I reached the fiftieth year of my life in December, 1883. In my long residence in Brooklyn I had found it to be the healthiest city in the world. It had always been a good place to live in—plenty of fresh air blowing up from the sea—plenty of water rolling down through our reservoirs—the Sabbaths too quiet to attract ruffianism.
Of all the men I have seen and heard and known, there were but a few deep friendships that I depended upon. In February, 1884, I lost one of these by the decease of Thomas Kinsella, a Brooklyn man of public affairs, of singular patriotism and local pride.
Years ago, when I was roughly set upon by ecclesiastical assailants, he gave one wide swing of his editorial scimitar, which helped much in their ultimate annihilation. My acquaintance with him was slight at the time, and I did not ask him to help me. I can more easily forget a wrong done to me than I can forget a kindness. He was charitable to many who never knew of it. By reason of my profession, there came to me many stories of distress and want, and it was always Mr. Kinsella's hand that was open to befriend the suffering. Bitter in his editorial antagonisms, he was wide in his charities. One did not have to knock at many iron gates to reach his sympathies.
Mr. Kinsella died of overwork, from the toil of years that taxed his strength. None but those who have been behind the scenes can appreciate the energies that are required in making up a great daily newspaper. Its demands for "copy" come with such regularity. Newspaper writers must produce just so much, whether they feel like it or not. There is no newspaper vacation. So the commanders-in-chief of the great dailies often die of overwork. Henry J. Raymond died that way, Samuel Bowles, Horace Greeley. Once in a while there are surviving veterans like Thurlow Weed, or Erastus Brooks, or James Watson Webb—but they shifted the most of the burden on others as they grew old. Success in any calling means drudgery, sacrifice, push, and tug, but especially so in the ranks of the newspaper armies.
A great many of us, however, about this time, survived a worse fate, though how we did it is still a mystery of the period. We discovered, in the spring of 1884, that we had been eating and drinking things not to be mentioned. Honest old-fashioned butter had melted and run out of the world. Instead of it we had trichinosis in all styles served up morning and evening—all the evils of the food creation set before us in raw shape, or done up in puddings, pies, and gravies. The average hotel hash was innocent merriment compared to our adulterated butter. The candies, which we bought for our children, under chemical analysis, were found to be crystallised disease. Lozenges were of red lead. Coffees and teas were so adulterated that we felt like Charles Lamb, who, in a similar predicament, said, "If this be coffee, give me tea; and if it be tea, give me coffee." Even our medicines were so craftily adulterated that they were sure to kill. There was alum in our bread, chalk in our milk, glass in our sugar, Venetian red in our cocoa, and heaven knows what in the syrup.
Too much politics in our food threatened to demoralise our large cities. The same thing had happened in London, in 1868. We survived it, kept on preaching against it, and giving money to prosecute the guilty. It was an age of pursuit; ministers pursuing ministers, lawyers pursuing lawyers, doctors, merchants, even Arctic explorers pursuing one another, the North Pole a jealous centre of interest. Everything is frozen in the Arctic region save the jealousies of the Arctic explorers. Even the North Pole men were like others. This we discovered in 1884, when, in Washington, the post-mortem trial of DeLong and his men was in progress. There was nothing to be gained by the controversy. There were no laurels to be awarded by this investigation, because the men whose fame was most involved were dead. It was a quarrel, and the "Jeannette" was the graveyard in which it took place. It was disgraceful.
Jealousy is the rage of a man, also of a woman.
It was evident, in the progress of this one-sided trial, that our legislature needed to have their corridors, their stairways, and their rooms cleaned of lobbyists.
At the State Capital in Albany, one bright spring morning in the same year, the legislature rose and shook itself, and the Sergeant-at-Arms was instructed to drive the squad of lobbyists out of the building. He did it so well that he scarcely gave them time to get their canes or their hats. Some of the lowest men in New York and Brooklyn were among them. That was a spring cleaning worth while. But it was only a little corner of the political arena that was unclean.
I remember how eagerly, when I went to Canada in April, the reporters kept asking me who would be the next President. It would have been such an easy thing to answer if I had only known who the man was. In this dilemma I suggested some of our best presidential timber in Brooklyn as suitable candidates. These were General Slocum, General Woodford, General Tracey, Mayor Low, Judge Pratt, Judge Tierney, Mr. Stranahan, and Judge Neilson. Some of these men had been seriously mentioned for the office. Honourable mention was all they got, however. They were too unpretentious for the role. It was the beginning of a mud-slinging campaign. New York versus New York—Brooklyn versus Brooklyn.