New York dispatch. [volume], February 07, 1886, Image 1

About New York dispatch. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1863-1899

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PUBLISHED BY A. J. WILLIAMSON’S MS.
VOL? XLI.-NO. "17? "_
Entered at the Post Office at New York,
N. Y., as Second Class Matter.
THE NEW YOEK DISPATCH,
PUBLISHED AT
NO. 11 FRANKFORT STREET.
The NEW YORK DISPATCH is a journal of light, agree
able and sparkling Literature and News. One page is de
voted to Masonic Matters, and careful attention is given
io Music and the Drama.
The Dispatch is sold by all News Agents of the city and
suburbs, at FIVE CENTS A COPY.
TERMS FOR MAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
SINGLE SUBSCRIPTIONS ..$2 50 a year
TWO SUBSCRIBERS 400 "
FIVE SUBSCRIBERS 800 “
ALL MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS MUST BE PAID IN AD
VANCE. POSTAGE PAID EVERYWHERE BY THE
DISPATCH OFFICE.
Address NEW YORK DISPATCH,
Post Office Box No. 1775.
plays and players.
MR. EDWIN BOOTH.
’•The Tragedians of the City”—A “Muse*
nm” Company—A Glimpse at Booth’s
Career—” Beginning the World
Again”—Weariness oi th©
Stage— A ” Hamlet ”
Reading — The
Next Sea
son, etc*
BY JOHN CARBOY.
“What players are they ?” quoth Hamlet, dusting
a fleck of melancholy from bis brow with hia lace
handkerchief.
••Even those you were wont to take delight in—
the tragedians of the city,” answered the general
courtier Rosencrantz. bracing himself with a smile
for his prince’s next conundrum.
••How chances it that they travel? Their resi
dence, in reputation and profit, was better both
ways,” said Hamlet, as ho tucked the handkerchief
Into bis tunic pocket.
•• I think their inhibition comes by the means of
the late innovation,” answered the pliant Rosy.
••Do they hold the same estimation they did
when I was in the city ? Are they so followed ?”
••No, indeed, they are not.”
•• How comes it ? Do they grow rusty ?”
The “tragedians of the city” are here, and their
names are Booth and Barrett. One of them is stir
nog up the Shakespearean menagerie with the long
poie of ancient usage, and the other Is hustling
Victor Hugo with might and main.
It is Hamlet against Hemani; both shied their
castors into the ring on Monday evening, and the
first round ended last night, with neither one of
them knocked out.
They will come up smiling, at the call of •• time,”
to-morrow evening and begin their second round.
Hamlet is the more ancient of days. His spar
ring matches with his uncle, his little mill with
Rosencratz and Guilderstern, his putting up his
mawloys with his old master of ceremonies Polon
ius, and final contest with the athletic light weight
Laertes which was decided to be a draw—neither
•ne being able to come to time—with the referee
Claudius knocked clean out by a mistake in his
boozo -aP. these evidences of his fine training and
©1 his philosophic turn of mind are recorded in his
biography by Shakespearo.who first discovered him.
His principal backer now is Mr. Booth.
BOOTH AS HAMLET’S REPRESENTATIVE
is well enough, but the seconds and other assistants
selected by him to accompany Hamlet in bis spar
ring tours around the country from city to'city are
not well enough.
On the contrary, take them for all in all, they are
certainly and without exooption—speaking iu a pro
fessional sense, very weak not to say sickly.
With one or two exceptions they are the same lot
that accompanied him hither and were seen in his
exhibitions last season. They are said to bo the
relics of some museum in Boston. Their age as
professors of tbo manly art of acting is a mystery
which it is unnecessary to solve at the present time.
Seriously and to come to Hecuba—Mr. Booth is
once again upon our Metropolitan stag© and not of
himself but through his accessories and surround
ings has once again disappointed his audiences and
brought grief to tho souls of the critical.
Ho is to-day the foremost representative of Hamlet
upon the American stage, and certainly ho has not
now his equal upon tho English speaking stage. He
Is tho fashion, as society goes. Hia melancholy
Dane iu times past won the susceptible hearts and
the admiration of tho romantic young women and
made him the idol of the hour, in whatever city,
town or village he appeared. The mournfully
tender glance of his magnificent eyes as he raised
them to look at the Queen and the tender cadence
©f his tone in the utterance of his first speech
♦•Aye Madame, it is common,” were to the feminine
mind more adorable, fascinating and wildly
worshipped a score of years ago than the latest
•hades of imported silks or a swell wedding on tho
avenue.
Tho craze here began and was brought about by
what was then regarded tho wonderful one hundred
nights’ run of Hamlet at the Winter Garden Theatre.
The run and the theatre wore both managed by
Mr. William Stuart. When tho balance sheet of
receipts and expenditures was made up the man
ager and backer was the loser by many thousands,
but the run and Stuart’s energy and pluck, with his
protege's unquestioned talent, and the fact that he
bore tho name of a great father, gave Edwin Booth
the foundation of his present fame and fortune.
His performance of Hamlet was then accompanied,
by admirably designed scenic assessories, correct
costuming, a magnificence of appointments, and
strengthened by a cast which included the leading
artists and artistes of the time. There was no half
way work in tho production of the tragedy.
MR BOOTH WAS THEN FIRED WITH AN AM
TION
to wear the mantle of his illustrious sire ; he gave
every indication of a determination to make it fit,
even if he bad to rip the old garment all to pieces
and put it together again in accordance with a new
measurement.
Then camo another ambition, born of his success
and popularity : the ambition to build a theatre for
himself, and in that temple to produce Shake
speare’s plays with a grandeur and observance of
hietorio attributes which would prove his greatness
as a manager, a student and an artist.
Booth's Theatre became a visible, substantial, ac
complished fact—and a magnificent evidence it was
of the position he had achieved in the confidence
and affection of h’s friends and the public of the
metropolis.
And of this grand temple, with its costly decora
tions—this fane dedicated to the exaltation of dra
matic art to its highest forms—little Joe McGonigal
was made the business manager, and D. W. Waller
the stage manager. Well, “Hamlet,” “Romeo and
Juliet” and, in fact, all the Shakespearian works in
which Mr. Booth had appeared as the exponent ol
the leading characters, were produced.
But with Mr. Booth's time, attention and facul
ties devoted to his end of the dramatic schooner—
that of acting and attending rehearsals—what other
result than that which came about could have been
expected, with McGonigal’s incompetency in front
of the house, and Waller’s tie wig autocracy and
fogyism in tho government of tho stage?
Tho end was inevitable. The stage management
left to Antiquity and the financial and general busi
ness conduct to Pretension—the solid temple erect
ed at so much cost by Mr. Booth for a nobler pur
pose, became, so far as he was concerned—a castle
in tho air. With it went from him a hard-earned
fortune, and he had to “begin the world again”—
and fight the weary battle over again.
And he has fought it and bravely, too—Lut ho
Will never again bo hia own manager.
THE AMBITION FOR MANAGEMENT
died with its failure to compass its object; the am
bition to study, to improve upon the past and attain
the highest possible perfection in his impersoniflea
tion of the characters in which he had already won
fame, began to wane, and with each succeeding Rea
son it has grown weaker and more listless, until
now it is resolved into a mere business of a cer
tainty of so much money per night from his man
ager.
I fancy he is tired of the stage. I can imagine
that it is with a certain feeling of loathing and of
weariness that he enters the stage door to begin his
night’s work. Acting, for him, has lost its charm;
its labor has become perfunctory. It is divested of
its glamour and it is no longer a pleasant duty, but
an onerous task.
Still, with all this distaste, this weariness which
has grown upon him and increased with each recur
ring season, he is yet the only representative of
Shakespearean character who can win crowded
audiences to his presence and bold them in the
thrall of admiration.
It is well that he retains this personal power, for
if, with his weariness of acting, there had come a
loss of his popularity, his retiracy would be an im
mediate and enforced necessity.
And here I come to the evidence that he has
GROWN CARELESS;
that he is indifferent in the service of the art of
which he is a foremost exponent. The company
which fills the cast of Hamlet, for instance, is com
posed of actors and actresses, who, in the ordinary
line of modern stock business, are possibly worthy,
and fill their various lines of work faithfully and
with satisfaction to their audiences.
But look at the members of his company in the
cast—from the grave-digger up to Claudius the
King—do they add to the pleasure and interest of
the audience and to the perfection of Mr. Booth’s
work ?
The ghost, so dir ly and monstrously sepulchral
as to almost cross the line which divides the sub
limity of tragic utterance from the mockery of far
cical extravagance; a King, Claudius, who speaks the
finest and most impressive lines of his part as a
country parson would recite one of Watt’s hymns—
long metre—and who has apparently no more of an
idea of kingly dignity and the strength and import
of the lines which are set down for his utterance
than he has of the whereabouts of the lost Pleiad; a
Pdlonius who is a low comedy ol*d man rather than
a very serious and a sensible old man; for who but
a sensible man—and not the garrulous imbecile
which he is so often represented to be—could give
his son the advice he did, embodied in tbe speech
beginning with, “And these few precepts in thy
memory see thou character. Give thy thoughts no
tongue, etc.”
The time has gone by when one great actor can
carry a Shakespearean play through with his own
efforts alone. Time was
IN THE DAYS OF THE ELDER BOOTH,
When the •• Stars ” were the salvation of a season
in the theatre—and that was tbe period also when
stock companies were the rule and not the exception
—a theatre which depended upon the succession of
stars—Booth, Forre«t, Addams, Murdock, Charlotte
Cushman, and other equklly as famous, to carr/ its
season through—bad its stock company engaged,
not so much in reference to the excellence of the
talent of each individual in it as to its general
ability and experience in study and legitimate work.
It was solely the star—the Cashman or the Forrest
whom the audiences crowded to see; they cared not
a sou markee as to tbe company, so long as its
members spoke their lines without baiting and had
sufficient knowledge of the business of the scene
net to injure tbe effect of tbe star’s efforts.
Now the demand ot the audiences is that all the
characters in a play shall bo acted; that in Hamlet
every one, from tho servant that carries a lamp, to
Hamlet himself, shall stand forth as nearly a realiza
tion as possible, in action, speech and costume of
Shakespeare’s intent as expressed iu tbe language
and argument of the tragedy.
Is thia the case with the performance of the
tragedy of Hamlet by this Boston Museum Com
pany ? Accepting tbe criticisms of almost the entire
press ; the expressed opinions of tho majority of the
groat audiences as they pass out into the night at
the close of the performance, and last of all the
direct and indirect comments of such of the pro
fessionals who have seen it—as evidence, there can
be but one dicision—and that is. No 1
Booth is all there is of it. Now, why not Mr.
Booth merely read or recite tbe part of Hamlet, in
costume, from the stage, in front of the curtain ? So
far as the assistance of some of the companies who
have supported him in the past few years are con
cerned, I think it would have been equally as ef
fective and certainly a relief to his audiences. Mr.
Booth is
AN HONOR TO THE ENTIRE ENGLISH SPEAK
ING STAGE;
be has been cherished and sustained throughout all
his periods of trouble as few artists have ever been
and ho has, so far as his talent has had expression
received an ample and well-earned reward.
But, to use a familiar phrase, “It won’t do to
monkey with the audiences nowadays. Cheap com
panies—or high-priced pretentious companies—who
are incapable of giving perfection to a play, will not
by their incompetence, make brighter and more
prominent the work of the star whom they sup
port. Strength cannot be made the stronger by con
trast with weakness.
A jewel does not shine any the brighter when
surrounded by a handful of dirt or a circlet of com
mon pebbles. The setting of the gem has much to
do with the public estimate ot its value.
When next season he passes into the management
of Mr. Lawrence Barrett, it is not likely Mr. Booth’s
stage Bettings and the cast of his plays will be as
inadequate as they have been since his own theatre
passed forever from his possession.
And with the encouragement and vitality which
the restless activity, energy and experience of Mr.
Barrett will inspire Mr. Booth in this new venture,
his next season will be brilliant and memorable.
A LAWYER’S OBJECTIONS.
BUT THE COURT LOOKED ON
THEM AS MELTING SNOW-
FLAKES.
Antonio Carmono, who keeps a liquor saloon at
No. 126 Mulberry street, was charged with harbor
ing minors. Officer Wimmer, of the Sixth Precinct,
was tho complainant.. Before pleading. Carmono’s
counsel raised any number of objections. He moved
to dismiss on the ground that the affidavit hadn’t
been signed.
The court said that was a mere technical objec
tion, and overruled it, and ordered the officer to
sign his complaint.
Counsel asked that the papers be sent back to the
magistrate for examination, the prisoner’s right.
The motion was denied, it was too late; the pa
pers had been made straight by the officer fixing
his jurat to them.
Counsel asked to dismiss on the ground that.there
was no sworn affidavit when the case came to trial.
The motion was denied, that defect had been per
fected.
He again moved to dismiss on the ground that it
was not alleged that it was a concert saloon ora
place of amusement, the complaint having been
taken under Section 219 of the Code.
Tbe motion was denied. It was a liquor saloon,
that was enough.
Officer Wimmer, of the Sixth Precinct, on being
sworn, said that on the 30th of January he visited
the premises No. 126 Mulberry street, and saw chil
dren there, at a few minutes past nine in the even
ing. Saw several men drinking beer. Going back
to the pool table he saw four or five lads there and
two boys, one having a cue in his hand. Prisoner
was the proprietor, and had a schooner of beer in
his hand, and drank it.
Cross-examined he said be was in the place five
minutes.
•• What caused you to go in ?” asked counsel.
•• Some one brought a drunken man out, and
stood him up against the house to be taken in by
the policeman.”
NEW"YORK.“SUNDAY, FEBRUARY"' 7. '18867
•‘ There was no singing or music in the pool
room ?’•
“ No.”
'• Did you see any drinking in the poolroom ?”
*• No, but I saw his partner draw beer to carry
there.”
•• How do yon know he has a partner ?”
“ Because I arrested him not long ago.”
•' Did you see boys loitering there ?”
“ Yes, sir, night after night for some time. I saw
them last week.”
•' Why didn’t you arrest them?”
•• I wanted further evidence.”
Two boys were called, found in the place. One
said he was aged fifteen, and went in to see poo 1
played. Dennis Shea, residing at No. 91 Canal
street, one of the boys, said he was there when the
officer entered was in tho habit of going there once
in a while.
Defendent said he never saw the boys in his back
room. Did not permit boys to lounge in his place.
Frank Meyer said he was in the habit of visiting
this place. Boys were not often in there, but two
came in and the officer right after them.
The police had complained against the house but
not the man. Antonio was fined SSO.
THE BOFMM!LER.
A Rogue who Fleeced Princes
and Plebeians Alike.
MR. JOHN ARTHUR, BANKER.
A Character all Foreigners in Paris
Paid Tribute to.
the ni.Tio of a yovr.i..
Dealing in Family Sacrets and Lending
Money at Fifty Per cent.
DEAD FROM A PISTOL SHOT.
The time has passed when the usurer of the old
English novelist throve in his little den up some
black and filthy court, growing fat, like a
golden spider, with the auriferous blood of his
victims. The stringent laws enacted against usury
have deprived him of the means of plundering tbe
extravagant and the needy without interference or
rebuke. But the business of note shaving and
money lending at large rates of interest is by no
means dead yet in Europe. It is, indeed, prosecuted
with a freedom and success quite amazing to any
one unaware of the means adopted by its prac
tices to evade the rigorous statutes enacted against
them. Its character has greatly changed, however.
The usurer is quite as often a Gentile as a Jew now,
and be he a Gentile or Jew he is generally an ex
tremely gorgeous person. He no longer does bus
iness in a back garret but has a big office on the prin
cipal street and a housefull of attendants to keep it
from getting dusty. He buys and sells properties,
and is ready to handle anything, from the domains
of a prince down to the diamonds of a demimond
aine-; from a family estate to the stock of some
bankrupt picture dealer or wine merchant. It ts
behind the guise of this legitimate trading that he
disguises hrs real business.
THE BOSS BLACKMAILER
In his famous novel, “The Kings in Exile,”
Alphonse Daudet drew the character of one of these
leeches of society. He described him in his gorge
ous offices, and detailed at facinating length his
relations with his victims. He selected as his original
lor this picture the most intreped, brilliant and
successful usurer and blackmailer probably in the
world, a man whose iniquities had won him a
princely fortune, and whose soul was stained with
the blood of at least a dozen mon whom bis exac
tions had driven to despair and desperate death.
So truly was the portrait drawn that it is to
have nearly put an end to the nefarious business of
the original for the time being, and galled him so
that he endeavored to force the novelist into a duel.
Every American who has resided with his family
in Paris, no matter for how short a time, nor
whether he rented an apartment on the Boulevard
Montmartre or a palace in the “American Quar
ter,'' must have heard of, and almost without a
doubt made the personal acquaintance of the
original of Daudet’s vampyre, in. the person of John
Arthur, the English banker, of tbe Rue Castiglione.
For tbe twenty years ending in 1883, when he was
in such a hurry to make a trip iuto the country
that he neglected entirely to make his adieux to bis
associates an 1 patrons. It was the business and
pleasure of Mr. Arthur to personally pay his re
spects to every new arrival from this country or
Great Britain, and immediately offer his services in
the procuration of anything and everything procur
able, from an artist s studio on the sixth floor to a
princely palace, from a bottle of blacking to a ballet
girl. It was from his sauve lips that the modest
representative of our grand republic, just arrived
at the gay city, blushingly heard himself for the
first time addressed in the princely formula of
“Your Excellency,” and made to feel th it every eye
in the hurrying crowd of the St. Lazairo depot was
turned upon him in reverential awe. Sometimes,
indeed, Mr. Arthur would be the first to board the
steamer on its arrival at Havre, and by his constant
use of tbe grandiloquent title conjure up in the
mind of our representative, ten-story visions of tho
glory that awaited him. Then this “English and
American banker,” with his squat figure, his broad,
ruddy face, and curled side whiskers, would take
charge of the party, and for two or throe days make
himself indispensable to them, for •• His Excel
lency” rarely spoke a word of French. In this way
Mr. Arthur became the factotum of several Ameri-'
can ministers, furnishing thorn with houses, pic
tures and plate, servants, horses, wines, and even
the provisions their households consumed.
A SAD DISAPPOINTMENT.
General Noyes was an economist, so beyond
securing an apartment for him and executing a few
commissions, Mr. Arthur had little business rela
tion with the Embassy—as he always called it—
during the four years of the general’s term. But
when Mr. Levi P. Morton was appointed, heralded
as a millionaire banker and a leader of society, Mr.
Arthur’s per centage ambitions rose to a towering
point of expectation. Here, he congratulated him
self, was a bird to pluck indeed, a real golden eagle.
It was, indeed, through Mr. Arthur that the now
minister leased the splendid residence in the square
now called in honor of the nation he represented,
the “Place des Etats-Unis,” but the obsequious
agent found, to his great disappointment, that here
his harvest ceased. Minister Morton was a man ot
the world, in spite Qi his millions, and knew how
to take care of himself and them. He had sufficient
reliance on his own judgment and taste to furnish
his own homo; if he wanted pictures or furniture
or wine he went to tho studios, or the cabinet
makers, or tho merchants, himself; he did not want
to hire any servants to betray his secrets to the
agent he hired them from, because he had brought
his own servants from America with him. He knew
more about horses than Mr. Arthur himself and in
brief, dispensed entirely with his services.
Mr. Arthur’s commissions from wealthy Ameri
cans, however, must have yielded a substantial in
come, and if those of England bore any comparison
with them, the banker must have coined a fortune
from this comparatively fair and above-board
branch of bis multifarious business alone. But he
was by no means dependent on the Americans and
English alone. He possessed a smattering of many
languages, and never confined his professional
operations to the English-speaking race. It was he
who secured for the exiled Queen of Spain the
splendid palace on tho Avenue d’Eylau, where she
held her mimic court; that of the Duke de Com
pofelice—who married one of sewing machine
Singer’s many widows—nearby; for the ex-Khedive
of Egypt, the pretty villa on the banks of the Seine,
in the village which Villemessant. the founder
of Le Figaro, made his home, and many splendid
residencps for private spendthrifts of all nationali
ties, he procured and improved and refurnished,
Fearless and Independent.
He was especially fond of the Russians, who always
turned up in Paris with a wagonload of money and
generally left it, thanks to his friendly efforts, on a
free pass. The following extract from a letter writ
ten last month to the writer, from Paris, will give a
glimpse of the man as he was:
••I suppose you have heard that John Arthur has
committed suicide ? You remember him, of course.
We have all thought him dead these three years and
more. Four years ago I sauntered into his bank
ing-house near the Vendome Column, where he
employed some dozen or so of clerks. I accepted
an invitation to ride out to his house and dine.
Two magnificent English cobs were brought round
and off we cantered up the Champs Elysees and
through the Bois de Bologne, on the confines of
which his residence was situated. On the way we
talked freely together, but Mr. Arthur was as nega
tive In his conversation as a well-trained French
priest, and so confoundedly deferential that our
talk was devoid of interest. Mr. Arthur would be
deferential to a groom, for that matter—if it was not
his own groom. Yet at this time he was popularly
supposed to be worth millions, and probably was.
His house stood in a large, well-planned park, much
resembling in its general outlines many English
country mansions, and all its appointments were
calculated to give the idea of sound commercial
prosperity. Two years later, however, Mr, Arthur
absconded, leaving little to satisfy his numerous
creditors, and, it was reported, had gone to your
country. It was thought at the time that this was
but the coup d’etat which was to crown and end his
life of sharp practice, so far as Paris was concerned,
but to-day this is disproven. Rash speculation ac
tually did bring him to financial ruin, and on Tues
day last this energetic, calculating man of the world,
in refuge at his sister’s home in Oxford, put a pistol
to his temple and blew out tho brains which, erst
while, had held in despicable bondage those who
had commanded thousands.”
A BLACKMAILER’S METHODS.
The methods adopted and pursued by this phe
nomenal scoundrel would furnish in themselves
the plots for a hundred romances. He had three
great sources of income : first and least, his com
missions and the profits on the purchases he made
for wealthy foreigners; second, the gains of his
business as a usurer, and third and greatest of all,
his blackmail. He was a perfect mineof family se
crets, ’gathered from all sorts of sources, which
he sold to the highest bidder. He had the courage
of a Fra Diavolo in the prosecution of his schemes,
too, and would as readily extort money from a king
as from a blackleg. When he furnished servants to
a family they made regular reports to him of what
went on there, and of what they could find out
about the people they were supposed to serve. The
use that he could often make of such information
can bo readily imagined. He knew all of the higher
class of loose women in Paris ; loaned them money
when they needed it, and aided them in their
schemes for fleecing their lovers ; introduced rich
men to them, and then used the knowledge to make
the rich men bleed. Queen Isabella of Spain paid
him a regular income to hold his tongue about cer
tain of her affairs which he had discovered ; it was
he who helped Fanny Lear, the ex-mistress of the
Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, bleed Lloyd Phoe
nix, of New York, out of $150,000. Mr, Arthur
pouched half of this spoil. When Peter B. Sweeney
first landed in Paris, he paid Mr. Arthur a hand
some sum to fit up a place for him, because he did
not wish to have the story of his New York vil
lainies told. There was apparently no limit to the
scope of his operations. He could talk every living
language, and he knew everybody. He was a dan
gerous man, whom weak people without secrets
paid for his good will, and whom people with se
crets paid to hold his perilous tongue.
The scheme by which he carried on his usury
business is worth a brief description. He loaned
money freely, and always at a profit of from 25 to
50 per cent. He did not take it in the form of in
terest, which would have brought him in conflict
with the severe French law of loans, but in pay
ment for objects which the borrower was supposed
to buy. Thus, if a man wished a loan of $10,003,
Mr. Arthur gave him a check of from $5,000 to
$7,500, and ostensibly sold him wine, carriages,
horses, or jewels, which were never, however, de
livered. The same stock of goods lasted him in this
way for years. To secure his loan, he took a first
mortgage on the borrower’s real estate, or chattels.
His bills were nearly always paid. He was too strong
and dangerous a creditor to be neglected.
THE VAMPYRE’S VICTIMS.
In 1878, a young Polish nobleman who had come
to Paris with an income of $50,000, drowned him
self in the Seine. In bis pocket was found a note
stating that John Arthur, had ruined him. His en
tire estate had vanished in smoke. That same Win
ter Mr. Arthur was attacked on tbe street by a
young club man whom he had beggared. The
young fellow was found to be raving mad, and died
in an asylum. In 1879, a Russian countess, who
was living apart from her husband, tried to shoot
Mr. Arthur in his private office. This affair, like
others which had preceded, and others which fol
lowed it, was hushed up. The vampyre owned a
paper, whose ostensible head was a smart political
journalist, and with it and his store of secrets he
was a foe so deadly that many people in authority
trembled before him, and kept him in good humor
by winking at his offenses, where they would have
sent meaner criminals to the galleys for any one of
them.
Mr. Arthur is believed to have been beaten at his
own game only once. This was in 1880. In the
Winter of that year there was a great scandal about
the death of an old Italian prince—a millionaire, at
the house of a queen of the demi-monde, known as
Coralie de Bremont. He fell dead of apoplexy at
supper with her, so it was said.
On the day after, however, it became whispered
that he bad been poisoned. As the story went he
had been getting ready to abandon his mistress for
a new flame, and she. had learned of it and killed
him in revenge. It is said that Mr. John Arthur
endeavored to turn this to account by threatening to
print tho story in his paper. He called first on Cora
lie de Bremont. She laughed at his threat.
“Print it,” she said, “ and I will show your wife
your letters to me.”
Mr. Arthur went away and left the story untold.
He had, it was alleged, become enamored of tho old
prince's mistress himself. Ho had begun by intro
ducing the prince to her, and ended by wanting to
be his rival. The letters which he had written to
the woman would have driven him out of Paris, so
he held his peace.
The blackmailer’s ill-gotten millions melted from
him in tbe fierce fire of speculation. He was, in se
cret, one of the heaviest operators on the bourse.
W’hen he fled to England he was almost penniless.
Ho lived with his sister till his last money was gone
and blew his brains out early last month.
A WOiKAN’S FIGHr.
BOTH SWEAR TO LOSING ALL
THEIR HAIR.
Catharine McMahon and Mary King were tenant
neighbors. Mary said she met Kate in tbe hall,
who beat her with a slop-pail. She never spoke
three words to Kate in her life. Mary had a bunch
of keys in her hand at the time, but she didn’t use
them for offense or defense. Kate, after calling her
out of her name—a virtuous woman, the mother
of fifteen children —butted her, got her hands
in her hair, and did not leave a hair in her head,
Mary had quite a respectable showing of that
woman’s adornment left to grace her aged beauty.
Kate then tuok her turn at the swearing.
“Judge,” she said, “I went down stairs with my
scuttle to get coal. It wasn’t a slop pall—she’d
swear to anything. I was putting my ashes out.
I can’t brag o’ a litter o’ fifteen childer. I ain’t a
pig, but what I've got I’m proud of. She said my
sons were robbers. That was false. She went for me,
I went for her and gave her a couple of good boxes.
Then I went up stairs, and passing the door she
knocked at it, and I went out and gave her some
more knocks.”
•• What about her hair, did you leave her bald ? ”
asked the Court.
" Why, she pulled all my hair out, and I told her
that was no way to fight."
Kate didn't seem to have lost a hair either.
"I have big children to support,” continued
Kate. ” She hasn’t a child or chick,.except a Tom
cat. that’s a nuisance.”
" Were you drunk ? ”
“Ican take a glass of ale,” said Kate.
" Was she drunk ?”
"Don’t know. She is never out of a fight with
her neighoors. I’m the last she ‘fit.’ ”
Kate was fined $lO,
BEEE3ESE9SHQKSBS3KE2E3BBH3SSE9
A PARIS ROMM®.
THE BUREAU ON THE RUE SEVIGNY.
The Rust on the Keys and the
Piece of Twine.
The Theory of Lepic, the De
tective.
An Outline of One of the Many Strange
Occurrences in Paris.
Monsieur and Madame Vauban kept a bureau for
governesses and nurses on the Rue Sevigny, Paris.
On their books were many hundreds of names, and
out of these were selected every year many young
and middle-aged women, to whom was committed
the care of the children of well-to-do people in Paris
and elsewhere.
Monsieur Vauban looked like a jolly monk, who
had discarded his cowl and deserted the cloisters,
bringing with him a love of ease and good living,
Madame Vauban resembled a sedate, retired
duenna, who smiled only as a matter of business,
and conversed in a style which might be safely
classed as select and intellectual. Both together
looked so respectable, so trustworthy, so Intensely
proper and virtuous, that the lady or gentleman
who went to them for the first time to consult them
professionally, was at once amazed at their fitness
and capacity for tbo business to which they had de
voted themselves and at the smallness of the fee
which they demanded. These two eminently cor
rect persons had been in business for some years —
so their card informed the inquirer—and had refer
ences of such accumulated respectability that no
one could doubt them to be the only safe and prop
erly qualified individuals in that particular walk of
life in the virtuous city of Paris,
The apartments occupied by this esteemed brace
of worthies for the transaction of affairs were on
the second floor and consisted of three rooms—one
a general reception room for applicants for posi
tions; another a private room for the use of Mons,
and Madame Vauban, and a third, a still more pri
vate room where at certain hours ladies and gentle
men desiring to make special arrangements might
bo seen.
MADAME MARFOY.
On June 17, 1882, Madame Gouvion, residing on
the Boulevard Marcel, applied to Mons, and Mad
ame Vauban for a governess for her two children.
In a week a highly recommended lady of about
thirty was offered at a fair salary to the applicant,
and in due time was installed in Madame Gouvion's
residence. Madame Gouvion was tho wife of a pros
perous manufacturer and lived in fine style. Her
house was elegantly furnished and she and all that
pertained to her were adorned as befitted an in
come of 120,000 francs a year.
Madame Marfoy, the governess, was tho widow of
a naval officer, who had been unfortunate in his ac
counts with the government and had found it nec
essary first to absent himself without leave and
then to blow out his brains. Such was Madame
Marfoy’s explanation of her widowhood, and, in
support of it, an elderly white haired gentleman
once or twice a month called on her, whom she in
troduced as the heart-broken father of her late un
fortunate .husband. Marfoy, pere, was once or
twice asked to stay to lunch and always acquitted
himself as a vigorous feeder, and was enabled to
put away more coguiac and wine than one of his ad
vanced years and crushed soul might be expected
to do. But he was extremely well bred and had a
sister who was the Marchioness de Fremicourt, and
in consideration of her ladyship's once honoring
Madame Gouvion by stopping in her carriage at the
residence oi that lady and leaving a package of bon
bons for her dear niece’s pupils, Monsieur Marfoy!
the elder, was permitted to take all the coguiac and
wine he desired, whenever he was invited to stay to
lunch.
A DREADFUL CRIME.
On September 24, a little over three months after
the engagement of Madame Marfoy, Monsieur Gou
vion went to Lyons on business. The following
night tho house was entered by burglars, who man
aged to open a window in the dining-room on the
ground floor, and cleverly unlocking, with false
keys, it is supposed, no less than four doors,
reached Madame Gouvion’s dressing-room and
sleeping apartment. Madame Gouvion, hearing a
noise in the dressing-room, arose and turned up the
lamp. She was confronted by two masked men,
who seized and gagged her, and threw her upon the
bed. Then they ransacked bureaus and closets, and
departed with jewelry and silver ware valued at
75,000 francs, and 3,500 francs In money. Madame
Gouvion lay at death’s door for many hours, and
was tenderly nursed by Madame Marfoy, the gov
erness.
The police made a very careful investigation into
the affair, and to an expert detective named Lepic,
was given the special care of the case. Assisted by
a competent locksmith he examined the locks which
bad been picked, as was supposed. It was a ser
vant's business, every night, to lock these doors,
and to carry the keys to Madame Gouvion. This,
the servant said, had been done the evening before
the robbery, and the keys were found next morning
on Madame Gouvion’s dressing-table. There was
no sign of any force having been used to open the
locks, and the conclusion reached was that dupli
cate keys had been used. Then followed an inquiry
as to how the duplicate keys'had been obtained, for
each lock was different, and had a key specially
made for it.
RUST.
Lepic examined the keys minutely. Could he be
mistaken ? or was that rust upon two of them ?
Without question it was rust—two spots of rust on
one key, and five spots on another. Whence came
that rust?
Lepic rubbed one of the spots with his finger very
lightly. It came off; a sure sign that the rust was
not of long standing. He examined the window in
the dining room through which the burglars had
entered. It fastened with a brass bolt which en
tered a brass hasp. There were marks on the wood
work which clearly showed that the hasp had been
forced off on the inside with a small chisel or the
small blade of a knife.
“This thing,” said the officer, ’'has been planned
and carried out by the aid of some one inside the
house. The night when Monsieur Gouvion was
away was selected, and the very keys themselves
were passed out to the burglars, so that, having en
tered at the windows, all they had to do was, apply
the keys, and, having accomplished thia end, leave
them on Madame Gouvion's dressing-table. But
how about the rust ? Ah, I see I they were thrown
out of a window upon the grass—the grass was
damp, and hence the rust.”
Lepic went through all the rooms whose windows
overlooked the left side of the house, where there
was a lawn for the children to play on. There were
three windows pertaining to Madame Gouvion’s
apartments, two to the childrens’, and one to Mad
ame Marfoy’s. Above these apartments were five
rooms, used only on special occasions, and unoccu
pied on the evening before the robbery.
A BALL OF TWINE.
In Madame Marfoy’s room Lepic observed a ball
of twine used for macreme work. Part of it had
been recently unwound and then rolled negligently
round the ball. Near the end, the twine was dis
colored and frayed, and a long strain hung from the
end. Lepic examined this twine attentively.
"Theend,” said he to himself, "looks as though
I it had been wet, and this strain would indicate that
OWICE, NO. 11 ERANOORT BT.
a piece had been violently torn off. I wonder
whether the keys were lowered to the ground with
this twine?”
Lepic wandered away down stairs and strolled
out into the grounds. He walked round Ey the
green sward, and was gazing at the ground as
though lost in thought. In reality he was looking
for something, which ho didn’t find. He returned
to the house and sat down in the dining-room.
Then he went up stairs to the corridor on which
the bed-room of Madame Gouvion opened, Pres
ently an attendant came out of the room.
" Is Dr. Remraiquin inside ?” he asked.
"He is,” replied the attendant, looking at him
with curiosity.
" Will you hand him that card ?” said Lepic.
The attendant took tho card, glanced at it and
disappeared within the room. The next moment a
tall, stout gentleman opened the door softly and
came into the corridor.
IT WAS LEPIO.
" Ah, Lepic !” he exclaimed; " is that you ?”
” Yes, monsieur,” was the reply. "Is it possible
for mo to enter the room for two minutes ?”
" Impossible,” was the reply; " the patient is
just recovering consciousness and it would not do
to disturb her.”
" Then, monsieur,” Lepic said, " will you do me
the favor to look upon the carpet and see whether
you can find a piece of twine like this ?”
He drew out a few feet of'the macreme twino and
held it in front of the physician, who raised it on
the palm of his hand and looked at it attentively.
" Yes, I will," the doctor said, and re-entered the
room.
Lepic stood listening, with his head down. A
slight sound attracted his attention and he glanced
alo-ng the corridor. He scarcely moved a muscle,
nevertheless a head which protruded from a door
way near the end of the passage was suddenly with
drawn. The physician returned with something
in his hand.
" Is this what you want ?” he asked.
" That is it," Lepic answered; and eagerly took
from the doctor’s grasp apiece of twine, resembling
that which he had just shown to the physician.
IT FIT EXACTLY.
He thanked the doctor and went down stairs. In
the dining-room he sat down by the window and
compared the end of the twine on the ball with the
piece which the doctor had picked up in Madame
Gouvion’s room. They fit exactly. The prolonged
strand in the one supplied the place of a missing
strand in the other. The end of the small piece
had been tied round something and cut. The loop
had been severed in the middle.
"Just as I expected,” said Lepic; "it was tied
around the keys to lower them, but rested on the
damp grass. The person receiving them cut the
cord and the keys remained on the loop. After they
had been used and before they were deposited on
the dressing table whence they had been taken—a
short time probably before—the string was cut and
thrown on the floor, very stupid and careless for
them—admirable for me.”
Then Lepic wrote a few words on a leaf of his
pocket-book, thus:
"Send Tocain to me at once.
"Lepic.”
He went out into the Boulevard Marcel, and
waited. Presently a messenger came along. He
glanced at his brass plate and said :
“Here you, No. 793; take this on the run to tho
Prefecture on the Rue Monge.”
TOCAIN COMES.
The messenger started, and Lepic went back to
the house. In half an hour’s time, a young man,
who looked like a medical student, strolled by.
Lepic say him from the window, and went out into
the gateway. Presently ho returned with the
youth, whom he called Tocain.
While they were talking in the dining-room.
Madame Marfoy entered. Lepic and Tocain rose
and bowed.
" That is the head I saw in the doorway on the
corridor,” said Lepic to himself. Then he said
aloud ;
"Madame, I am Monsieur Gouvion’s agent, and
this is my assistant.”
Madame Marfoy curtseyed, and the gentlemen
again bowed.
" I have seen you about the house during the
morning,” the governess said. "When do you
expect Monsieur Gouvion ?’’
"We have telegraphed for him, but I cannot say
when he will be here,” Lepic replied.
" Will you have lunch ?” Madame Marfoy asked.
"Thanks, madame,” Lepic answered; "as we
may have to wait here some time, it may be as
well.”
The governess quitted the room, and shortly an
attendant appeared with a lunch tray. The two
detectives seated themselves and ate heartily.
When they had finished, each lighted a cigar and
smoked in the porte cocl ere.
In a few minutes the porter admitted
AN OLD WHITE-HAIRED GENTLEMAN,
who inquired for Madame Marfoy. He was speedily
in the house, and in five minutes returned and
went his way.
" Follow him,” said Lepic, "and return and let
me know where he goes."
Tocain strolled into the Boulevard and followed
the old man.
A long way. Up the Avenue des Gobelins, along
the rue Monge, over the Ponts de la Tournelle and
the Pont Marie, and up a narrow street to the rue
Sevigny. There ho entered the bureau kept by
these respectable people, Monsieur and Madame
Vauban.
Tocain returned and made his report to Lepic.
In the evening Dr. Remmiquin announced that
Madame Gouvion was conscious and coilected. Lepic
spoke with the Doctor, who went to the sick-room
and questioned Madame Gouvion with caution.
Then he saw Lepic.
" The last person with her last night was Madame
Marfoy, the governess," said the Doctor.
" Just so,” said Lepic.
" Madame Marfoy is highly respectable,” the
Doctor said ; " she is the widow of a naval ofllcer,
and came to Madame Gouvion’s through Madame
Vauban, who keeps a bureau and agency on the
rue Sevigny.”
Lepic started as nimbly as it was possible for so
self-possessed a man to start.
" Just so,” he said.
MARFOY ALIAS TOCANIER.
Half an hour later a cab drove from the Gouvion
residence. Inside were Lepic, Tocain and Madame
Marfoy. The same night the governess was exam
ined by the Juge d’lnstruction, but knew nothing.
The next morning, when Monsieur and Madame
Vauban were in custody and confronted with her,
she knew more.
Her real name was Tocainer and she was the wife
of a notorious forger, then in prison. Vauban’s
agency was the headquarters of as vicious a gang
as had ever infested Paris. For years the old man
and his wife had acted as the agents of libertines
and lured hundreds of girls to rum. Round them
had gathered a host of thieves and cutthroats,
whose mistresses and wives had been distributed
in the community to aid the commission of crime.
The woman Marfoy, or Tocainer, admitted the as
sertion of Lepic's theory aud gave information
which led to the capture of Pampon and Joubert,
two skillful thieves and assassins, who had done
the job at Madame Gouvion’s.
Seventeen arrests were made, and a clew to three
times that number of crimes, perpetrated in Paris
and its environs within a year, was obtained.
These crimes ranged from shoplifting to outrage
and murder. At another time particulars of these
atrocities may be given, but at present the writer
will deal only with the crime at Monsieur Gou
vion’s.
RETRIBUTION.
Pampon and Joubert went to hard labor for life.
Marfoy, or Taconier, received a sentence of ten
years. Monsieur and Madame Vauban were fined
25,000 francs and imprisoned for ten years.
The bureau of robbery, lust and blood was broken
up. But in Paris the vilest criminals always have
heirs or friends who succeed to their nefarious
business, and no doubt there are other respectable
old couples who are at this moment engaged in the
same wicked profession. In fact, it is believed that
the white-haired old gentleman, before alluded to,
who was a sort of factotum for the Vaubans, is at
this moment the head of a bureau, having eluded
the police and changed his wig and complexion,
and procured another daughter-in-law and another
noble sister, and a perfect specific for the broken
heart with which ho was at one time afflicted.
PRICE FIVE CENTS.
A T W A K ING.
BY SYDNEY R. THOMPSON.
I bore dead love unto his grave,
Beneath a willow, in Winter’s rain,
Where he might feel the branches wave,
And hear me, if he woke again.
One withered rose-tree on his tomb
I planted, so that, by-and-by,
If he should wake, the rose might bloom.
And I should know, and hear him cry.
I decked his breast with rosemary,
Laid on his lips one violet.
That once he kissed; I think if he
Should wake, he will not quite forget.
I set a crown about his brow,
The crown affection weaves and wears;
At waking, he will hardly know,
I fear, whose diadem he shares.
I placed a lily in his hand—
Sceptre of his dead sovereignty;
At waking, will he understand
Who placed it there, to bloom or die?
I laid my heart, that for his sake
Remembers now no old sweet strain,
Close to his ear; he, if he wake,
Perchance may tune its strings again.
If be should wake I Till death be dead,
Till life begin, and sleep be past.
Till on bis breast be lay thy bead,
And flowers begin to bloom at Ip st-**
O soul, remember ! lest by thee
That unknown sweetness be forgot
Which now thou lookest for, and be
Bid thee "Depart! I know thee not.”
A BITTER CUP.
BY A POPULAR AUTHOR.
CHAPTER VIII.
"I UED TO HIM, AND TOLD HIM YOU WERE FAME.’*
With a heart throbbing wildly, Rose hurries
up stairs, letter in hand, and, turning tho key
in the door to secure herself from all intrusion,
sits down, face to face with the truth at last.
But she does not break the seal at once. With
the ordinary inconsistency of human nature,
she prefers to dally with her fate. She sics with
quickly coming breath, flushed cheeks and
shining eyes, weighing the bulky package, turn
ing it over and over in her hands, wondering at
its contents, doing everything but open it and
sot her doubts and fears at rest. At last, with
a sharp, impatient little laugh, she shakes off
the nervous oppression that hangs so heavily
over her, and says to herself:
“Poor Maud I She has done her worst; why
should I fear her now ?—and sooner or later I
must read her last message.”
She breaks the seal, and several closely-writ
ten sheets fall into her lap. She looks at them
with a curious shrinking dismay, with a sinking
of the heart that was sad enough before.
“So much—what can she have to say to me?
We had few tastes in common, except”— eha
checks herself with a hot, shamed blush and a
scared glance round the empty room, shocked
by her too truthful thoughts, which said,
“except our love for Neal Dacre—the love that
in different ways lias been fatal to us both.”
Impatiently she begins to read, shivering a
little at sight of the familiar writing.
“Rose Fane—when you road this I shall ba
dead, and you will judge me more mercifully
than you could judge a living rival, for with my
life the wrong I have done you will cease. It
may be years before you read these pages ; they
may be time-worn, and yellow; you may have
found another road to happiness, and may have
half forgotten that you ever had or lost Neal
Caere’s love. In that case, the atonement will
be unnecessary, and I shall have escaped the
worst consequences of my sin. It may even be
that your death will precede mine; nothing is
certain but the unforeeeen; or it may be that
some day I shall find courage to look you in the
face, and tell you all, and then—perhaps—Neal
will forgive me.
“But these are all dreams and fancies. I
have to act upon the doctor's kindly and gently
given advice, to set my house in order, and pre
pare for that which at any day or hour may
come—that grim warning of incessant pain
which night and day bids me remember that
the end is at hand.
“Yes, I am a doomed woman, Rose ; I have
worn out the weak heart that was my poor
mother’s legacy, and live only as it were on suf
ferance. It is a curious fate; but I do not
grumble. The knowledge that the end is near
takes the sharpest sting from Neal’s resentment
and from my remorse. He is good and kind,
Rose, but he can be terribly stern when his
wrath is roused, and it is only the fear of bring
ing about that end to which be must look long
ingly that keeps him from openly resenting tha
wrong I have done to you and him, from leav
ing me to die as I have lived—alone.
“ You guess, no doubt, what that wrong was,
but you have yet to learn tho truth. You shall
have the whole story from my own lips. Neal’s
would not tell it to you while I lived, and after
my death he would be generous enough to
shield and spare me, oven at the risk of doing
less than justice to himself. It is for his sake,
more—far more—than for yours—more even
than to make peace with myself, that I set
down this confession now.
“ I loved Neal Dacre always, and I have loved
so few people that the one passion I indulged
in became a monomania. I fought and strug
gled against it with a desperate energy, for,
despite all his liking and gratitude and zeal for
my service, I knew that he did not love me,
that ho never thought of me as a woman to ba
loved. The difference in our ages, the fact that
his mother and sister looked to me as a bene
factress, even the wealth that would have been
a potent attraction to a meaner nature, all these
were so many repellent forces to Neal; my
heart sank day by day with the dull conviction
that, while he gave me the loyal liking of ar
dent gratitude, he would never give me any
thing else, and the more fully I realized this,
the more insensately strong my love seemed to
grow.
“ This was before you came, and until then in
all my misery I had been spared the one pang
that made it unendurable—until then I had had
no rival. Neal’s eyes might never soften as
they rested on my face, bis voice take no deep
ened note of tenderness when it addressed me,
but voice and eyes were equally unchanged
with all others, and had they remained so I
think, through all my madness, I should have
retained sufficient pride and self-respect to hide
my secret. /
“ But you came. So much younger, so much
prettier than I, with your dainty fairness, en
hanced by your morning-robe; your brilliant
beauty, softened by the languor of your grief;
and almost in the first moment of your meeting
I saw a look that had never before been there in
Neal Dacre’s eyes; knew that without effort or
consciousness you bad made yours at once that