So that not one cent of the enormous receipts of this famous Ball has been devoted to the purchase of one little loaf of John Hecker’s Bread, nor to the relief of the indigent thousands, whom the receipts of this Ball were intended to relieve. The Hunter Woodis Society Managers told me on Monday last, that the receipts of the Crystal Palace Ball were §10,147,38, and that the expenses were $6,828,03, leaving a balance in the hands of their Treasurer of $3,319,35, which is now in their Safe, and that they have not disbursed one cent for bread nor any thing else for the relief of the poor, and do not intend to, until the next winter. I had a long interview with the officers of the self-constituted Hunter Woodis Society, (at their official quarters,) who are remarkably well clad, and smelt very strongly of cologne and pomatum, and they seemed extremely happy in their gaudy easy chairs, and I learn that they can often be seen on the fashionable avenues with fast steeds, and at the Italian Opera, and the aristocratic clubs. One of the leaders of the Hunter Woodis Society (doubtless fearing that I was about to let loose my Alligator upon himself and associates,) breathed honied words during my visit to the Society, and boldly said that Peter Cooper was anything but an honest man, but that the Hunter Woodis Managers were all honorable men, and that all the members of the Hunter Woodis Society were Know Nothings. He told me this three times, lest I should forget it, the fool supposing that I regarded Know Nothing thieves with less abhorrence than Irish or British thieves, of the Busteed, Connolly, or Matsell brand. I believe that most of the charitable funds of the “American and Foreign Emigrant Protective and Employment Society,” and of the “Academy of Music and Crystal Palace Balls,” have gone into the pockets and bellies and bladders of the scoundrels who collected those sacred funds for the immediate relief of the Emigrants and Starving Poor of New York.
Startling Revelations.
In my coming revelations of Bennett and Hudson’s rascalities, I shall prove that the former strove to black mail me during my protracted Mnemonic Controversy with Professor Francis Fauvel Gourard in 1843, for which I drew a revolver on Satan in the Herald office. I shall also prove that I got Bennett the Corporation Printing at $3,000 per annum, through my influence with my Aldermanic pupils,—that I wrote the Printing Report, proposing to give Bennett $3,000 a year for the Common Council Printing, and the other Journals only $1,000 a year,—that I told Bennett I was teaching the Aldermen, and, among them, Alderman A. A. Denman, of the Sixteenth Ward, who was Chairman of the Committee to whom the Corporation Printing was referred,—that I bet Bennett $100 that I would get the Corporation Printing for the Herald at $3,000 per annum,—that I not only wrote the Printing Report for the Committee, but got it adopted by both Boards of the Common Council, and got the Mayor to sign it, when Bennett gave me the $100, which was a part of the $250 that I have only received from Bennett during my voluntary connection with the Herald since 1836,—that after I got the Corporation Printing for Bennett, I continued to scourge the Common Council through the Fire Reports of Alfred Carson, and a Caucus was held, and a vote passed, demanding me to cease my philippics against the Common Council, because they had given Bennett the Corporation Printing at my request,—that I told the Alderman who was delegated by the Aldermanic Caucus to request me to cease my philippics, that I should not comply with their monstrous demand, and that I would see Bennett and Hudson and the Herald effaced from the earth, before I would desert Alfred Carson and his noble band of firemen,—that this Alderman then went to Bennett, (by direction of the Caucus,) and requested him not to publish my Fire philippics against the Common Council, and Bennett, (fearing they would deprive him of the Printing if he refused,) cowardly and mercenarily complied, and also pledged himself to conceal the anticipated robberies of 1852 and 1853,—that the Common Council was so pleased with Bennett’s course, that they made him overtures, through which he acquired a princely fortune, as he did under Fernando Wood’s administration,—that one of the members of the Committee, who reported in favor of Bennett’s Printing, (who was my pupil,) received by a vote of the Common Council, 204 valuable lots on the banks of the East River, which he holds to this day,—that this corrupt Alderman boldly besought me, at his house at midnight, to abandon Alfred Carson, and go into the embraces of the Common Council, which would ensure me a splendid fortune,—that I nearly smote him on the spot with my maledictions and my indignant glances,—that this Alderman was a bosom friend and confidant of the then Aldermen Tiemann and Peter Cooper,—that he is the sacred friend of Mayor Tiemann and Peter Cooper now,—that Mayor Tiemann and Peter Cooper fear this Alderman, who has known them and all their political villainy since 1828,—that this is the Alderman who first told me of Mayor Tiemann’s and Peter Cooper’s public robberies,—that Mayor Tiemann was an Alderman of the Common Council that gave Bennett the Corporation Printing, and voted for it,—that this Alderman introduced me to Alderman Tiemann on the very day that Tiemann originated the Ward Island Purchases, which have been and are the foulest sources of corruption and plunder in the annals of municipal legislation,—that Tiemann and this Alderman acted in concert in the Ward Island Purchases, and he assured me at the time that Tiemann was the slyest and most pliable member of the Board of Aldermen, when there was an enormous sum to be made at one grab, but that Tiemann would not peril his reputation by embarking in small plundering operations—that Gov. Wm. T. Pinkney recently told me in the rear of his Insurance Office in Wall street, that this was precisely Tiemann’s course while a member of the Board of Ten Governors, who never could be drawn into small operations. I will also prove that Bennett has always been a Secret Corporation Plunderer, and also a State and National Thief,—that his unceasing denunciation of the Common Council, and the Legislature, and Congress, is only to blind the people, and enable him to steal the more,—that Frederick Hudson, his Secretary, while Bennett was in Europe, got $30,000 from the Common Council, for suppressing one of Alfred Carson’s terrible philippics against the Corporation, at the election of all the Assistant Engineers of the Fire Department,—that one of my Aldermanic pupils assured me that §30,000 was the sum that Hudson received, and which I publicly nailed on the brow of Hudson at the time, in the New York Sun, and other Journals, including the Firemen’s Journal. These are only some of the numerous villanies I shall prove against these scoundrels. I will also show that Bennett and Fred and Ned Hudson conceived the Parker Vein and Potosi Swindles, through which thousands were ruined, including widows and orphans, and my brother William and his wife and interesting children, who were reduced from affluence and happiness, to utter destitution. Poor brother William is now a skeleton and shadow and wanderer in the streets of Saint Louis, and forever separated from his wife and adored offspring, through the heartless mercenary machinations and deviltry of Bennett and the Hudsons of the Herald. When the details of these Revelations are spread before the world, the question will be forever settled as to the overshadowing Black Mail Operations of the New York Herald.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
STEPHEN H. BRANCH,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.
Life of Stephen H. Branch.
From Louisville I went to Wheeling, and thence to Baltimore, where I visited a noble youth who had been my classmate, and during my illness at Columbian College, he was ever by my side, when young White was absent. He was now an invalid, and about to leave for the Mediterranean in a clipper vessel, owned by his father, and strongly urged me to accompany him without charge. In about a week we left Baltimore for Gibraltar, with the captain, first and second mate, and a choice crew. We had but one gale in the Atlantic, and, after a brief sojourn at Gibraltar, we passed on, touching at various ports, until we reached Alexandria. We visited the Pyramids, and passed a moonlight evening on the Nile, and went to Damascus, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Athens, and Rome, where we sailed on the Tiber, and reveled on the soil of the departed Romans. We left for Baltimore, and had terrific gales in the Mediterranean, and in the Atlantic. About ten days before our arrival in Baltimore, my friend died, which shook me to the soul with grief. On our arrival at Baltimore, his father and mother and sisters kissed the dust in agony, and treated me like a son or brother. The father gave me $100, and I departed for New York, in deep affliction at my irreparable loss of a generous youth who had been so kind to me. I became ill, and nearly died, and exhausted the $100, and wrote to father, who sent me money, and I recovered after a severe struggle with the arrows of death. I again saw Lewis Tappan, and began to teach colored persons, for which I received a miserable pittance. I now obtained board in Beekman street, with Mrs. Tripler, some of whose boarders were named Thompson, Woodbury, Chapman, and Cuniffe. A Mr. Bliss boarded there, who had been an eminent bookseller, and an early friend to William Cullen Bryant, and, as he was now very poor, Mr. Bryant obtained a situation for him in the Custom House. Mr. Bryant often came to Mrs. Tripler’s to see Mr. Bliss, and they weekly dined at the Spanish Hotel, in Fulton street. It was a pleasing and noble spectacle to behold Mr. Bryant’s fidelity to Mr. Bliss in his penury and old age. Henry J. Raymond (now editor of the New York Times) was in the employ of Horace Greeley, at $4 a week, with a promise of more, if he proved true to Greeley, and became an expert paragraphist. Raymond roomed and slept with my brother Thomas, at a boarding house in Beekman street, near mine, and they each paid $1 75 a week, for board and lodging, exclusive of washing, ironing, and mending. Their room was next to the roof, and their only window was the sky light. There was a large pillar in the centre of their funny little extra attic cubby-hole, which had recently been placed there, to prevent the dilapidated and shrunken and sunken roof from utterly caving in, and burying the entire inhabitants of the superannuated edifice, including the Lieutenant Governor in embryo of the Empire State. A man ninety-four years old lived over the way, who told me that he was born in the venerable building in question, and that his aged aunt often told him that she was born there, and that the building could not be less than one hundred and seventy years old. I closely examined the beams and chimneys, and formed the opinion that it had seen not less than two hundred winters, including summer tornadoes. I often visited brother Thomas, and always dreaded climbing the ladder that led to his and Raymond’s apartment. And when I entered their comic room, I had to take off my hat, and squat down, and often when I arose to depart, I bumped my head severely against the pigeon-house ceiling. But Tommy and the proud Governor and Editor in the invisible future were very short, and could walk erect as turkeys without bumping their heads, and they really seemed to enjoy their little oven amazingly. They had but one squeaking cot, (that Parson Brown, their host, bought at auction,) and only one stool, and a pine table with only three legs. The fourth leg was Raymond’s cane, which he placed under the table when he wrote his $4 a week articles for Greeley’s Tribune. And it was a funny spectacle for me to see Raymond seated on the stool, beside the three legged pine table, (with his hair shaved to the skull.) writing for his life, with Tom on the squealing cot, waiting for Raymond to close his last paragraph, so that he (Tom) could have a chance to write a letter in answer to an Advertiser in the New York Sun for a clerk. They had no wash bowl, nor pitcher, nor comb, nor looking glass, and washed their hands and face in the yard with cistern water. I bought a pocket comb for Tommy, which he often loaned to Raymond, and finally sold it to him for a free ticket to a concert, which Greeley gave Raymond. I at last obtained a situation for Tommy, and about daylight rushed into his boarding house, (the door was always open all night,) and up I flew the last flight of stairs and precarious ladder, and popped into their cosy room, and there they lay, reposing and dreaming of the past, and of better days in perspective. Tommy was on his side, and his face was partially eclipsed with his sheet, but Raymond was flat on his back, and he had a tooth-ache poultice on his cheek, covered with his handkerchief, which encircled his head around his ears, and he looked pale, and plaintive, and care worn, and I pitied him. I softly thrust my hand into the clothes, in pursuit of Tom’s feet, which I began to tickle, when Tom (who was always as nervous and ticklish as a very susceptible girl) suddenly popped over on the other side, and gave Raymond’s poultice n bang, when the latter gave a growl, and popped over on his other side, and, in doing so, dislocated his poultice, which came out in great profusion, and run all over his face and down into his neck, and the bed clothes, and yet the Governor and Editor in embryo snored on, as though nothing had transpired. I then made another lunge for Tommy’s feet, and grabbed one, and held it, and tickled it tremendously, which proved to be Raymond’s, who darted up from his pillow, and exclaimed: “Sir: What under Heaven are you doing with my feet? I demand you to let them alone. I despise your impertinence,” and, without waiting for my explanation or apology, he violently buried himself in the clothes, and off he went into a profound and noisy slumber. I seized Tom by his ear and hair and arm, and dragged him from the bed, and he unconsciously pulled all the bed clothes with him, as he was yet about half asleep. It always took about half an hour to thoroughly arouse Tom from his morning orisons. But when I told Tom I had got him a situation, he awoke mighty quick. Raymond was so mad to find himself stripped of all the bed clothes, that he threatened to tell Parson Brown, the host, but Tom told him if he did, that he would give him the worst thrashing he ever had, which made Raymond tremble. Although Tom was much shorter and weighed infinitely less than Raymond, yet he could strike a powerful blow, and Raymond knew it. Tom and Raymond slept together two nights after that, without saying a word to each other, but Sunday morning came, and as Raymond was a stiff Presbyterian, and attended Dr. Potts’ Church, he extended the hand of forgiveness and friendship to little Tommy, who accepted his apology, and they were sweeter friends than ever. I now get mournful intelligence from New Orleans and Providence. I receive news of the death of my dear brother Albert at New Orleans, and my father writes me that my wife’s father told him that he was about to induce his daughter to apply for a divorce from me. My father told him that I had been in delicate health for several years, which had kept me very poor,—that he was obliged, from humanity, to send me money occasionally, and that under these melancholy circumstances, and in view of all that had transpired in previous years, if he chose to induce his daughter to apply for a divorce, he could not help it, and that probably neither himself nor myself would oppose it. My father-in-law then said that there was no alternative, and his daughter would apply for a divorce immediately, and my father and father-in-law bade each other a cold farewell, and never recognised each other afterwards. The divorce soon followed, to which I made not the shadow of resistance. What rendered the divorce extremely painful was the almost daily visits of my wife to my father’s house ever since my disastrous crisis in 1837, when I was confined in the Providence jail. And even after the divorce, my faithful and unfortunate wife continued her visits to my father’s for a long period, without the knowledge of her father and mother, and wept, and wailed, (as my step mother has often told me,) like the disconsolate and ever-weeping Niobe. My father-in-law owned several ships, and not long after the divorce, the carrying trade was suddenly paralysed, and he failed for an immense sum, and he struggled, and tottered, and fell, and never recovered his commercial position. And the magnificent mansion in which I was married, was violently seized during his occupation, and his furniture thrown into the street, and himself and family ruthlessly ejected from its palacious halls. I lamented his downfall, but his fellow merchants did not, as they ever regarded him as a merciless miser. I brooded long on my wife’s calamities and my own, and with a melancholy heart I went to Saint Thomas’s Church on a cloudy summer day, and the Sexton politely escorted me to a pew. I had not long been seated, when a youth entered with beautiful eyes and hair and features of touching sadness, and took a seat beside me. He so strongly resembled a youth named Charles Manton, who early died, (and whom I loved as no other being not of my kindred blood,) that I could not withdraw my eyes from his fascinating form and expression. During the prayers and chaunts, we divided the sacred book between us, and at the close of the exercises, we left the pew together. As we were about to leave the church, I inquired his name, and residence, which he readily imparted, informing me that his name was Charles A. Jesup,—that he had recently lost his father,—that his mother resided in