Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 12, July 10, 1858

Transcriber Notes
Three precocious villains stripped to the skin.—Precious, and startling, and thrilling under-current revelations for the people.—Read! Read! Read!
Bennett’s daily urgence of the immediate creation of a Tax Payer’s Party is one of his old tricks, and is the detected burglar’s hoarse cry of stop thief. Bennett got me to introduce Alfred Carson as a Candidate for Mayor, just after his exciting Fire Report of 1850. I wrote several articles in favor of Carson for the Mayoralty, and Bennett published them, when lo! one rainy morning, I awoke, and opened the Herald , and the hypocritical old villain had another Candidate. I asked him if he intended to drop my old friend Carson, and he said no, but he thought he would try to bring another candidate into the field, just for a little fun, and that I could write about three editorials a week for Carson, and flatter him as much as I chose, and he would publish them. This was on Monday. On Wednesday, I caught him closeted with a formidable candidate for the Mayoralty, and on Saturday, he very cautiously introduced a third Candidate for the Mayor’s honors. As these were all wealthy men, and as Carson was very poor, and perceiving that Bennett unquestionably intended to sell Carson, and perhaps had already done so, I went to him in a towering rage, and charged him with treachery to myself and Carson. He smiled like Richard and Iago, and assured me that he should support Carson down to the last hour of the election. But I could not believe him; so I went to Carson, on Sunday morning, and wrote his famous declination of the Mayoralty, which rocked the parties of that day to their foundations with infinite delight, as every traffic politician had trembled to his toes, since the introduction of Carson’s potent and honest name for the Mayoralty. When I carried Carson’s Card to the Herald office, on Sunday evening, Mr. Bennett was absent, having gone to the country with Judge Russell and his lady. But Frederic Hudson was there—(his Aminadab Sleek Secretary,) who expostulated, and strove by every artifice in his prolific resources, to induce me not to publish Carson’s Card until I had seen Mr. Bennett. But I demanded him to let the Card appear on the following morning, and told him that himself and Bennett should be ashamed of themselves for striving to sell Carson through me, and that I believed Bennett had already received thousands of dollars for his contemplated sell of Carson, in favor of one of the wealthy candidates. My withdrawal of Carson led to the election of Ambrose C. Kingsland, a very illiterate man, and one of the meanest of the human species, and the oiliest and biggest conspirator and public thief since the days of the Roman Cataline. In 1853, Bennett asked me to introduce the name of Alderman A. A. Denman, of the Sixteenth Ward, as a candidate for Mayor, to whom I was imparting the rudiments of the English language, at his house in Nineteenth street. Denman was Chairman of the Committee that reported favorably at my request, on awarding the Corporation Printing to the Herald at $3,000 per annum, and the other journals at $1,000. Bennett seemed grateful to Denman for his favorable Printing Report, and I really thought he was sincere in his contemplated advocation of Denman for the Mayoralty; and I saw Denman, and he permitted me to use his name in connection with the Mayoralty, and I began to write articles, and published them in the Herald , strongly recommending Denman to the Mayoralty. At this time, Denman was one of the most popular men in the democratic party, and his annunciation for Mayor, confused the leaders and aspirants of all parties. Presto! Bennett announces another candidate, in a sort of a half-and-half black mail way, and I instantly withdrew Denman, who was sadly disappointed at the loss of the Mayoralty honors, and joined the most bloated thieves of all parties, in the odious Common Counsel of 1852 and 1853, and he was soon forever lost as an honorable public man. And now this Scotch reprobate comes forward, without a blush on his vicious cheeks, and prates of a Tax Payer’s Party, in order to effect some hellish thievish purpose. Perhaps his object is to nominate Judge Russell, or Fire Marshal Baker, or Galbraith, or some of his roguish go-betweens and thimble-riggers for Mayor, so that he can occupy the pleasant relations of Peter Cooper to Mayor Tiemann, his amiable son-in-law. But how the intelligent tax payers of the Metropolis can be so easily and so often bamboozled by this superficial Scotch Juggler, is a mystery to me, when they all know that he has always favored vice, and stabbed virtue. And if there ever was a candidate for office, during Bennett’s long editorial career, whom he did not sell, or if there ever was a truly virtuous aspirant for public honors, whose election Bennett ever sincerely advocated before the people, without a cash consideration, I should like to see the most extraordinary anomaly. Bennett very ingeniously plasters his victims with disgusting panegyric, for a brief period, when he lets loose the dogs of Tartarus, and while they devour them, he fills his coffers with gold from every candidate in the field, to whom he has pledged his support. But he is very old, and the devil will soon have him, and millions will rejoice when old Nick drags him to his fervent realms, and begins his merited tortures. And it will require wasteless years to burn the sins from his infamous and loathsome and nauseous carcase. The creation of James Gordon Bennett’s Tax Payer’s Party, after his cash advocation of all the abandoned scamps of America to office for thirty years, is the most amusing proposition of the age. And yet the omnipotent ballot stuffers may come to his rescue, and adopt his plans. And why should they not? Is not Barnum again abroad, and about to shake the world with another humbug. Barnum has grown prodigiously affluent since the Hard times began, and since money became scarce, and since people began to starve, and since the elements of Pluto leveled his Oriental Palace to the ground, (which was highly insured!) and above all, since he took as partner, that cunning old rat, James W. Gerard, who, like Dick Connolly and Simeon Draper, is ever found in all political camps. Gerard was the real originator of the Joice Heath imposture, and all of Barnum’s humbugs, and has borne him through all his financial clock troubles, for which he has got enough from Barnum to enable him to sustain his chariots and postilions and magnificent establishment in Gramercy Park until he dies. It was Gerard who introduced Kingsland for Mayor, and other successful candidates, and, in the dark, advocated Fernando Wood’s course down to his disastrous exodus from public life. And it was Gerard who sustained Matsell through all his infamous career, down to the famous meeting in the Tabernacle, and in the Legislative lobby, even going into the seats of members, and coaxing them in various ways to spare Matsell. And it was Gerard who, after Wood had fallen, went into the camp of Tiemann, where he is now, in order to cut the throats of Tiemann and the Coopers the first opportunity, and is at this moment, in collusion with Bennett in the formation of a Tax Payer’s Party. “All things to all men” is the motto of Gerard, and he has played his card adroitly for nearly half a century. But he has now probably got his last set of false teeth, and his last wig, and will probably soon die of old age like his old friend Bennett, who have operated together in ambuscade, for thirty unbroken years, in all the political villainy that has been concocted during this long and eventful period. No matter who succeeds in the elections, Gerard and Bennett are in the triumphant camps, as now: Bennett in Buchanan’s White House, and Gerard in Mayor Tiemann’s confidence, and both playing into each others hands, like Draper and Connolly. Picolomini is the last card that these jugglers will play. Gerard is a snob and a dandy, and an Opera exquisite, and it was he, (through Barnum,) who introduced Jenny Lind to the Americans, and got Bennett, for a large sum, to abuse Barnum and Jenny Lind, as an advertisement. Bennett did not get less than $20,000 from Gerard and Barnum for his daily abuse of Jenny Lind and Barnum. I was daily in the Herald office in those days, and I often saw Barnum closeted with Frederic Hudson, and James Gordon Bennett. And Gerard and Barnum have already arranged with Bennett, and paid him the cash down, to abuse Picolomini, while the Times and Tribune and many other journals are to be paid to praise her. And such a yell as we shall have on her arrival, will frighten the rats and cats. For, in this funny world, blarney is regarded as sincere praise and evidence of merit, while detraction is persecution, which verdant people won’t tolerate, and especially when hurled at such fascinating creatures as Fanny Elssler, or Jenny Lind, or Picolomini. This is certainly a very curious world, and, like Dr. Franklin, I am curious to know if our spiritual existence is to be as curious as our material; and I am extremely anxious to learn if Bennett, Barnum, and Gerard are to have an eternal abode in Heaven?