Scarcely had I uttered these words, when the excruciating torment which I suffered caused me to faint away. When I recovered, I found myself in a prison-cell, with a bandage over my damaged optic, and a physician feeling my pulse.
"Ah!" said I, looking around, "I am in limbo, I see. Well, I do not fear the result. But, doctor, am I seriously injured—am I likely to kick the bucket?"
"Not at all," was the doctor's encouraging reply—"but you have lost the sight of your eye."
"Oh, is that all?" said I with a laugh—"well, I believe that it is said in the Bible somewhere, that it is better to enter the kingdom of heaven with one eye than to go to the devil with two."
The physician departed for his home, and I departed for the land of dreams. The pain of my wound had considerably mitigated, and I slept quite comfortably.
I have always been somewhat of a philosopher in the way of enduring the ills of life, and I tried to reconcile myself to my misfortune and situation with as good a grace as possible. In this I succeeded much better than might have been expected. When a person loses an eye and is at the same time imprisoned for killing another individual, it is certainly natural for that unfortunate person to yield to despair; but, seeing the uselessness of grief, I resolved to "face the music" with all the courage of which I was possessed.
Two or three days passed away, and I became almost well—for, to use a common expression, I owned the constitution of a horse. The newspapers which I was allowed to send out and purchase, made me acquainted with something that rather surprised me, for they communicated to me the information that Jack Slack, the young gentleman to whom I had presented a ticket of admission to the other world, was a person whose real name was John Shaffer, alias Slippery Jack, alias Jack Slack. His profession was that of a pickpocket, in which avocation he had always been singularly expert. He was well known to the police, and had been frequently imprisoned. I was gratified to see that the newspapers all justified me in what I had done, and predicted my honorable discharge from custody. That prediction proved correct; for, after I had been in confinement a week, the Grand Jury failed to bring a bill of indictment against me, and I was consequently set at liberty.
Tired of Philadelphia, I went to Washington. A New York member of Congress, with whom I was well acquainted, volunteered to show me the "lions;" and I had the honor of a personal introduction to Mr. Van Buren and other distinguished official personages. Some people would be surprised if they did but know of the splendid dissipation that prevails among the "dignitaries of the nation" at Washington.
I have seen more than one member of the United States Senate staggering through the streets, from what cause the reader will have no difficulty in judging. I have seen a great statesman, since deceased, carried from an after-dinner table to his chamber. I have seen the honorable Secretary of one of the National departments engaged in a brawl in a brothel. I have seen Representatives fighting in a bar-room like so many rowdies, and I have heard them use language that would disgrace a beggar in his drink. I need not allude to the many outrageous scenes which have been enacted in the councils of the nation; for the newspapers have already given them sufficient publicity.
Leaving Washington, I journeyed South, and, after many adventures which the limits of this work will not permit me to describe, I arrived in the City of New Orleans. I had no difficulty in procuring a lucrative situation as reporter on a popular daily newspaper; and enjoyed free access to all the theatres and other places of amusement.—I remained in New Orleans just one year; but, not liking the climate,—and finding, moreover, that I was living too "fast," and accumulating no money,—I resolved to "pull up stakes" and start in a Northerly direction. Accordingly, I returned to Philadelphia.