A/IT ■^^^^1 Yr\ciTcKV9n 'i^ T^ToY Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2010 with funding from Boston Library Consortium IVIember Libraries littp://www.archive.org/details/recollectionsofaliami RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST ALLAN McLANE HAMILTON RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST Personal and Professional BY ALLAN McLANE HAMILTON M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. (Edin.) "^ With Original Illustrations, Photographs, and Fac-Similes NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY A? Copyright, 1916, George H. Doban Company 19\0'1 PRINTED IN THE TJNITED STATES OF AMERICA BOSTON COUiGE ^ ,om \ -* I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME TO DOCTOR JOSEPH A. BLAKE A GKEAT BIOLOGIST AND SURGEON, AND A FAITHFUL FRIEND, THROUGH WHOSE CONSUMMATE SKILL AND RARE DEVOTION MY LIFE WAS SAVED PREFACE In a letter written by Benvenuto Cellini to his friend, Benedetto Varchi, he said: "Your lordship tells me that the simple discourse of my life contents you more in its first shape than were it polished and attouched by others, for then the truth of what I have written would show less clear; and I have taken great care to say nothing for which I should have to fumble in my memory." I shall be governed, therefore, by the example of this in- teresting man, and make no further explanations except to say that the following pages are intended to reflect some of my personal and professional experience during an unusually busy life time. It is always difficult to know what to include and what to omit in a book of this kind, and I regret that there are many incidents that I must of necessity leave unrecorded by reason of their very per- sonal character, and others that can interest no one, al- though of exceeding importance to myself. New York, November, 1916. vu s CON'l'ENTS PART ONE: PERSONAL i < / '. CHAPTKB PAGB I. Origin and Family • « 15 II. Early Memories • 2T III. The Civil War • 38 IV. Through the Straits of Magellan IN 1865 51 V. Studying Medicine • ^ 6^ VI. The Old Far West • /■ • 80 VII. Early Struggles • • 96 VIII. Newspaper Work . 112 IX. New York Theatricals . .^ 123 X. Vacations Abroad . . . 139 XT. Capri . . . \ . 172 XII. My Life in London 1 • 184 XIII. The Hunt for the Antique . ,\ 213 XIV. Literary and Artistic Doctors • 229 XV. London in Wae Time . . \ • • 242 IZ f J / CONTENTS ' PART TWO: PROFESSIONAL CHAPTEB PAGE XVI. Strange Cases ....,, 267 XVII. Judges, Experts and Juries . ., , 278 XVIII. Will-Making and Breaking . « , 298 XIX. A Visit to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddt , , 310 XX. Simulation and Imposture . ..; , 325 XXI. Political Murders .... 342 XXII. The Dangerous Insane . . • , 369 XXIII. Capital Punishment . . . , 380 XXIV, Abuses and Achievements ... 390 Df O X. Allan McLane Hamilton Frontispiece My Father ...... Tom Moore at the Piano .... My Brother and Myself in 1851 Washington Irving's Sonnet to My Mother Mrs. Alexander Hamilton at the Age of Ninety Four . . . . . • - Barnum's Museum in the Sixties Caricature at the Time of the Mason and Slidell Episode ...... A Thumb-Nail Sketch of Abraham Lincoln in 1862 Dr. Joseph A. Blake .... Dr. James W. McLane An Invitation to the Medical and Surgical So CIETY ....... Denver in 1871 ....... The Orange Riots of 1870 . ., . ... An Instrument op Torture . ;.; A Civil War Caricature . . . > Miss Adeline Genee ..... Joseph Hofmann at the Age of Ten . "Shillo" in His Ancestor's Armor Native Welcome to the Author Baron Kentaro Kaneko PAGE 18 20 22 24 28 34 38 38 m 70 76 88 104 118 120 128 136 146 146 152 XI xii ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Women's Day in an Algerian Cemetery . . 156 The Author in Native Dress . ... > . 158 Hamid ......;... 164) Charles Caryl Coleman, Esq. . i., ' i. ,. 172 Old Beefsteak Club . . . . i. . 188 Sir James Crichton-Browne, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. . 204) Max Beerbohm by Himself . > . . 222 The Apochryphal Agnews . . . • 224 Leslie Ward, "Spy" 226 The Hands of Charles Dudley Warner . . 234 Weedon Grossmith as Hamlet .... 248 Robin Confronted by His Old Parents . . 274 Joseph Hodges Choate, Esq. .... 284 Elihu Root, Esq. ...... 308 A Letter from Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy . .314 John Wilkes Booth . . . . . . 346 Telegram prom District Attorney Corkhill . 350 Charles Julius Guiteau ..... 352 Leon F. Czolgosz before and after the Murder 360 "The Chair" 380 An Automatic Gallows i. . , .) . . 388 PART ONE: PERSONAL PART ONE: PERSONAL CHAPTER I ORIGIN AND FAMILY I Come Into the World — My Grandfather Alexander Hamilton — The Beauties of Early Williamsburgh — My School Days — My Father — His Presence at My Graduation — The Yacht America — He Tried Gibbs, the Pirate — The "Underground Railroad" for Fugitive Slaves — My Mother's Father, Louis McLane, Ambas- sador to England — My Mother's Life in London — ^Washington Irving — Tom Moore and Campbell the Poet — Gilbert Stuart New- ton the Artist, Lady Wellesley — My Mother Plays Tom Moore's Accompaniments — Entries in Moore's Diary — Samuel Rogers — Andrew Jackson Writes About the Loss of the "Hermitage" — Irv- ing Goes to the Opera — He Writes a Poem to My Mother — Commodore Isaac Hull and the Constitution — My Mother's Mar- riage — My Brother Is Killed Under General Custer. I WAS born in the year 1848, "the year of trouble," when most of Europe was in turmoil, although the condition of general conflict was but trivial when compared with the awful upheaval of to-day. This country then of- fered a welcome asylum for many distinguished men who fled from central Europe, especially Prussia, in peril of their lives — among them the late Carl Schurz, and Doc- tors Ernest Krackowizer and Abraham Jacobi, the for- mer of whom cared for me in my infantile illnesses, and afterwards became a great surgeon. Upon the paternal side, I was of the third generation of a family whose interest for the public began with the 15 RECOLLECTIONS OE AN ALIENIST birth of my grandfather, Alexander Hamilton, the States- man, in 1756, on the island of Nevis in the West Indies. My father, Philip Hamilton, his youngest son, was born in the City of New York in 1802, two years before his father was shot by Aaron Burr in the famous duel. I first opened my eyes in the pretty little village of Wil- liamsburgh, now a rather sordid portion of Brooklyn, on October 6, 1848, my father then being forty-six. There were, therefore, only three generations in one hundred and fifty-nine years. Williamsburgh was then a country village; the only means of communication with New York being a ferry of slow and clumsy paddle-boats, so that when I went to the old Public School No. 40, in Twentieth Street, much of the day was consumed by travel. The river front was rather beautiful, and I remember the sandy beach at the foot of the street where we lived, which was backed by tall Normandy poplars; here we bathed and swam, de- spite the swift currents of the East River. The region is now given up to tall and ugly factories and ware- houses. My father was a delightful man, of pleasing person- ality, a keen sense of humour, and a harmless kind of wit, which led him everlastingly to chaff his sons, but never to hurt our feelings. He had many of the hearty, bluff ways of the sea captains whom he represented in court, for his legal practice was largely in Admiralty cases. The New York pilots were his devoted adherents, and one of them — the late Captain John Maginn, a pic- turesque character of the Captain Cuttle type, and for many years the dean of the corps — often came to him for advice, and smoked his very bad pipe in the front hall while waiting his turn. My father was presented by them with a silver snuff-box, which was brought by a 16 ORIGIN AND FAMILY delegation, and accompanied by a large bunch of peonies, and this present of coarse and showy flowers from that source was repeated each Christmas and birthday for many years. Of commanding stature, with silvery white hair and closely-cropped whiskers, my father made an imposing appearance in the blue suit of naval cut that he usually wore, with a "Gladstone" collar and black stock. He al- ways carried a gold-headed Malacca stick and a large red silk handkerchief with white squares, a nautical survival; this he not only used for the ordinaiy purposes, but to signal with upon every needed occasion, or as an outlet for the expression of his elated emotions — it was, in fact, a part of the man. I shall never forget the occasion upon which I was so fortunate as to take the two first prizes when I graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1870, the Commencement being held at the old Steinway Hall in Fourteenth Street. My father had a seat a few feet from the body of the graduating class of embryonic saw-bones in the front of the hall, and when my name was announced by the dignified President from the platform, I saw him at first wiping away the tears, and then waving the same red badge of independent ap- proval wildly in the air. Later, in a mysterious way, after expressing a sort of proprietary interest in the whole class (which it did not resent) , he put a bank note of large denomination into my hand with the injunction to "spend it without getting into trouble." The hilarious and happy graduates scattered for a night of celebration, and my father proudly walked down the aisle as if he had launched something into the world. He was a great lover of outdoor sports, and especially of yachting, and when the racing schooner America, which afterwards went over to England and won the Queen's 17 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST cup, was built by a syndicate composed of his nephew, George L. Schuyler, and eleven others, he sailed the yacht in many of her trying-out cruises in this country. His later life was a quiet one, and his career at the bar quite without event, his only celebrated case being the trial and conviction of Gibbs, the pirate, who was hung at Bedloe's Island in New York Harbour. Upon several occasions he acted as Judge- Advocate before the several Naval Retiring Boards at the end of the Civil War, and represented his many Navy friends, such as Commodores Stringham and Storrow, and various brave old salts who had served their time with honour and distinction. Shortly before the Civil War the escape of negro slaves from the Southern states had assumed great proportions, and the so-called "underground railroad," an organisa- tion established to facilitate their safe transit to Canada, and to supply them with funds on their way, was estab- lished, with headquarters at Chester, and sub-agencies in neighbouring counties in Pennsylvania. It is reported by popular tradition that one Thomas Garret, an old Quaker who, according to my friend. General James H. Wilson, was "a prudent and secretive man who did his best to conceal his operations for helping runaway slaves, which was a dangerous business," was the director of a particu- lar centre at Wilmington, Delaware, through which many were cleared. In the North, the so-called Abolitionists are too well known to need extended mention, but that cele- brated band of free thinkers which was established at Con- cord, Massachusetts, and known as "Brook Farm," con- tained several members who encouraged the actual smug- gling of black men to places of safety. Among these was the late Charles A. Dana, the Editor of the New York Sun. My father, while a mild Abolitionist, was a sympathiser to the last degree when his heart was touched, 18 MY FATHER ORIGIN AND FAMILY and at least on one occasion helped a fugitive slave get away. I recall this very well, for my brother and I saw a very black and ragged man in the cellar who was being fed by my father himself, and kept until such time as he could safely resume his journey. The mystery of why he was in our house, for which no explanation was given at the time, impressed us then intensely, and our imaginings, it is needless to say, ran riot. After Pres- ident Lincoln's great proclamation we were told all, but it was not until after my father's death in 1884 that Mr. Dana referred in the Sun to the latter's many acts of self-sacrificing kindness in this direction. My father went later to Poughkeepsie, New York, where he lived until his death in 1884. A correspondent in the New York Herald wrote of him in the following words: "Judge Hamilton lived among the Knickerbockers so many j^-ears that his fea- tures would seem to have assimilated to the ancient type. Among his friends and neighbours the Judge is repre- sented as a man of merry mood, brimming over with an- ecdotes of the olden days, when the earth was to him fresh and golden. The new has no such charm for him as the old. He loves old houses, old trees, old books, old wine and old friends." This is, indeed, a delicate and true estimate of a universally loved man during the sun- set of his life, shortly before he died. During the administration of Andrew Jackson, my mother's father, Louis McLane, of Delaware, was sent to England as Ambassador to the Court of St. James with the proposal that if Great Britain would make con- cessions in the carrying trade between the United States and the West Indies we would repeal our own laws which up to that time had acted to the detriment of the former power. He embarked in a United States frigate in 1829, 19 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST with a portion of his family, including his eldest daugh- ter Rebecca, a girl of seventeen who was to become my mother many years later. When the McLanes reached England they were joined by Washington Irving, who was to become my grand- father's Secretary of Legation. In a letter from Irving to his friend Henry Brevoort, written August 10th, 1829,* he says : 'T stayed in Paris a little more than a fortnight. When, hearing that the frigate had arrived at Ports- mouth with Mr. McLane, I set off to meet him at London. I am perfectly delighted with him, and doubt not we shall live most happily together." Irving's anticipations were verified, for until the day of his death he was not only a friend of McLane's, but entertained the most affectionate relations with my mother and the other children. It was owing to Irving, whose literary position had already been recognised in England as well as at home, that they speed- ily met the most charming of the literary set, among them Tom Moore, Rogers and Campbell, the poets; Robert Harry Inglis, the statesman, who accepted the Chiltern Hundreds to represent Oxford University against Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons, and vanquished the latter by defeating his more extreme reform meas- ures; Gilbert Stuart Newton, an American artist bom in Halifax, but who went to England where he attained great fame, was another intimate. He afterwards mar- ried a daughter of Arthur Sullivan, of Boston, a son of General Sullivan, of Revolutionary fame. Besides these, my mother was made much of by many other charming people, as she sang and played delight- fully, and was exceedingly bright. The old Duke of Wellington and Lady Wellesley saw a great deal of her * Letters of Washington Irving to Henry Brevoort, p. 225, New York, Putnam, 1915. 20 TOM MOORE ,AT THE PIANO A pencil sketch by Gilbert Stewart Newton ORIGIN AND FAMILY and evidently took a fancy to her, for the former gave her a locket surrounded by rose brilliants, which I owned until a few years ago, when it was stolen by a dishonest servant. Her other friends, among them Lady Caroline Gren- fell, wrote long and affectionate letters to her after her return to this country. Number 9 Chandos Street, where my grandfather lived, was the scene of many a merry gathering. In his diary,* Tom Moore said, April 26th, 1830: "Dined with the Fieldings, and went in the evening to a party at Dr. Bowrings. Introduced to several first rate literati whose names I knew nothing about, also to Pickergill and Mar- tin, the artists. To my surprise and pleasure, saw Wash- ington Irving among the group, who proposed that I should accompany him back to a party of Americans he had just left at Mr. McLane's, which I accordingly did, to his delectation. A young American lady played the harp, and I sang." At most of these gatherings was Newton, and upon one occasion he sketched the diminutive Moore at the piano. Newton's pencil sketches were very clever and more elaborate than most of those preserved; I own one of his pictures of this kind, of Sir Walter Scott, taken from life. There is an entry in Moore's diary t worth repeating. William IV., whose reputation as a gay bird, and whose brood of Fitz-Clarences as the result of his long existing liaison with Mrs. Jordan, the actress, had been tolerated by easy-going England before he mended his ways, married the Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, and became the King in 1830. Moore said on May, 1831: "I forgot to tell Lady Holland what I had in coming up the avenue fully resolved not to forget, namely, the fol- * Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, Vol. VI, London, 1854. f Ibid., p. 190. 21 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST lowing anecdote: Among other stories told to the horror and glory of the reforming monarch, it is generally stated that McLane, the American Ambassador, said to his Maj- esty, 'I little thought, Sire, I should live to see the day when I should envy a Monarch.' In paying a visit at McLane's the other morning I mentioned the currency of this anecdote; on which Mrs. McLean (who is a very amiable, natural person) said, 'It is true that Mr. McLean said he envied the King, but it was not on the Reform question, but it was, I am ashamed to say, on seeing the King kiss Lady Lilford.' " Samuel Rogers, the "banker Poet," lived in St. James' Street, and had a very wonderful house full of works of art. It contained numerous paintings, among them sev- eral by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which by an ingenious mechanical apparatus might be turned to the light. There were also carvings by Flaxman, and -a mass of other ob- jets d'art. He came often to the McLanes' and wrote verses to the young daughter of the house, as was the custom in those days. T. Campbell also made his con- tribution to her album in the form of a rather dreary and commonplace string of verses entitled, "Some Thoughts Suggested by a View of the Sea from St. Leonard's." My maternal grandfather's stay in London was only for a year or two, for he was recalled in 1831 to become Secretary of the Treasury, and later Secretary of State, at which time he refused to be a party to President Jack- son's arbitrary measure of withdrawing the Public funds from the Bank of the United States. Upon the return of my mother to the United States, she entered with all the keenness of youth into the so- ciety of Washington, and was a great favourite of the bluff old President, Andrew Jackson, who seized upon this opportunity to take the sympathetic young girl into 22 MY BROTHER AND MYSELF IN 1851 Louis, seven; Allan, three ORIGIN AND FAMILY his confidence, showing a rare gentleness which was in contrast with his impatience with every one else. To her he wrote in 1834, after thanking her and her father and mother for their letters of condolence when the Jackson homestead, the Hermitage, was destroyed by fire: "It is true it was dear to me because the site and plan was se- lected by my dear departed Mrs. Jackson — the little grove of trees standing between the house and garden was the product of her industrious hand. I regret not the loss of the House ; it can be rebuilt, but this little grove I fear is destroyed by the fire, or so much injured that it can- not be preserved except by cutting them down to the root and preserving the sprouts; if so, then to me they are lost, for I cannot expect to live to see them matured to their present grandeur. I never repine at the loss of property — ^my regrets are for the little grove which can- not be replaced by the hand that reared it — perhaps I thought too much of it. I have long since brought my feelings to be ready on all occasions to say 'the Lord's will be done.' " Washington Irving spent much of his time after his re- tirement from politics at his cottage near Dobb's Ferry. He had reluctantly given up the idea of obtaining the consulship at Naples, which he had coveted because of the opportunity for further literary work, but as soon as he heard that another man had been thought of, he abandoned his efforts and gave himself up to the com- forts and pleasures of his native land. In a letter writ- ten from Washington, January 20th, 1834, to my mother, he said: "My dear Rebecca: "How shamefully you have treated us in turning back from Philadelphia when we had provided so charming an Italian opera KECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST for your entertainment. You have no idea what you have lost. The opera is delightful and the house heavenly. All the prettiest belles of the city are to be seen there in the private boxes of the second tier, sitting on downey and silken cushions, for all the world like the heathen goddesses lounging on their feather-bed clouds, and looking down from high Olympus ; while in the centre box sits Lynch, radiant as Apollo, with ecstasy beaming from his spectacles, and now and then like Jupiter giving a word of ap- preciation that 'seems to shake the sphere.' How goes on your levee this Winter? still crowded, I suppose, with admirers, the 'respected' and 'neglected' and the 'dejected' and the rejected - — I am passing my Winter in the bosom of my family, happy as can be, with a niece on each arm whenever I can get out, and nearly a dozen about me when I am at home. I wish you could see what a pleasant household we are. Yours ever, "Washington Irving." A lively correspondence of this kind passed between them until almost the end of his life, and once he indulged in verse, the production being addressed to my mother.^ This was shortly after the return from England. Commodore Isaac Hull, who after his many gallant encounters retired to private life in the late thirties, was one of my mother's old friends. He never tired of telling her of the fight between the Constitution and Guerriere. The old gentleman gave my mother a box made from the wood of Old Ironsides^ as the Constitution was after- wards known, with a small piece of paper in the cover bearing the inscription — ^'Ironsides — From Isaac to Re- becca/' My mother was married in 1842, and with her hus- band left the old Southern home on the Bohemia River and came to New York, where my father took up his pro- fession in earnest. I find among my papers this letter from my grandmother, the widow of Alexander Hamilton 24* ' u-.C-^ /-^/-^i -iC^ .c ^- k^ "^^•»^ .-.' ^^<. ^y.^C^*- ' "i-^..' .-.,. ^ <-,1rt.. ^ .^. .. ^^. ' -.S*,,» -^^.et A-.'c^^ -ipr^,^ .«• *'*^'^^'«^/ 2*ot »ie^_ tt^^^^-H^ c^ft ^^Vt^i^ft*^ «^ 4,w^ rv^ WASHINGTON IRVING'S SONNET TO MY MOTHER ORIGIN AND FAMILY (then in her eighty-sixth year), relative to the event. It was written to my maternal grandmother, and shows astonishing mental vigour from a person of that great age: "It is with great gratification, My Dear Madame, that I have received your kind letter expressive of your Approbation of the Union of your Daughter with my Son. Her most intimate friends have given her such a high character for Piety and Amiability that I am assured my son has made a selection which will promote his happiness, and may he give your child and yourself every mark of his attention is the prayer of his affectionate Mother. I regret the season of the year and my advanced age will deprive me of the pleasure of being present at the Marriage of our chil- dren. Remember me kindly to Mr. McLane and my Daughter. With great regard, "Elizth. Hamilton." There were two children by this marriage who grew to manhood, my brother, who was a few years older, and myself. The former, after going through the Civil War, having received his commission as Second Lieutenant in the old Third Infantry, became a Captain in the famous Seventh U. S. Cavalry, which was organised after the War of the Hebellion. He was killed in a raid upon Red Kettle's band in the battle of the Wichita in No- vember, 1868. He had been a dashing cavalry officer, serving with General Phil. Sheridan and other famous Indian fighters, and in the Battle of Gettysburg had been an aid to General Ayres: he was several times brevetted for gallantry on the field. His death was, of course, a crushing blow to my father and mother, for their hopes were, naturally, centred upon their first born, who certainly in many ways reflected by inheritance the great genius of his grandfather, Alex- 25 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST ander Hamilton. A long illness in childhood which con- fined him to his room gave time and opportunity to read everything he could find that might later be of use to him. Plutarch, Gibbon, Motley, Prescott, and works treating of the great Alexander and Napoleon and the warfare of the world, gave him a nice insight into things not as a rule popular with the very young. He was essen- tially one of those "trained to be a soldier." With this he was never offensively precocious, but was modest, thoughtful and even brilliant and accomplished in many ways. When little more than a child he wrote timely editorials upon the war which were widely copied, no one conceiving that they were the work of a mere boy. It has been said that his ancestor's celebrated pamphlet, "The Farmer Kefuted," which was a reply to Bishop Seabury in 1774, when he was about my brother's age, was from the pen of some older man and the name of Chief Justice John Jay was that wrongly hit upon by the very wise. It is certainly interesting to speculate what he would have been, with his great talents, had he been spared. After my brother's death. General George A. Custer, just eight years before his own cruel end at the hands of the Indians at the Battle of the Rosebud, wrote these sad and prophetic lines to my mother. After speaking of her son's noble qualities, he said: "In fine, his whole character and life justifies us in the happy belief that he has gone where there are neither wars nor rumours of wars, where the soldier is at rest and all is peace." ^6 CHAPTER II EARLY MEMORIES My First Cigar — A Visit to Franconi's Hippodrome — The Prince of Wales in New York — My Grandmother Hamilton — Dolly Madi- son's Letters — Nevis — Early Hudson River Steamboats — George William Curtis and His Brothers — Pierpont Morgan as a Young Man — He Is Pursued by a Crank — Early Aspirations — Bar- num's Museum — My Friend the "Lightning Calculator" — The "Lecture Room" — The Family Parson and His Influence in Sug- gesting a Career for Me — I Fall from Grace — The Choice of a Profession. I HAVE distinct memory of two early events that stand out sharply. Both occurred before I was six years old, and are the antithesis of each other. One was a dreadful illness, due to the stupid ignorance of a devoted but fool- ish nurse maid, who, on our way through Fulton Market to the water front, treated me to quantities of an edible dried red moss and locust honey beans, which were at the time delicacies greatly in favour with the newly-landed sailors, and bought for me an enormous black cigar, two or three whiffs of which led to my collapse. I have al- ways suspected that this act was a bribe to hold my tongue regarding her flirtations with a salty son of the sea who had joined us on our way home. I was carried there in a semi-moribund condition by the tearful and penitent woman. This, however, was a preparatory experience for a sub- sequent life-long indulgence in tobacco; though I really a7 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST had not the courage to smoke my enjoyable "first cigar" until I was eighteen, so keen was my distaste. Since then it has been a blessing, and, in the words of Charles Kings- ley, "When all things were made, none was made better than this," for despite the sour intolerance of King James, it is really "A lone man's companion, A bachelor's friend, A hungry man's food, A sad man's cordial, A wakeful man's sleep, A chilly man's fire." An equally keen reminiscence of a different character was a visit to Franconi's Hippodrome, which was built at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, and had a brief existence of three years — and for those days was enormous, holding six thousand people. It was finally replaced by the Mt. Vernon, afterwards the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where the brother of my neigh- bour in the country, Mr. Gardner Witherbee, now the proprietor of several large New York hotels, was chief clerk, and had much to do with providing amusement for the Prince of Wales during his visit to this country in 1860, for, being bored by attentions, he is said to have escaped and played leap frog in the corridors of the hotel. Previous to her death in 1856, my Grandmother Hamil- ton came sometimes to see us in Williamsburgh, and then I was entertained by stories of her early life, and she read me letters from "Dolly" Madison, who wrote in a queer, small hand. It was difficult to connect the little aged woman, dressed in quiet bombazine dress, wearing large iron-rimmed spectacles, and carrying the reticule 28 I 1\ At MBS. ALEXANDEE HAMILTON AT THE AGE OF NINETY-FOUR EARLY MEMORIES that was universal in those days, with the sprightly, beau- tiful creature described eighty years before by Tench Tighlman and Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. After her husband's death, when she exchanged the Grange for property down in the heart of the city be- low Canal Street, her life was devoted to charity. She it was who with others built the first orphan asylum in New York, and who literally impoverished herself for the poor. By her father. General Philip Schuyler's will, she inherited not only large tracts of land in Saratoga County, and at Oswego, but houses and lots in New York as well, and all of this was sold and given away in alms, so that had she not ultimately been awarded her hus- band's back pay in the Army, which amounted to about ten thousand dollars, she would have been penniless. I will remember my visit to the country place of my uncle, James A. Hamilton. It was near Dobbs Ferry, and was named Nevis, after the West Indian birthplace of his father, the island where Lord Nelson was married. It is even now an enormous place, extending from the Hudson a mile or two, and the large brown house with ten columns used to be a landmark from the river. In the early days we went there by sloop, or by the Hudson River Railroad, the depot being at Chambers Street, from whence we were dragged through the city by horses, in long cars with little windows, to Thirtieth Street, where we were coupled to a wood-burning loco- motive. We had choice of steamboats, and could take the Traveller from the foot of Warren Street, the Isaac P, Smith or the Peter G. Coffin, an ancient tub built in 1851, and which was afterwards sunk during the Civil War, leaving its necrotic bones on the banks of the James River. The popular joke then used to be the question 29 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST to those who went up the river, ''Are you going up in the Coffin or train?" At Nevis I used to meet Washington Irving, Stagg, the Boston painter, and many jolly young men (much older than myself), among them the youthful Pierpont Morgan, who was a friend of my cousins, Philip Schuy- ler and George L. Bowdoin, the latter of whom in after years became his partner. In those days, before he be- came a world power, Mr. Morgan was simply a rather trim, good-looking young man. When he became a leader in finance, many years afterward, Mr. Morgan, and later his son, were not to escape the persecutions of the dan- gerous maniac, and I was called upon several years before the elder Morgan's death to examine a woman at Bellevue Hospital, one Ella Williams, who had for a long period, as the result of a paranoia, entertained all manner of delusions of persecution regarding him. She had pur- sued and bombarded Mr. Morgan for a long time with crazy letters. Happily her condition was so patent that we had no difficulty in committing her to an asylum. All prosperous financiers are especially liable to the insane en- mity of the unbalanced, and Robin, the bank-wrecker who was convicted, was very bitter in his baseless abuse of Morgan. Whether the German who assaulted the present J. P. Morgan was really insane, as was supposed at the time, is a matter of extreme doubt in the light of recently discovered conspiracies: certainly the mere fact that he committed suicide is not conclusive, as he knew that if his identity as Meunter was disclosed he would be executed for the murder of his wife in Boston some years before. One of the most delightful visitors was George William Curtis, the author of Potiphar Papers, Trumps, Lotus Eating, and other novels, and for nearly half a century 30 EARLY MEMORIES the occupant of Harper's "Editor's Easy Chair." He read to us all under the trees in a charming, well-modulated voice, and was a most fascinating man. In later years I knew his brothers, Drs. Edward and John G. Curtis, the former an interesting but peculiar man, who was the best histologist in the United States of his time. He was a learned, reserved and solemn man, who, however, would occasionally find relaxation in writing a classical burlesque in a literary manner worthy of a better subject than that usually chosen, dressing up in fantastic costumes, and doing a "funny part," in which he was still solemn. The other brother, John, and I were fellow medical students, and he afterward became Professor of Physiology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. I also remember Theodore Winthrop, who was a mem- ber of the Seventh Regiment, and was one of the first officers killed in the war. He it was who wrote a delight- ful story called Cecil Dreene. The speculations of ambitious boys as to their future all bear a somewhat close resemblance, and the influence of early experience and environment affords opportunity for the active play of imagination. Happily the conclusions reached are usually evanescent, and change with personal evolution. The rational work of those who devote themselves to that branch of science known as Eugenics, which is in- tended to improve the race, may ultimately regulate the choice of a calling and favour the survival of the fittest; but none of these painstaking gentlemen who dilate upon the deficient attributes of what Mr. Roosevelt has called "the weakling" can destroy the rosy-coloured dreams of the very young boy, or prevent him from building castles, even of the most unstable materials. I, like others, had planned my life at a very early period, 31 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST and was not free from romancing. In recent years, those of us who have devoted ourselves to the study of the mor- bid human mind have called such falsification pseudologia fantastica, which in the adult is a sign of derangement, but in early childhood implies a perfectly normal and natural indulgence in lies. This led to the construction of wonderful and impossible personal experiences — such as hand to hand encounters with Indians and pirates, and in brave but preposterous deeds by land and sea. This led, sometimes, to punishment, varying from deprivation of toys to the application of the parental slipper, or a small strap, which was one of the lares and penates of the household. The delicious comfort of building the fabric of dear beautiful life from imaginary materials close at hand, which are intimately connected with pleasurable feeling, is something that we cannot be robbed of in our puppy days; it is only when our development brings into play the exercise of all those more important mental functions that imply the exercise of reason and an extended idea of consequences that we awake to the sense of caution and the more complicated relations of pleasure and pain. In adaptation to the cold ways of the world, we curb our imagination and think as do our fellows. At a tender age my infant steps took me frequently to a small candy shop where heaps of multi-coloured bars, delicious balls and sticks of concentrated sweetness em- bodied a temptation to which I often yielded. My sub- sequent fall led, as the result of disobedience, not only to repeated and unwelcome correction, which was hardly less bearable than the ministration of the elderly family physician, who, I think, at some time must have written a prize thesis upon drastic cathartics. The vulgar little old woman who kept the shop was privy to my demorali- se EARLY MEMOKIES sation and lapse from virtue, and bade me to "Come again," which I invariably did so long as my pocket money lasted. To me the prospect of owning such a place, with unlimited peppermints to eat all day long, was bliss too great for words, and led to frequent visits to this cave of delight of which I longed to be the sole pro- prietor. Like other little boys, I was carried away by the glitter and noise of the circus, and my first visit to the old one- ringed Robinson show is vividly impressed on my mind and easily recalled to-day. I remember the stinking smoke from the circle of flaring oil lamps about the pole, the smell of fresh sawdust kicked from the ring into my face by the pudgy, sedate and rosin-backed horse who dumpily circled to the music of the blaring band, and the hoarse orders of the ringmaster. I witnessed the buf- foonery of the half-drunken clown, who appeared to be so closely in touch with all of us. His dull gibes then seemed as the wit of Sydney Smith or Charles Lamb does to-day. Was it a wonder that I longed to espouse the career of Grimaldi? It was my custom on Saturday to spend the day at Barnum's Museum, which was at the corner of Ann Street and Broadway, and which contained not only a permanent collection of worm-eaten and very doubtful curiosities, but what are to-day called freaks ; that is to say, a gather- ing of deformed men and women who lived by their in- firmities; mangy animals, a Belgian giant, a negro mi- crocephalic idiot, known as the "What is it?" — and a "Lightning Calculator." Besides these, there was a lec- ture room, the term theatre being discarded out of respect for the feeling of the truly moral clergymen, or those parents who would not expose themselves to the contami- nation of the usual playhouse. 33 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST For long hours I glued my nose to the glass cases and lost myself in the inspection of bogus relics and other horrors, and, strange to say, they had every week the same interest, and seemed to be a part of my life. I knew intimately all the "living wonders" — especially the Al- bino boy, whose blinking pink eyes fascinated me; but Professor Hutchings, the "Lightning Calculator," was the greatest friend of all. The "Professor" was a seedy, middle-aged man, with a huge black and deeply-dyed moustache, and black snake-like locks, which he nervously twisted aside when possessed with the mathematical afflatus. He had, I be- lieve, been a Baptist minister, but I was told left the pul- pit because he had a wonderful gift of mathematics — but this was his story. It was the habit of this talented man to add with startling rapidity long columns of com- plicated figures, after Avhich he struck an attitude. In my eyes he was the embodiment of wisdom, and I especially felt his greatness after I had been "kept in" at school to labour over an imperfect lesson and was given as a punitive task a load of sums to carry home. In my eyes he was the incorporation of Pierce, Cayley, and De Mor- gan. One day, after I had, spellbound, watched his gyrations and the play of his magic chalk, and the crowd had dispersed, he shared my paper bag of bolivars, a name given to a large, round, crenated ginger cake, which formed the staple luncheon of the sightseer at the mu- seum. I appreciated the condescension and prized the friendship of this truly extraordinary man, but the recol- lection of Friday afternoon and the rap upon the knuckles from the ruler of "Granny Greacon," my elderly and bad-tempered teacher, whose plans for a drive in the coun- try had been thwarted by my stupidity, made me aware of my limitations. 34) It m ^^M ^5e^^.^ barnum's museum in the sixties EARLY MEMORIES The performance in Barnum's moral Lecture Room suited the most catholic of tastes, and the company in- cluded the deep-lunged Mr. J. J. Prior, the ranting Milnes Levick, C. W. Clarke, James W. Lingard, Emily Mestayer, Sally Partington, and Kate Denin, who was a sterling actress. From this place graduated many good actors and actresses, among the latter "Aunt" Louisa El- dridge, who afterward obtained a national reputation. Joseph and his Brethren was one of the dramatised gospel plays, especially popular with parsons and Sunday schools. The episode of Joseph and Potiphar's wife had been tactfully arranged so that the lady's importunities were of the most harmless description, and Joseph kept aloof. I well remember the Sea of Ice, a spectacular melo- drama, New York Patriots, or the Battle of Saratoga, A Mother's Prayer, The Rich of New York, and Uncle Tom's Cabin, played by Mr. and Mrs. G. C. Howard and Cordelia Howard. Occasionally such a gem as Val- entine and Orson, or The Wild Men of the Woods, or Gotham by Daylight and Gaslight, conveyed their moral lessons, though at times these were ambiguous. At twelve most boys and girls begin to undergo that preparatory upheaval in their physical and mental make- up, and those radical changes in development, which so often lead them to be misunderstood by their elders. I, too, expressed that same introspection, and morbidness that finds vent in over-conscientiousness, depression, and especially an all-absorbing devotion to religious matters. This was to some extent fostered by my dear proud mother, and by certain elderly female friends, who pointed out to me the delights of a new vocation. Another fac- tor was the example of a popular and rather sanctimoni- ous clergyman who often came to our house, usually re- 35 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST ceived the best things on the table, and seemingly revelled in the tid-bits. Not only were these material comforts appreciated to their fullest by me, but the adulation which was his opened my eyes to the delights of an ecclesiastical career. At this time my high soprano voice made me an acquisition to the choir, but I was later disabled by a familiar disqualifying change, which created some con- sternation and rendered me less desirable as an acolyte. •And possibly my devotion to certain amusements had something to do with a change of heart, which led to most of Sunday being spent at Newton Creek, or some other sylvan retreat, in pursuit of crabs, which in later years ceased to take an interest in worldly affairs when the Standard Oil Company established their factories and dis- charged sludge into the placid waters of Western Long Island. My criticism of my mother's clerical friends is per- haps not altogether fair, for the above is an exception. Some dear good friends were the Reverend Geo. W. Bethune and Theodore L. Cuyler, both great and eloquent men in their day. Whatever doubts I had as to the selection of a calling vanished when my dear and only brother went to the Civil War in 1862, but I was not permitted even to be a drum- mer boy, as did another friend who ran away from home and eluded all search. It was not until 1865 that influences made themselves felt that had much to do with the choice of a profession. I had always delighted in applied science, and especially chemistry; and scars remain to-day which are lifelong reminders of the occasion when I mixed explosives in a retort that burst with disastrous result, so that for days I took but little interest in anything but the renewal of ice water bandages. 36 EAKLY MEMORIES Toward the end of the War an event occurred that had much to do with my subsequent life, for I met the great scholar and naturalist, Louis Agassiz, who was to make a voyage to Brazil, accompanied by an expedition equipped by Nathaniel Thayer of Boston. It included clever men of varied scientific tastes and professions. We were to part with them at Rio and continue to California by way of the Straits of Magellan. The contact of over a month with this very great man had its influence in shaping my whole life; but this must be reserved for another chapter. 37 CHAPTER III THE CIVIL WAR I Meet Abraham Lincoln — His Peculiarities — Letter from John Hay- to Writer — The President Writes in My Brother's Behalf to Secretary Stanton — Mr. Lincoln Reviews the Troops of the Army of the Potomac — I Join the Home Guards — My Uncle, General "Joe" Johnston, and General W. T. Sherman — A Divided Family — The Sanitary Commission — A Vermont Contribution — My Brother Describes the Battle of Fredericksburg — The Draft Riot in 186s — Bounty Jumping. Early in August, 1862, our little family was thrown into a state of agitation by a proposed visit to Washington, to be undertaken by my father, my brother, and myself who pleaded earnestly not to be left at home. We were to see President Lincoln in regard to Louis' possible ap- pointment in the regular army. He had had some suc- cess in raising an independent company of volunteers at Poughkeepsie, New York, but was impatient for action, and as his cousins were in the regular service, and all the traditions of the family were connected therewith, he sought an appointment which was ultimately granted, he being assigned to the Third U. S. Infantry. Our reception by the President was most gracious, and I well remember that even I was not forgotten, for the great man placed his hand on my shoulder, and said a few nice words, doubtless because I was nearly the same age as one of his sons. While my father and brother 38 OARICATUBK AT THE TIME OF THE MASON AND SLIDELL EPISODE A THUMB-NAIL SKETCH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1862 THE CIVIL WAR were talking, I watched the interesting face opposite me, and was fascinated by the warty growth upon one side of his face, and amused by his hearty laughter, which he himself said to some one on another occasion was the "joyous universal Evergreen of Life." At other times there was only a whimsical smile, his eyes indicating noth- ing but a kind of far-off dreaminess and introspection. I have since witnessed this disharmony of expression in peculiar or psychopathic people, although I do not for a moment make any imputation. There was indeed at times a deep look of sadness which suggested a lurking sorrow and afforded a sufficient ex- cuse for his moods. Many people have referred to cer- tain mental peculiarities possessed by him, which it is said amounted to a morbid personality, if not a mental dis- order, and that he had hallucinations and illusions. Long after this visit, in 1910, I wrote to his former Secretary, John Hay, for some information to be utilised in a book I was then writing. In reply, Mr. Hay said: "He was a man of deeply religious feeling rather than theological belief. There was a vein of mysticism which characterised him all his life, but he was not what I would call super- stitious, and, so far as I know, he had no hallucinations." As the result of our visit to the White House the Presi- dent wrote the following letter: Executive Mansion, Washington, August 18, 1862. Hon. Secretary of War, Sir: Louis McLane Hamilton, grandson of the first Secretary of the Treasury on the father's side, and also grandson of one who at different times was Sec. Treas. and Sec. of State on his moth- 39 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST er's side, has served a three months' term as a private,* and now wishes at the end of his term near by to have a commission in the regular Army. Let him have a Lieutenancy if there be a vacancy. Yours truly, A. Lincoln. The letter was all-powerful, and the coveted commis- sion was sent to him by the War Department. When in the field a year later my brother jocosely described the numerous reviews of the tired Union army that seemed to be the fashion at the time: "We were reviewed first, or rather this business began in the great review by Mr. and Mrs. and Master Lin- coln. The President wore a long black sack coat and rode a fine bay horse (of which he was greatly in dread). A huge saddle cloth covered all over with gold lace lay- between his august limbs, and the horse and the whole royal family looked very much pleased and bewildered. They smiled sweetly when we presented arms, and would have done exactly the same thing if we had stood on our heads. . . . The reviewing mania has seized everybody, and there have been reviews by Generals of Divisions and Generals of Brigades, and all sorts of things with stars on their shoulders and yellow sashes and great flashy staffs that cover an acre." My own military activities in 1861-1863 were confined to repeated drillings, and marchings in the Rochester Home Guards, a sort of Boy Scout organisation. All of us at home did our bit to be of use, and much of the ac- tivity of to-day found its parallel in the dark days of our own Civil War. The well-known Sanitary Commission enlisted the services of all people too old or too young for military duty, and most of the women did a great deal * In the 22nd N. Y. Militia at Harper's Ferry. 40 THE CIVIL WAR of work delegated to the Red Cross of to-day, and sent boxes of food and clothing to the front. Our family was much divided in its sympathy, for all of my mother's kinsmen were fighting with the Confede- rates, and one of her brothers-in-law, John Garesche, was making gunpowder for the South, while another, Joseph E. Johnston, one of the then great Generals, unsuccess- fully opposed General W. T. Sherman, who had been his classmate at West Point, in the celebrated march through Georgia. One first cousin by marriage, General W. H. Hallock, was Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army, and made himself most unpopular by his arbitrary methods. Another cousin wa« General Schuyler Hamil- ton, who had long been in the regular service, and there were numerous younger cousins who like my brother Louis fought for the Union cause. It is unnecessary to say that there was much stress and bitterness of feeling when Lee surrendered, but like that of other wars, it was hap- pily buried and we became united. After the war "Joe" Johnston and Tecumseh Sherman fell into each other's arms, and kept up their tender friendship until death parted them, often being seen in Washington on the streets together, walking arm-in-arm, or on Johnston's front stoop on summer nights, when they probably fought over their battles. We saw but little of Louis during the war, although every mail brought graphic accounts of what was going on at the front. He also found time to send illustrations to Vanity Fair and Harper's Weekly. So well written is his description of the battle of Fredericksburg that I may be pardoned for reproducing his letter to his mother, and it has much greater interest when we com- pare the fighting with that of to-day on the European battle grounds. 41 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST "Camp neae Falmouth, Dec. 17, 1862. "Dear Mother: "As Artemus Ward says, 'There's been a fite,' and I have gone through the experience of my first battle and I'm sorry to say first retreat, so that I am beginning to have the proud consciousness of being a 'veteran' who has been 'through the mill' and escaped being ground. "Knowing how anxious you must have been I wrote the first opportunity, but found it impossible to mail the letter, owing to the terribly unsettled state of the Army after the severe fighting of Saturday, and preparations for the retreat which occurred Monday night. "You have probably heard all about it in the papers. How 'General what you call'm' was supported by 'General So-and- So' until forced to retreat, described with the clearness and precision of a newspaper reporter. For my part I believe the battle was only understood by the Generals themselves, and the newspaper accounts are mere conjectures, picked up here and there, from an aid, or a skulking soldier, and filled up from the imagination of the writer himself. "On Wednesday night we received orders to move from the camp occupied for several weeks, and there was a general pre- sentiment that a terrible battle was to take place in which all but Sigel * and ourselves were to be engaged. "But the Regular Reserve (Sykes' Division) was ordered to move with the rest so that if the chance of success became critical, they could be called into action at a moment's notice. I promise you, dear Mother, that I slept very little that same Wednesday night and felt very much as if I were going through some queer dream as I packed my haversack and loaded my pistol in the early starlit morning and just as I stepped out of my tent to join my company — Boom — Boom — Boom came sounding along the plain from the River and we knew that the Ball was opened. "We started at the head of the Division, as it moved right * General Franz Sigel. THE CIVIL WAR i/n front, and as we came nearer the River, and the mist cleared away from the woods, the cannonading increased until it became like the prolonged roll of distant thunder, and when within a few miles of Falmouth we halted in line of battle along the road to allow the Volunteers to pass — the Irish Brigade, who fought so like tigers the next day, came first — their tattered green flag and poor Meagher at their head, and then, score after score of other Brigades, laughing and shouting as though on the road to a first-class spree, instead of the bloody entertainment that awaited them. "Every now and then the Battalions with bands marched to music and others with 'Yankee Doodle' on the drum and fife. I did not see a single face that was anxious or a step that did not spring with eagerness and hope as they came marching past, and I can tell you that of all the tunes that were ever played to bring a soldier's heart in the right place and make him march gaily to certain destruction, this dear old air holds its own to the last, and I've no doubt that Paris would have fought like a hero if the Trojans had only thought of striking up 'Yankee Doodle' when he turned his back on the foe. "It would have amused you to hear the different salutations our Brigade received as the troops marched by, and the cross- fire of repartee that glanced across the road while the shells were glancing across the river. 'How are you Regulars.'" said a Volunteer sarcastically. 'Divil the better for seein' you,' was the rejoinder. 'Humph,' says a Volunteer, 'them are the fel- lows that stayed in the rear at Antietam.' 'Faith, yer right,' says an old Regular, 'to keep you fellows from runnin' away, and it was more than we could do,' and again the old Volunteers would exchange good-natured greetings with our men, and be encouraged to go in — and win. "After the whole Grand Division had passed the order was received to detach our Division from Hooker and support Sum- ner, when he crossed the Bridge. This we did, bivouacking Thursday and Friday nights on the hill behind our Batteries, watching the shells bursting in the City, listening impatiently 43 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST to the cheers of the troops, as they crossed the pontoons, and reading the delightful package of letters which I received, while the cannonading went on sullenly, stopping only at nightfall, and we found ourselves still inactive on the safe side of the River Saturday morning, the only troops who had not crossed. Up to this time there had been little or no Infantry fighting, with the exception of a brisk skirmish at the Bridge, where a Missis- sippi Regiment numbering only four hundred men, gallantly disputed the crossing of our whole Army under the fire of over a hundred heavy guns at short range and only retreated when the whole lower part of the city was battered about their ears and laid in the dust. This was as gallant and heroic a feat as that of Leonidas. "On Saturday morning a terrible fire of musketry was heard across the river, accompanied by the opening of all the Rebel batteries, who had hitherto kept silent and saved their ammuni- tion, and then, one by one, our batteries crossed the bridge and the thunder of a general engagement rolled over the river — grand and sublime beyond anything I have heard or conceived within the limits of the sublimity of War. At one time we could hear the musketry crackling, like numerous packs of firecrackers set off at once in a barrel — and then — the Artillery would join in like the deep baying of a great hound and the smoke fiioat like a fog over the hiUs, thick and stifling with the peculiar smell of gunpowder. "At eleven o'clock a hurried aid came spurring across the hill between us and the river, and we all knew what was coming. Every man took his place in the ranks without a word, or wait- ing for a command, and then, slowly winding our way in a long line, the Division passed over the plain and halted the column in front of the Bridge to await further orders. In front of us the shattered town and the smoke and the thunder, every now and then the loud explosion of a shell as they burst near us and the rattling of the stones and the dirt it threw over our men. "I was standing by the side of my Company, watching a Rebel battery about a mile off, the only one that commanded 44« THE CIVIL WAR our position, when a little white puff burst innocently out of the distant embrasure. I turned my head to point it out to an officer, who stood near me, when whiz-z-z-z-z went a great scream- ing, roaring, round shot like a fiend and struck in the bank. I turned my head to look and found that rapid as had been its progress that terrible whiz had been through our ranks, and three poor fellows were laid out on the ground with the Doctor and his assistants cutting their clothes open and spread- ing his instruments out on a blanket. "Double quick across the Bridge and through the town seemed like a dream, and it was hard to realise that I was actually going into action. Past shattered houses, with windows knocked into one, over great holes in the street torn by our shells, red 'flags on every corner to mark the hospitals, with frightened groups of men bearing a comrade to the Surgeon, and on the corners of the streets laid out in long rows, like the ranks of a Regiment, were terrible stiff looking blankets, and under the blankets — I was almost afraid to think. "We halted on the corner of the main street and the order came to load. Then we knew that our work was before us and there was no mistake — and then — and not until then — there came a queer physical sensation, not exactly nervous, but very much like it; and the thought came across my mind that it would be very pleasant to be seated in a secure cellar in the interior of the Catskill Mountains, with a big dog in the background, and a policeman in front of the house. By the right flank double quick — march! out of the town, past the last house, and then — the battle field! Excited aids, tearing past on foaming horses, wounded men hobbling down the streets into shelter; Doctors with their green sashes, cool and busy — and I looked out on the terrible scene that lay before us. No more imagination, no more romance — stern, dark reality. "It was evident to us all that the day was against us when we first emerged from the shelter, and that the Regulars were the only troops that could turn the scale. In front — about a hundred yards distant — stood a mound, clearly defined against 45 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST the sky, with the smoke rolling in wild clouds over our heads and dimming the fierce red glare of the setting sun that was dis- appearing grimly through the gunpowder and threatening the approach of night to add to the horror of the Battle. "Around the base of the mound we could see Infantry hud- dled in blue masses, supporting a Battery on its summit, with the figures of the wild looking Artillery men working the guns like so many demons, and cheering when a caisson was blown up or a shell exploded in the Rebel works. *Thank God, we are all right,' cried a poor fellow by the road, 'here comes the Regulars !' "Phiz, Phiz, Phiz — went the Minie bullets over our heads as we were drawn up in line of battle — ^with a heavy thud every now and then when they struck a man, and then — when we were fairly in I began to feel like a brick and realise that I not only had myself to take care of but a whole company. So I put on what Allan calls the domineering smile, as if I was not the least bit scared (which I was) and told the men not to be nervous, and keep their heads up, and thus we stood, waiting for the order to charge. "Suddenly a great cry was raised and we could see our troops fall back in groups of two and three, running like chickens, and then the wild yell of the Rebels as they charged, and thus drawn up we remained in front of the town until dark, with our troops fleeing past, as they did some days before, but filing the other way, and thus when not a single man remained our two Brigades were kept alone on the field. "At eleven o'clock we were marched out and established as a Picket in the advance. The right of the line (3rd Infantry) covered by an old Tannery, with a company from each Regiment thrown out as skirmishers on the flanks, and there we remained Saturday night until Sunday morning, when the fight commenced again. "The papers report a second battle on Sunday, but this is not true, as the only fighting on the right in front of the town was done by our Division and that was not a Battle, but a duel 46 THE CIVIL WAR of sharpshooting. It commenced at daybreak by the Rebels (the same terrible Mississippi Regiment) firing upon our Regiment — it continued about an hour, when it was ordered that the Com- pany deployed as skirmishers should fall back into the woods. This was done — by our losing twenty men. "I wish Father could have seen the Rebels shoot — it was the most beautiful exhibition of skill with the rifle that I have ever beheld. A man showing himself at three hundred yards was a gone subject, and yet they used the ordinary open sights. A party of several of our Officers and men got in the loft of the Tannery; and we enjoyed some superb excitement in the way of target shooting. "We cut little loopholes in the bricks, and some beautiful shots were made on both sides. I was trying to draw a bead on a tall rebel, who showed his head out of a rifle pit about 200 yards off'', when he sprang up, firing oflPhand, and sent a bullet through the same loophole that I was aiming through. He spoiled my nerves for the rest of the day. "We remained all Sunday exposed to the same fire until re- lieved in the evening by a California Regiment, who broke and ran the next morning when the Rebels opened on them. "Sunday night we slept in the basement of a superb Church in Fredericksburg and spent the next day in strolling about the town, although the Rebels shelled it from time to time all day, and we lost several men while walking quietly in the streets. There were quantities of beautiful things, china and toilet orna- ments thrown out of the houses by the soldiers. "I noticed a pair of the most beautiful Sevres china toilet bottles ; also a lithograph of a picture by Landseer called The First Lesson, a mate to the Chip of the Old Block; it was too large to carry so I cut out one dear little pup in the corner to keep as a memento. "Monday afternoon strange rumours floated through the town, and we noticed large bodies of troops marching towards the River during the whole day and the remainder of the Regiments 47 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST 'falling in' towards night with the evident intention of joining in the retreat. "At eight o'cloclc Sykes' Division received orders to march out and be drawn up in line of battle outside of the town and remain until every man had crossed the river, so that the Regulars had the distinction of remaining alone in the presence of the whole Rebel army and being the last to retreat, four hours after our troops had crossed. "The last battalion that marched over, the bridge in the blinding rain of Tuesday morning was *the Third Infantry' and the last horseman General Syksel "We are now occupying the same old camp, and with the hope, dear, darling Mother, that you will soon write, I remain, with love to all, *'Your affectionate son, . "Louis." In 1863 I was in New York upon the occasion of the celebrated draft riots, which led to much destruction of life and property upon the part of those opposed to conscription, who were chiefly the Irish, who had always hated the negroes, and saw no reason why they should fight a war growing out of emancipation. I had come to New York from the country, reaching there the eleventh of July. Most of the rioting was uptown, and Washing- ton Square, where I stayed, was a safe region. The dis- turbance first began at the Provost Marshal's Headquar- ters on the corner of 46th Street and Third Avenue, Monday, July 13, 1863. The police and militia were un- able to quell it, and Superintendent Kennedy, of the for- mer, was almost beaten to death, while General Sanford's soldiers were powerless against the mob of thousands. Two houses on Lexington Avenue and one on Fifth Ave- nue were sacked, and the Provost Marshal's office at Twenty-eighth Street and Broadway was burned. Col. 48 THE CIVIL WAR O'Brien, a well-known officer, who strove to address the crowd and divert them, was stoned to death. With cries of "Down with the Abolitionists" and "Hurrah for Jeff Da- vis," they proceeded to the Coloured Orphan Asylum, on Fifth Avenue and Forty-fourth Street, and set fire to it, with resulting great loss of life. They seized the Armoury on Second Avenue, and tried unsuccessfully to set the Tribune building on fire. As usual, weak-kneed public officials only made worse trouble, for Mayor Wood addressed the mob as "My friends." The Common Council voted to give them $2,- 500,000 in bounty, but the Mayor would not hear of this concession. The riot was finally halted only after Arch- bishop Hughes had addressed them and reinforcements of Federal troops had arrived. The riot reached its climax at the end of the third day, when General Kilpatrick arrived with a large force. It is estimated that the loss of property amounted to $2,000,000. Notwithstanding all this violence, the draft went on. A day or two after, I went down to Carmine Street, where, at the time, was an old cemetery in which there were sycamore trees. From the branches of one of these hung the body of a mutilated negro, upon whose clothes kerosene or some other combustible fluid had been poured and lit. From other branches lengths of manilla rope, burned at the ends and swinging in the wind, indicated where other victims had been burned and hung. Never since the early negro riots in 1741 had there been such a slaughter of this race. From the beginning of the war New York was a great military camp, and the public squares, notably the City Hall Park, were given up to the housing of recruits. As a heavy bounty was paid to enlisted men, the temptation to 49 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST "jump" this was very great, and there was a regular or- ganisation of rascals ever ready to swindle the nation. In order to keep them securely confined, City Hall Park was surrounded by a tall board fence; but even this was not always sufficient to prevent a daring escape. I did not learn of the end of the war until several months after Lee's surrender. When the Color ado j upon which we had passed through the Straits of Magellan, reached Callao, we were met by the American Consul and some officers of the Chilean ironclad Esmeralda, who told us of the termination of hostilities, the assassination of President Lincoln, the attack upon Seward and the other members of the Cabinet. It is needless to say how great was the mingled shock. 50 CHAPTER IV THROUjGH THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN IN 1865 The Steamship Colorado — Louis Agassiz and the Agassiz Expedition — Catamarans Off the Brazilian Coast — ^Arrival in Rio de Janeiro — The Corcovado — The Railroad of Dom Pedro Segundo — The Amazon — Mr. Roosevelt's Claims — The Straits of Magellan — Sandy Point — Vicious Natives — Captain Slocum's Experiences — An International PostofEce — A Disabled United States Man of War — Wonderful Scenery. In the spring of 1865, I had the extreme good luck to receive an invitation to form one of a party that was to encircle South America, and ultimately land at San Fran- cisco. Its means of conveyance was the then "new and splendid steamer Colorado" which was later placed in the Oriental service of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. The most interesting feature of the trip, and a great inducement, was the fact that we were to take with us the members of a scientific expedition headed by Louis Agassiz, the great Swiss naturalist and friend of Cuvier, who had many years before been urged to take up the unfinished work of Spyx, and compile a history of the fresh- water fish of Brazil. They were to go as far as Rio de Janeiro, and later to explore the Amazon. Thanks to the generosity of Mr. Thayer the equipment was per- fect in every way and most liberal, while its personnel included about a dozen of the brightest specialists in zool- ogy, geology, conchology, and the allied sciences in Amer- ica, with artists and a photographer. Besides these there 51 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST was a sprinkling of ambitious young men, not the least interesting of whom was the late William James, who later became the great psychologist. Mrs. Agassiz, an admirable helper, was also one of the party, and after- ward wrote a volume describing the work of her husband and his assistants, which was most exhaustive and well done. The Colorado at the time was considered to be the last word in efficiency and perfection of marine construction, but she was in fact a slow tub, about three hundred feet long and forty- foot beam. She had clumsy and dangerous guards extending pretty much her whole length, a walk- ing-beam engine of the old type with an enormous cylin- der, and was propelled by iron paddle wheels which in rough seas were rarely both in the water at the same time. By tender and solicitous nursing she could do nine knots an hour, but usually seven or eight was her pace, and once when we thought a Confederate privateer was after us we made an alarming spurt of ten. Despite her erratic movements, so far as our comfort was concerned, there was for those days little complaint to be made. It is true that our staterooms were illuminated by candles or dim lard-oil lamps, but we all had plenty of room and good food, fresh milk, and meat or chickens, the forward part of the ship being turned into a miniature farm- yard. After we parted with the Agassizs our party was a much smaller one. It included the venerable Bishop Pot- ter of Pennsylvania and his third wife, then a bride of a few weeks; Frederick Billings of Vermont, Vice-Presi- dent Schuyler Colfax, ex-Governor Bross of Illinois, and Samuel Bowles, the then editor of the Springfield Re- publican, who were on their way to inspect the Union and Central Pacific railroads, the first trans-continental line. 52 THROUGH STRAITS OF MAGELLAN IN 1865 Besides these persons, there were two or three invalided army officers, and Frank Huntington Potter, who is to- day known as a great musician, and the possessor of a wonderful tenor voice. We sailed from New York upon a cold, snowy day, the 30th of March, 1865, but soon ran into the gulf stream and warm sunshine. The delights of the tropical seas were accentuated by the contrast with the leaden skies and dismal winter weather we had just left, and when, a week out, we entered that vast collection of seaweed known as the Saragossa sea, which is regarded by the su- perstitious as the graveyard of derelict ships, we found new delights, and plenty of material for the scientific members of our party. Of course the central figure in our midst was Pro- fessor Agassiz, whose impressive personality appealed to every one, from the captain to the most unimportant member of the crew, for he always had a kind word for all, and even did not neglect the two or three boys on board, of whom I was one. He was in appearance a broad-shouldered man, with a large head and good strong features. His brow was high and expansive, his eyes of light colour, and rather widely set apart, and his mouth large and expressive; his Roman nose was, as is usually the case, an indication of force and character, and the sole hairy adornment of his face was small, short whiskers. He was usually smiling and happy, and I never saw him ruffled or out of temper. His great attraction was his enthusiasm over his work, and his thoroughness, there being the impression conveyed that he was always working toward some great and useful end. I now think of him in association with Emerson's beautiful words: "Every occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the world, and a correlative of every other. Each one 53 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST is an entire emblem of human life; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its course and its end. And each one must somehow accommodate the whole man and recite all his destiny. The world globe itself is a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find the animalcule which is less per- fect for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, re- sistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on eternity, — all find room to consist in the small creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb." When the time came for him to begin his lectures in the saloon, he found every one vying with each other to supply specimens and help of all kinds, and Captain Bradbury often stopped the ship to dredge for sea animals, of which there was an abundance in these warm waters, including the exquisite nautilus, many varieties of marine parasites, and minute Crustacea. The sailors, infected with the enthusiasm of the great savant, wielded the buckets and nets with a will, and provided huge tubs on the deck which became serviceable aquaria. Then came the in- formal talks every morning at ten, the audience being composed not only of Agassiz's assistants, but every one else who could find time. Even the freshly combed and washed stokers stole sheepishly into the saloon, and ap- peared to be as interested as any one. The charm of the lecture was that he never said anything that these sim- ple minds could not grasp, and sometimes, as if he had said something ambiguous or involved, he would apologise and explain in more direct language. He depended upon home-made blackboards, and was, as I remember, an ad- mirable draughtsman. There was no branch of scientific investigation connected with our voyage in which he failed to take part, and when we first saw the Southern Cross, 54 THROUGH STRAITS OF MAGELLAN IN 1865 that marvellous constellation of stars, in his joy he danced a fandango one evening upon the upper deck, his part- ner being the venerable Professor Anthony, the con- chologist, who was equally enthusiastic. As we neared South America his lectures, however, be- came more technical, and consisted in minute instructions to his assistants preparatory to landing. These were well thought out, for there was no haphazard plan, and each man knew his projected part. We were always much interested in the antics of the flying fish, which darted away in every direction in seem- ing competition with the ever faithful porpoises who raced under our bows for many days. The former oc- casionally landed upon the deck, and were immediately taken to Agassiz, who was greatly interested in their mechanism of progression. I remember he explained that, contrary to popular opinion, their organs of flight differed entirely from the wings of birds and were patterned like the pectoral fins of most other fish. On the twenty-third of April we made Cape Frio, and saw ahead of us the Organ mountains, which appear to surround Rio de Janeiro. The most prominent is the Corcovado, which we afterward ascended on mule-back, the party consisting of Bishop Potter, his wife, and the Agassizs. This picturesque peak, which is familiar from its reproduction in many pictures, is over two thousand feet high, and on one side drops without any break into the harbour. By lying flat one can, if he be sufficiently free from vertigo, see the wonderful harbour beneath, with the island of Santa Cruz and the Sugar Loaf (Pao de Azucar) on the other side. When the ship enters, the impression is one of being landlocked in some beautiful lake. As I looked down I was reminded of some of the old pictures of Cole's Voy- 55 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST age of Life that I had seen in my childhood, and which always seemed exaggerated and impossible. Here these crude things were, however — but idealised and blazing in colour. General James Watson Webb, the then American Min- ister, had a place in Petropolis, and for a time lived at the Hotel de Larangeiras, near the seat of government. The General, who at home was known as the Editor of the New York Courier and Enquirer, and who had fought at least one fatal duel, was a doughty representative of the United States at a time when some one of decision was needed, and he took the place of one Meade, a South- ern sympathiser, who decamped when the war of the Re- bellion commenced. Webb had gone to Brazil by way of Europe, and had asked for and received the endorsement of Napoleon the Third, for it was feared the sympathy of England was largely with the South and that Brazil herself was not too neutral. Rio is now, I hear, a magnificent reconstructed city, but even in the sixties it was a pleasant place, despite its in- conveniences and dirt. There was plenty of music and many theatres, and at the time of our visit Offenbach's comic operas with Tosti and Irma were the rage, this being before they came to the United States. The Em- peror, Dom Pedro II, was an excellent ruler, a scientific man, and a bit given to pomp and circumstance. When he went to the opening of the Chambers it was in a gor- geous old coach that had formerly belonged to the Em- peror Francis the First, of Austria, and his staiF was a brilliant one. Twenty-four years after my visit he was deposed by a revolutionary party, a member of whom was the editor J. C. Roderiguez, whom I knew very well in New York. The Emperor did all in his power to help Agassiz, furnishing laboratories and facilitating the de- 56 THROUGH STRAITS OF MAGELLAN IN 1865 parture of the expedition, which started up the coast for Para, and later ascended the Amazon and explored many of its tributaries. Many subsequent alleged discoveries, especially regarding the fauna and flora of Brazil, were undoubtedly anticipated, not only by Agassiz, but others ; for instance, the cannibal fish referred to by Mr. Roose- velt were fully described by Charles Livingston Bull, who found them and studied their vicious habits in the Orinoco several years before the Colonel's visit, while the evil ways of the vampire bats were minutely detailed by Lieut. Herndon, of the United States Navy, as early as 1851. The celebrated "River Duvida," about which so much has been written and said within the past year or two, was probably one of those branches of the Amazon entered, perhaps at its mouth, by some of Agassiz's party. That Mr. Roosevelt came down such a stream is undoubtedly a fact, despite the scoffers; and Sir Clements Markham, the great English geographer, who had been much in South America, wrote me just after the Roosevelt arti- cles appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, and at the time of Mr. Roosevelt's lecture before the Royal Geo- graphical Society: "Mr. Roosevelt must have descended the Cammona, flowing from the Cordilliera Geral to the Amazon, a course of 640 miles between the rivers Topa- jos and Madeira. The lower part was known before, but he discovered the upper course. I have long thought that there must be a longitudinal valley with a river be- tween the Topajos and the Madeira. The river cannot be very large." We took leave at Rio of the Agassiz party, who went to Minas Gerals, where they split up and later left for their respective stations in the Amazon valley. The sea passage from Rio to the entrance of the Straits of Magellan is an uninteresting and sometimes, as we 5T RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST found it, an intensely cold one. At times we saw the dim Argentine coast, and again its proximity was in- dicated by the flight of small land birds which dropped exhausted upon the deck, but as we neared the entrance, guarded on one side by Cape Virgin and on the other by Cape Espiritu Santo, we were welcomed by large gather- ings of gulls, cape pigeons and albatross, who never de- serted the ship until we emerged into the Pacific, three hundred and fifty miles away. We steamed into the Straits on a very cold morning in May when a northeast gale had kicked up a high sea in the face of an ebb tide. The usual tide rate is never less than five knots, so that it was not until the after- noon that we dropped anchor in the roads opposite Sandy Point, which is now known as Punta Arenas, and has the distinction of being the most southerly city in the world, for it is 1600 miles below Cape Town, and 900 miles nearer the south pole than Christ Church in New Zealand, from which the English Antarctic explorers have recently departed upon their daring voyages of discovery. At the time we landed it was a dismal hole with perhaps a dozen houses, a Chilean governor, and a population chiefly of Patagonians, who wandered about in guanaco skin robes reaching to their feet, whose extraordinary size originally led some early visitor to give them their name. They were eager for barter, and I exchanged an old hat for a beautiful ostrich skin containing the breasts of nine birds, while a bottle of whiskey had a trade value beyond the dreams of avarice, as some of the sailors dis- covered, for they came on board heavily laden with vari- ous furs and skins, ostrich robes and eggs, and other valu- able curios. The Indians then were as fond of a battered billy-cock hat as the ordinary Japanese coolie is to-day. Before the founding of Sandy Point in 1851 there was 58 THROUGH STRAITS OF MAGELLAN IN 1865 a Chilean convict settlement at Port Famine, about fifty miles away, but as the result of a mutiny the Governor and all the officers were killed and their bodies burned. The ringleader was a lieutenant, who with the released prisoners seized an English schooner ; but their liberty was short-lived, for they were all captured, and the instigator of the massacre was himself drawn and quartered! Punta Arenas is to-day, I learn, a bustling place, witH many important buildings, electric lights, and the inevit- able trolley railways. Its superb docks are crowded with steamers, for it has been, and will be, the centre of trans- oceanic commerce until the South American coast trade shall be diverted through the Panama Canal. At the time of our visit these ships were few and far between and these were chiefly men-of-war, who preferred the Straits to the dangerous delays of the Cape Horn gales, for when obliged to round "the tip of the continent" they often had many weeks added to the uncomfortable voyage, perhaps from China or the far East, materially increas- ing the length of their home pennants. The longer voy- age was obligatory for small, poorly-manned vessels, be- cause of the danger at that time of attacks by the hostile and treacherous natives of Terra del Fuego, who were always on the lookout for incautious or helpless crews to massacre, or for vessels to loot. Under the leadership of renegades they sought every device to lure ships to their destruction, and we saw the bleached ribs of a schooner that had a year before been piled up on the beach, and every soul slaughtered. In 1895 Captain Slocum, a clever Yankee sailorman, took his small forty-foot sloop through these waters, and was continually molested by these venemous devils — for they are the incarnation of savage ferocity. Worn out and without sleep, he conceived the idea of turning in, 59 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST one night, and locking himself in his cabin. He first, however, sprinkled the deck with carpet tacks. The howls and screams of the Fuegians, who had jumped on deck and then quickly off into the sea, apprised him of the success of his plan. We were not annoyed, but were often hailed by a dirty native, who, with his family, was cruising in the family dugout, in the bottom of which was a fire used for cook- ing or for signalling. They were armed only with bow and arrows, and I find that as late as 1895 these were their sole weapons. On one occasion only were we in dan- ger, and that was when some of us landed to bake mus- sels, and had we not taken to the boats in the midst of our feast would probably have been attacked by the natives whose cries we heard in the distance, and who crowded down to the bank. Upon another occasion we landed and examined a native hut, which was made of saplings bent over and fastened at the top. This was unoccupied, and had evidently been but lately deserted, for we discovered the remnants of a fire, and the empty shells of the pe- culiar mollusks that form a large part of their diet. The entire trip was a succession of beautiful scenic sur- prises. We were in full view, at different stages, of ex- quisite glaciers, smouldering volcanoes, floating icebergs and beetling cliffs thousands of feet high. The channel is everywhere tortuous, sometimes so narrow that the trees apparently touch the ships, and again there are reaches nearly thirty miles wide. In some deep black pools we saw the greatest variety of animal life. Ducks and geese were at home again, after a flight of many thousand miles. These birds, only to be shot with decoys and blinds in Northern regions, were here absolutely fear- less, and I believe could have been knocked over with a stick. Numerous seal and otter swam out of reach of 60 THROUGH STRAITS OF MAGELLAN IN 1865 the lumbering Colorado, and were shot at, but without re- sult, by some of the sportsmen on board. A peculiar bird which, I believe, is not to be found elsewhere, is the so-called steamboat duck, which has rudi- mentary wings, and paddles away, leaving a track of foam in the rear. Everywhere we found delicious edible mus- sels, many of which contained fair-sized pearls, A few small beeches and stunted cedars were seen, but the vege- tation consisted mainly of a small abundant bush of the ilex family, bearing yellow blossoms with red tips. Near Borgia Bay we placed a board with the name of our ship painted thereon with several other similar boards, and left letters to be collected by the next vessel going the other way; for there is, or was, at this point, a primi- tive international postoffice, however, without postage stamps, supercilious or bored officials, or a political post- master. There is evident aboriginal honesty, and I have no doubt the letters are safe even from the Fuegian, for we saw several of remote date awaiting collection and transmission. Before we left Rio we were led to expect possible in- terference from the Confederate cruiser Florida, but the double ender Suwanee, of the United States Navy, had been sent to protect Union commerce. Our surprise was indeed great when, somewhere near Eden Harbour, we found her without coal, and rather in need of provisions. For many days her crew had been obliged to cut all the wood they could, and the accumu- lation was often burned in a few hours ! We were fortu- nately able to supply her wants, and, in return, she con- voyed us well on our journey into the Pacific. Our own armament up to this time had consisted of only two smooth bore six pounders, which we discharged as we left the in- hospitable region and saw the last of Cape Pillar. 61 CHAPTER V STUDYING MEDICINE Why Men Follow This Profession — Old Doctors — Old-Fashioned Doctors and Their Offices — Dreary Waiting-Rooms — The College of Physicians and Surgeons — Dr. Henry B. Sands — A Great Surgeon — "Old Clark" — John T. Metcalfe, a Wag — "Jim" Mc- Lane — Students' Pranks — The Two Meanest Men in New York ■ — T. G. Thomas — The Dissecting Room — A Horrible Identifica- tion — The First Operation for Appendicitis — McBurney and Bull — Dr. Trudeau in the North Woods — The Old New York Hospital — Experience as an Interne — A Surgical Nightmare — The Medical and Surgical Society — Gargantuan Feasts — Bogus Terrapin — Dr. Meredith Clymer and Hungry Joe — The Emmons Case— A Plat de Negre— A Night Off. Medical education in the sixties was of course far more primitive than it is at the present time, there being, as to-day, a few really good colleges in the large eastern cities, and innumerable little schools scattered everywhere. No preliminary education was then required, and it was possible in at least one college for a man in haste to take the two needed courses for graduation in one year, win- ter and summer. To-day any standard institution of medical learning requires a preliminary course of several years, and no one can matriculate who has not a uni- versity degree or its equivalent. The hospital appoint- ments were limited, and the excellent system of clinical requirement in vogue in Great Britain and elsewhere abroad had not been adopted in the United States, so that 62 STUDYING MEDICINE often an imperfectly educated individual left college to plunge at once into practice. Why so many men take up the profession of medicine is always a puzzle. Undoubtedly a number are not fitted by nature for this calling and have only adopted it be- cause it was supposed to be remunerative, or because the person happened to be the son of a doctor. My experi- ence is that comparatively few men have really been "in love with their profession" in the beginning — and fewer are afterward honestly enthusiastic. To-day the most contented are the research workers in directions that never permit them to come into contact with commercialism; who follow it to escape the thousand and one buffetings incident to ingratitude and disloyalty of patients; to avoid the prevalence of quackery, Christian Science, os- teopathy, and a hundred other forms of popular clap-trap, each one of which lures the impressionable client sooner or later. Happier far is the man who can afford to give his entire service to the sick poor, either in the hospital or elsewhere — the only rewards being the consciousness that he is doing good in some way, and adding to the advances in his science, or pure love of the thing. Antagonism to medicine as a trade, and the cultivation of whole-hearted devotion to study, has of late become largely possible through the magnificent generosity es- pecially of John D. Rockefeller. Since the endowment of the great institution that bears his name, not only have many superlative discoveries been made — but the example of the workers therein has led to a much higher grade of work. It is only the other day that a universal standard of honour and dignity was maintained in my profession, and I recall without difficulty the names of a score of old doctors whose unwritten code of ethics was quite as exact- 63 RECOLLECTIONS OE AN ALIENIST. ing as that which is now insisted upon by the Royal Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons. The very idea of "fee splitting," and other abominations, would have struck a cold chill of righteousness ; and the disingenuous advertis- ing of recent times among a certain portion of the profes- sion, would have led to the exercise of the most radical kind of tabu. The old family physician was often the surgeon as well, although certain men like Valentine Mott, Wil- lard Parker, and W. H. Van Buren, of New York and Ashurst, and Gross of Philadelphia, did the more impor- tant operative work. Every old doctor's office was furnished in the most primitive way, the contents being a desk, a few hard chairs, a tall closet containing an entire articulated skele- ton, and on the walls a diploma and one or two sad medical prints. An oil cloth often covered the floor. A well- stocked bookcase contained among other volumes, Wat- son, Chejme, Gross, Bedford, Andral, Louis, Trousseau and the London Lancet, with perhaps one or two Ameri- can periodicals, such as the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, and the Medical Record, but even these were sometimes absent. There were none of the attributes of comfort or convenience of to-day — no stenographer or smartly dressed office nurse — no white tiled operating room, and none of the dazzling nickel-plated electrical apparatus which is supposed to be so attractive, if not useful. I can well remember when the installment of a static electrical machine was regarded as a mild species of quackery. The instiiiments were cumbersome and solid, and quite primitive, and the lancet and a jar of leeches were always on hand. It is somewhat extraordinary that so little is done to make the doctor's waiting room an attractive place, es- pecially as the patient Jias often to wait a long time. The 64j STUDYING MEDICINE most depressing casts or prints and pictures decorate the walls, or there are anatomical plates and the magazines are a year old. Austin Dohson in one of his charming poems, "The Drama of a Doctor's Window," describes the cheerless conventional physician's office. " 'Well, I must wait ;' the Doctor's room, "When I used this expression, *'Wore the same official gloom ''Attached to that profession, ''Rendered severer by a bald "And skinless gladiator "Whose raw robustness first appalled ''The entering spectator. "No one would would call the 'Lancet' gay— - "Few would avoid confessing "That 'Jones on Muscular Decay' "Is as a rule depressing." The English physicians, however, are more considerate of the literary needs of their waiting patients than our- selves. As a rule the waiting room of a London doctor is only the dining-room used for the occasion, minus the plate. The waiting rooms of many medical men contain a plentiful supply of the very latest periodicals and books, and that of Sir Alfred Fripp has an imposing collection of shells and war relics collected during the South African War in which he was engaged, and these may be said to be highly appropriate decorations, as he is a well-known surgeon. Bleeding was a common remedial measure prior to 1870, and useful if not abused. It then gradually fell into disuse, and it is doubtful if, until a very few years ago, 65 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST the average medical student knew at all how to perform it. I have no doubt there are many medical men of the last generation who never saw it done. My first medical studies were undertaken in the base- ment office of a country doctor, a wizened and jolly little man and a "war veteran," who swapped stories with his cronies who flocked in between office hours, and sat upon that flat and convenient bone known as the sacrum, the chief anatomical purpose of which according to an irrever- ent foreign friend is to afford a certain type of my coun- trymen with a suitable point d'appui, while taking their ease. My attention was divided between their gossip and the inspection of the daily funeral across the street at the Methodist church, in front of which numerous patient hack horses of various ages and colours sought in vain to escape the tortures of the midsummer flies. It is scarcely necessary to say that there was little chance for real study, and I longed for the time I should enter a New York preceptor's office. As the author of Confessio Medici says,* "It is certain that some men are indeed called to be doctors ; and so are some women. They are, as we say, born doctors; they were in medicine. So apt are they to their work, and it to them, that they almost persuade me to hold opinion with Pythagoras, and to believe that in some previous existence they were in general practice. Or their ability may be the result of inheritance; but we know next to nothing about inheritance, neither is it imaginable by what physical processes the babe unborn is predisposed for our profession. Still, there are men and women, but not a great number, created for the Service of Medicine: who were called to be doctors when they were not yet called to be babies." '^ Confessio Medici^ p. 2. 66 DR. JOSEPH A. BLAKE STUDYING MEDICINE Most of the men comprising the faculty of the old College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in the sixties were of this kind — and I doubt if even one of them ever allowed personal gain to supersede the duty of his profession. When I entered the office of Henry B. Sands in 1867, my fellow students were Dr. John G. Curtis and Dr. John Black of Halifax, the first of whom died last year. Dr. Black, after a few years, went to London to live, and it is said that his experience in crossing was so dreadful that he has remained there ever since rather than run the risks of the sea. Dr. Sands, who lived in Thirteenth Street, was a pioneer in latter day surgery and was the first to Use the antiseptic methods of Lord Lister. He had made his way by sheer hard work, having been the son of a humble druggist on the Bowery. He had grad- uated from the office of Willard Parker, then the Nestor of American surgery. Sands was a lovable man, with pre- cise little ways of manner and speech. He was abso- lutely full of the knowledge of his profession, and was the most delicate and skilful operator I have ever known — not even excepting Dr. Joseph A. Blajke, who has been so active in France. He was also an accomplished pianist and instinctively ran his fingers over the keys wherever he found the instrument. I shall never forget that he was called to perform a slight operation upon a patient who was a member of a very serious family on Lexington Avenue. When we reached the house Curtis and I were sent upstairs to get the patient ready and give him the anesthetic, while Sands remained below. The horror of the friends who had keyed themselves up un- necessarily to the occasion was apparent when the notes of Chopin's "Tarantelle" ascended from below, and when, after tickling the few hairs on his otherwise bald head 67 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST with his crooked little finger, he hummed to himself the few remaining bars and proceeded to business. After the Civil War the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons was increased by the advent of Dr. John C. Dalton, a Boston physiologist, who had been an army surgeon. Dalton was one of the most intel- lectual of men, quite original in every way, and quite independent in his method of getting results. He in- vented most of his own apparatus for demonstration, and his style of lecturing was clear and incisive. So much in earnest was he, and so heartily did he win the love and respect of all of us, that there were none of those outbursts of student disorder that sometimes occur. On one occasion, however, when he lectured upon digestion, a loaf of bread was passed about the class to show the ef- fects of fermentation, and one bold disturber of the peace broke off a fragment and threw it across the room at a friend. Dalton, who saw this, simply stopped a moment and said, "If the gentleman really desires recreation, I will supply him with a rubber ball and he can go outside." This was the only time I ever knew him to admonish any one. Willard Parker was not so considerate. He hated the use of tobacco in any form, and more than once scolded a western or southern student who chewed, and was not as careful as he should be where he spat! Alonzo, or "Old" Clark, as he was called, was the very type of the successful consultant of his time. He came to New York from a small college either at Pittsfield, Mass., or Woodstock, Vt., I forget which, and became the leading exponent in his day of American medicine. His was a leonine figure, and his rugged features, which were often compared to those of Gladstone, are familiar even to-day to a large number of people who remember his services and kindly manner of trying to make us good 68 STUDYING MEDICINE iioctors. His name has been coupled with that of the great French physician Louis, probably the greatest au- thority on fevers. He and the elder Austin Flint, also an importation, were undoubtedly the leading medical diagnosticians. Dr. Clark was very fond of objective illustration and attached to those morbid specimens that had been in service for years. In the cellar of the old building, under the charge of the veteran Irish janitor, "Andy" McLaughlin, were several hundred household utensils brought from the original school in Crosby Street, where they had been in process of collection for ages, and these contained desiccated evidence of typhoid. Notwith- standing the vicissitudes through which they had passed, and the pranks of former students, who delighted in add- ing cigar stumps and other foreign substances to their contents, they were gravely brought in and shown to the class year after year, despite their condition. Alonzo Clark undoubtedly anticipated many recent bacteriologi- cal discoveries, and his "pneumonic globule" was the fore- runner of the so-called pneumococcus of to-day. In contrast with him were two men who were the em- bodiment of humour, one of whom was James W. Mc- Lane, who was full of anecdote; the other, John T. Met- calfe, a delightful farceur who wrote innumerable medical verses, in which the foibles of his professional brothers were held up for pleasant ridicule. Upon one occasion, when a popular purgative water was a bit too freely en- dorsed by the doctors to conform with the provisions of the medical code, Metcalfe, at a supper given by him, introduced a number of bottles of pure water, each bear- ing a burlesque label, which amiably reflected upon the malefactors. McLane was never tired of telling of the rich and miserly old man whose only daughter had died after a 69 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST protracted illness. The father, who had from time to time not only complained of the expense incident to her illness, but disputed the doctor's bill, demanded at the end that the flowers that had been sent for several days before her demise should be utilised at the funeral to save expense. Another of McLane's stories was of a student at one of the medical "spreads." Having come from a remote part of the country where the fruit was then unknown, he proceeded to eat a banana, skin and all. Speaking of what the Bavarians call sparsen patients, I am reminded of a "close" old man who consulted me many years ago. This Mr. B. had a brother, and between them they owned pretty much all the real estate in a neighbouring city. When I told a friend of how my patient had come to my office in shabby old clothes and pleaded poverty, with the result that I charged him only half my usual fee, he told me of another occasion when some one upbraided the old man, saying, "Do you know, Mr. B., I think you are the meanest man I have ever met?" He replied, "Perhaps you think so, but have you ever met my brother?" Dr. Thomas was the product of South Carolina, and came to New York, making an impression upon the femi- nine part of the community, especially by his redundant floridness of manner. His emphasis and fecundity of comparison made his rather unpleasant specialty most attractive to his audience; as one of his students said, "Thomas's description of an ordinary attack of indiges- tion was an epic poem." His were the celebrated "bed- side manners" and his method of persuading a fastidious woman to take a dose of nasty medicine was worthy of a better cause. With all this he was an able and successful physician. He was rather a pompous man, but withal had a nice sense of humour and no desire to retaliate upon 70 DR. JAMES W. MC LANE STUDYING MEDICINE those who poked fun at him. One of my doubtful ac- compHshments is to caricature in a feeble way. I have "blown off steam" in this manner in the courtroom when waiting to be called to the witness stand. During the last few days of my course at college I made some poor but faithful silhouettes of the faculty. When I entered Thomas's room he said, "Oh, here comes the young man who pokes fun at the faculty!" and my heart sank; but he grinned and asked me a few perfunctory questions, and subsequently gave me his approving vote. It seems that these pictures had fallen into the hands of Sands and had been reproduced upon a menu for the faculty dinner the night before. The dissecting room of the old College of Physicians and Surgeons, which was then on the corner of Twenty- third Street and Fourth Avenue, was a dreary place, and it took a long struggle before I could bring myself to enter upon my practical anatomical studies; but, once begun, I rather enjoyed the work itself, and forgot the horrors. Once indeed a gruesome incident occurred that shocked several of us who had been allotted the body of a young woman. Among our number was a young South- ern student who immediately recognised the corpse on' the table as that of a sister, who I afterwards learned had disappeared from home some years previously, and who had evidently sunk to successive lower moral levels, liter- ally ending in the gutter. This case brings to mind de Maupassant's story of a sea captain who found his lost sister in a Marseilles brothel. There was nothing interesting about our wretched subjects, and even the elaborate tattoo marks on the sail- ors and criminals were not illuminating. Stevenson's Mody SnatcherSj which describes a time when "Burking" 71 RECOLLECTIONS OE AN ALIENIST. was usual, gives one a thrill when he reads it. The fate of Gray ... it is no wonder that Fettes became half crazy when, for instance, he was called upon to deal with the body of the man with whom he had dined a few days before. In my class at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and in that following, were a number of men who after- ward became very distinguished, one being the late Charles McBurney and the other W. T. Bull. These two, especially the latter, introduced and perfected ab- dominal surgery in this country; for up to 1870 most people with abdominal wounds or disease were simply treated with opium or its alkaloid and kept quiet. A small proportion recovered. To-day the deaths from appendi- citis are comparatively exceptional. When Bull wrote his thesis upon "Perityphlitis," which was its old name, and advocated a free incision into the abdomen, I had a wounded burglar under my care at the Brooklyn City Hospital, who was seemingly paralysed from his waist down. This man had a severe abdominal wound from a pistol shot; we considered the outlook for him a fatal one, and gave him the usual opiates. As a matter of form a policeman sat at his bedside night and day, for he was under arrest. After a month he was carried into the prison next door and, a week after, actually escaped and let himself down to the ground by a rope. The wound did not really penetrate the abdomen and the paralysis was evidently temporary ; but we had before this discussed the propriety of getting Dr. Bull to operate! Another distinguished classmate was the late Dr. E. L. Trudeau, who was a day older than myself and a dear friend. I was his best man at his marriage a few months after his graduation, but lost sight of him when he sought the asylum of the North Woods — ^the only place 73 STUDYING MEDICINE where he could live without having hemorrhages. Here it was that he met and treated Robert Louis Stevenson for pulmonary tuberculosis. Stevenson never seemed to like the Saranac: he described the country as a kind of insane mixture of Scotland, a touch of Switzerland and a daub of America, with a thought of the British Channel in the skies. Trudeau, while not a brilliant student at College, was a most charming person, devoted to outdoor sport — a hunter and fisherman and a great deal of a Bayard. His ideals in his profession were the highest, and he devoted himself to his life's work without any reward whatever, helping the unfortunates who flocked to the North Woods. He was pathetically humorous about his own sad condi- tion, and when at the occasion of our last meeting I asked him when he would return to New York again, he said: "Well, Allan — this left lung is all gone, and the right nearly put out of business, and it is all a matter of pul- monic economics, but I shall stick to my work to the last and see my friends as long as I last." The old New York Hospital, where I took the last Harsen prize given there, and served as a substitute, was situated on lower Broadway between Worth, Duane and Church Streets. It had been in existence since the year 1770, when it was organised by Drs. Bard, Middleton and Jones, and chartered by Lord Dunmore, the Colonial Governor of the Province of New York. Although burned to the ground shortly after its completion, it was quickly rebuilt and reopened in 1775. At different times it held patriot and British wounded, and for long years was one of the landmarks of lower New York. Here a riot took place, a boy having seen some doctors holding an autopsy before an open window. The popular feel- ing against body stealing was then so keen that the place 73 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST was stormed and the doctors had to flee for their lives. Meanwhile many people were killed and wounded. Here it was that, under the tutelage of a visiting staff of excellent men, I got my first clinical training; for the hospital had not only medical and surgical wards but a building for sailors. The management of the hospital was old-fashioned, and many customs which had existed for nearly one hundred years were in vogue. One was the daily lunch which all the staff attended standing, an enormous piece of corned beef and huge pitchers of milk being provided. This perennial joint from a Gargantuan beef was never absent. My early hospital days were gloomy indeed, especially when I had to come in contact with the superannuated superintendent and his family, which consisted of a num- ber of rather acidulous and frowsy old women with whom we ate — and who not only inflicted upon us their vacuous gossip of South Brooklyn society but criticised us in every way, indulging in acrimonious innuendo. Imagine these daily repasts with Mr. and Mrs. Squeers, Mrs. Jellaby and Mrs. Mantilini. The head of the institution was a skinflint, and the food we received was of the poorest and cheapest kind, evidently picked up here and there for a song. The visiting staff for the most part were pompous and second-rate men. There comes to me, still vividly, a hor- rid experience with an instrument invented by one of the attending surgeons, which was supposed permanently to close arteries by turning in their internal coats and plug- ging them, thus doing away with ligatures. A patient had been operated upon one afternoon, her thigh having been amputated, and this machine used. The flaps were all adjusted and sewed up, and although she had lost a great deal of blood, she was supposed to be doing well. 74 STUDYING MEDICINE I had gone to bed very tired, but at midniglit was sum- moned to find the wretched woman bleeding to death. I was quite alone, all of the house staif being away. There was of course nothing to be done but to open up the wound and hunt for each spurting artery. This I did and sent for the much-abused ligatures. She was the subject of a disease where the vessels were absolutely fragile, and whenever I tied, the ligature cut through un- less I used a minimum degree of force. Finally, although the woman was almost exsanguinated, and had a fluttering pulse, the work was done and I watched by her bedside until relieved. She fortunately recovered. There is in New York a quasi-social medical society that has been in existence for three-quarters of a century, and which has always included a number of the leading men in New York practise. The meetings consist of a dis- cussion of reported cases, a supper and conversazione. It is known as the Medical and Surgical Society and its minutes include the names of most of the prominent men identified with the medical history of New York, such as Drs. Francis, Valentine Mott, Blakeman, Wilkes, Elliot, Weir, Barker, Keyes and others. The suppers were usually events which would have met with the approval of Brillat Savarin himself. Delicacies brought from all parts of the country, wines that had been carried around the globe in the holds of sailing vessels, canvas-back ducks and terrapin, both of which are be- coming extinct, antebellum hams from Virginia planta- tions and wild rice from South Carolina were usually provided ; and, of them all, the feasts arranged by the late John T. Metcalfe, who was not only an accomplished physician but a gourmet with more finished gastronomic skill than even Sam Ward, took the first rank. The scien- tific discussions were as a rule good, but occasionally a 75 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST dreadful bore would get his innings, exhibiting perhaps a nail extracted from the foot of a patient or a button from the oesophagus of a neglected child. Such an one v/as old Dr. P , a veritable sarcophagus of learning and a surgeon whose mortuary mistakes were appalling, al- though he did his best to conceal the failures of this kind. One night he minutely related the dreary and dull details of a very commonplace case where he had operated, giv- ing no inkling of the result. Sands, who was a great tease, could not resist the temptation to ask, "And was the operation successful. Dr. P ?" "Yes, sir," was the reply, "but the patient died on the table." And there- after, recovering from his evident chagrin, he proceeded to relate the second case in the same aggravatingly stupid manner, omitting the conclusion. Every one saw the roguish twinkle in Sands' eye, who repeated his original query. In a condition of great irritability and annoyance the old doctor petulantly and jerkily replied after a de- moralising pause, "And he died also, sir." Although this was at a time prior to the introduction of aseptic surgery, some of his failures were probably ex- plained by the fact that he washed his instrmnents in the tubs of the laundry which was back of his basement office. Speaking of terrapin, I know of an excellent story in which my friend. Dr. George Huntington, figures. He is now Professor of Anatomy at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and one of the cleverest comparative anatomists in the world. One day, while dining with a friend at a widely known restaurant on Fifth Avenue, they ordered terrapin Maryland. A few minutes later Huntington quickly removed from his mouth a small bone, and later called up the head waiter. "And now — be good enough to tell me how long you have served muskrat for terrapin?" The reply was an indignant and !76 .n)- .x^ 4^ V^ TV • OYEZ « AN INVITATION TO THE MEDICAL AND SURGICAL SOCIETY STUDYING MEDICINE angry denial. "Well," said the Doctor, "I have here the upper jaw of the Fiber Zibetheticus or common muskrat. Unless you make some explanation I shall expose you." The result, after the Swiss maitre d'hotel had had time to cool off, was a confession that most of the "terrapin" furnished at public eating places in New York and else- where was really muskrat, raised and supplied by an en- terprising "farmer" in Philadelphia. I have upon one occasion eaten this animal and enjoyed it, even when it was not masquerading under another name. It is a graminivorous rodent and perfectly clean in all its habits. An interesting figure in New York medical life in my time was old Dr. Meredith Clymer, who, when he died several years ago was nearly ninety, having graduated in Philadelphia in 1837. He was a learned man, and may be truly said to have been the father of modern neurology in the United States. He worked hard almost until the day of his death, and made a great reputation in the Walworth and other murder cases as an alienist. Some of his briefs prepared within a year or two of the end of his life were masterpieces of medico-legal composition, an art unknown to the younger men of to-day. His per- sonal peculiarities and eccentricities, however, alienated him from most of his old friends, while he spoke sor- rowfully about the bad manners of the present day, especially of the young men at his club, some of whom struck matches at his private table without so much as "by your leave," or sat on the table in the public lounge where the newspapers were to be found. When he talked of the post-revolutionary society of Philadelphia, from whence he came, he was delightful; for in his day he was a great beau and was a grandson of one of the signers. I recall an adventure which for a time threatened to sever our pleasant relations. Professor Emmons of 77 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST Washington, D. C, of the U. S. Geological Survey, had married a woman as the result of an advertisement for some one who could utilise her services to sew on buttons and mend clothing. She was a handsome, dashing and fascinating half -Portuguese, and during their married life poor Emmons had a wretched time by reason of her drinking habits and later actual insanity. Her case fig- ured in the newspapers for months. I first saw her at Bloomingdale Asylum where she proposed to the elderly and most proper Medical Superintendent that they should go bathing together. Upon one occasion, when her con- dition was apparently better, she gave a dinner party in Washington to a large collection of distinguished people, and when the butler removed a cover from an imposing salver, a little negro baby was found beneath, crowing in its complete nudity. She was later confined in an asylum and subsequently went to London where she was arrested and arraigned at Bow Street and sent home. I met her at New York, on her arrival by one of the Monarch steamers, the cap- tain of which had become infatuated with her like the rest, and refused to recognise either myself or Dr. Cly- mer, whom I had asked to join me in examining her. We subsequently committed her, and the doctor took her to an asylum in Rhode Island ; but on the way he also fell a victim to her charms, and despite the fact that the day before he had sworn she was insane, permitted her to escape — then there was fresh trouble. I think he was subsequently very sorry. One day when he was standing looking into the window of a shop under the old Fifth Avenue Hotel, he was approached by "Hungry Joe," a noted confidence man, who probably took him for an "upstate farmer" and a possible victim. "Well," said he, "how is my old friend 78 STUDYING MEDICINE Mr. Johnson of Syracuse, and how did you leave all the folks ?" Clymer looked at him 'contemptuously for a full minute and replied, "Ah, my dear young friend, you are much mistaken. I am in reality Mr. Ketchem of Sing Sing, and the folks are eagerly waiting for you up the river!" Dr. F. S, was one of the most popular medical gradu- ates of Harvard who came to New York in the sixties, and was in the habit of attending the monthly dinners of the alumni association where the fun "waxed fast and furious." His wife was rather an exacting woman, and insisted that he should come home at an early hour. Upon one occasion the jollity increased until midnight when he looked at his watch and suddenly felt the enormity of his wrong-doing. Now he had been engaged to attend a rich young woman who was about to become a mother. The idea occurred to send a message to his wife to the effect that he had been suddenly called to accouche this patient. The next morning his wife at breakfast was delighted, asking for details of the colour of the child's hair, eyes, its weight, etc., and he answered without embarrassment or hesitation. A month later found him at another dinner and as reckless of the passage of time as upon the first occasion. Mounted upon the table he made a speech, and every one was in a more or less oblivious condition. When the early morning daylight filtered through the smoke-laden atmos- phere, he was aghast. Some one suggested that an explan- atory note be sent his wife, and without considering what its contents should be, he repeated the message of the month before, even mentioning the patient's name. For- ever after he was discredited in the eyes of his suspicious wife, and became the steadiest, most circumspect, and do- mestic of men. i 79 CHAPTER VI THE OLD FAR WEST San Francisco in the Beginning — The Vigilantes — California Society in the Early Days — The Sand Hills — "Nob Hill" — Extrava- gance — Chinatown — The Transcontinental Railroads — Crossing the Plains — Nevada — The Pioneer Stage Line — A Night Ride with Adah Isaacs Menken — Salt Lake City — A Versatile Family — Denver to Kansas City — Dangerous Indians — The Seventh Cavalry — Rough Pistol Practice — ^A Sea of Buffalo — ^A Hunt — The Amenities of Army Life in the Late Sixties — Denver in 1870 — The Country of Feuds — Cumberland Gap. In 1849, when the seething mass of heterogeneous human beings was poured through the Golden Gate, San Fran- cisco was a wholly Spanish place, but the gold seekers and their followers soon turned it into the same kind of hell that has always been found in other parts of the world invaded by the miner. The original collection of rickety wooden houses was wiped out by a fire in 1851, and no serious attempt was made to rebuild subsequently until just before the Civil War. Owing to the lawlessness of the population there was much early violence, and this was met by the Vigilantes, who without ceremony, and often after the most perfunctory and informal trial, strung up the murderer to the nearest tree or sign post. Epi- demics of murder and consequent lynching were, I learn, common up to a few years before I first reached San Francisco, and even later, and often the sound of a great bell would summon the Committee together from all parts 80 THE OLD FAR WEST of the city to take prompt and vigorous action. The Vigilance Committee was composed of the leading mer- chants, lawyers, doctors, and all those who stood for law and order, so that within a short time they were feared by the dangerous classes, many of whom were obliged to decamp. For a long time California society was most mixed and unsettled, for very few of the better class of immigrants brought their wives with them, although later the estab- lishment of homes under the best conditions was general. Many of the early arrivals had a rather informal life and the consequence was that there were numerous illegitimate children who did not suffer for the sins of the fathers, and had good social positions. In 1865, although Kearny, Market and some other streets were, as they now are, important business thorough- fares, and the celebrated "Nob Hill" was the residential region of the rich and well-to-do, there were many poorly built houses, much squalor, and a great many dreary sand hills. It was in one of these "sand lots" that the anti- Chinese agitator Dennis Kearny held forth. My uncle lived in Bryant Street, and near him were the great red- wood palaces of the multi-millionaire mining men. These were in every way vulgar and showy erections, filled with costly and garish furniture and decorations. There was a pleasant small society, nevertheless, consisting of the Mc- Allisters, Judge Ogden Hoffman, the Maynards and other really interesting people with agreeable families. Everything was free and easy, and there was a great deal of extravagance. There were no such things as nickels or copper cents, the smallest coin in use being the ten-cent piece. Everything was much more dear than in the East, and the cost of living was excessive. Much has been written about Chinatown, which was a 81 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST city by itself, full of big buildings, and with tier upon tier of subterranean cellars, reached by rickety stairs and lad- ders, without ventilation and with but little artificial light. Here and there ran underground passages like rabbit- warrens, and as the inmates were murderers, thieves, gamblers, and other fugitives from justice, they could easily escape when pursued by the police. Many feet be- low the ground flourished fan-tan and poker games, opium smoking dens and brothels. Shortly before I arrived these places had undergone a raid by a mob, and many Chinamen were killed, but this only effected a temporary subsidence of the hideous vice. Murders ceased for a time, but not for long. The waterfront was full of shanghaiing and kidnapping, and many decent, well-dressed people were drugged and pressed into service for the depleted ships crowding the harbour, whose crews had deserted to go up to the gold fields. Every one on the Pacific coast was most enthusiastic about the completion of the great railroad system, which was finally made possible by the exertions chiefly of Jay Cooke & Co., then the leading New York bankers, and the open handedness of the Government of the United States. Before this time the Pacific coast was in great measure isolated, the only means of conmiunication with the East being bj^ the steamers of the Pacific Mail Company acting in concert with the Panama Railroad, or by a service via Tehuantepec, and by various clipper ships that came by way of Cape Horn. Besides these, the long, dangerous and uncomfortable transit of the "Plains" was made by "prairie-schooners," and many emigrants came this way, despite the Indians, the deserts and possible starvation. The first recorded transit of the plains was by one Syl- vester Pattie, a Virginian, and five companions, in 1824, 8S THE OLD FAR WEST preceding John C. Fremont by a number of years. They started on June 20th, 1824, and did not reach the Pacific Ocean in the neighbourhood of San Diego until about ten months later, having undergone unheard-of hardships : In- dian attacks, deprivation of water and food, and many other dangers. My father, who went to San Francisco in 1851 to be- come a law partner of his wife's brother, Robert McLane (afterwards Governor of Maryland and Ambassador to France) and Judge Ogden HoiFman, voyaged out in one of the crazy old ships, in company with a horde of miners and fortune seekers, but he found the country uncongenial and returned home in a year or two, there being little or no civil litigation except of a petty kind. In spite of the apparent plenitude of money, there were many unfortunates who had "gone broke" and were destitute until the mining market should take a turn for the better. Some of them lived at the free lunch counters of the numerous great bar rooms, which were ornately decorated and gilded. The large tables of these places were well stocked with great joints of bear meat and veni- son, game, wild turkeys, chicken and salmon. A single drink, costing "two bits," or twenty-five cents, would sup- ply incidentally a hearty meal; meanwhile the pleasures of a "refined minstrel entertainment" would add a cer- tain amount of esthetic enjoyment. It is hard to see how any money was made by the proprietors, but doubtless the gambling in other rooms swelled the profits. Suicides were as common as in Monte Carlo at a later period, and the ever-ready Colt's revolver, then in fashion, was available to settle many a "gentlemen's quarrel." Long before the present development of Southern Cali- fornia, one or two rampant land booms occurred. One of these was antecedent to 1870, the projector being a man 83 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST named Horton. When I visited San Diego in 1871 it con- sisted of a great number of comfortably built houses, all deserted except the Horton House — a hotel in the throes of failure, a great many of the extra jobs being done by the landlord himself and the members of his family. Los Angeles was a sparse settlement and the incomers were just then commencing to plant oranges and other fruits and starting developments that have since made the state the greatest citrus region of the world. Some of the people, notably the old Spanish Califor- nians, were delightfully cultivated and agreeable. Here I met Mrs. Burton and her lovely daughter, the former being the widow of General Burton, a distinguished old officer of the United States Army. The Stones and the Miners were also representatives of a stock that is rapidly dying out, in spite of American intermarriages. Many of these people had vast estates, and from one a great amount of the Orchella used in the world for dyeing was obtained. This is identical with the ancient Tyrian purple obtained from the Murex hrandaris, and was very valuable, but probably its use since has now been supplanted by the in- evitable aniline colours. There was also obtained much gold dust, and a great deal of abalone shell pearl from the wonderful pools and caves along the coast. Local transportation on the Pacific Coast was ample but primitive. Short lines of rail, stage coaches, and river boats on the Sacramento and Stockton rivers, were the means of getting about, yet one still saw pack trains and mining outfits in profusion as late as 1871. There was much of the atmosphere of Bret Harte's stories. In fact at that time he had written his best short stories, and was afterward founder of the Overland Monthly. I knew him very well, and he told me that in every instance he had 84 THE OLD FAR WEST chosen his characters from real life, even the lovable Oak- smith, the gambler. A prosperous and well-managed service of coaches ran over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Virginia City, via Placerville and Carson, which was known as the Pioneer Line, and was equipped with Concord coaches, blooded stock, and for a great part of the way the route passed over well-kept and even sprinkled roads. The time made was excellent, and compared favourably with the railroads. One reckless driver, who was a great deal of a character, and nearly frightened Horace Greeley to death, was Hank Mudge, with whom we crossed, finding him to be a very good fellow with a fine sense of humour and a lot of anecdote. A friend and myself were offered a stage to ourselves from which to see the country, and we were permitted to visit many of the placer and other gold mines that were then being worked at Murphy's and elsewhere. We saw the Calavaras group of big trees, through the trunk of one of which a man can ride, and afterwards Lake Bigler or Tahoe, which is one of the highest bodies of water on earth. Its specific gravity is so low that it was impossible to swim, and the only pleasure one could have was that of bathing in its absolutely transparent, refracting, and illusive waters. The result was very general and severe sunburn, and I regret to say that my experience of an hour cost me a delay of two weeks in bed with high fever and intense agony, blistering, and subsequent complete exfoliation of the outer skin. At this time Carson and Virginia City, both in Nevada, were rival mining towns, the latter being the location of the celebrated Comstock lode where Flood, O'Brien and Mackay made their enormous fortunes. There was much local jealousy, and tu quoque abuse. Carson was a Mor- 85 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST mon town, and had little cause for existence except that it was a herding place of these people. Ross Brown, who at the time wrote entertainingly of the region, described "Virginia City as a mudhole; climate^ hurricane and snow; water ^ a dilution of arsenic, plumbago and copper; wood, none at all, except sage brush; no title to property, and no property worth having." "Carson City: mere accident; occupation of the inhabitants , way- laying strangers bound for Virginia City ; business^, selling whiskey; so dull at that that men fall asleep in the middle of the street going from one groggery to another ; produc- tion, grass and weeds on plaza." If Carson, through which we passed, was dull and full of Digger Indians, and other human vermin, Virginia City was a seething hell of excitement. Every one was drinking and fighting, and speculating, and rapid deals were made in "Mammoth," "Lady Bryant," "Wild Cat," "Root Hog or Die," "Dry Up" and "You Bet." Great properties, such for instance as "Ophir^" made wild extremes, and in the San Francisco stock exchange fluctuated from a few cents to thousands of dollars a share, with a resulting long list of "princes and paupers." We soon had enough of this, and started back down the mountains. Before we left our hotel we received a visit from the local Pioneer Stage agent, who asked if we objected to the company of "a lady," who wished to go down to 'Frisco. As it was a beautiful moonlight night, and warm besides, we secured top seats, and gave the interior of the stage to the woman passenger, who turned put to be the well-known Adah Isaacs Menken, the wife at one time of John C. Heenan, the prize fighter, and afterwards, in Paris, the Goddess to whom the elder Dumas wrote many amatory sonnets. To old theatre goers she may be remembered as the orig- inal and only Mazeppa, who, bound to the "fiery, untamed 86 THE OLD FAR WEST steed," careered over the stage of the Chatham Street Theatre and many playhouses throughout the country. The exchange of places was no loss, for from our box-seats we had a glorious view, as we rode over the tops of the Sierras, through the Devil's Gate and down to PlacerviUe, where we caught a glimpse of the inside passenger, who in the early morning looked anything but attractive in all her frowsiness and overnight change in facial decoration. In 1871 I paid a second visit to the Pacific Coast, find- ing great changes and a very different kind of civilisation. Salt Lake City, now a place of 100,000, until the death of Brigham Young, whom I saw, retained all its Mormon customs ; in fact, it was not until 1904, twenty-seven years after his death, that any one had the temerity seriously to attack polygamy, and then only for political reasons. In the early seventies many tragedies undoubtedly oc- curred through the activity of the "Avenging Angels," especially in the southwestern part of Utah. At the time of my sojourn in 1870 I heard many stories, evidently well authenticated, of the fate of lukewarm ar traitorous Mor- mons, who had been put out of the way for the good of the sect. Despite all statements to the contrary, this community was a happy and prosperous one, and I was surprised to find a certain division of labour, the women being anything but downtrodden, or mere chattels. Two of the wives of Mr. Clausen, who was one of the heads of the church, were in the stock company of the local theatre. One of his sev- eral sons consulted me professionally some years later, and I learned he has since become a clever musician. The audiences at public places largely consisted of women and children. So far as I could learn there was little jealousy or domestic unhappiness. Although the activities of those who carry the Mormon 87 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST propaganda extend all over Europe, with a resulting in- crease in the number of foreign converts who flock to Utah, the prevailing physiognomy is one of commonplace Americanism, and differs but little from that found in other places. Denver was originally an offshoot of Greeley, a small town a few miles north which was founded through the exertions of the New York Tribune and the persistent ad- vice of Horace Greeley to "go West." It was, in 1870, beautifully situated at the base of the Kocky Mountains, and Pike's Peak was a prominent part of the background. At that time it consisted of a muddy stream with a small and heterogeneous collection of frame and brick buildings on either side. The railroads, notably the Denver & Santa Fe, and the Ogden branch of the Union Pacific, entered the town, or what there was of it. I do not think there were two hundred inhabitants. To-day it is a great min- ing centre and has a population of at least 150,000. I sat on a hill to the east of the city and made a rough sketch, while about me coursed antelope, and prairie dogs darted into their underground homes. The city now extends at least two miles beyond my hill, and the ground is covered by fine houses. In the early days Denver City, as it was called, had only stage connection, or the mail was brought by pony riders. The railroad journey from Denver to Kansas City was,, in those days, one likely to be attended by extreme danger from attacks by Indians, as well as highwaymen. My brother had been killed four years before by the former, in what was regarded as a punitive expedition in Southern Kansas. Until 1887, except in a few locations, Indian up- risings were frequent and disastrous, because of the nig- gardly behaviour and indifference of the Government, which never sent troops enough; for, thanks to the igno- 88 DENVER IN 1871 Sketched by the author THE OLD FAR WEST ranee and obstinacy of average politicians, who entertain the long-enduring delusion that we are invincible, we were never (and probably shall never be) in a proper state of preparedness. The admirable book of Mrs. G. A. Custer, under whose husband my brother fought, most graphically depicts the border horrors just as they existed at the close of the Civil War and at the time of the organisation of the famous Seventh Cavalry — Indians, floods, scurvy, cholera, mu- tiny and desertion were the dangers that made the protec- tion of life and property so difficult, and were it not for the heroic bravery of the officers, headed by Custer and Major Wolcott Gibbs, this now famous cavalry regi- ment would have been swept out of existence. On my re- turn I passed near or through Hays, Wallace, Riley, Mc- Pherson and other forts that have to-day become more or less thriving and populous Kansas cities, and we saw much of the frontier life. The rough element at the time was in great measure increased, and I had a friend whose room was on the second floor in the frame hotel at Hays. His slumbers were often broken by the bullets fired through the floor by the roysterers in the bar room below, but luckily none of them did much harm. On the morning after we left Denver our train came to a standstill, and we all flocked out to find the cause. From within a mile of the track, as far north as the eye could reach, and for miles east and west, was a vast moving crowd of buffalo, that in the sunlight looked like a brown sea. This was the great Southern herd on its way to Dakota and Canada. It is depressing to think that in less than fifty years they have been virtually exterminated. It is difficult to-day to find even the bleached skulls and 89 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST bones which have been collected by the manufacturers of fertilisers, and even of buttons. One of the diversions of the Seventh Cavalry, when they were not surrounded by Indians on the warpath, was buffalo hunting. Custer had an exciting encounter with one of these brutes, and having accidentally shot his favourite charger at the same time, was dismounted, and came very near being gored. . The buffalo changed his mind, however, and withdrew, and the General, separated many miles from his command, and in a strange and hostile country, was in a double peril; but he managed to later join the troops. He was not only a dashing officer, but a woodsman as well, and was seldom at a loss for ex- pedients. He was most winning and honest in manner, hated shams, and a certain kind of display, glorying in the regular service. I well remember standing with him out- side of the old Hotel Brunswick during a militia parade. When a regiment passed us with immaculate white duck trousers he quietly said, "Oh, how I would like to have those boys out on the plains for an hour or two." His soldierly instinct rebelled against any but the real thing and real fitness. He told me later of one of the regi- mental buffalo hunts, one side having killed twelve ani- mals. Four of these had fallen at the hand of my brother, who was the hero of the day, sitting later at the right hand of his Colonel and being toasted in native champagne brought all the way from St. Louis! My brother wrote from Fort Lyon, Colorado, Septem- ber 30th, 1866: "Gen. Sherman arrived here last night, returning from his trip to New Mexico, to spend the day with us and inspect the Fort, which is an important one in the Indian country, and I thought he looked queer when he heard / was to command it, "Tell Allan that I have at least reached the height of my am- 90 THE OLD FAR WEST bition as a hunter, and had a buffalo hunt with unusual success for a beginner. We started early in the morning from Fort Larned — a large party : Crane, the sutler, a great shot and rider ; Asbury, Kaiser, the Doctor, Williams (the Indian trader, a son of an ex-member of Congress from Rochester), and myself. We were all well mounted; I on an Indian pony whose disposition and temper were more like those of an Irish terrier than any- thing else I can compare him to. I had my rifle in the wagon which followed us to bring in the game, and my revolver around my waist. After a ride of three miles we could see the prairie in the distance dotted with a mass of little black objects which were pronounced to be buffalo. "The guide worked and dodged around the hills, or rather roll, of the prairie until we found ourselves about 200 yards to the leeward, when all got off, tightened our girths, put our hats tight on our heads, and got ready for the rush. My pony was as excited as myself, and fairly quivered all over with the smell of the animals — the word ready was given. We trailed to the hill that divided us, and came in full sight of them; there must have been about one hundred and fifty in the herd — the most hideous creatures that God ever created. The bulls almost black, except the dull, dirty brown of the mane, and their horrid little eyes blinking out of a huge mass of hair. As soon as they saw us there was a snort; the cows and calves hurried in to the centre of the herd, while the vicious-looking old bulls deployed on the flank and rear. "As we neared the spot some of the party yelled and we charged, each man for himself, as the herd turned and ran. "You ought to have seen the pony. His mane, which was cropped, bristled on end, his ears laid back like main springs, and he fairly flew, as chance would have it, right at a bull, the oldest and toughest in the herd. (The rest of the party went after cows, which are better to eat.) "It was more like going into action than anything else as the pany ranged alongside and ran neck and neck with the bull, the animal with its huge head down, its eyes staring, tongue out 91 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST and thundering along with a peculiar lope which tried the speed of a good horse. I managed to shoot him twice in the side, when he turned and charged me. This did not put the pony out a bit; he jumped sideways and turned with the buffalo, who again re- sumed his course with the herd. After him went the pony and I fired my remaining four shots with the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Bull run on apparently unhurt. I am ashamed to say that I used some very bad language, directed in part to the bull, the pistol, and, with an ingratitude that is unparalleled, to the poor pony. The bull ran about two hundred yards, stopped, turned round and then began tearing up the ground with a sullen, angry roar that showed he was badly hurt. "I reloaded my revolver (which seemed to take an hour) and rode after him again — this time the pony was cautious — as I neared him he stopped pawing, reared his head high, took a good look, lowered it, stuck his tail up like a ramrod and came right for me on the run. The pony dodged him and I shot him again as he passed. His flight was now over; he stopped and braced himself on his feet with his tail well up, and rolled over at the next shot, game to the last, with a proud disdainful look at me that would have become a dying Caesar. Poor fellow, he died game in defence of his family, and I felt sorry for him after it was all over, although when I turned to go back I found that I had run two miles since I first fired at him. "I shot another in the afternoon and we all came to camp." In many regiments of the regular service there was great friction because officers, enlisted men of humble ori- gin before their advancement and receipt of a commission, married women in their own position in life. This was es- pecially true in the new regiments organised at the close of the Civil War. The Seventh Cavalry had officers of all kinds: there were soldiers of fortune from the European armies; one had had a position in the Papal Zouaves; others were poor noblemen with good titles, which they kept secret, and there were many volunteer officers who 92 THE OLD FAR WEST had fought bravely in the Civil War that had just ended. The wives of old and efficient soldiers, deserving as the latter were, had not developed at all. The story is told by Mrs. Custer of an Irish woman who was originally a laundress and later the widow of an old regular soldier who held a commission in the Volunteers and had been killed in action. She drew the pension of a Major's widow, so it was not money that brought her back to the frontier post. | On her arrival she found a place which she temporarily filled, until a time when it was thought she might obtain another with the wife of a former enlisted man who had received a commission. It seems that this woman, the new employer, had herself been a laundress. The woman ap- plying for work, when offered the job, turned to the inter- mediary, placed her arms akimbo and independently an- nounced her platform as follows : "Mrs. , I ken work for a leddy, but I can't go there; there was a time when Mrs. and I had toobs side by side." Toward the latter part of the eighties I had interests that often took me to that interesting part of the middle west where Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina join, on top of the Cumberland Gap. During the Civil War this had been a strategic point, but for a long time there- after it was given up to the natives, a degenerate and lawless lot, and the descendants of bondsmen who had before the Revolution escaped from Virginia. Through isolation and intermarriage they developed peculiar men- tal and bodily characteristics, and were mostly a long- haired, gaunt people, with over-refined and abnormally delicate features. They were daring and insubordinate, and followed a code of their own which led them for trivial reasons to take life in the most reckless manner. When an English 93 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST land company bought up their farms for five dollars an acre and sold them for town lots for two hundred and fifty dollars each, they naturally boiled with resentful indignation, and not only potted the outsiders who they declared had cheated them, but renewed many old and dormant local feuds. I have seen several men killed for no apparent reason. One night I rode over the divide and we were pleasantly saluted by a tall, serious native armed with a rifle. As we continued our ride, we met another on his way up on horseback, also armed. In the space of ten minutes two shots rang out, and both men were killed together. This was the result of a long-standing quarrel and they were ready for each other. An old family named Turner was practically extermi- nated as the result of one of these feuds, and the natives were in appearance and manner so gentle and attractive that it was difficult to believe them to be the bloodthirsty wretches they were. Besides this disregard of human life their morals were impeccable, and they were chivalrous and generous. The Superintendent of the Land Company was a young man whose only fault was that he shocked local taste and angered the community by wearing rather pronounced dress, one article of which was a pair of smart white riding breeches made by a London tailor. His life was therefore for a time made a torment by some of his neighbours, who after nightfall made his house the target for their rifles. One dark night I visited him, and on our way over to the railroad station, the lantern was shot out of the hand of the negro who carried it. The operations of the English company, which included the building of a vast hotel and sanitarium, the cost of which was nearly a million of dollars, were rudely upset by the Baring failure. The largest of these buildings was 94 THE OLD FAR WEST sold to a Western second-hand lumber dealer for less than one-tenth of its original cost, and some of the grand pianos, mirrors, tapestry and superb furniture were bid in by the natives themselves for practically nothing and found new homes in the mountain shacks. 95 CHAPTER VII EARLY STRUGGLES Taking an Office — An Appointment — Mayor Oakey Hall and the Tweed "Ring" — Political Corruption — I Am Offered a Health Commissionership — Smallpox in 1873 — Two Exciting Adven- tures — Dr. Fox's Experience — The "Five Points" — Subterranean Cellars — I Shoot a Policeman — Amateur Surgery — The Orange Riots — The Cholera Scare in 1894 — Two "High Kickers" on the Normania — I Devote Myself to My Specialty — Blackwell's Island — A Perilous Marine Adventure — Fast Railway Time — A Montreal Consultation — Old New York Society — Doctors' Fees. My debut in my profession was made in 1871 with the help of Dr. Marion Sims, who was then at the height of his fame and a prominent speciahst. He had been the physician of the Empress Eugenie, and came back to the United States after her flight to England. I was told by him that it was a great mistake to take a poor office in a second-rate locality, so he introduced me to a landlady of a boarding house in East Twenty-eighth Street, who put at my service a gorgeous suite of rooms with much "real elegant" furniture. This was in the early summer, and I waited day by day in the hot, dreary city for patients who never came. But two or three individuals entered my office; one a book agent, another a collector for funds for the yellow fever sufferers in the South. One of my later patients was a large and very effusive Irish woman who came over from Brooklyn to see me. She was always very grateful 96 EARLY STRUGGLES and one day asked me for a few of my cards. At the next visit I was horrified to hear her say, "Faith, docthur, I crossed on the ferryboat and Hft a card in aitch sate, and bedad you now ought to have a lot of patients." Upon another occasion she accounted for her failure to come the week before because "a drunken lady"' had in- vaded her flat. This reminds me of the anecdote of the dispensary told by George Russell. A woman presented herself with a wound which seemingly was a bite. As the surgeon was dressing it he said, "I cannot make out what sort of a creature bit you. This is too small for a horse's bite, and too large for a dog's." "Oh, sir," replied the patient, "it wasn't an animal; it was another lydy." My new sign evidently attracted no one, and mean- while my small capital dwindled exceedingly, and I began to think of something else to do. It was a sad blow, after all the nice things that had been said at the Commence- ment about the coming "emoluments" that were to be mine, and the optimism, flattery and encouragement from the faculty who beamed upon the class of indigent but hopeful young sawbones. The prospect was practically starvation if I kept on as I had commenced. A friend had suggested that I should seek a public position in the Health Department, which has never been so decent since that time, when it was the only city organi- sation that escaped at all the serious muddling of corrupt politicians, although the political member of the board was occasionally obnoxious and tried to force some of us out, by suggesting an amendment to dress us in uniform like policemen. All the younger men were of good standing, and some have since attained distinction, among them the late Drs. E. G. Janeway, Joseph Bryant, Stuyvesant F. Morris, William Post and Roger Sherman Tracy. To two of the commissioners in particular, Dr. Samuel Oakley 97 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST Vanderpool, Sr., and Prof. Charles F. Chandler, we owed much, for they encouraged special scientific work, and I made reports upon lead and wall-paper poisoning, street paving, and various other interesting subjects. Thanks to the influence of Commissioner Isaac Bell, an old New Yorker and friend of my uncle Robert McLane, later Ambassador to France, I was appointed as an Inspector by Mayor Oakey Hall, a cultured, able lawyer, who had not then been openly accused of a criminal affiliation with Tweed, Sweeney, Garvin, and other mem- bers of the "ring," but who was later pilloried in all the newspapers and caricatured unmercifully by Thomas Nast, in a way that was his ruin. After he was deposed, he felt himself to be a great deal of a martyr, and although it would have been a great deal better had he kept silent, he determined to vindicate himself. A few months later he wrote a play called The Crucible, which was produced in December, 1875, in the Park Theatre on Broadway near Twenty-second Street, in which he played the part of Wilmot Kierin, a misjudged convict in prison stripes, wearing his gold-rimmed eyeglasses. It was a dull, un- convincing production and gained him no sympathy — except for his awfully bad acting. At this time every one was supposed to pay tribute to Tammany Hall, and bribery was everywhere extant. It was a regular incident for a "collector" to enter one's office to get something for "the Hall," and every mail brought tickets for benefits and balls, all of which were numbered so that it could be seen who did not pay. During my term of office the daughter of Boss Tweed was married, and the daily papers contained a list of the wedding presents, which were of the most costly kind. It was amusing to note the donors of the gifts, the names of whom were 98 EARLY STRUGGLES those prominent in New York society, and one wondered what had been the consideration. When I was first appointed I was made responsible for the whole district on the West side of New York from Fifty-ninth Street to the end of Manhattan Island, and the population consisted chiefly of pigs and goats and men and women of the dirtiest and poorest description. The keeping of both of the first mentioned varieties of live- stock was strictly forbidden by the Sanitary Code, but their owners had managed to evade the law in a way that I found it impossible to countenance, much to the aston- ishment of the squatters, who persisted in their attempts to bring tribute ranging from brass rings or painted horse- shoes to five-dollar bills. Another difiiculty was to force the owners of vacant lots to make sewer connections and keep their land in good sanitary condition. During the early seventies, owing to the exactions of the Tweed party, and the uncertainty of alleged improve- ments, the owners of real estate were constantly in terror of interference. The "Boss," however, looked after his friends, and when it was proposed to run a new street or avenue through the unimproved upper part of the island his cronies had an early tip and were able to speculate with advantage. The outsiders were often unable to retain their lots, so thoroughly were they taxed for the new extensions. I know that one owner of sunken lots on Fifth Avenue that are now worth half a million, after fighting an order of the Health Department to connect them with the sewer, was quite willing to sell them at four thousand dollars each. Happily just now there is less political corruption than in the days of certain notorious bosses in New York City, when every political office was said to be paid for, either 99 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST by direct or indirect taxation to the "organisation" or the "old man." Even within a year I learned of the case of a would-be judge of the Supreme Court, who tried corrup- tion to get the office and has spent a year in state's prison. While Mayor of New York, Abram Hewitt offered me the Health Commissionership, but at the time, under the law, the candidate must have the approval of the Board of Aldermen. A friend of mine received a visit from an alleged representative of this board, who de- manded that I should pay $5,000 for my confirmation at its hands, and when he expressed his astonishment he was told that "I ought not to kick," for all the judges had to pay from $10,000 to $15,000 for this favour. It is unnec- essary to say that my name was withdrawn. I certainly believe the justices were libelled. In 1873 New York was visited by a plague of smallpox, which for a time became almost uncontrollable, despite the house-to-house vaccination. This was somewhat interfered with by the opponents of this vital precaution; these agi- tators inflamed unintelligent public opinion, and the dis- ease spread with great rapidity. Our little band of physi- cians was worked sometimes for twenty hours out of the twenty-four, and the plan was for two men to take all the newly reported cases. I have myself seen as many as thirty-two patients in a day in extreme points of the city. One of the inspectors made the diagnosis, and then the person would be taken to the hospital on North Brothers' Island. If there was a refusal to go, a joint report was made by a second physician, and then the patient was taken, if necessary, by force. I had several rather disagreeable experiences, the first of which was an assault upon me by a stalwart German, father of the patient, who attacked me with an axe; but providentially I escaped injury. A second case is worthy 100 EARLY STRUGGLES of more extended mention. The case was reported in East Houston Street, a very bad locality, and a joint report decreed that the woman, who was the wife of a low ward politician, should be taken away. Reports from "the skirmisher" we sent ahead showed that in the street about the house was a huge crowd, and that in a saloon two doors away a number of drunken men were preparing to attack us. They had taken down such Civil War relics as guns and sabres that adorned the bar, and were uttering loud curses of vengeance. I sent to the nearby police station and secured a guard of ten or twelve policemen with night-sticks, and then we marched to the door of the tenement house; but at the last minute they failed me, being afraid of the disease, and I was obliged to go up the four or five flights alone with a faithful Sanitary police- man who was immune. Our upward progress was not indicative of a cordial reception, for not only were we cursed in all tongues, but the offensive contents of certain domestic utensils were thrown upon us over the banisters by the tenants of the various stories. Finally we reached the closed door where the sick woman lay, and heard the ominous click of a trigger and the snorting of an angry man. Hesitation would not do, so putting our feet and then our shoulders against the flimsy door, it fell in, and there stood a brawny and gigantic Irishman with an old army musket. Instead of firing he lowered the muzzle and burst into tears, and in a few minutes we had con- verted him and quieted the half -crazed woman, who was literally covered with an eruption of confluent smallpox. We dressed her and helped her downstairs, and amid the jeers of the crowd, who were kept at an unnecessarily remote distance by our guard of cautious policemen, she was sent to the ferry and thence to the Island. A month after, the man, who was not really a bad sort, called upon 101 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST me to give thanks for what we had done, and he admitted that without the good care she had had she undoubtedly would have died. Dr. George Henry Fox, who is to-day one of the lead- ing dermatologists of the world, was in 1873 a vaccinator in the service of the Health Department. He relates with amusement the story of his experience when he went to a squalid negro hovel about twelve feet square, with glass- less windows and a rusty iron stovepipe, which was the only chimney. The broken door was opened by a huge negress, to whom he made the usual polite offer of gratui- tous vaccination. Drawing herself up to her full height, she said, "No, sah, indeed, no, sah, such mattahs is at- tended to by ouah family feesician," and suiting the action to the word, shut the door in his face. The sanitary condition of New York was very bad at this time; we had a cholera scare in the early seventies which turned out to be a false alarm, but it is a wonder there was not more illness in a region where there was no drainage, and only contaminated water and food; where cases of contagious disease were secreted, and an attempt to locate them was met by a vicious dog or even a bullet. In the lower part of the city existed many under- ground dwellings which were the abiding places of thieves and low prostitutes. The "Five Points," as its name indi- cated, was a locality where five streets met, and this region probably gave the Police and Health Departments more concern than any other. The condition of Water Street was so dangerous and unhealthy that one day Dr. Stuyvesant Morris and I were directed to "take a sufficient force" and clear out these horrid dens. We had a dozen or more policemen, and a gang of labourers when we made our descent upon the 102 EARLY STRUGGLES underground human rat warren. There must have been three or four stories of subterranean rooms without air, or light except that given by smoking kerosene lamps, and on each side were rough bunks filled with drunken sailors and women, who resented our entrance but were afraid to resist. The walls were covered with vermin and the escaping rats in the lowermost cellar plunged into the stinking tide water that had seeped in from the river, not over one hundred feet away. In a short time the street was filled with blear-eyed people, many of whom had not seen sunlight for weeks, and the labourers destroyed and removed the woodwork. I was rather upset upon this occasion, for when Dr. Morris borrowed a police- man's club to brush off some of the vermin and cobwebs that clung to my clothes, he hit the hammer of my re- volver, with the result that there was an explosion, fol- lowed by the fall of a policeman to the ground. The ball, which luckily was a small one, had gone through his wrist. Fortunately no worse consequences followed than my arrest, and a disposition upon the part of the man to visit me frequently and borrow money. In times of peace the sensation of shooting some one is by no means pleasant, and this was my second experi- ence, for at a military school, as a youngster, I did guard duty and snapped what I supposed to be an empty gun at an intruding and very dirty boy who was climbing a fence and ready with stones to pelt me. Unfortunately a charge of small birdshot remained in the gun as the result of a previous hunting expedition of some one who had forgotten to remove it, and to my horror the boy fell shrieking to the ground while I cast away my murderous weapon and sought a refuge under my bed. My horrid fears were exaggerated, for I subsequently learned that the shot had lodged in a part of the boy's anatomy where 103 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST they could be easily reached by the family doctor, his only inconvenience being that for some time he could not ride his bicycle. There was a tendency with all medical students, in my young days, to be on hand when accidents were likely to happen, and often in the excess of youthful professional zeal I became entangled in street rows and killings of various kinds. As ambulances were then almost unknown, I often acted the good Samaritan, but suffered the subse- quent annoyance of subpoenas from the coroner. In this connection I recall the Orange, or, as they were called, Hibernian riots. Upon this occasion the little band of Protestant Irishmen, who had been bullied unmercifully by the Roman Catholics and had not for several years dared parade on the twelfth of July, made up their minds they would celebrate the battle of the Boyne. This was in 1870, and the public officials, including the Mayor and Superintendent of Police, who were sympathisers with the Catholics (then, as now, powerful in Tammany Hall and strong in politics), gave the Orangemen no encour- agement, and for a time even the Governor of the state held aloof. Finally, guarded by the 84th, 9th and 6th Militia regiments, they left the Armoury at Eighth Ave- nue and Twenty-ninth Street, and slowly marched down Eighth Avenue through a dense crowd of noisy antago- nists. Meanwhile my friend and myself entered a hall door of a tall tenement house just above Twenty-fifth Street, and went up to the roof, where from the edge we had a good view of what was going on below. Presently we saw a puff of smoke and heard the crack of a gun fired from a top window in a house further down the street, which was answered by a soldier in the ranks who raised his rifle and fired, with the result that we saw a man pitch out of the window, turn a somersault or two and fall into 104. !;=niPIIII:l!l!liy:^!i]« THE ORANGE RIOTS OF 1870 EARLY STRUGGLES the crowd. Then there was a fierce outburst; stones and sticks and pistol shots were fired at the soldiers and Orangemen, who responded with a volley which swept the sidewalk. When we reached Twenty-fifth Street the pavement was littered with dead and wounded men. The mob was drunk and cursed us, but I harangued them and soon commandeered a grocer's wagon, in which the wounded were placed, and their friends found a rope and dragged us all to the Mt. Sinai Hospital, then in that neigh- bourhood. In 1894 the Normania, a Hamburg-American ship, arrived in the lower bay, and was compelled to anchor at once and submit to a rigid though ridiculous quarantine. One or two sailors had died of Asiatic cholera just after she left Hamburg. Many people in New York were beside themselves with apprehension, and the Chamber of Commerce appointed a committee of doctors, of whom I was one, to help the health officer; but despite his evident nervous demoralisation — for he cried when I saw him — he later regained his wits and scorned our well- meant offers of help. The unfortunate passengers and crew, though they did not suffer from cholera and there was no extension of the scourge, underwent many hard- ships, incident to their imprisonment, first on the Nor- mania, then on the Narragansett (a Providence steam- boat anchored in the lower bay and utterly unfit for the purpose), and later in the big Surf Hotel at Fire Island, which had been purchased by the politicians for a huge sum. On the steamer, among others, was E. L. Godkin, Esq., Editor of the New York Evening Post^ who wrote daily letters of protest to his own and other newspapers. An- other passenger was "Lottie" Collins, the danseuse and 105 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST singer, and author of that classic, Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay. It was said that the only "high kickers" on the Normania were these two, and considering the dignity of the former, it was a cruel joke. All the sanitary work was distasteful in the extreme, for much of it was outside of my specialty, and in 1880 I was glad to resign, and I have since advised all my young professional friends to have nothing to do with medical work of this kind, for not only is its performance in a big city, and the contact with politicians, trying and humiliating, but it dulls one's activities in other directions and necessary study is interfered with. I took it in time of stress, and to enable me to master my specialty, fool- ishly refusing an offer from the late Dr. Fordyce Barker to be his assistant. I did a great deal of hard work in neurology and wrote three treatises before 1880, during my nine years of slavery. Then I was able, after taking a well-to-do patient to Europe, to throw up my billet, to settle down and do an enormous amount of hospital and dispensary work, to lecture and prepare papers, and to make a financial success. No longer would I spend dreary days in the tenement houses, nor did I cool my heels in some tessellated hall of a Fifth Avenue latter-day pluto- crat, awaiting her pleasure. I was now my own master in every sense, and respon- sible to no one but myself. Soon after, .my connection with the large Asylum on Blackwell's Island gave me plenty of material for study, although I was in constant rebellion because the dirty hand of politics had stretched out, put- ting in incompetent superintendents and attendants and even doctors. We had to fight for medicine and supplies, and large parties of sight-seers, who were friends bf poli- ticians, were trotted about the wards to see the poor pa- tients. The tri-weekly visit implied an uncomfortable 106 EARLY STRUGGLES trip, sometimes in an open boat, and in winter this was exceedingly disagreeable because of the quantities of float- ing ice in the East River and the intense cold, but in summer it had attractions. One of my medical friends who had a service on the island was the late Henry G. Piff ard, a highly original though erratic man, and he thought it would be a good plan to avoid the filthy and crowded little boat, often filled with discharged prisoners and loathsome patients, that plied between an East Side dock and Charity Hos- pital, and get "a small-sized launch." He selected it, and we shared the expense. I must say, novice as I was, that I looked upon this toy when I first saw it with some appre- hension, for, as every one knows, the tide in this part of the East River runs at the rate of four to five or six knots an hour while our launch could, with selected fuel and great attention, do five, so our experience was unusually disastrous. We often embarked at a point a mile further up the river and allowed for the tide to carry us down to the dock. When it was flood we reversed the pro- ceeding. One day, however, all our plans went awry, our fuel ran out, and after burning all the loose or detach- able woodwork, we were rapidly drifting down the river, and had it not been for some friendly "dock rats" in a rowboat, I suppose would have drifted through the har- bour and out to sea. For a long time I was one of the very few neurologists in the United States, there being only three or four in New York, two in Boston, the same number in Philadel- phia, and one in Chicago, so that we were obliged to make long journeys to meet other physicians in consultation, and my own work of this kind took me as far west as Minneapolis and even to Denver. I well remember a trip I made at the request of the elder Dr. Palmer Howard to 107 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST meet him at the bedside of the wife of a prominent person in Montreal. A special train consisting of an ordinary car and an engine was waiting for me at the Grand Central depot. The first part of the journey from New York to Albany consumed only three hours and fifteen minutes, an unheard-of time in the seventies. The conductor came to me after we reached Sing-Sing, apologising for not going faster as "the car was not heavy enough." He need not have reminded me of this, for the run of five miles from Tarrytown to Sing-Sing was made in four minutes, and it seemed as if the flimsy car was off the track most of the time, and we had to hang onto our seats for dear life. I reached Montreal about midnight, too late to do any good, but in time to make a diagnosis. There was something rather gruesome about this case, for the lady was the third wife who had died in exactly the same way as the others, and evidently from the same condition, and the husband was horrified by the fatality. During my early practice I saw much of the old New lYork society, in which were many of my patients. This included the names that one seldom hears nowadays, and its habitat was about Washington Square, lower Fifth Avenue and even St. John's Park. The latter square, lately occupied by the ugly freight depot of the Hudson River Railroad, was, when I first knew it, a lovely, con- servative old place, about which lived the Lydigs, Coldens, and others, and for many years, as a boy and later, I invariably ate my Christmas dinner at the old-fashioned English home of David Colden, a son of Lieutenant-Gov- ernor Cadwallader Colden, who was such a figure in the history of the state of New York. Another event was my Thanksgiving dinner taken yearly with Mrs. John Jacob Astor, the mother of "Willie" Astor, who has since become an English peer. At this time he was a taU, lanky and 108 EARLY STRUGGLES most eccentric youngster, a dilettante in sculpture, having studied in Rome, a producer of expensive editions de luxe of his own poems, and an amateur politician. He found it difficult to impress the "rough and ordinary politician," and his short public career was so full of surprises of a kind that need not be gone into, that he was unkindly ridi- culed in the press. Not appreciated in his own country he went abroad, and, I believe, has never returned. His mother, who was one of the Rhode Island Gibbses, was a sensible, clever woman, doing much good in ways of charity, and was universally loved. New York society of the best kind was exclusive and conservative, and something besides money was then re- quired to get a foothold in its midst. In the early seven- ties the names of De Peyster, Livingstone, Van Rensse- laer, Schuyler, De Rham, Wilkes, Delano, Forbes, Scher- merhorn, Wetmore, Minturn, Grinnell, Winthrop, King, Duer, Swarthout, Duncan, and Hamilton, with a few oth- ers, were familiar, but from the close of the Civil War their ranks became thinned as people with money came to the front. It was then that successful business men, mer- chants and capitalists without family became prominent, and the old people, like those identified with the Faubourg St. Germain, sought their shells, or died out in great measure. Some of them growled at the innovations of the newcomers. I can well remember being taken by a student chum to the house of some rich people of the newer kind, whose name I had not up to this time heard. They were a rollicking, good-natured party of several sons and daugh- ters, all jolly and fond of horseplay. The Virginia reel was a riotous performance, and it was led by the eldest son of the house, who, I remember, wore a bright red satin edging in his dress waistcoat, and every one was pressed 109 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST to "have a good time," and enjoy the bountiful supper in another room. I little realised that these people would later become the very leaders of the most prominent New York society, sharing the honours with the descendants of the exploiters of the Comstock lode and various other peo- ple whose origin was equally humble, and often obscure, but who acquired money and everything it could buy, and could eventually oust the poorer set. At the time when I began practice, the so-called "social leaders" of New York society were Mrs. William and Mrs. John Jacob Astor, between whom there existed some rivalry, and there was an "elegant" set, led by a Mrs. Coventry Waddell. The literary and musical society was headed by Professor Ogden Doremus, the chemist, Mrs. John Sherwood, who wrote The Sarcasm of Destiny, A Transplanted Rose, and other novels, and articles upon home decoration, and later Mrs. Burton Harrison, whose literary contributions in- cluded nice little stories, chiefly of southern life, and handbooks of etiquette. One could, in those simple days, find much variety and kind hospitality, quite impossible in an age when so-called fashionable society consists largely of a maelstrom of vul- gar frivolity, artificiality and extravagance, and all the worst things of European life that have been copied and adopted. There are no lines drawn; the undesirable rich Semitic influence is everywhere; and money, no matter how obtained, figures largely in determining a standard. This may be only the expression of a cycle and it is to be hoped that this is so. Professional fees in my early days were nothing to what they are to-day, except in the matter of expert work in Court, which was better paid for. There was less compe- tition — and the rank and file of my profession were gen- erously compensated, although they did an enormous 110 EARLY STRUGGLES amount of work for nothing, especially at the dispen- saries, where the patients generally deceived the doctors as to their means. It was not unusual to find in the wait- ing room a prosperous-looking fat woman in sealskin cloak and diamonds, who always had the effrontery to tell the common story of destitution. Some surgeons, like Sands, Bull and McBurney, re- ceived great sums, and in the beginning the operation for appendicitis, which is now performed by almost any coun- try doctor, brought a fee of from $1,000 to $10,000. Dr. L. was called to Chicago, receiving $5,000 for an ordinary medical consultation, and Dr. H. charged staggering sums for "tapping the liver." A man who then suggested "splitting fees" — that is to say, taking a share of the spe- cialist's fee — would have been drummed out of the pro- fession, and the ethics of medicine were very strict. All medical men have curious experiences in money matters. In the country the honorarium often takes the form of a barrel of potatoes or a fat shoat, but the farmer pays — cash when he can. One must be prepared for all sorts of things in the city. Some years ago a prosperous Hebrew came to me accompanied by his wife and large family of children, with a letter from his local Chicago doctor. After taking two hours of my time, and subse- quently asking me to examine and express an opinion on the health of his wife and progeny each in turn, he asked my fee, which I told him was twenty dollars. Then, after perturbed surprise, and an ineffective attempt to mar- chande, he pulled out a canvas bag and counted out twenty trade dollars (this coin was then worth only seventy cents!), his face bearing an expression of resigned martyrdom. Ill CHAPTER VIII NEWSPAPER WORK I Become a Dramatic Critic — E. L. Godkin and the Evening Post — Joseph Bucklin Bishop — A Disgusted Reporter — Cable Service in the Early Days — The Trouble with Chile — Bob Evans' Plan for Ramming the Chilean Navy — The New York Sun and World — Albert Pulitzer Starts the "Yellows" — Offensive Interviewer — Contempt of Court — The Society Newspapers — Vanity Fair and Its Staff — Libel Actions. During my early professional life some of the time was given to newspaper work, for I have always had a mild cacoathes scribendi^ and have contributed extensively not only to the daily press, but to magazines and other periodicals as well. In this way I have come in contact with many journalists, all excellent fellows, some of whom have since become great friends. At one time there was a newspaper edited by Nym Crinkle ^ otherwise A. C. Wheeler, who was a caustic and in a superficial way a brilliant dramatic writer, and very fond of feuilletons. He was attached to the Worlds and afterward became managing editor of the New York Star, a paper owned by one Dorsheimer, for a time a state official. At his invitation I wrote weekly articles upon dramatic subjects, all rather pedantic and ponderous, I fear, and quite un- original. They, however, seemed to please the owner of the paper as well as the editor, and as the regular musical and dramatic critic, one Townsend Percy, had severed his connection with the Star, I was offered the position, which 112 NEWSPAPER WORK I gladly took, as I was having rather a hard time. I had always supposed the duties of this important journalistic position were confined only to criticism, and when I was sent by the managing editor to interview the keeper of a rather low variety theatre as to why he had not given the paper his share of advertising, and to urge him in one way or another to do so, I naturally rebelled. My first week's work consisted in "covering" the Italian opera, and a large bundle of tickets for the seven per- formances was placed in my hands. I quite conscien- tiously attended every performance, but my misery was great, as my little boy was taken down with scarlet fever, and I hated to leave him to the care of others. Besides all this I was exhausted by the hard work of the day, which included my duties in the Health Department. There were minor reasons which prevailed, and at the end of the week I drew my twenty dollars and resigned. Many young men were anxious at this time, as they now are, to become journalists, and they were usually told that the only way to succeed was to begin "at the bottom of the ladder" and to do reporting. One of my friends, a talented young lawyer, went to the editor of one of the morning papers to get employment of this kind. He was fond of gaiety and knew nearly every one in New York society. His first experience was his last, for he was as- signed to go up town and interview a man who had regis- tered under an assumed name at a hotel, to escape service from his wife, who was seeking a divorce. As the lady happened to be his own wife's sister, the situation was embarrassing, to say the least. The Star, like other papers, depended for much of its European news upon the fertility of imagination of a Cable Editor, who received a message in code and padded it out so that the result was a magnificent concoction, most 113 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST of which had Httle or no basis. Even then cable and tele- graph rates were enormously high, and ten years before they were almost prohibitive. In the year from 1866-1867 the rate from Valentia Bay to New York was $2.90 per word in gold, but it was the habit of several New York newspapers to divide up the cost so that it did not fall too heavily. It is said that the King of Prussia's Peace Speech, cabled to the New York Herald^ which in con- densed form consisted of 1010 words, cost, at the old rate of five dollars a word, $5,083, or about $7,100 in green- backs. To give an idea of domestic rates, the following table, given by a contemporary writer, may be detailed : From First 10 words Per word after New Orleans to New York . . . $3.25 .23 Washington to New York.... .50 .05 St. Louis to New York 2.55 .17 Chicago to New York 2.05 .14" San Francisco to New York. . 7.45 .57 Boston to New York .30 .03 Albany to New York .55 .04 Montreal to New York 1.20 .07 Quebec 1.82 .12 The cost of one special despatch to the Herald was $132.50. Some medical men I knew graduated from the daily papers, one of these being the late Dr. George L. Shrady, who for years had been on the staff of the Tribune. He afterward became editor of the Medical Record, and was an excellent surgeon. He it was who operated upon General Grant, and the scalpel with which the operation was performed occupied a conspicuous place in a little glass case on his mantelpiece. 114 NEWSPAPER WORK One of my friends was E. L. Godkin, the editor of the Evening Post, with whom I made a dehghtful voyage to Europe. The Post had been founded in 1801 by my grandfather and others, and has always been a powerful organ for the correction of corruption and public wrongs. The original editor was one William Coleman, who had fought one or more duels. Mr. Godkin's predecessors were John Bigelow, formerly Minister to France, Carl Schurz and Horace White. Godkin, who founded the Nation, a journal of the highest standing, was invited to head the staff of the Post, which he did most efficiently. And Diblee in his book said of him : "Another successful Irish- man, Godkin, became one of the most remarkable men in America. No one exceeded him in the courage with which he attacked knavery and jobbery of all kinds, not occa- sionally, but steadily day by day," This really explains the great work done by the Post, for its editor believed in the efficacy of constant and re- peated attacks and the power of moral suggestion; for this reason he was hated by evil doers, especially in New York. In 1883 my friend Joseph Bucklin Bishop, who had served his apprenticeship on the Tribune, and who has much caustic wit, became Mr. Godkin's able assistant, and wrote many of the most brilliant editorials. In 1891 the country was stirred by the possibility of war with Chile, and Don Ricardo Trumbull coming with letters to the Post, I saw much of him through Mr. Godkin's son Lawrence, also an intimate friend. I then had rooms in Sixteenth Street, and Godkin, who was to dine with me, proposed that he should bring a friend, who might have to leave us rather suddenly during the evening. Be- fore sitting down, our guest asked that if any wire came the servant should give it to him at once, and at eleven a boy placed a telegram in his hands, which he tore open 115 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST with some eagerness. It was a message from the Chilean Minister in Washington, containing the decision of Mr. Blaine, then Secretary of State, who finally made the concessions that would obviate war. Had the contents of the message been of a different kind, Mr. Trumbull was ready to leave us at midnight, board the French steamer, and proceed to Toulon, where he was to take command of a Chilean man of war. Happily no such dis- agreeable ending of our dinner occurred. We became great friends, the more so because his ancestor, Jonathan Trumbull, and my own grandfather fought side by side in the American Revolution. The imminence of the quarrel with Chile assumed such proportions that Admiral, then Captain, "Bob" Evans embarked in the little gunboat Yorhtown for the harbour of Valparaiso, where, with others, he was to rescue Ameri- cans and beard the Chilean navy, which was then of rela- tively considerable importance. Evans admitted that he did not look forward to his task with keen anticipation, but ever resourceful, he told me that he had decided, if it came to action, to fill his forward compartment with gun cotton and high explosives and "ram the biggest and nearest ship like Hell!" I have reason to believe that many efforts were made by certain low but powerful politicians to interfere with the publication of the Post at different times. I knew of one occasion where the compositors went on a strike, and prac- tically terrorised every one. During this time, while Mr. Godkin was quietly sitting in his room, the gigantic fore- man truculently stalked through the editorial offices, but attempted no violence. Mr. Godkin turned to one of his associates and said, "Well, I hope any way that he ap- proves of the editorial policy of our paper." Every one is familiar with the independence of the 116 NEWSPAPER WOKK New York Sun, which first appeared in 1833 and in its way was as valuable a regulator of decent public opinion under the editorial control of my friend the late Charles A. Dana and his able and original assistant, Edward P. Mitchell, as was the Post; although the two journals did not exactly resemble each other. One sarcastic and ill- natured critic said that this difference consisted in the fact that "the Sun made vice attractive and the Post made virtue offensive," which was funny but not exactly true, Dana, like Henry Watterson, was severe, if not bitter, in his attacks, and never forgot a personal wrong or affront. For this reason his reiterated abuse and ridicule have well- nigh ruined, or at least made very uncomfortable, many a victim. In 1883 Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian, who had by his own exertions risen from abject poverty to financial ease, and who owned a St, Louis newspaper, came to New York and bought the New York World from Jay Gould. This paper, under his management, became the first so-called "yellow" journal, because of its extreme sensationalism, and the freedom with which it exploited the private affairs of many people. Under its previous editors, W. H. Hurl- burt and Manton Marble, it was a rather ordinary but well-conducted journal, with literary pretensions, and devoted to the interests of the Democratic party; but owing to Pulitzer's revolutionary methods, it became the most prosperous paper in America, and its composition and paper bills were the largest of all, not excepting the New York Herald. Within a short time Albert Pulitzer, a younger brother of Joseph, came to New York and obtained employment as a reporter upon the New York Herald. His insistent and pushing manner, and peculiar personality, made him a success as an interviewer, and he could get access to his 117 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST victims when others failed. It is even related that a cele- brated interview with Mayor Oakey Hall was obtained upon an occasion when the latter was in a position where he could not help himself, and in a place from which he could not emerge to elude his pursuer. I met Albert Pulitzer when he was my only fellow passenger on the JLessing, a little Hamburg- American steamer, and heard much from him as to his future plans. He had then bought the Morning Journal, and started to make it an offensive, sensational paper. He was abso- lutely frank in his avowal of his policy of a "free lance," and believed that "a journal enterprisingly conducted could succeed without the aid of its advertisements," but he did not deign to go into further particulars. He after- ward made a great deal of money, and spent it like water, wining and dining notable people in London and else- where, with whom he sought to ingratiate himself; and I am told that he always went abroad with a secretary or two, not only taking the best stateroom for himself, but two on either side "to insure privacy," travelling with couriers and valets, and dressing most expensively and showily. I, like many other public men, have suffered at the hands of the interviewers, although as a rule my treatment has been most courteous and fair. On many occasions re- porters who have asked for a "story" have, I think, found me obliging if I could help them over a rough place, but occasionally I would be asked to give professional opinions upon strange subjects. A woman representative of the Evening Mail once called me on the telephone to ask "Why women snuggle so?" I learned before she had fin- ished that the word really was "smuggle," and as I could throw no light upon the subject, I refused to be inter- viewed. The importunities of newspapers are sometimes 1118 AN INSTRUMENT OF TORTURE NEWSPAPER WORK remarkable, and I have, in my country home, been dragged out of bed late at night to answer a telephone inquiry of no interest whatever to any one, perhaps only a piece of gossip. There is a certain class of reporters who draw upon their imaginations for material. The late John Paul Bocock, who was an energetic journalist, never failed to preface his article with a redundant account of my house, my personal appearance, and many other things doubtless highly complimentary, but not always true, and of no interest to any one. When I appeared as an expert for the people in the Terranova case, the prisoner being a young girl who had murdered her step-father, I made some physical tests of the defendant, of the most ordinary kind, among them those for the determination of sensation. None of these were more painful than the use of a pinprick. When some one called my attention to the New York American I found a blood-curdling account of torture inflicted by dropping heavy stones, or steel points attached to heavy granite weights, upon the feet and toes of the victim, and the picture which was printed is reproduced. It is hardly necessary to say that all of this account was the purest invention. The sensationalism of that part of the daily press which flourished upon the pleasure that many people derive from perusing an account of the misfortunes and weaknesses of others, became general about this time, and has had much to do with debasing public opinion. It was not long be- fore some London papers took their cue from those in New York, but the English law of libel is so strict that they did not commit the journalistic excesses permitted in the United States. One newspaper had imported an offensive little reporter who had been formerly attached ,119 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST to the New York World, and before the trial of a cele- brated murder case in London, had written an article freely commenting upon the proposed defence, as well as on the plans of the prosecution. The result was that he was brought before Chief Justice Alverston and received a severe reprimand. In the Terranova case my friend. Judge Francis M. Scott, who presided, rebuked the pa- pers for their improper comments upon the case during its trial, but this kind of judicial correction is exceptional in the United States. There are many actions for libel brought in the English courts as the result of the activities of a certain class of "society journals," and despite the heavy damages ac- corded the plaintiffs, it is strange that the papers persist as they do, for they transgress again immediately. The only conclusion is that their gross earnings are so enor- mous that the damages awarded can be charged to "profit and loss" without inconvenience. Numerous attempts have been made in this country to start these vile sheets, but as a rule after the appearance of. a few numbers they have languished and died. One or two have nevertheless survived, and have done a great deal of mischief. As an instance of this, I may refer to an exceptionally venomous attack which led to lamentable consequences. The case fell under my professional notice, and had to do with an elderly lady of the highest social position whose early life, so far as any one knew, was irreproachable. She lived with her sons and grandchildren during the sut i- mer by the seaside, and one evening while alone she glanced over this sheet, carelessly brought down by her son. There stared her in the face a vile personal attack, covertly veiled, referring to some scandal of her early mar- ried life. Without attracting notice, she quietly walked from the room out into the bay, and her body was found 120 a. A CIVIL WAR CARICATURE BY LOUIS MC LANE HAMILTON VUXGAR AND SATIRICAL YouTH : No, sir-re; you can't put on any more of yer airs. It was all very well when yer was a crisis, but now yer ain't nothin' but a counterband— and nig- gers ain't better than anybody else NEWSPAPEH WORK the next day. Possibly this desperate thing would not have occurred had she not been a nervous invalid, but there was sufficient cause in the cruel gossip. The difficulty of obtaining punishment for libel in this country is indeed great, for the so-called freedom of the press carries with it a license to attack not only private citizens but public officers with impunity. I had many years ago one such experience, when Judge Donahue of the New York Superior Court held that an untrue and vicious attack upon an official constituted a libel. At the time I was connected with the Health Department, and made a report upon the merits of asphalt for street pave- ments. A property owner, the late Amos F. Eno, sent a virulent letter to the Tribune accusing me of venality. In vain did I try to get a retraction, and my friend John Hay, then an editor of the paper, endeavoured to get Whitelaw Reid to make some disavowal, for I did not care for a lawsuit. The answer was the statement that "the letter had been written by a well-known gentleman on the Avenue and it was probably true." Eno was served the next day with papers by my lawyer, the doughty General Francis Barlow; the case was tried and I received a hand- some verdict. It is estimated that Eno's folly in appeal- ing the case twice, and his counsel fees, cost him nearly $10,000, I knew of another occasion when a vile libel appeared in a sensational journal, for which the editor was promptly arrested. The case never came to trial for the reason that the District Attorney of that time was heavily in debt to one of the owners of the paper — a stock broker — and did not dare make a move. The then Chief of Police begged for clemency for the editor: he too had been speculating in the same office, and was heavily behind- hand in the matter of margin. 121 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST One of the early comic papers in New York was Vanity Fair J which was intended to be an American Punch. It was certainly ahead of the vulgar sheet called Yankee Notions, which owed its existence to the caricatures of Frank Bellew, all much alike and very silly. During its brief existence it included in its list of contributors a num- ber of brilliant men who met at PfafF's, a Bohemian beer cellar on lower Broadway, but the best of them went off to the war. The staff included W. H. Shannon, E. C. Stedman, the poet; "Artemas Ward," H. L. Stephens, Edward Mullen, McLeUan, Kemble, Elihu Vedder and FitzJames O'Brien, who produced The Diamond Lens and The Sew- ing Bird, and was perhaps Poe's equal in fanciful writing. He joined the Seventh Regiment and died from tetanus, the result of an infected wound, April 16th, 1862. Most of these men were friends of my brother (who contributed caricatures), and I met them through him. The office of Vanity Fair was at 113 Nassau Street, where, following the example of the contributors to London Punch, they had a meeting every Friday afternoon. im CHAPTER IX NEW YORK THEATRICALS Old Recollections — Wallack's, Burton's — Winter Garden — John Broug- ham as Pocahontas — M. W. Leffingwell — George L. Fox as Ham- let — Stuart Robson as Captain Crosstree — The Black Crook — Bonfanti and the Rigl Sisters — Adeline Genee — Lydia Thompson and Her British Blondes — Richard Grant White Writes Sonnets to Pauline Markham — Sothern as Dundreary — Insane Actors — John McCullough — The Ravels — Old Negro Minstrels, George Christy and Dan Bryant — Gilbert and Sullivan — Alfred Cellier Writes a Full Orchestra Score in Twelve Hours — W. S. Gilbert — Barnum and Bailey's Circus on Blizzard Night — The Count Johannes — Josef Hofmann the Boy Pianist — Artemas Ward — Mrs. Scott Siddons. My recollections of the theatre, which extend back nearly sixty years, are filled with intense pleasure, not only because they date from a time when the legitimate stage was in full vigour, but that I have seen and known some of the great actors and actresses who flourished during the middle and latter part of the nineteenth century. For years one could enjoy the productions of such great stock companies as that of Wallack's, and see and hear the old comedies well acted by such people as the elder and younger Wallack, E. L. Davenport, John Gilbert, George Holland, J. H. Stoddard, Madeline Henriques, Mrs. John Hoey, Mary Gannon, Mrs. Vernon, and many oth- ers, including the well-drilled and capable Daly Company. Never in the United States have there been such presenta- tions of the School for Scandal, She Stoops to Conquer, 123 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST The Rivals and the other sterling old standard comedies ; and Shakespeare was then played by American actors as it never has been since the days of Kean, McCready and our own Edwin Booth, while in contrast was the noble work of Salvini and Fechter, and later Henry Irving. All this was long before the advent of the trashy, salacious productions and adaptations of the last twenty years for which the Jewish managers are chiefly responsible. My first remembrance of New York theatricals goes back to the time of unctuous Burton who then played Poor Pilli- coddy. Boh Acres, and many delightful farces and com- edies at the old Burton's Theatre, afterwards known as the Winter Garden, opposite Bond Street in Broadway. Earlier still, the "lecture room" performances at Bar- num's Museum claimed me when I must have been only eight or ten years of age. I remember vividly John Brougham in Pocahontas j, an inimitable bit of burlesque with a really good book. John Brougham played this and other burlesques as late as 1876, and in 1869 he produced Much Ado About a Merchant of Venice at the Twenty- fourth Street Theatre. At this performance he played Shyloch, Effie Germon, afterward with Lester Wallack, the part of Lorenzo, and the strenuous Mrs. J. J. Prior that of Portia. Myron W. Leffingwell was the droll orig- inal of Romeo Jaffer Jenkins, and had more real humour than any of his successors, even including Jacques Kruger, He too played Shylock in a burlesque, with the vivacious and exceedingly pretty Lina Edwin. On one occasion he was made up as Beppo the Gladiator, after Edwin For- rest, and strutted about the stage apparently unconscious . of the large carving fork, one prong of which was buried in his immense calf, which was stuffed with sawdust. In John Brougham's cast was Miss Hodson, who afterward married the English editor Henry Labouchere, whom I 124} NEW YORK THEATRICALS met in London at an "At Home" at the house of T. P. O'Connor many years after. His original advertisement of Pocahontas is worthy of reproduction : "Original, Aboriginal, Erratic, Operatic, Semi-Civilised and Demi-Savage Extravaganza of Pocahontas. "Scenery painted from Daguerreotypes and other authentic documents, the costumes from original plates, and the music was dislocated and reset by the heads of the different departments of the theatre." No more delightful farceur has ever appeared than George L. Fox, who, originally a clown, played Humpty Dumpty with his brother C. K. Fox, an admirable Pantaloon^ fifteen hundred times in New York alone. Fox was an intelligent man and a scholar as well as a sterling actor for his rendition of Bottom in A Midsum- mer Nighfs Dream was a finished production. It was a burlesque of Hamlet^, however, which made all New York flock to the theatre again and again and to give them- selves up to unrestrained enjoyment and laughter. This was written for him by T. C. DeLeon of New Orleans, and was a witty and bright travesty. Fox played the part with all seriousness, introducing his own funny business. For instance when he appeared on the ramparts of the Castle of Elsinore, and Horatio referred in his lines to the "nipping and eager air" Fox was supplied with ear-muffs and arctics, and beat his chest with his mittened hands. When adjured by the ghost to curse his uncle, he feebly and softly said "damn." Ophelia was told to get herself to a brewery instead of a nunnery, and he made a dread- ful face, holding his nose and sniffing, when, after exam- ining the skull of Yorick with its evident post-mortem offensiveness, he hurled it away from him. The play was 125 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST produced at the Olympic Theatre in February, 1876, and had a long run. James Lewis, who was one of Augustin Daly's best actors in later days, figured at an earlier period in bur- lesque, and I remember him in the title role of Ltucrezia Borgia at Elise Holt's Theatre which was at 720 Broad- way. The Palace of the Borgias was set like a modern drug store and Lewis was a quack doctress. Another amusing burlesque was that of Black-Eyed Susan at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in 1869 when Stuart Robson, who afterwards appeared as Bertie in The Hen- rietta, played Captain Crosstree. He was dressed in a blue satin uniform which was inflated by an enormous rub- ber bag beneath. The spectacle of this huge creature floating or skipping about the stage delivering his amorous lines in a high, squeaky voice was ludicrous in the extreme. It was Augustin Daly who translated and "adapted" several German farces and light comedies. While as a rule they were very amusing and well done they exhaled the atmosphere of a certain shoddy society which was made oiFensive by the antics and dress of several male members of the company who had probably never off the stage worn evening dress. One jeune premier, following the mode of the lower East side, wore upon his wide and very glossy shirt-bosom a Roman cross made with dia- monds, and another had gigantic detachable shirt cuffs which he took pains to display suddenly by a peculiar mo- tion of his forearms, this feat of gymnastics gaining for him the sobriquet of "the cufF shooter." It was here that John Drew did a great deal of hard work for so many years, and became the ideal "matinee idol," although I am sure he was disgusted with the kit- tenish worship of the school girl and the neurotic women of romantic mould. 1^6 NEW YORK THEATRICALS The renaissance of the ballet is familiar to most old New Yorkers who remember the excitement caused by the opening of the Black Crook at Niblo's Garden by Messrs. Jarret and Palmer. This spectacle had been produced in Paris as the BicTie au Bois, and even though toned down for American taste, created a tremendous sensation, as the dress — or rather undress — of the coryphees shocked the public and called forth a storm of remonstrance, and pre- paredness at Police Headquarters in Mulberry Street. Country clergymen, it was asserted, attended the play to see if it really was fit for their congregations, and on the other hand the ""jeunesse (stage) d'oree" haunted Niblo's. The translation had been made by a Spaniard named Barras, and it is said his fat royalties enabled him to buy a country place at Cos Cob, the ground now being occupied by the Electric Power plant of the New Haven Railway. Every one connected with the venture made much money, for the antagonism of the good people of New York which is so often the best advertisement was so in this case and seats were at a great premium. The ballet was really less objectionable than those at present to be seen in a half dozen theatres, and the dancing, notably that of Marie Bonfanti (now an elderly and cor- pulent teacher of dancing, if she is still alive), was the perfection of power and grace combined. Among the premieres were two Viennese dancers, the Rigl sisters, both lovely, modest and domestic women. I saw Emily occasionally as she was a patient, and I was rather pleased on the eve of a visit to Europe to have her ask me to go to the Pere la Chaise cemetery and see that her mother's grave had been taken care of, the old lady having died in Paris during their absence. Most ill-informed people know very little about the morals of the ballet dancer. My knowledge enables me 127 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST to say that perhaps it is higher than any other following that belongs to the stage, and certainly the conscientious women who follow this calling are the most consistent, and lead admirable domestic lives. They are usually very am- bitious, and, as for work, there is not enough to be said in their favour. A. B. Walkley has said that "nothing on the English stage is sacred except the dancing of Adeline Genee." I have for some time known Mile. Adeline Genee, who married Frank Isitt, the business agent of the Duke of Norfolk. No mention need be made of her talent or of her industry. Not only does she spend hours planning new ballets and drilling her dancing corps, but no one does such an amount of real hard work. I hear that when she last went on tour she ordered sixty pairs of dancing slippers, and wore these out long before the season was over. Lydia Thompson and her company of English bur- lesquers opened at Wood's Museum, afterwards Daly's Theatre, in 1868, affording a new sensation for the jaded theatre-goer. With this company appeared a number of very handsome women, as well as HaiTy Beckett, v/ho later went to Wallack's and became a great popular favourite. One of the company married a distinguished professor of Columbia University, and another — Pauline Markham — ^was celebrated in verse by Richard Grant White, the father of the late Stanford White — who, I be- lieve, wrote for or actually edited the Galaxy, a monthly magazine. One of my earliest delights as a schoolboy was a visit to Laura Keene's theatre where Edward A. Sothern appeared as Lord Dundreary in Our American Cousin, the same play that filled Ford's Theatre in Washington when President Lincoln was assassinated. Sothern was 128 MISS ADELINE GENEE NEW YORK THEATRICALS an original man, somewhat queer and erratic, possessed with an uncanny humour, and unable quite to resist the temptation to play a practical joke — in which he was usually asisted by William M. Travers. His old friend William Winter, who at the age of eighty-six years is alive to-day, tells a story of his arraignment by Laura Keene in whose company he was playing. He did not know exactly what was coming, but when he silently entered her room he said, "Before you utter a word, Miss Keene, let me turn down the gaslight." "What is that for?" she cried in amazement. "Because I can bear to endure whatever you have to say, but I cannot bear to see those beautiful eyes blazing with passion, and that lovely face distorted with wrath. Go on now and say whatever you please." The result was an outburst of laughter, in which they both joined, and there was no admonition. It is a curious thing that so many actors lose their minds, and I have professionally seen a number of these whose cases have been a matter of newspaper discussion. Among these were Tony Hart, W. J. Scanlon, the Irish comedian, and John McCullough. The latter was a pro- tege of Edwin Forrest the robust tragedian, and played the same range of characters. He was one of the most popular actors in the country, and leaped into fame as the understudy of E. L. Davenport, who was playing The Dead Hearst in Boston. Davenport did not appear one afternoon, so McCullough took his place, making a dis- tinct hit. His mental disorder was not apparent at first, though he had explosive outbursts, and did many silly things. When I saiv him he was in a sad condition of melancholia with hypochondriasis. This was in 1883 and he soon after was sent to an asylum where he died at the age of fifty-one. He was, in health, a kind and very human man; had nice tastes, especially in literature, and 1129 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST could quote Keats and Shelley at length, as well as Shake- speare. Upon one occasion I witnessed from a private box the breakdown of another very popular actor who until this night did not realise his collapse. He grew worse and worse in his delivery and then stared in a meaningless way at the audience and stopped, when the curtain was slowly lowered. The next day he was taken to Bloom- ingdale. No such pantomime has ever been known as that given by the Ravel Family who originally came to New York in 1832, but whose last engagement at Niblo's was in 1866. For all these thirty-four years they delighted young and old with ingenious tricks. Fran9ois and Gabriel were the two great mimes of their time and gathered about them various members of their family among the Zanfrettis and Martinettis. Their best productions were Robert Macaire, Jocko or the Brazilian Ape, The Green Mon- ster, and Mazulah or the Magic Owl. Not only were these men great actors, but no such mechanical devices have ever been seen on the stage in this country, and I recall a trick in which Gabriel the clown was besieged at the top of a lighthouse, and seeing one of his pursuers standing below, dropped a cannon ball upon him. The result was that the man beneath was completely flattened out; then a companion appeared with a pair of bellows, inserted the nozzle somewhere in the flat remains, and inflated them, when the revived and restored figure walked off the stage. The evolution of negro minstrelsy in the United States goes back to the eighteenth century, but until the advent of one Rice with Jim Crow there was no important de- velopment in this form of entertainment. It will surprise most people to hear that Edwin Booth, and even his father Junius Brutus Booth, appeared in negro parts, and the former played Sam Johnson in Bone Squash, an early ISO NEW YORK THEATRICALS Ethiopian farce, at the Front Street Theatre in Baltimore. Laurence Barret, the tragedian, and George Holland followed his example — the latter in a female black part — while Joseph Jefferson, when a boy, took part in a benefit as a miniature Jim Crow, When quite a lad I enjoyed a "nigger minstrel show" as a particularly delightful treat. George Christy, whose real name was George Harring- ton, who died in 1868, appeared at Mechanic's Hall with his brother E. P. Christy, and Foster's familiar composi- tions, which included Nelly Bly, Oh Susannah^ Old Dog Tray^ Old Kentucky Home, Way Down Upon the Su- wanee River, and Hard Times Come Again No More, were sung into world-wide popularity. I have heard the latter in many parts of the world, even in far-off Japan. Dan Bryant, who was the most liked of New York min- strels, opened at Mechanic's Hall in 185T, and later in 1868 at Tammany Hall in the annex. Before his death he moved to his own theatre on West Twenty-third Street near Sixth Avenue. With his brother Neil, Nelse Sey- mour, and a good company he immediately became a favourite. There were people like the late Judge John R. Brady who had particular seats reserved for them every week, and Saturday night had its especial clientele. A pleasant, jocose relationship existed between the company and the audience which stretched beyond the footlights, and personal jokes at the expense of those present were not unusual. Some habitue, perhaps a prominent man who had lost at poker the night before, or who was the hero of some ludicrous story, found himself quietly guyed, the news of his escapade being secretly communicated to the "middle man" who made use of it. "Billy" Ricketts, who afterward, through the influence of Judge Brady, became Chief Clerk in the Supreme Court, and later held the same position with the Appellate 131 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN ALIENIST Division, for a long time was the ticket taker at Bryant's, and knew more people by sight at that time than any one in this country. Other old minstrels, some of whom I knew weU, were: Birch, Backus, and Wambold, the latter a wonderful tenor who later died of tuberculosis; Dan Reed, who toured with his family until he was a very old man as the "Reed Birds;" Ad. Ryrnan, a dry comedian; Bob Hart, who had been educated for the pulpit and who delivered side-splitting comic orations; Luke Schoolcraft, and the unctuous Unsworth. Kelly and Leon were, after the Civil War, at 720 Broadway, and put on the stage sev- eral rather amusing negro burlesques of French opera bouff e, as did the Worral sisters a few doors above in an old converted church, almost opposite the New York hotel. Leon was the "female impersonator" and made up and sang the music of The Gt^ande Duchesse very accept- ably. He was, I believe, a graduate of a Roman Catholic college and a decent young man. His partner was one KeUy, who shot a politician and business rival in Twenty- eighth Street who, he declared, had slandered him. When the case was tried a loophole of a technical character in the medical testimony saved his life, but after this episode the business declined. In 1879 Gilbert and Sullivan came to this country, and with them was Alfred Cellier, the former London conductor. He had been educated with Sullivan at the Chapel Royal, and I have heard it said that he composed and arranged much of the music of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, at least much more than that for which he was given credit; that, as he was a good- natured, easy-going man, he never availed himself of the kudos. I know of no one who was so thoroughly drilled in orchestration, and when the company hurried over to produce the Pirates of Penzance, it was found that the 13a NEW YORK THEATRICALS entire score was missing and a rehearsal was called for nine o'clock the following morning. All that Cellier had was a piano score, so, with a bottle of whiskey at his el- bow, he sat up all the night, and at seven o'clock in the morning, just twelve hours after, he had a perfect score for the big band. It was a superhuman effort, but when he joined me at breakfast he was as fresh and chipper as