Four brief days afterwards our Strephon has reached Savannah. Again he writes, April 26, 1876, "On board the steamship San Jacinto." To "My blessed good darling wife," informing her that he has "no aches, no pains," and assures her that he is "growing stronger." Then he rushes into particulars in the following unique manner: "I still keep my oatmeal diet and Pepson. God's blessing and infinite mercies on you, my darling. . . . I have had all kinds of horable imaginations about you. . . . I hope Mr. C. K. Garrison will permit you to make next trip with me. Eat no salt smoked meats or fish, or drink no strong tea, but cat oatmeal and what will easily digest, to keep your bowels open. . . . I will, with God's help, be with my dear Marie on Tuesday. I have the Harriet Beecher Stowe and Crane family to bring North this trip, about the last of the crowd. I wish they were landed in New York, as I don't like any of them, but will fight through in a quiet way." This epistle occupies six closely-written and carefully-numbered pages of note-paper, and the lip sign-manual is emblazoned in the usual corner. It ought to be remarked that the captain is an admirable penman, moderately seaworthy as to syntax, but in need of overhauling in an orthographical aspect.
While we are busy with the correspondence, it may be apropos to quote the last amorous letter he penned to his Marie before a cyclonic storm from the nor'east struck the Hymeneal ship, and carried away her masts and rigging, leaving a pair of plunging, leaky bulk-heads on the weary waste of the censorious world's waters. The envelope of this letter is indorsed in a female hand—evidently the forlorn hand of Marie: "Last letter received from my husband." It purports to have been written "On board the steamship Herman Livingston, Savannah, Jan. 5, 1878." It begins, in a modified form, thus: "My darling wife," and takes a flatulent turn almost immediately, "we had a fair wind all the way; a few passengers, and only one lady, which was Lydia. She was very pleasant and no trouble, as she was not sea-sick, and sat in the pilot-house most of the time. I am feeling very well now. . . . It is not necessary to say that I have not drank any strong drinks; that, of course, is finished. I am all right now, you know. . . . I hope, my darling good wife, that you are feeling much better than when I left you, and that your sore throat is quite well by this time. . . . I hope you will take good care of yourself and not get cold. I shall take good care of myself. Little Maria sent me a pretty mug for my New Year's. I will not use my new napkin ring, as it is too nice to be lost or broken here. May God ever bless and protect you, and ever make you well and happy, is my ever prayer of your loving husband, OLLY."
Let not the reader imagine that Olly's love was all of the lip-and-epistolary cheap style. Even as faith without works is dead, being alone, so professions of affection without exemplification would be simply worth "Jocko," and that worthless creature, according to the mariner, was good for "nix." No; the captain had presented his darling with diamonds—a cross, for example, which cost $1,000, and a watch and chain and other jewelry, amounting in the whole to $2,800.
The impartial reader, therefore, from the excerpts of his correspondence and the summary of the jewelry, will be enabled to form a pretty fair idea of the esteem in which the captain formerly held his wife. Ah! but then the reader is not aware that Olly is very handsome, and so very, very gay! Olly's immaculate shirt-bosom was in the habit of bristling with diamonds, in the midst of which, like a headlight at the mizzen-top, coruscated a diamond cluster pin.
Marie was not jealous without a cause. Of this, every lady who has read thus far is morally convinced. Marie and her "spy" had discovered the cause, just sixteen brief days after Olly had penned that remarkable letter, with a benediction and a "kiss-me" lozenge at the end, Mrs. Hazard and her maid, Esther Doerner, hied them down and across town until they reached a boarding-house on West Ninth street. What happened in this high-toned hash dispensary let Miss Margaret Gilman, an eye-witness, proclaim by her affidavit:
"At half-past eight in the evening, Mrs. Hazard came in and went to a hall bed-room in the front, and knocked at the door of said room. She was accompanied by her maid, Esther Doerner. After she knocked, the door was opened from within by Lena Kimball. Lena attempted to close the door, but Mrs. Hazard's superior strength forced an opening, and she and her maid entered." Now let lynx-eyed Esther take up the narrative for a brief space: "Lena was but slightly clothed, having only a skirt and a sacque on. Lena asked: 'Who is this woman?' Mrs. Hazard replied, 'I am his lawful wife—you are his mistress!'" Then ensued a scene which Margaret and Esther are in accord in describing: "Lena attacked Mrs. Hazard, slapped her in the face and pulled her hair, said captain, meantime, holding his wife's hands and thus preventing her defending herself!"
Let us hear Miss Margaret C. Gilman, who is a dressmaker, a little further: "About the following Thursday I visited No. 106 West Sixteenth street, at request of said Lena Kimball, to arrange about a dress for her, when I saw said Captain Hazard enter the room of Lena. I left them together, alone. Lena told me that the captain would commence proceedings for a divorce from his wife."
Progressing chronologically onwards, we come to another day when Olly and his wife were quarreling at a great rate in their home up-town. It appeared that the captain had between $4,000 and $5,000 deposited in the Seamen's Savings Bank, and his wife was anxious that the money should be drawn and be equally divided between them. To this Olly demurred, whereupon the irate wife locked her faithless lord in the house, and kept him a close prisoner till he threw up the sponge and promised to accede to her demands. He obtained his liberty, and ostensibly left the house for the purpose of drawing the money and transferring $2,000 of it to his wife's account. What he did do was to draw the cash, go to his brother-in-law's, pay some debts, and then hand $3,000 to Lawrence Phillips, an insurance broker, at 85 Beaver street.
Of course, Olly did not return to his "blessed and darling wife" that night, nor the next, nor ever again. He had, no doubt, an attack of the old "horable imaginations," and deemed it advisable to put himself on an oatmeal diet somewhere in New Jersey. What he did do, as Marie's detective discovered, was to proceed with Lena to Taylor's Hotel, Jersey City, where they registered as Mr. and Mrs. James Peake, of Philadelphia. While enjoying this voluptuous seclusion with the fascinating young blonde, Olly was plotting mischief and otherwise conspiring against the forlorn Marie's peace and happiness. The following documents disclose the form their unchaste deliberations assumed. On the eleventh of February, the ill-used Olly sent a freezing letter to his wife, from which we quote:
"In view of the unhappy relations which exist and have for many years existed between us, I have reached the conclusion that it is impossible for us longer to live together as man and wife. Your manner of treating me has been so outrageous that it is necessary, in order to live with you that I should sacrifice my manhood, my independence and my self-respect, as well as the respect of all the members of my family and of my friends. While I believe your conduct would, in the eyes of the law and society, warrant me in refusing you all support, still I am inclined to deal liberally with you, and I have clothed Mr. Stanton, my counsel, with power to arrange the details of a separation." He then goes on to state that, in such an arrangement, certain considerations should have full weight, to wit: "That I am at present suspended from my situation, and that you assert you brought about my suspension; that you have a very comfortable home, for which I pay the rent, with about $5000 worth of furniture, which I would be willing to turn over to you; that you have valuable diamonds, and that I have given you a great deal of money of late."