New York dispatch. [volume], February 21, 1886, Image 1

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

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VOL. XLI.-NO. 19.
Entered at the Post Office at New York,
N. Y., as Second Class Matter.
THE NE’W YORK 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
so 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:
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VANCE. POSTAGE PAID EVERYWHERE BY THE
DISPATCH OFFICE.
Address NEW YORK DISPATCH,
Post Office Box No. 1775.
playFanojlyers.
ZEUS AND AMANDA “JAY.”
The Jays, from Jayville, have a Box-
Prince Davis, of the Chateau de Mi
ner—Ouida’s Roman Camille —
A High-Toned Cast—Horace
McVicher Has an
Opinion,
BY JOHN CARBOY.
When the •‘Jays,” Zeus and Amanda, direct from
Jayville. with the blush of hay fever love upon their
cheeks and hayseed in their hair, put in an appear
ance in a city theatre in their store clothes, they
furnish more solid entertainment to the people sit
ting near them than the stage performance, what
ever it may be.
Last Saturday evening I wandered into Frank
Murtha's New Windsor Theatre.
The audience was large and there was not an eli
gible orchestra seat unoccupied. The play was
••Camille.” The Camille for this special occasion
was Miss Affle Weaver. She, in private life, is the
wife of Mr. Horace McVicker.
Horace is not a physical Stalwart, nor is he exactly
mentally a Mugwump. On this evening Horace was
nervously twitching himself about from one place
to another in the lobby, anxious as to the success of
his better half in the character which she had con
sented to play at very “short notice,” and had
studied only since rehearsal.
Frank Goodwin and Frank Murtha, another
Frank—it wasn’t Gayler—and Martin, the owner of
the theatre, were in the last laps of a talking
match, with Murtha a little ahead, when the or
chestra struck up.
Frank presently fired the Horace and two or three
ethers, the subscriber included, into the managerial
box, for one act only.
At the front of the box sat a loving pair of
JAYS OF THE MOST PRONOUNCED TYPE.
One middle-aged, who, if his head had been
turned around, would have been as hollow-backed
and full-breasted as a P. R. Hercules. The other a
buxom, bright-eyed young woman.
Bhe was dressed regardless of color and fit, and
there was sufficient evidence of muscular develop
ment in her build to warrant the belief that she
could—when at home on the parental farm—have
gathered the family cow by the horns and thrown
her over the barn yard fence with the ease and
grace of a “real devilish” dude throwing a kiss
from his finger tips at a passing ballet girl.
As the curtain went up, they divided their atten
tion between a close observation of the movements
of the people on the stage and a study of the cast
as printed in the programme.
Directly, De Varville—he was about the worst
De Varville I have seen this many a season—made
a passing reference to the Champs Elysee.
Or as he pronounced it in the Peoria stage French
—“Cham Teesy.
Amanda in the box grabbed the programme. The
heads of the honeymoon Jays lovingly leaned to
gether, and their four eyes, aided by her finger, be
gan a search.
••I say ’Manda, I don’t see the name in the list—
Les see—what’d he say’t was?”
“Oh Zeus—it was one oi them French women—
Sham Lizzie—they forgot to put her name in here.
Never mind, she’ll come out ’fore the show’s over.”
Then Nanine said something about the Boule
varde.
“There's ’nother one that isn’t down,” said Zeus,
with another dive at the cast—Bully Yard—guess
that’s the villain that's goin to carry off Camil.
Seems so.”
Horace McVicker sitting beside me with an
EXPRESSION OF DIABOLIC RESIGNATION,
murmured to Goodwin, “Wonder what those Jays
will have to say about Affies’s Camille.”
“They are the Chicago brand, Horace.”
The Junior McVicker didn’t have long to wait for
the Jay criticism.
“ That’s Ar-mand” opened out Zeus—pointing at
Ebenezer Plyrnpton, who was worrying the charac
ter into a cross between an English swell and a Miss
Nancy. •• That's him. That’s Camil—see ? Well,
she ain’t much, anyway—to ’low sich a sick lookin’
canvas-back as him come foolin’ ’round her.”
Then Amanda got in with an opinion on the Ca
mille.
“ What an awful cold she’s got. She ought to
take suthin for it. Don’t s’pose they dare have any
stoves back there ’mong them paintins for fear o’
settin’ the place afire. My, my, those actin’ wim
roen must have a hard time of it. That ere cough
’ll kill her ’f tain’t tended to.”
“This is only makin’ b’leeve, ’Manda.”
“ Makin’ b’leeve ? Not a bit of it. S’pose I don’t
know what a real, distressiu’, hackin’ cough is?
'lf she's got a husband hangin* about loose any
where, he’d better take her home and tuck her into
becVand dose her with a sweat.”
••’Manda, them actress wimmin’s husbands
AIN'T MUCH GOOD, ANYWAY,
*er they wouldn’t let their wives be kissed and
mauled about and hugged and made love to every
night upon the stage there, ’fore a house full of
people.”
“ Shet up—that gawk Ebenezer’s going into a fit.
Jes’ look at him I”
Horace oozed out of the box, Frank followed, and
the subscriber brought up the rear of the retreat.
And Horace, shortly after being soothed and sus
tained by a prescription—involving as its principal
ingredient a tan-colored fluid—formulated by Doc
tor Murtha, assisted by Goodwin and others—
turned on the tap of his conundrum mill.
••See here, what in the name of hallelujah are
Jays good for, anyhow ?”
•• To sit out the new Camille’s,” said Goodwin.
“Well, at any rate, Affie’s Camille isn’t a hand
kerchief wringer.”
At this moment Charles, Prince de Davis, then on
his way to les peuples Chateau do Miner, flashed his
diamond solitaire upon the party.
Davis has been a traveler. He has in bis journey
ings taken iu Allahabad, Hyderabad, Fyzabad, Se
conderabad, and all the other dambads of India; has
had a surfeit of Kandy in Ceylon, has Shanghaied
it in China, and fished in Poverty Bay—well he has
seen it all.
He isn’t a Buddhist, and I do not imagine hie
oriental travels have imbued him with any special
regard for Joss, or any other idols, with or without
wheels.
If there is anything Davis does admire—next to
an irredeemable Jay it is—a.diamond in the rough.
Ho has
A CABINET COLLECTION
of uncut diamonds which he gathered in his
journeyings around the world. One—an old mine
specimen, which looks very much like an ordinary
pebble—certainly it is not any more brilliant in its
present condition —weighs six carats.
“Do jou jvhat. T’. u izoiug to do with that ?”
he said one day when he was showing me his col
lection. “ I’ll tell you, I’m going to have it cut and
set and present it as a just and deserved reward to
the first leading woman I meet who, having been
acting ten years, will make an affidavit that she has
never played Camille or Juliet. And I’ll have
another one cut and set for the woman who will
take an Iron Clad Swear that she has never wanted
to play Camille.”
On this evening he dawned upon the party in
front of the Windsor—with a dollar bill in one hand
and a gold-headed cane in the other.
The dollar bill was sufficient for his admission as
a member of the party; the gold-headed cane gave
a tone to the group.
That and Frank Murtha’s six hundred dollar
watch and chain were passports which would have
ensured their owners a respectful hearing from the
most callous of East Side barkeepers.
“ Who’s the Camille to-night, Frank ?” queried
Davis.
•• Affle Weaver,” answered Murtha.
“ Mrs. McVicker, sir!” interpolated Horace proud
ly. And a moment later he added—“ Drop in—
third act’s on now—- —”
“Thank you,” said Davis. “That reminds me.
When I was in Italy I indulged in a month of the
genuine American luxury of loafing—regular efgh
teen hours of hard work doing nothing—in Rome.
I invited my soul and loafed. I met a party of
Americans—one or two New Yorkers in it. One day,
in the Palazzo Sanfriana I was introduced to an
Englishman, who insisted that I should be his com
panion in the patronage of an amateur performance
to be given that evening at the Villa Ludovisi; the
object being for the benefit of some charity fund.
“ The cast of the play included a marchesa, a
duke, two or three swells, a French count, and—
who do you think ?
••GUIDA, THE NOVELIST.
“She was to do the leading part—the title role of
the play.
“It was to be a swell affair. The canaille were ta
booed; the rabble would not be allowed a sniff of
this wonderful dramatic effort.
“I went. The little stage had been erected in the
grand pavilion on the grounds; the scenic settings
were awkwardly arranged, but well painted—evi
dently the work of a capable artist. The costumes
were rich and costly, although the question of fit
ting had not been entertained.
“Whew! What an audience. In that union of
nobs, swells, dried up Italian dukes, counts, and
perfumed no accounts, I felt like a weary tramp in
a strange barn.
“ When that performance closed, and I had got
away from that crowd, I made uuto myself a sol
emn vow—never, so long as I could possibly avoid
it, to be inveigled into a theatre when “Camille ”
was on the boards.
“One dose of the homely, angular, lean and weird
looking Ouida playing Camille was enough for a
lifetime. And such a voice. The Armand was a
rather handsome Marquis, who, in addition to a
faultish dress suit and an immense display of boiled
shirt and patent leather pumps, had his breast
covered with all sorts of orders and Insignia which
made him look like one of those garter pedlars that
you seeperigrinating Nassau street and lower Broad
way. What a heroic stomach he must have had to
smile
“WHEN HE KISSED THAT CAMILLE!
“Phew—l wonder that at the first sight of her he
did not throw up his part—and his dinner as well.
“ Well—her squeaking, shrill voice, her amazing
makeup—Oh Lord, it was a sight! And the elder
Duval—he was a little withered wizen-faced near
sighted, bald-headed, old blue-blooded Duke—if he
had any blood in him at all. He glared at Camille
through an enormous eye-glass, that when in use it
so pushed up his wrinkled brow and forced down
the yellow skin below the eye that it made one side
of his face look as if it had been wrenched out of
shape by a stroke of lightning. Oh, he was a daisy.
The Do Varville was a thin, consumptive fellow—a
fashionable English artist, who throughout his en
tire business smoked cigarettes and posed and stood
around with a discouraged expression in his wall
eyes which seemed to give a funeral droop to his
wonderfully brown and abominably fluffy mus
tache.
“Know their lines? Well, yes, they did, Ouida?
Yes, she was dead letter perfect in her lines—and
that’s all there was in the remotest degree sug
gestive of perfection in her effort.
“After Ouida, no more Camille—in mine. lean
go a Juliet—of the green and salad sort—and sur
vive an occasional dash at Rosalind, but I’m not
going to have a Camille sprung on me—never
again.
“Since then, I never take up one of Onida’s
novels—what a lot of ’em she has fired at the long
suffering public—that I don’t see wherever I open
it, on every page, 'in my mind’s eye, Horatio’—
confronting me, the awful image of her face as
Camille.
“Matilda Heron? She was a glorious type of
beauty and physical perfection compared wtih the
Ouida. Ah—l have it. I can give you something
of an idea-of the get up of that Camille in that Ro
man pavilion; it reminded me of
“CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN’S MEG MERRILES.
“A Meg Merriles, mind you, in a black wig and a
rose-colored silk train dress. Now, then, shall we
paralyze the general drought ? Come, Horace ?”
But Horace had vanished. He had gone into the
Windsor—probably to resume his seat in the box
behind Amanda and Zeus.
When, a few minutes later, Charles the Prince de
Davis had ordered his car—a special of the Surface
Third Avenue line—name stamped on the driver’s
memory—and waved an au revoir from the rear
platform, we entered the House of Murtha. The
fourth act was on.
I looked over at the managerial box. ®he Jays
were there at the front—but not sitting in their for
mer loving attitudes.
Amanda was watching the progress of the play
with wide open eyes, the programme spread out be
fore her on the cushioned rail of the box.
But Zeus, where was he?
Another glance revealed his condition and pres
ence. Ho was sitting at the side, his head resting
against the partition—sound asleep, with his mouth
wide open.
Here was another man, even this poor “Jay,”
wearied out with “Camille;” or, it may be, that the
awful monotony of Plympton’s Armand was the
opium which had lulled his soul to sweet forgetful
ness.
Who knows ?
PREFERS THE PRISON.
TOO LAZY TO WORK, HE STEALS.
Eugene Rosenthall, a dandified young gentleman,
who wore fashionable eye-glasses, was charged with
opening a letter addressed to his roommate, Emile
Ulman ; and abstracting five dollars, a remittance
from St. Louis. Eugene and Emile had roomed to
gether four weeks. Eugene expected a letter from
St. Louis. Defendant received it, went to the post
office and drew the money, and afterward gave him
the letter.
“ Why did you do this ?” asked the court.
“ I had nothing to eat for two days,” said the ac
cused.
“He only roomed with me, that may be true,”
said complainant.
“What did you do with the money ?” asked the
court.
“ I got something to eat and paid the rent,” re
plied the accused.
“ What was the amount ?”
“ Five dollars,” said the complainant.
“ Haven't you been in this court before ?” asked
Justice Kilbreth.
•• No. I never had anything to do with the police
iu my life.”
•• Did he always wear glasses ?” asked Justice
Patterson.
•• Yes, sir,” replied complainant.
•• I have seen him frequently in the labor bureau
at Castle Garden,” said an officer of the Twenty
sixth Precinct, “ and stay and get his dinner. He
represented himself and his people to be rich in the
old country.
An attache of the court said he was convicted six
months ago of robbing a countryman at Castle
Garden.
He was scut to the Penitentiary for five months.
NEW YORK. SUNDAY. FEBRUARY gl, 1886.
A
What Julie Falvert Stumbled
Upon in the Dark.
THE UNKNOWN DEAD.
PERTINACIOUS SERGEANT DUBREUIL.
A STARTLING RESEMBLANCE.
The Missing Husband—Jealousy
of an Ex-Galley Slave.
NICHETTE’3 STRANGE CONFESSION.
When 'Julie Falvert, a vicious young woman, a
little after midnight, in the latter part of November,
1827, entered the dark hall of the house in which she
lived in the Rue de la Loup—a small alley in one of
the worst quarters of Paris—she stumbled over the
prostrate form of a man, lying upon the floor. A
nervous young woman might have been startled in
to uttering a scream, but Julie was not one of that
kind. The night had been a bad one for her. She
had tramped for hours, with the new-fallen snow
soaking through her worn shoes and the sharp wind
piercing her thin garments and sending chilly shiv
ers up and down her spine. She had not succeeded
in attracting the attention of a man; her pocket was
empty as her stomach—than which nothing could
be emptier—and she was so exhausted, miserable,
and desperate that what she most wished for was a
pan of lighted charcoal in a close room.
Instead of being affrighted by the form upon
which she stumbled, she looked upon it as a possi
ble God-send. Perhaps there might be something
in its pockets. She stooped over it in the darkness
to investigate. One of her hands fell upon a sur
face that was wet and clammy with what she in
stinctively knew was blood. The other touched
something hard and cold sticking straight up from
the back of the figure. The handle of a knife. It
was not a drunken man, as she had at first sup
posed, but
A CORPSE.
Then Julie did scream. In a few moments a
crowd had gathered about her, and the police were
quickly on hand.
They turned the dead man over and held lights
above him to see his face. Several at once recog
nized him as a person who frequently came to see
a girl named Nichette, who had a room upstairs
somewhere. But more than that none of them
knew about him. He was dressed as a well-to-do
artisan, was fair-haired and rather good-looking,
seemed to be about thirty-five years of age, and his
hands were hard with toil. In his pockets were
several letters, affectionate and not at all proper,
written by a man to a woman, without envelopes,
address or signature. There was also a little money,
nothing more.
Out of his back they pulled the blade that had
killed him—a long and keen butcher-knife, with a
bone handle. One thrust of it had been enough, for
it had cleft his heart in twain.
Nichette was found in her room, abed and asleep.
Although very much alarmed when awakened to
confront the stern and threatening countenance of
old Sergeant Dnbreuil, who was pushing the police
investigation, she had sufficient prudence to say
as little as possible—so little indeed that the ser
geant looked upon her with grave suspicion. She
recognized the dead man; admitted that he had left
her room but an hour before; affirmed that he was
in good spirits and had no quarrel with her; denied
any knowledge of his identity beyond such ac
quaintanceship as girls of her class might be expect
ed to have, which was not even to that extent of
knowing his name; declared that she knew of no
reason to suspect any one as
HIS MURDERER,
and beyond that had nothing to say. The case
looked like one of simple assassination for the pur
pose of robbery—not at all an uncommon occurrence
in that locality. Something, however, made Ser
geant Dnbreuil doubtful of that explanation, and
when the body was exposed for identification, to
the public gaze, he kept a sharp watch upon all who
came to see it.
In three days nothing happened.
On the fourth, he was startled. A man, very
much muffled up—more than the coldness of the
weather demanded, the sergeant thought—looked at
the body, gave a single involuntary start, instan
taneously controlled himself and quickly went
away.
Dubreuil followed him, unobserved. The man
walked quickly. Again and again he raised his
hand to his eyes as if to dash away tears, but they
might as well have been caused by the sharp wind
as by emotion. Suddenly be turned into a low
cabaret. The sergeant glided in at a side door after
him, heard him order a glass of brandy, saw him
drop the muffling from his face and almost stag
gered at the sight. It seemed to him that
THE DEAD MAN
stood before him. No resemblance could be more
perfect. With a shaking hand the unknown raised
the glass of fiery liquor to his lips and drained it.
The next instant Dubreuil's hand was upon his
shoulder and he found himself under arrest,
Although subjected to a sharp examination by the
commissary of police, the person thus apprehended
successfully evaded giving any information about
himself or the dead man. When closely pressed by
questions he took refuge in sullen silence.
Placed before corpse to which he bore such
an amazing likeness, the tears filled his eyes, but
upon being asked if he recognized the dead man,
he simply shook his head negatively. To give him
time for reflection upon the unwisdom of his course
they locked him up. But a week’s imprisonment
made no change in him.
After that lapse of time, a woman, giving her
name as Louisa Lassen, applied to the police for
aid in finding her husband, who bad mysteriously
disappeared. Her description of him tallied exactly
with that of both the dead man and the one who
was locked up, but could not apply to the former,
since she had seen her husband at home three days
later than the murder, of which sho knew nothing.
When shown the corpse she at first cried out •■ It
is my husband !” but upon more careful examina
tion said: “ No; it is not my husband, but
•' HIS TWIN BROTHER ADOLF.”
The letters found in the pockets of the dead man
were exhibited to her and she at once pronounced
them the writing of her husband. Then she was
confronted with the prisoner and claimed him as
her husband Samuel Lassen, brass-worker, Dane,
and father of her three children.
His identity thus established was not denied by
him and he now admitted that the murdered man
was his twin brother, but beyond that he was silent.
It was readily ascertained that he had been at home
on the night of the murder and that he and Adolf
wore on the most amicable terms, so there could be
no suspicion that he was the assassin, still the
police, mainly through the insistance of Sergeant
Dubreuil, persisted in holding him as a clew—
though, as yet, rather an unpromising one—to the
discovery of the murderer.
All this while Nichette had, unknown to her, been
kept under police surveillance. The day after the
murd-er she flitted to another low quarter of the
city, but, though she came and went freely, she was
never for an hour lost sight of, in her new lodgings,
on the streets, or in the disreputable resorts she
frequented. It was observed that she had taken to
drinking harder than ever before, and that she
seemed to have some secret anxiety that worried
her.
One night her screams brought to her aid the de
tective who was shadowing her just in timo to save
her from being
BEATEN TO DEATH
by a sturdy ruffian, who was so busy beating
her that he did not notice the entrance of a third
person into the room until the officer’s hand clutch
ed his windpipe.
The sturdy ruffian turned out to be hor husband,
Emil Dabrecht, a recently liberated galley slave,who
was furiously jealous of her, and took the most vio-
art grtqjertM
lent exceptions to the manner in which she was
earning her living.
In her excitement, and burning with resentment
against him, she exclaimed:
“ I believe it was he who killed the man in the
Rue de la Loup !”
That did not seem improbable to the police either.
After no little difficulty the commissary drew from
her the following strange story:
•• For several months I was the mistress of Sam
uel Lassen. I had to be somebody’s, f£r my hus
band, who was a thief, was in the galleys on a seven
years’ sentence, and I had no other way to live.
But although I am what I am, I am not a thief and
I am
“NOT A BAD GIRL AT HEART.
“Iknew Lassen was a married man, because he
told me so; but I never thought anything about it
until one night his brother came to see me and told
mo that I was ruining the happiness of an innocent
woman and her three poor little children by the in
fatuation with which I had inspired their father.
He said that Samuel Lessen was giving mo so much
out of his scanty wages that his family were kept
cold and hungry. When I heard that I cried, and
felt as if I ought to be drowned. I told Adolf that I
would go away and never see his brother any more*
He was very kind to me, and offered me all his sav
ings—two hundred francs. I refused them, but
he insisted, saying that I must have something
with which fo go away, and finally I took them, and
I swore upon the crucifix that I would never renew
my relations with his brother. Poor Adolf left me
and went down into the dark hall, where he was
murdered by my jealous
“ GALLEY-SLAVE HUSBAND,
“ I have no doubt. The letters found on his body
were from his brother to me, and I had given them
to him to return them, as a sign that all was at an
end between us.”
When this statement was made known to Samuel
Lassen it so overcame him that he broke down com
pletely, and confessed that so far as his knowledge
went it was all true.
It did not take the police long to fix the murder
upon Emil Dabrecht, who finally confessed that, in
stigated by jealousy, he had killed the wrong man,
and he was sent back to the galleys for life.
BlßßlfyirßATS.
How Skins from the One Help to
Make the Other.
MEN AND THEIR HEAD-CBEAR.
The Invention of Felt Hats and
How they Grew.
THE SILK HAT’S HISTORY.
Australia's Rabbit Plague and the Ruin
It Has Wrought.
A RABBIT-LAW MURDER.
Five centuries ago the first felt bats of which any
written record has been preserved were worn in
Europe. Previous to that time all head coverings
had been knitted or made of clotb. When Crosar
invaded Gaul and Albion, he found their inhabit
ants bareheaded and dressed in skins, and he left
them only the Roman dress, which at best included
a light cap. The invasion of the Saxons gave to tho
Britons the woolen cap called holt, from which our
modern term hats is derived. For many centuries
after, silk and satin and velvet were the favorite
materials from which to fashion the head-gear of
people rich enough to have any choice iu the mat
ter. Tho poor went bareheaded or in rude caps of
coarse ■cloth, or skins worn with the fur out, like
the cat skin cap still popular with the toughs of
London. Thus, from Biblical times down to the
thirteenth century, the fashion in dressing the
bead bad, as far as the common people of the earth
were concerned, hardly changed, and certainly not
enough to make their general appearance different.
ANCIENT FELT HATS.
The first felt hats wero male from lambs’ skins,
and afterward from the skins of beavers, the latter
material continuing to be used till recent times.
The change from lambs’ skin to beaver was not ef
fected without great difficulty, and the record of
subsequent changes in the material and the manu
facture of hats would form a striking and curious
chapter in economic and political as well as in in
dustrial history.
In the sixteenth century the trade guilds and cor
porations all had certain privileges of which they
were jealously watchful, and they had rules and
customs which, under pretext of protecting indus
try and favoring trade, went far to hinder and to
ruin both. The supply of beaver skins becoming
unequal to the demand, some of the manufacturers
had the idea of making hats partly of beaver and
partly of other hair stuff. The new hats, which
obtained the name of demi-castors, had the advan
tage of cheapness, and soon were largely patron
ized by the public. But as beaver was a product of
the French colonies—Canada then belonging to
France—the trade of which was declared to be in
jured by the new fabric, the Guild of Hatters per
suaded the Government to interfere. In 1664 an
edict forbade the manufacture and sale of demi-cas
tors, a fine of two hundred livres being imposed on
the manufacturers, with confiscation of all their
stock.
Deepite this prohibition, however, the public de
mand for demi-castors continued, and merchants
continued to sell them, The law was then made
more stringent. For the first offence expulsion
from the guild was the penalty, with a fine of two
thousand livres, and for a repetition of the offence
a fine of three thousand livres, half to the informer,
while persistence in the sale was punished by
imprisonment! Many heinous crimes were in those
days punished less severely. And still the severity
proved ineffectual. An attempt was made to remedy
the injustice and hardship by affixing a stamp to
all hats already manufactured, and to allow a period
to elapse for using up the material prepared before
the promulgation of these ordounances. This com
promise could not be strictly carried out; new hats
still continued to be made, and it was not till the
middle of the eighteenth century that the State
tolerated the sale of deml-castors.
Felt hats were worn to any extent in England for
the first time in 1510 or so. Their manufacture had
been at that time just introduced there. Some ot
the old chronicles of the time preserve vague stories
about the manufacture of felt caps long before, but
it is certain that there is no definite proof of such
an industry, and, if it was practiced at all, it was
in such a small and modest way as to have escaped
general notice. Beside, no felt caps of a period an
terior to Elizabeth are preserved in any collections,
which is very fair proof that nope existed to be pre
served. The use of felt did not become universal
even in the reign of the virgin queen. In the his
tory of a later reign we read that Guy Fawkes, of
gunpowder plot fame, wore a velvet hat, bequeathed
to him by his grandmother in her will.
ORIGIN OF SILK HATS.
Silk hats appear to have originated in France. In
1760 a hatter of Paris, by name Leprevost, had the
happy thought of making hats of silk stuff, which
were much more brilliant in texture than those
made from woollen stuff. It was a progress, no
doubt, but a progress of the kind not tolerated in
those times. The unfortunate Leprevost, although
he had the distinction of being hatter to the king,
was unable to stand against the hostility of his
brother hatters, who in the name of the rules of
the guild forcibly entered his premises and seized
forty-nine silk hats, which they kept as evidences
of his breaking the law, while they destroyed by
trampling on them no less than 3.071 hats that were
in stock! Thenceforward the silk bat had a hard
time of it, but it gradually fought its way into
favor, first in Italy. In 1825 it got back to its place
of birth and began to be a popular article of wear
in France.
Previous to the introduction of the shiny silk bat
tall beaver bats had been largely worn. These were
made at first entirely of felt, in all sorts of shapes
and with wide and narrow brims. The general rule
appeared to bo to mako a wide brimmed hat of soft
felt and a narrow margined one of thicker and stif
fer material. Sometimes a pasteboard or cloth body
was used to keep the tall crown better in shape.
The first silk hats presented little variation in form
from the felt ones of the time. The difference was
in the substance, not the shape. The earliest silk
hats after the futile invention of Leprovost appears
to have been worn in Florence, Italy. Tall silk hats
first came in for morning or undress wear. For
full dress a hat in the shape of a crescent, which
folded flat, and which is still in use as a part of cer
tain uniforms, was adopted. This kept in favor till
about 1820, when the present opera hat was invent
ed. All gentlemen visiting carried their hats in their
hands at that time, whether calling or at a ball»
and the opera or crush hat speedily became very
popular.
The old-fashioned hatters made a bitter fight
against the silk hat and offered one curious objec
tion to it. This was that it possessed no medicinal
properties while the beaver hat did. According to
them, by wearing a cap of beaver’s fur, anointing
the head once a month with oil of castor, and tak
ing a couple of ounces of the same a year a
man’s memory would become so strengthened that
he would remember everything he read. Even
when beaver had ceased to be beaver and become a
mixture of lamb’s wool and rabbit’s fur, the old
theory of the medicinal value of the beaver’s fur
was upheld.
RABBIT FUR HATS.
The trade in rabbit skins for hat making is now
an enormous industry. The skins are doubly val
uable, the hair being used for felt making and the
pelts to boil down into glue. The present statistics
of the Industry in Europe may be figured from the
fact that eighty millions of skins are collected in
France, twenty-five to thirty millions in England,
almost entirely from the warrens of the sandhills
and woods; twelve to fifteen millions In Belgium,
almost wholly of domestic breed (as are nine out of
the eighty millions of French skins); two to three
millions from Russia, Sweden, an* Norway and four
millions in Northern Germany, yearly. In Austria
and Hungary there are about twelve millions col
lected, but retained for home manufacture. Spain
and Portugal have skins of inferior quality, which
are kept for the hat factories of these coun
tries. France occupies the chief place in the
commerce of rabbit-skins, and this not only in re
gard to quantity but to quality. There is no rabbit
comparable to the French rabbits either to eat or
make hats of. Both xo Belgium and to England
large quantities are exported.
The supremacy of France did not exist at the
start in the rabbit skin trade. In the early part of
this century the Germans and English took the lead
in the preparation of the skins. France was op
pressed by the system of protection and prohibi
tion, and so was unable to take advantage of this
new industry, and it was not till 1847 that the sys
tem of prohibition was relaxed and the protection
of the home manufacture was removed. So far
from this proving injurious to the national inter
ests, it is from that date that we reckon the rise of
a trade which has attained to gigantic dimensions.
Paris, which is the centre of the preparation of the
material, dispatched agents in every direction to
employ brokers, chiffoniers and other collectors of
skins of rabbits and hares, which had before been
seldom preserved for any use. The most energetic
and successful purveyors in this industry were the
Auvergnats, who still remain the chief agents in
the collection. In 1847 the couperies depot’s worked
up two and a half millions of skins; the establish
ments in the provinces consumed about an equal
quantity.
At first the manufacturer collected-and stored the
rabbit skins, and transformed them into hats with
very rude machinery. It is only recently, by the
distribution of labor, always advantageous, that
the preparation of the stuff has been separated from
the manufacture of hats, and the collection of the
skins is organized as a distinct industry. In England
there are now some twenty firms engaged in pre
paring and cutting the skins, the largest of which
firms are in Southwark, and others in Manchester
and Leeds. The industry, altogether, is a very in
teresting one in many respects, and it represents a
living to large numbers of people, including the
collection of skins in the towns and villages
throughout the country, and the hundreds of
women and girls occupied in •'pulling” and in
other operations preparatory to the felting, when
the hat manufacturer enters upon the mysteries of
his special trade.
The value of the rabbit skin trade in England
alone last year was over $1,000,000. There are no
statistics at hand of the trade in this country, but
it is very important, and there are even places
where rabbits are bred in order to provide skins for
the market. This is, however, a perilous experi
ment, as the experience of Australia and New Zea
land with their rabbit plagues will demonstrate.
AUSTRALIA’S RABBIT PLAGUE.
In the natural history of aboriginal Australia
there were no rabbits. Nature knows better than
man, and had decided that Australia was not a rab
bit country. A few years ago an agent sent to Aus
tralia from England had difficulty in procuring
from Tasmania, Melbourne and Sydney a sufficient
number of skins to serve as samples. Man, in the
weak person of a foolish settler, thought he knew
better than Nature, and introduced rabbits—only
one or two to shoot at. The climate and food
exactly suited the rabbits’ constitution, and en
larged its normal fecundity. Moreover, not having
provided rabbits. Nature had not provided the car
nivorous police whose function it is to prevent
undue increase and multiplication of these and
other small deer. In the second year of rabbits in
Australia the foolish settler had good sport with his
gun, and was glad. In the third year the rabbits
had good sport with his crops, and he was sad.
They multiplied by millions, sweeping across the
country in swarms, eating up all before them, and
threatening ruin to colonial agriculture. Farms,
or “runs,” which had formerly maintained 50,000
sheep, would not feed half that number after the
appearance of the rabbits. It became a fight for
life and death whether colonists were to exterminate
the rabbits, or the rabbits to drive the colonists
into the sea.
All Australia, as well as New Zealand, rose in
arms against the ruthless destroyer. The resources
of civilization were called out. Rabbit Acts were
passed by Parliament. A Rabbit Convention learn
edly discussed the matter, and adopted fifty-nine
resolutions, which alone ought to kill a consider
able number of the timid enemy, of sheer fright.
Ordinary methods of rabbit slaughter were found
to be absurdly inadequate. One large farmer who
employed one hundred men, with dogs, and spent
£5,000 a year, gives it as his opinion that of all
means of killing rabbits, men and dogs are the most
useless and expensive yet devised. Phosphorized
oats is a much cheaper and more effective way. It
produces on a single farm a crop of 500 dead rabbits
per day, and an average of 300,000 skins for exporta
tion in the year. Of the various means employed
in this war of extermination, the most efficient are
trapping and poisoning, phosphorized oats and
sulphide of carbon having been found especially
effective. Latterly some specimens of the mongoose
family have been imported from Colombo, and after
being kept in confinement for some time were
turned out on some large estates in those districts
in Victoria and New South Wales where the rabbits
are most numerous, and, so far as is known, the
result of the experiment is said to be most favor
able.
The cost of this quadrupedal pestilence to the
colonies has been simply immense. The local Par
liaments have spent some millions of dollars fight
ing it already, and will probably have to spend mil
lions more. The cost to private individuals has
been colossal. But it has made the trade in rabbit
skins brisk. In 1882, Victoria alone exported nearly
5,000.000, and New Zealand 10,000,000. The popular
hatred of the little rodent extends oven to him as a
pet in Australia. Any man found keeping a live
rabbit is a criminal. He is sent to jail and a reward
of SSOO given to the person who inform* against
him.
OWE, NO. 11 FRANKFORT ST.
A RABBIT LAW MURDER.
This led recently to a curious and bloody tragedy
Ata little village in New South Wales, a man who
kept a grog-shop reported to the local police that
another man, a carpenter, had a litter of rabbits in
his cellar. The carpenter was summoned, and de
nied the charge. His house was searched, and a
she rabbit, with a batch of young, was found there.
He protested bis innocence, but it was without
avail. He was let out on bail for trial. He went to
the grog-shop and accused the proprietor of having
put up a base and sinister job on him. The latter
gave him the lie and ordered him out of the place.
A scuffle followed, and the carpenter was killed by a
stab from his opponent’s case-knife.
The grogsman was now arrested and the matter
thoroughly investigated. The result was to prove
that he long had a grudge against his victim, and,
to satisfy it, had trumped up a charge of rabbit
hiding against him. To support this charge, he
bad hired a tramp to bring him a pregnant sbe-rab
bit, and had put her in his victim’s cellar. The rest
of the story has been told, except tbat.the conspira
tor will hang.
BARNUM’S CIRCUS.
What it Will Be and the Great Number
of People it Will Contain.
THE NEW ATTRACTIONS AND FEATURES.
As the circus season approaches, the curiosity of
the public is becoming more and more interested
in knowing what the attractions are going to be
that Mr. P. T. Barnum is to spread before them this
year in Madison Square Garden, and, with a view of
ascertaining, a reporter of this paper visitpd the
office of the Barnum and London shows yesterday,
and the result is as follows: The combined shows
will open in this city ©n the 29th of March. A
grand torchlight parade will be given on Saturday,
March 27. Madison Square Garden will be arranged
with three equestrian rings, an elevated stage and a
large hippodrome racing track, beside a labyrinth
of aerial apparatus for mid-air performances. There
will be two menagries, an elephant pavilion, a mu
seum of living wonders, an aviary, three circus
companies, a revival of the thrilling races of the
Roman hippodrome, an immense congress of giants
and giantesses, led by Chang, beside midgets and
other curiosities. There will be the skeleton and
skin of Jumbo, prepared by Professor Ward, of
Rochester; Alice, the widow of Jumbo, who is
shortly to arrive from the Royal Zoo in London,
and many specialties from India, France and Eng
land, which have never been seen in this country.
There will also be a marvelous troupe of Arabs,
whose performances have created a sensation in
Europe, as well as a troupe of bicylists, unicyclists,
etc. (their first appearance here).
All Winter long agents have been dispatched
abroad to secure novelties and attractions for this
year’s exhibition, which is is positively stated will be
the grandest in the history of shows. There are
over 300 performers this season and 100 acts are
to be given, embracing everything startling, daring,
curious and new. Mlle. Christine, the double
headed girl, and Lucia Zarate, the midget, will be
two very attractive features also.
When the show travels it will use 80 railroad cars,
have nearly 800 people on the pay-roll and spread
26 tents.
They will have in actual use seven advertising
cars, 500 horses, employ 220 men in advance, incur
a daily expense of s7,ooo—last year the daily expen
diture was $6.800, —and represent a capital of
$4,000,000. It will travel through the Western
States until the Fall, when the entire show will be
shipped to Europe, where Mr. Barnum confidently
expects to create as great a furore as that which an
nually greets him in this country.
The immensity of these shows can hardly be
comprehended by the public from the bare outlines
mentioned, as nothing h-as been said concerning its
Winter quarters, where wheelrights, blacksmiths,
harness-makers, costumers, trainers, hostlers,
grooms, skilled mechanics of all kinds, car builders,
and many others to the number of 200 are kept em
ploydd all the year round, or of the vast number of
foreign agents located in nearly every part of the
habitable world, who are constantly on the alert
seeking wonderful living curiosities and animals for
the museum and menageries. It is the only circus
in the world that enfploys its people by the year.
The printing bills amount to over $350,000 each
season, while its advertising expenses foot up $2,500
per day. Salaries range all the way from SSOO to
$lO per week for performers, but sometimes as
much as SIOO,OOO is paid in a season for some one
particularly good features. The elegant costumes
worn by the employees and others cost over SBO,OOO
and 40 girls are employed all Winter in the manufac
ture and arrangement.
Every year the show has to be better and larger
than the previous year, and this season it will be
bigger than ever before in its history.
EXCISE* MATTERS.
SHOULD HAVE WAITED FOR HIS
LICENSE.
Edward Hortenstein keeps a lager beer saloon in
the Tenth Ward. It was reported at the Station
House that defendent was selling without a license,
the place had changed hands. Officer Collins went
there and found that to be the fact, the new pro
prietor had taken the license up to headquarters to
be transferred, but without gettingJthe transfer,
continued to sell.
He was fined $5. He should have waited tor his
license.
PAINT DIDN’T SAVE HIM.
Adolph Grimmeyer keeps a lager beer saloon at
No. 175 Ludlow street. On Sunday week ago
Officer Dokel entered the place between six and
seven o’clock in the evening, by the hall door,
about ten steps in the halh On entering he found
five men there. The prisoner was at the bar. He
is the bartender, and was in charge at the time.
The defendant said they were painting there at
the time, no beer selling. The door was locked.
One of the painters went out to get some stuff, and
a knock came to the door, and when he went to
open it. the officer, and not the painter, entered.
After him came the painter, who had gone out for
some turpentine, to his shop.
••Who were the five men?” asked the Court.
“Myself, the painter, a porter to clean up, and a
man that lived in the house and his brother. The
painters came there in the morning, and had been
there all day.’”
Martin Harris said he was in this store last Sun
day week. He was there painting all day, and the
job had to be finished, if it took all night. He sent
out his workman to bring some stuff. When the
messenger went to the shop, a brother of wit
ness was in the place waiting for him. The mes
senger told him he was at 175 Ludlow street. He
came there by himself. Afterward came his
painter. Then came the officer.
“When the officer came in, what were you
doing.”
“Varnishing the back counter. It couldn’t be
covered up.”
Officer Dokel was recalled and asked if there was
any sign of painting going on.
“No, sir; there was painting some day or two be
fore, but it was dry.”
“Did you see any paint pots ?”
“No.”
“You put your hand on where it was painted, and
it was dry ?”
“Yes, sir.”
Fined SSO.
Vestryman Taintacase sat at his desk
checking off the day-hook entries. His telephone
rang up the regulation number, and he jumped up
to answer.
•• Hello!”
No answer, so he rang up Central.
“That you, Central?”
“Yes, what’s wanted?”
•* Did you call me?”
“ No, but I will; what have you got?”
•A pair of eights; come down and I’ll let you eit
on the toes of them.”
PRICE IT VE CENTS.
— ■ ■ ” -----1
ABSENCE,
What shall I do with all the days and hours
That must be counted ere I see thy face.
How shall I charm the interval that lowers
Between this time and that sweet time of grace?
Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense,
Weary with longing ?—shall I flee away
Into past days, and with some fond pretence
Cheat myself to forget tho present day ?
O, how or by what means shall I contrive
To bring the hour that brings thee back morfc.'
near?
How may I teach my drooping hope to live
Until that blessed time, and thou art here ?
I’ll tell thee, for thy sake I will lay hold
Of all good aims, and consecrate to thee
In worthy deeds, each moment that is told,
While thou, beloved one, art far from me.
A BITTER CUP.
BY A POPULAR AUTHORS
CHAPTER XIV.
“ SHE WAS THE EVIL GENIUS OF OUR MOST Vlfi
HAPPY HOME.”
Rose and Mr. Dacro, standing together st thff'
gate, deeply engrossed in each other, do not
hear the light quick patter of the children’,
steps until they are close at hand; then,as Kate, :
the winner of the race, gives a JitUO shout ot
triumph, Miss Fane turns and with some
surprise where they have been,
“ To Mrs. Hunt’s, of course,” Kate answers
boldly; she is prepared for the scolding she
knows she has earned, and thinks it well to de
fend herself at once. “ You know you prom
ised to take us this evening, and, when you did
not seem disposed to come, Mary and I thought
it a pity to disappoint the poor old thing—so wa
went by ourselves.”
There is a half-comical, halt-defiant sparkle In
the girl’s bright eyes, which at another time
would amuse Rose Fane, who at all times finds
it a difficult matter to enforce strict discipline
with her saucy but very loveable, and not really
disobedient pupil; now however she hardly no
tices it, she is thinking so much less of the
children than of the sudden cloud that has
darkened Neal Dacre’s handsome face as she
answered gravely:
“ I do not think Mary was much to blame in
tho matter, Kate; she does not indulge in such
wilful pranks, except under your guidance.
And now go in at once, or Mrs. Lindsay will be
uneasy about you.”
Kate goes, with no other protest than a shrug
of her slim shoulders and a saucily significant
look, which is quite lost on the earnest pair she
leaves behind.
“ What name did she say, Rose ? lam ab
surdly fanciful to-night—not Mrs.—Hunt?”
“ Yes,” Hose answers slowly and sadly, " it is
Abigail Hunt, Neal.”
A bitter exclamation breaks from Neal’s stern
ly-set lips.
“ Dear Neal, why should you mind ?” Roso
says pleadingly. “ She has lived here for a
year now ; she came here to be near me.”
“ Near you—why, she always hated you,
Rose I”
There is so much passionate, incredulous scorn
in the man's tone, that Rose shivers a little, as
though struck with some painful remembrance
or some sudden fear. What if the strong in
stinct she had vanquished at last, the instinct
that told her to recognize in Abigal Hunt a
ruthless and implacable foe, had been right,
after all? For a second she feels sure that it
was—feels sure that Abigail Hunt has both the
will and power to harm her; then she remem
bers all the days and weeks and months that
the lonely broken-spirited woman has lived at
her gates, speaking no word to wound—doing
nothing to harm her, and, with a little flush of
generous scorn, she rebukes herself for what
she calls her base and cowardly fear.
“ She did not like me, Neal,” Rose says, slip
ping her hand within her lover’s arm, and rais
ing her eyes to his, “but I do not think she
went so far as to hate me or any one. Maud
was all the world to her—more than most
daughters are to their own mothers, and, when
Maud died, I think all her power of feeling
strongly, died, too. At all events she has been
the quietest of neighbors for tho last twelve
months.”
“And she followed you from Slocombe here ?”
“ Yes—she has neither relation nor friend ;
she is as lonely as a human being well can be.
I am at least Maud’s cousin, you must remem
ber, Neal. Do you really think it strange that
she should attach herself to me?”
Neal does not answer ; with every second the
shadow that has fallen over the handsome face
grows more hopelessly dark. He, too, strug
gles fiercely and half-scornfully with the omin
ous dread that hangs so heavily over him, but,
unlike Rose, he achieves no victory. The men
tion of his dead wife's grim confidante and
friend, tho knowledge that she is in the imme
diate neighborhood, that at any moment she
may appear in bodily presence before him, seem
to bring back all the grim spectres, all the
shame and pain and terror of the past to haunt
and torture him afresh.
“I wish to Heaven she had chosen some other
spot to pitch her tent in,” he cries with a savage
energy, and Rose, with a vague pain at her
heart, notices how lividly pale he has grown
and how thickly the drops of cold perspiration
have gathered on his brow.
Perhaps he reads the mingled terror and re
proach of her glance aright, for he masters hia
agitation by a strong effort and draws tho
shrinking figure fondly to him, as he goes on in
an altered and explanatory tone :
“ Did I frighten you, my darling ? I am a
superstitious fool to-night, but I need not try to
shake your nerves and make you share my
own weak dread. I know the fear is baseless
and unworthy, but it is nothing less than fear I
feel of Abigail Hunt.”
“Fear ? How cau she harm us—even if poor
Abigail wished it, Neal ?”
“In no way, I hope and trust, my darling;
but still, vague and shapeless as it is, the fear
is there, and you may guess the shock it was to
learn that the woman I would avoid, and have
you avoid above all others, has been your
neighbor all this year.”
“My quiet, harmless neighbor, Neal. Sure
ly, if she had meant to injure me, she would
have found some means to her end before
this ?”
Neal shakes his head. Reason, and right,
and common-sense are all on the girl’s side; on
his, only a dull unchangeable conviction that
finds vent at last in passionate, low-spoken
words.
“You do not know her as I learned to know
her in the weeks of my miserable marriage,
Rose; I pray Heaven you never may. She was
the evil genius of our most unhappy home. We
could never have been happy, Maud and I, but
we might have lived in peace but lor Abigail
Hunt. There were moments when I pitied tho
fragile creature, bearing her fierce pain with a