“Plume’s”
Daguerreotype of Tirrell.
The name of the murderer was Albert J. Tirrell, a young man whose improvidence had, in less than one year, scattered to the winds a patrimony of more than twenty-seven thousand dollars—the life’s earnings of an indulgent parent, whose grey hairs had but lately gone down in sorrow to the grave. His flushed cheeks, his beak-like, pimpled nose, his gallynipper lips, rendered his demeanor the beau ideal of a sucker-sharp. His tongue could rattle off more lies and oaths in a minute than that of any other sucker in Boston, excepting one. These characteristics, accompanied by the most lavish expenditure of his wealth, won for him the appellation of “good fellow,” all about the horse-stables, at least. Whenever he hired a horse and buggy, he carelessly and suavitously tossed a five dollar gold piece, by way of perquisite, to the ostler. Then would the literature of horse-flies load him with slimy phrases. “Liberal-hearted fine gentleman,”—“noble fellow,”—“there’s nothing mean about him,”—“good fellow,” etc., often reverberated through the horse-stalls, and the same learned and pithy remarks were nightly circulating through the upper rooms of a celebrated gambling-house in Sudbury street, for many years the sucker-sharp head quarters, and the devil’s den in Boston. But, as the enterprising Dickinson once remarked to a clan of rebellious compositors, “There is an end to all things,” so the greatnesses of Tirrell’s life were on that morning hurried into a grand tableau.
Tirrell’s Flight. He had slashed open Maria Bickford’s throat with a razor, most valiantly, from ear to ear, and, to slip the noose of the gallows, ran away!
There is no doubt of his INSANITY.
But we cannot dismiss the subject matter of this history until we inform the world of one of Tirrell’s exploits in a business way. No sooner had he tumbled into the possession of his patrimony, than he took up quarters in the city of New York, with the intention of founding a publishing house, on a magnificent scale. After beating about the trade for two or three weeks, without knowing where or how to begin a business of which he was utterly ignorant, and which his rattle-headedness rendered him incapable of comprehending under any circumstances, he made up his mind to commence the publication of a periodical, of some kind or other. Our information runs, that, with this object before his eyes, he called on Mr. Edgar A. Poe, of that city, and tendered him the exclusive editorship and control of the concern, without ceremony or condition. Poe, after a cautious and analytical survey of the gentleman, propounded divers queries which Tirrell had not the capacity to answer. He seemed to be possessed of a belief that if he brought some doubled sheets of printed paper before the people, and the ladies in particular, an illumination as wonderful as the aurora borealis would be the consequence. “The people,” said he, “want knowledge; they thirst for it as the heart panteth for the water brooks.” “Yes, sir, precisely,” said the other, “but engagements compel me to decline your generous offers; I have already promised to do much more than I can possibly accomplish. I think, however, there is a compositor of my acquaintance whose talents are so nearly like your own, that he would prove the very person you are seeking. I will give you his name—it is Silas Estabrook. Explain your plans to that individual, sir, and there will be no lack of projects, I assure you.”
Tirrell was elated with this advice, and forthwith made search for and found the obscure and shrivelled compositor. With the same mountebank bluffness, he made known his wants. “They say you sometimes work in the editing line, sir. Now, sir, I’m about to start a great publishing establishment, like that of the Harpers, and I want to engage you to edit it! If you’ll go into it strong with me, we’ll make Astors of ourselves. I will furnish all the money to begin with.”
Estabrook rubbed his eyes and looked at the man through a spy-glass. “Can it be possible,” thought he, “that good luck has found me at last, and that I am about to realize the Actual from my splendid ideas? This must be the very man whom I have wanted so much to find.” A long and earnest confab took place. Perhaps two persons never before met, whose brains rattled with more incoherence, than did those of Tirrell and Estabrook. If the first was ignorant, impudent and stupid, the other greatly transcended him by a fanatical adherence to his own visionary fooleries. His plans and projects for astonishing the world were as numerous as the phases of a kaleidescope, and his explanations thereof were as voluminous and intelligible as a colloquial parody from that useful bird, the goose.
“I will tell you what it is, Mr. Tirrell,” said he, “we have a fortune within our grasp. I have the mind and you the means. We must get up something which has never been dreamed of before. It’s of no use to think of starting a common newspaper; the very idea of it is vulgar—yet it must be a publication of some kind. Now, I propose that we issue a journal in the shape and style of a Letter; print it in the smallest type—cram a large amount of racy matter into a small space—and then fold it up and seal it. Let the price be six cents a copy, and a figure indicating this sum can be stamped with red ink on the outside, as though it were the postage by mail. Then let us send a copy to every man, woman, and child, in this great city, under a written direction. In this guise and shape every body will jump after it, and the result will be, that we shall sell at least two hundred thousand copies a day. You see they will be so pleased with the contents, that after they receive the first letter they will be still more and more greedy to get the succeeding ones. Now, just reckon up how much 200,000 letters a day, at six cents each, will amount to in a year.”