvellously long row of milliners it is, never ending until it runs

against a druggist just where Bayard Street makes an angle with

Division. Every window and every show-case by the thresholds is filled

with a curious variety of infinitesimally small bonnets and hats, some

in a skeleton state, others bedizened in all the fancy modes of the

season. Division Street may be termed the milliners' quarter of New York

City. Most of the goods displayed here are of a "sensation" character,

but that is just what pays on the east side. Yet I would not be

understood here as meaning to disparage the west side; and indeed I have

been told that ladies from the most fashionable quarters of the city are

not above buying their millinery in Division Street. Numbers of young

girls are passing to and fro here, pausing ever and anon to gaze in at

the windows with longing eyes. If there be "sermons in stones," so are

there also in show-cases, and many a sad romance of won and lost grows

out of the latter too. The shop-girls have nearly got through their work

now, and they lean against the door-posts or stand out on the sidewalk,

gossiping in groups of twos and threes. You will observe that there is

not a single milliner's shop on the other side of the street. The

dealers there are mostly in the hardware and grocery lines, or they

represent commerce as tobacconists, confectioners, and such like; but

they have nearly all shut up for the night, and the glory of the gas is

on the milliner side of the way alone. All along the Bowery the same

order of things may be observed to prevail,--the west side being chiefly

devoted to the dry-goods trade, while the hardware dealers, grocers,

restaurateurs, and numerous other tradespeople occupy the east side.

And now again up the Bowery,--where the lights appear to stretch away

into almost endless space. The numerous lines of horse-cars pass and

repass each other in long perspective, their lights twinkling like

constellations on the rampage, as they run to and fro. The jingle of

their harness-bells is pleasant of a sultry night, recalling the

sleigh-bells of bracing winter. And the bells have something suggestive

in them, too, of the old Bowery pastures, where the flocks and herds

roamed at large, and the cow-bells rang bass to the shrill treble that

came from the bell-wethers of the flock. But here we have something that

is hardly so pastoral in its associations. Out from the portals of a

large theatre issues a crowd of roughs, who elbow and jostle each other

in their anxiety to reach the nearest place where bad liquor can be had.

To-night the theatre has been given over to the gymnasts of the

"prize-ring," and they have had a sparring exhibition there. Three or

four interesting English pugilists, lately arrived in the city, have

been showing their mettle with the gloves on; and, although a dollar a

head is the usual admission fee on such occasions, the entertainment is

always sure to bring together an immense crowd of the rough class. A

little later, and another dense throng will emerge from the Old Bowery

Theatre, just over the way. It will be a very mixed crowd of men, women,

and children,--the street-boys, with their wondrous variety of sharp

faces, owlish faces, wicked faces, and ragged clothes, being constant

patrons of this popular east-side theatre. Not far from this are the

most dangerous corners and lurking-places to be found anywhere in the

Bowery. Here thieves and rowdies of the worst description hang about the

doors of the low bar-rooms in the neighborhood, in gangs of five or six,

all ready at a signal to concentrate their forces for a rescue, a

robbery, or a row of any sort in which plunder may be secured. There are

policemen in the Bowery, of course; but in many cases the tactics of the

thieves prove to be too much for these guardians of the public peace.

One night, for instance, in the merry month of May of this year, a gang

of about a dozen armed ruffians boarded a Third Avenue horse-car

somewhere in these latitudes, knocked down the conductor with a

slung-shot, robbed and otherwise maltreated several of the passengers,

and got clear away before the first policeman had made his appearance.

Such incidents are by no means uncommon in the Bowery and its purlieus

at night. It is quite different now, remember, from the Bowery it was

when old Peter Stuyvesant used to dot its cow-paths with the tip of his

wooden leg.

Everywhere within the limits of the sidewalk, and sometimes out upon the

pavement beyond, stand fruit-stalls loaded with oranges, apples, nuts,

and all such fruits as are seasonable and plenty. There are tables on

which pink, pulpy melons, flecked with the jet-black seeds, are set

forth in slices, to tempt thirsty passengers; tables upon which large

rocks of candy are broken up into nuggets to suit customers; and tables

upon which bananas alone are exposed for sale. The lamps upon all these

flame and smoke in the fitful whiffs of night air. The weighing-machine

man is here, with a blazing light suspended in front of his brazen disk;

and, as I pass on, I notice that the man who exhibits the moon is

dismounting his big telescope, for the night is clouding fast, and his

occupation is gone. Two small girls are scraping doleful strains from

the sad catgut of violins nearly as big as themselves. They have long

been frequenters of the Bowery at night, and were much smaller than

their fiddles when I first saw them here. Off the sidewalk, upon the

pavement of the street, there is a crowd of men and boys, closely

grouped around something in the way of a show. As I approach, old voices

of the once familiar woodlands and farm-yards greet my ear. I listen to

them, for a brief moment, rapt. Alas! they are spurious. They emanate

from a dirty man, who stands in the centre of the group, with a small

wooden box slung before him. By his side stands his torch-bearer, who

illuminates him with a lamp suspended from a long pole. The performer

takes something from his mouth, and, having made a laudatory address

regarding its merits, replaces it between his teeth, and resumes his

imitations of many birds and quadrupeds. His mocking-bird is very fair;

his thrush, passable; but his canary less successful, being rather too

reedy and harsh. Farm-yard sounds are thrown off with considerable

imitative power. His pig is so good, indeed, that it invites a

purchaser, who puts one of the calls into his mouth, and frightfully

distorts his features in his wretched efforts to produce the desired

grunts and squeaks. The crowing of cocks, the neighing of horses, the

lowing of cows, and the bleating of sheep follow in succession,--sounds

so appropriate to the memories of the Bowery that was, that one is

tempted to applaud the rascal in spite of the swindle he is practising

on the crowd. Of course, with the exception of the bird-songs, none of

these sounds are produced by the aid of the calls, but are simply the

fruit of long and assiduous practice on the part of the gifted

performer.

On, on, still up the Bowery, of which the end is not yet. Great numbers

of people are passing to and fro, an excess of the feminine element

being generally observable. The sidewalks are cumbered with rough wooden

cases. As in Chatham Street, the shop-keepers--or "merchants," if they

insist on being so designated--are sitting, mostly, outside their doors.

Garlands of hosiery and forests of hoop-skirts wave beneath the

awnings,--for most of the Bowery shops have awnings,--making the

sidewalk in front of them a sort of arcade for the display of their

goods. But the time has come now for taking in all these waving things

for the night, and the young men and girls of the shops are unhooking

them with long poles, or handing them down from step-ladders planted in

the middle of the sidewalk. Ranged outside the larger establishments

are rows of headless dummies, intended to represent the female form

divine, and to show off on their inanimate busts and shoulders the

sweetest assortments ever seen of new things in summer fashions. These

headless dummies of the Bowery have a very ghastly look at night. They

suggest a procession of the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives, who, true to

their instincts while in life, nightly revisit the "ladies' furnishing

establishments" here, to rummage among scarfs and ribbons, and don for

the brief hour before cock-crow the valuable stuffs and stuffings that

are yet so dear to them.

Yonder is a group curious for color, and one well worth the

consideration of a painter who has a fancy for striking effects. A negro

girl with hot corn for sale stands just outside the reflection from a

druggist's window, the bars of red and green light from the colored jars

in which fall weirdly on the faces of two men who are buying from her.

The trade in boots and shoes is briskly carried on, even at this late

hour of the night. In the Bowery this trade is very extensive. Long

strings of boots and shoes hang from the door-posts. Trays of the same

articles are displayed outside, and it seems an easy matter for any

nocturnal prowler to help himself, _en passant_, from the boxes full of

cordwainers' work that stand on the edge of the footway next the street.

On the eastern side of the way, there are fewer lights to be seen now

than there were an hour ago. The tradespeople over there, generally,

have put up their shutters, and the time for closing the

drinking-saloons is at hand; but lights are yet lingering in the

pawnbroker's establishments, for the _Mont de Piete_ is an institution

of an extremely wakeful, not to say wide-awake, kind.

Now the Bowery widens gradually to the northward, and may be likened to

a river that turns to an estuary ere it joins the waters of the main.

The vast and hideous brown-stone delta of the Cooper Institute divides

it into two channels,--Third Avenue to the right, Fourth Avenue to the

left. Properly the Bowery may be said to end here; but only a few

blocks farther on, at the corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street,

is marked the spot where stood the gateway leading to the original

_Bouwery_, the old mansion in which Peter Stuyvesant dwelt when New

Amsterdam was, but as yet no New York. And here, till within a few

months, stood the traditional Stuyvesant pear-tree, said to have been

brought from Holland, and planted by the hands of the old Dutch Governor

himself. Spring-time after spring-time, until within a year or two past,

the Stuyvesant pear-tree used to blossom, and its blossoms run to fruit.

It lived, in a very gnarled and rheumatic condition, until the 26th of

February last, when it sank quietly down to rest, and nothing but the

rusty old iron railing is left to show where it stood.

STEPHEN C. FOSTER AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY.

Thirty-six years ago a young man, about twenty-five years of age, of a

commanding height,--six feet full, the heels of his boots not included

in the reckoning,--and dressed in scrupulous keeping with the fashion of

the time, might have been seen sauntering idly along one of the

principal streets of Cincinnati. To the few who could claim acquaintance

with him he was known as an actor, playing at the time referred to a

short engagement as light comedian in a theatre of that city. He does

not seem to have attained to any noticeable degree of eminence in his

profession, but he had established for himself a reputation among jolly

fellows in a social way. He could tell a story, sing a song, and dance a

hornpipe, after a style which, however unequal to complete success on

the stage, proved, in private performance to select circles rendered

appreciative by accessory refreshments, famously triumphant always. If

it must be confessed that he was deficient in the more profound

qualities, it is not to be inferred that he was destitute of all the

distinguishing, though shallower, virtues of character. He had the

merit, too, of a proper appreciation of his own capacity; and his aims

never rose above that capacity. As a superficial man he dealt with

superficial things, and his dealings were marked by tact and shrewdness.

In his sphere he was proficient, and he kept his wits upon the alert for

everything that might be turned to professional and profitable use. Thus

it was that, as he sauntered along one of the main thoroughfares of

Cincinnati, as has been written, his attention was suddenly arrested by

a voice ringing clear and full above the noises of the street, and

giving utterance, in an unmistakable dialect, to the refrain of a song

to this effect:--

"Turn about an' wheel about do jis so,

An' ebery time I run about I jump Jim Crow."

Struck by the peculiarities of the performance, so unique in style,

matter, and "character" of delivery, the player listened on. Were not

these elements--was the suggestion of the instant--which might admit of

higher than mere street or stable-yard development? As a national or

"race" illustration, behind the footlights, might not "Jim Crow" and a

black face tickle the fancy of pit and circle, as well as the "Sprig of

Shillalah" and a red nose? Out of the suggestion leaped the

determination; and so it chanced that the casual hearing of a song

trolled by a negro stage-driver, lolling lazily on the box of his

vehicle, gave origin to a school of music destined to excel in

popularity all others, and to make the name of the obscure actor, W. D.

RICE, famous.

As his engagement at Cincinnati had nearly expired, Rice deemed it

expedient to postpone a public venture in the newly projected line until

the opening of a fresh engagement should assure him opportunity to share

fairly the benefit expected to grow out of the experiment. This

engagement had already been entered into; and accordingly, shortly

after, in the autumn of 1830, he left Cincinnati for Pittsburg.