The toiling million starved by the heartless Politicians, and the Fifth Avenue Robbers of the Public Treasure, who are the source of Oppressive Taxation, and Exorbitant Rents, and Fuel, and Food, and Raiment, and Prostitution, and Suicide, and of Theft, Rape, Arson, and Assassination.
Reclining on the velvet banks of the Hudson, were Mayor Kingsland and little Georgy, with steamers, and mariners, and forests, and the full round moon, and radiant stars reflected in the placid waters. With segars, and wine, and luscious cream before them, Georgy said: “Kingsland: I came from Brandon in the ship Perseus, in 1817, and was a valiant youth. Patrick Dickey was a passenger, with 400 others. We exchanged vessels at Halifax, and tarried several months at Perth Amboy, and resided in Banker street, (the Fifth Avenue of those days,) and at Niblo’s Garden, where my father was a fashionable Broadway dandy tailor, on whose big sign was ‘George Matsell, Tailor, from London.’ Our residence was the first brownstone mansion erected on Broadway. My father was of the Paine, Wright, and Owen creed, which I early imbibed. My brother Augustus was the Secretary of Fanny Wright, and I was her enthusiastic disciple, and sold her books, and pretty pictures, which were not obscene, and for which I was not indicted; nor were my associates imprisoned thirty days in the Tombs, whom I induced to visit America. Through Fanny Wright and George II. Purser, (who was the favorite of Fanny,) and Robert Dale Owen, I became a Custom House officer, under Martin Van Buren, and a Police Justice under Mayor Varian, and Chief of Police under Mayor Havemeyer, with whom and all his successors I had great influence. I pulled the nose of every Mayor save Havemeyer, whom I found extremely mulish; and yet I made him fear me when I chose. Although my salary was small, yet I realized a stupendous fortune like yourself, since you began your political career in the First Ward, as a shoulder-hitter, and a candidate for Assistant Alderman, and successful municipal oil contractor. We understand these political ropes and wires, Kingsland, and it is unnecessary to linger on them. You are on the Fifth Avenue, in a Persian Palace, while I adhere to Stanton street, in a humble dwelling, lest I be suspected by my enemies of acquiring vast treasures through my office of Chief. I think you commit a fatal error in your display of magnificence, but I’ll not murmur, as all are responsible for their own sins and imprudence. You may have a boisterous career, and a gust may arise, like that of Astor Place, when you may require my services. My coolness and intrepidity on that occasion, saved the city from universal massacre and conflagration. I judiciously remained in the Opera House, and commanded Woodhull, Talmadge, Westervelt and Sandford, to fire at the mob in the street, or all would have been lost, and the city instantly demolished, and its inhabitants butchered and burned to bleeding fragments and Kansas cinders. I was in the stage-box throughout the frightful spectacle, lest from my immense fat, I might be as palpable a target for the foe, as Daniel Lambert, my remotest ancestor on my Daddy’s side. Lambert is from Lamb, a word of Brandon origin, and hence the mildness of my disposition, although I am terrible in bloody conflicts, where the fate of a city is involved. And the eye of Providence was in my appointment by Havemeyer, and my skillful and courageous direction of the entire Astor Place riots. The Mayor, Recorder, Sheriff, and the General, were pale and timid, and faltered, and it required the lungs of Knox, (who could bellow into the ears of Washington across the icy and tumultuous atmosphere of the Delaware,) and the nervous fat of an immediate descendant of Lambert, and the herculean vigor of Sampson, and the impetuosity of Putnam, to brave the demons of Astor Place who strove to exterminate my countryman the gallant, and graceful, and intellectual Macready, who was right in the introduction of a dance in Hamlet, as Hamlet’s grandfather was a dancing master to the King of Denmark, and hence Ned Forrest had no right to hiss Macready for his testimonial of respect to Hamlet’s grand-father. Shakespeare, himself, was long a correspondent of Hamlet’s grand-father, and introduced the dance in Hamlet from his respect to his old friend, which Johnson ejected during the very year that Shakespeare died, because he had a quarrel with Hamlet’s grand-father in a ball-room, in Denmark, when Johnson not only got licked, but had his nose broken in five places, besides the horrible and irremediable fracture of its tip end. This is the gist of the whole Astor Place quarrel, and MacCready was familiar with all these historical truths, and hence his introduction of the dance in Hamlet. I saved the city and MacCready, and by adroit tactics I saved myself, by adhering to the stage box, (with a pistol in either hand,) until the massacre was over in the street, and the exasperated populace had dispersed, when I rushed into the open air, and knocked down a blind-crippled-music-grinder, and brandished my sword and pistols ferociously, and frightened a little boy almost to death, who was inquiring for his mother. It was hard for me to order the Mayor, Recorder, Sheriff, and General, to fire upon the Americans; but my duty to a fellow-countryman in peril, and to myself, and to the people, whose alien Chief I was,—and, above all, to a God, in whom I ardently believe, and love, and fear, and into whose eternal embrace I expect to go, demanded me to indirectly give the thrilling and fatal word of fire, which hurled a score of beings into the dreary entrails of the globe, and into the sudden and awful presence of our common Deity. And now, Kingsland, my dear boy, in view of my tried courage, and my prodigious influence with the file of Mayors who have preceded you, and of my aid to you in primary elections, and of my powerful recent secret support of you in your nomination and election—and—and—you know, Kingsland, all the rest. I say that, in view of all this, I desire you to let me remain as Chief of Police, for which I will cling to you as I did to Fanny Wright, and Robert Dale Owen, and George H. Purser, and to the City of New York in its hour of peril. Do this, my dear Kingsland, and I will lobby through the Common Council the Ganzevoort jobs, and all the oil contracts you desire, and let you go where you please unmolested; and you can join Messrs. Paine & Phalon in musical, or lottery and policy operations, and buy as many millions of dollars’ worth of land in Williamsburgh and Greenpoint, and own as many licentious houses in Church, and Leonard, and other streets, as you desire, and I will not cull a solitary hair from your beautiful and conscientious skull. What is your response?”
Kingsland.—“Have I not declared that you were my first choice for Chief of Police?”
Matsell.—“Yes. But that was only a verbal declaration. I desire the bird in my own cage. I want the fascinating documents under your signature.”
Kingsland.—“Waiter: Bring me pen, ink and paper. [Writes.] There, Matsell, there it is, but do not use it until I see my political friends, and conciliate them with the assurance that your appointment was absolutely essential to the preservation of the Metropolis from riots, and sword, and fire, and ashes. If I fail to allay their exasperation, I shall send them to you, and if you fail to pacify them with promises of appointment, and those sweet accents that flow like Stuart’s syrup from your ruddy lips, and your oriental bows, and meek scrapes, and cringing smiles,—why, then, you must put your bloodhounds on their track on howling tempest nights, (when only owls dare prowl through the fearful darkness of ether,) who will pursue them to the dens of infamy and revelry, and blasphemy, and obscenity, and dicery, when you will have them in your awful clutches, as you have me. O, God! Matsell, I hardly know what I say. Wine works wonders, and now let us fill our glasses to the brim, and have another dulcet cream, and depart for the Metropolis,—and at our nocturnal farewell, let us kneel and swear beneath the universal concave, that we will cling to each other like Damon and Pythias, or Burr and Arnold, until our wormy conquerors begin their happy feast, and grin and dance over our silent and icy forms in the dreary and awful sepulchre. But remember my oil and other contracts, Matsell. Be piously true to them. When we next meet, I’ll tell you how to effect their continuation with the Aldermen, if you don’t know already, from your limited experience.”
Chorus.
O, oil is the thing
That the stuff will bring,
Which will buy sweet cream
To eat on life’s stream.
[More ice-cream next Saturday, of a superior quality.]
