| [CHAPTER I.] | |
| Early Life—Arrival in America—How he Avenged the Robbery of his Father—Mysterious Disappearance of the OldJew—In the House of Refuge—Seafaring Life—Beginning of his Boxing Career | [17] |
| [CHAPTER II.] | |
| A Remarkable Game of Poker, and What Came of it—Ben as a Pirate—Fast Lifein New York—How he gave a Combination Show in Oswego | [29] |
| [CHAPTER III.] | |
| A Southern Trip—Experiences in New Orleans and Mobile—ThreeMen Put Under the Sod by Ben’s Bullets | [39] |
| [CHAPTER IV.] | |
| Ben as a Spy in both the Union and Confederate Armies—The Buried Treasure—Howhe Fooled the Captain—At Port Royal and Newbern—Bounty-Jumping | [45] |
| [CHAPTER V.] | |
| Ben in Canada—He goes West again—Adventures in Cincinnati, Nashville,and Louisville—How he Sold the Colored Troops—Sets out for the Oil Regions | [54] |
| [CHAPTER VI.] | |
| First Appearance in the Oil Country—Dance House in Pitthole—French Kate—BabylonHouse—Fight with Bob Donnelly—His Explanation in Court of the Character of his House | [62] |
| [CHAPTER VII.] | |
| Attempt to Rob Ben—How he became a Minister and Marrieda Couple—A Jolly Wedding—French Kate Jealous | [76] |
| [CHAPTER VIII.] | |
| Attempt to Murder Ben in Babylon—He Shoots a Man andis Arrested—Frightens the Witnesses and Prevents Perjury—Is Acquitted | [82] |
| [CHAPTER IX.] | |
| Leaves Oil Country—In Saratoga—Arrested on False Reports—Goesback to Tidioute—In Rochester—First Meeting with Cummings | [86] |
| [CHAPTER X.] | |
| The Gymnasium Business—Life in Rochester—First Meetingof Hogan and Tom Allen—A Disgraceful Affair | [94] |
| [CHAPTER XI.] | |
| How Ben Treated the Deputy Sheriff—Annie Gibbons, thePedestrian—Ben goes to Pittsburgh and Meets Mr. Green | [102] |
| [CHAPTER XII.] | |
| Ben in St. Louis—First Entree into Parker’s Landing—Opensa Free-and-Easy—Trouble with the Authorities | [113] |
| [CHAPTER XIII.] | |
| The “Floating Palace”—A Wonderful Institution—The Girlsand the Patrons—Scenes of Revelry—How Nights were Passed—The Loss of the “Palace” | [118] |
| [CHAPTER XIV.] | |
| Return to Parker’s Landing—His Three Years’ Sojourn inthat Town—Adventures and Incidents—Attempt to Burn Ben’s House | [125] |
| [CHAPTER XV.] | |
| Ben buys a House in Pittsburgh—Engineering for a NewRailroad—Goes to Petrolia and opens House—The Ladies’ Seminary | [133] |
| [CHAPTER XVI.] | |
| Ben as a Politician—Elected Burgess of Petrolia, but Cheated out of the Office—Goes to Greece City—Pleasuretrip West—Preparations to Fight Tom Allen in St. Louis | [142] |
| [CHAPTER XVII.] | |
| The famous Fight with Tom Allen | [151] |
| [CHAPTER XVIII.] | |
| What came of the Fight—Allen’s Treachery—Attempts to kill Ben in St. Louis | [159] |
| [CHAPTER XIX.] | |
| Ben in Chicago—Returns to Pittsburgh—More of Allen—BuildsOpera Houses in Petrolia and Millerstown—Figures once more in Politics | [166] |
| [CHAPTER XX.] | |
| Ben as a Banker (Faro Banker)—Burglars—Counterfeit Money, and How Hogan Didn’t Handle it—Ben as a Doctor—Allenin New York City—Why the Fight Fell Through | [175] |
| [CHAPTER XXI.] | |
| The Girl Ben Met in Owney Geoghegan’s—A Confiding Sea Captain—Adventurein Little Falls—Pitching a Man Across the Erie Canal—Return to Syracuse | [181] |
| [CHAPTER XXII.] | |
| Another Challenge to Allen—Brookville and Indiana Adventures | [187] |
| [CHAPTER XXIII.] | |
| Ben’s Generous Act in Indiana—Under Arrest in Pittsburghwith Kitty—Goes West—Life in Grand Rapids—Mistaken for a Minister | [194] |
| [CHAPTER XXIV.] | |
| One More Challenge to Allen—Return to the Oil Country—Benand McDonald—Opens Dance-House in Elko City—Bullion House—Kitty Runs Away | [202] |
| [CHAPTER XXV.] | |
| Saratoga Trip—Bullion again—Arrival in Tarport—OpensDance-House—A Groundless Scandal—The Truth about the Girl Carrie | [209] |
| [CHAPTER XXVI.] | |
| Ben Leaves Tarport—What some of the Oil Country Papers had to say about him—Arrival in New York | [213] |
| [CHAPTER XXVII.] | |
| Ben as a Reformer—His Opinions on the Temperance Question—PhysicalCulture—The Social Evil—Prisons and Penitentiaries—Gambling | [221] |
| [CHAPTER XXVIII.] | |
| Conclusion | [237] |
INTRODUCTORY.
The life of any man is interesting as it reveals human nature and discloses character. Biography is in itself a combination of all those elements which go to make up literature. It is humor and pathos; it is poetry and prose; it is the sternest tragedy and the broadest farce. Fiction builds its most fantastic structures upon the inventions of the brain. Biography writes in lasting characters upon the granite front of truth. The record which it leaves is more wonderful than any flight of fancy—more startling than any outburst of imagination.
If it were possible to read the history of men’s lives written upon their faces, the world would have little need of romances. This shabbily-dressed figure, which to-day you jostle against in the street, might furnish material for a volume of exciting tales. That white-faced woman, who stares with a half-frightened look at the passers-by, could unfold a tale of more terrible interest than ever evolved itself from the brain of the novelist. Around and about us, in all places and at all times, the surging sea of humanity casts up its broken spars and dismantled hulks. Those who sail in calm waters, or walk the beach, may pick up these remnants of wrecks, and find in them clews to voyages full of tragic interest.
Since this duty is often neglected by the more prosperous voyagers, and since men’s faces are not books which they who run may read, it falls to the lot of the biographer to show to others the mystery of life.
Probably no man’s career, if truthfully told, would be wholly barren of interest. In proportion to the eventfulness of that career it gains in interest. But it is a very serious mistake to assume that a person’s avocation in life determines the rank to which he ought, properly, to be assigned. The art does not make the artist. It happens that there are a good many preachers in this world who can not preach, a good many actors who can not act, a good many writers who can not write. It happens, too, that there are a good many people who can not do anything—whose excuse for existing remains forever a conundrum. The written lives of such harmless ciphers would be of interest only in so far as they might show the uselessness of the subjects. But a study of any character which is strongly marked ought to prove both entertaining and instructive. Nor is it necessary that such a character should be spotless, in order to teach some wholesome lessons. It has been the lot of the writer to meet some eminently respectable persons who were at heart the most consummate hypocrites. He has known school-teachers who harped upon the necessity of bookish knowledge, while they fastened singular verbs to plural subjects. He has met newly-fledged college graduates who talked loud over a “liberal education,” and floundered in the shallow waters of English syntax. He has talked with crushed poets who cried out against the stupidity of the world, and read their own verses, more limping than the Count Joannes as Romeo. He has listened to straight-laced Puritans pray to be made more Christ-like, and seen them, an hour afterward, turn a starving beggar empty-handed from their door. He has heard pious directors of savings-banks denounce the stage as an instrument of the devil, and learned, the next day, that these sleek Pharisees were under indictments for robbing the poor. He has talked with alleged “statesmen” and found them roughs; with professed Christians, and found them narrow-minded bigots; with the representatives of what is called fashionable society, and found them noodle-heads. One day he met and talked with Ben Hogan, and he found a gentleman.
Does that surprise you?
Let us not fall into any misunderstanding at the outset of this narrative. The qualities which go to make up a gentleman are more readily appreciated than explained. They may be possessed by any man, no matter what his calling in life. They may be acquired under the most unpropitious circumstances, or they may never be acquired, in spite of surroundings and the advantages of education.