Startling Revelations.
In my coming revelations of Bennett and Hudson’s rascalities, I shall prove that the former strove to black mail me during my protracted Mnemonic Controversy with Professor Francis Fauvel Gourard in 1843, for which I drew a revolver on Satan in the Herald office. I shall also prove that I got Bennett the Corporation Printing at $3,000 per annum, through my influence with my Aldermanic pupils,—that I wrote the Printing Report, proposing to give Bennett $3,000 a year for the Common Council Printing, and the other Journals only $1,000 a year,—that I told Bennett I was teaching the Aldermen, and, among them, Alderman A. A. Denman, of the Sixteenth Ward, who was Chairman of the Committee to whom the Corporation Printing was referred,—that I bet Bennett $100 that I would get the Corporation Printing for the Herald at $3,000 per annum,—that I not only wrote the Printing Report for the Committee, but got it adopted by both Boards of the Common Council, and got the Mayor to sign it, when Bennett gave me the $100, which was a part of the $250 that I have only received from Bennett during my voluntary connection with the Herald since 1836,—that after I got the Corporation Printing for Bennett, I continued to scourge the Common Council through the Fire Reports of Alfred Carson, and a Caucus was held, and a vote passed, demanding me to cease my philippics against the Common Council, because they had given Bennett the Corporation Printing at my request,—that I told the Alderman who was delegated by the Aldermanic Caucus to request me to cease my philippics, that I should not comply with their monstrous demand, and that I would see Bennett and Hudson and the Herald effaced from the earth, before I would desert Alfred Carson and his noble band of firemen,—that this Alderman then went to Bennett, (by direction of the Caucus,) and requested him not to publish my Fire philippics against the Common Council, and Bennett, (fearing they would deprive him of the Printing if he refused,) cowardly and mercenarily complied, and also pledged himself to conceal the anticipated robberies of 1852 and 1853,—that the Common Council was so pleased with Bennett’s course, that they made him overtures, through which he acquired a princely fortune, as he did under Fernando Wood’s administration,—that one of the members of the Committee, who reported in favor of Bennett’s Printing, (who was my pupil,) received by a vote of the Common Council, 204 valuable lots on the banks of the East River, which he holds to this day,—that this corrupt Alderman boldly besought me, at his house at midnight, to abandon Alfred Carson, and go into the embraces of the Common Council, which would ensure me a splendid fortune,—that I nearly smote him on the spot with my maledictions and my indignant glances,—that this Alderman was a bosom friend and confidant of the then Aldermen Tiemann and Peter Cooper,—that he is the sacred friend of Mayor Tiemann and Peter Cooper now,—that Mayor Tiemann and Peter Cooper fear this Alderman, who has known them and all their political villainy since 1828,—that this is the Alderman who first told me of Mayor Tiemann’s and Peter Cooper’s public robberies,—that Mayor Tiemann was an Alderman of the Common Council that gave Bennett the Corporation Printing, and voted for it,—that this Alderman introduced me to Alderman Tiemann on the very day that Tiemann originated the Ward Island Purchases, which have been and are the foulest sources of corruption and plunder in the annals of municipal legislation,—that Tiemann and this Alderman acted in concert in the Ward Island Purchases, and he assured me at the time that Tiemann was the slyest and most pliable member of the Board of Aldermen, when there was an enormous sum to be made at one grab, but that Tiemann would not peril his reputation by embarking in small plundering operations—that Gov. Wm. T. Pinkney recently told me in the rear of his Insurance Office in Wall street, that this was precisely Tiemann’s course while a member of the Board of Ten Governors, who never could be drawn into small operations. I will also prove that Bennett has always been a Secret Corporation Plunderer, and also a State and National Thief,—that his unceasing denunciation of the Common Council, and the Legislature, and Congress, is only to blind the people, and enable him to steal the more,—that Frederick Hudson, his Secretary, while Bennett was in Europe, got $30,000 from the Common Council, for suppressing one of Alfred Carson’s terrible philippics against the Corporation, at the election of all the Assistant Engineers of the Fire Department,—that one of my Aldermanic pupils assured me that §30,000 was the sum that Hudson received, and which I publicly nailed on the brow of Hudson at the time, in the New York Sun, and other Journals, including the Firemen’s Journal. These are only some of the numerous villanies I shall prove against these scoundrels. I will also show that Bennett and Fred and Ned Hudson conceived the Parker Vein and Potosi Swindles, through which thousands were ruined, including widows and orphans, and my brother William and his wife and interesting children, who were reduced from affluence and happiness, to utter destitution. Poor brother William is now a skeleton and shadow and wanderer in the streets of Saint Louis, and forever separated from his wife and adored offspring, through the heartless mercenary machinations and deviltry of Bennett and the Hudsons of the Herald. When the details of these Revelations are spread before the world, the question will be forever settled as to the overshadowing Black Mail Operations of the New York Herald.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
STEPHEN H. BRANCH,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.