Lights and Shadows of New York Life: or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great CityMcCabe, James Dabney
History
Lights and Shadows of New York Life: or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City
McCabe, James Dabney
New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel; New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
not to put them in, but he wants them burned;' I went over to the range
to cook some eggs for breakfast; it was full of burned papers on the top
and in the bottom; there lay a bundle of papers on the top that were
about half burned, with a piece of pink tape around them; I put on the
cover again; they were partly smothered, going out; Mrs. Haggerty had a
poker stirring up the papers on the top and underneath, where the ashes
were; the bottom of the range was full of burning papers, and Mrs.
Haggerty had the poker stirring them up so that they would burn faster;
from underneath the range and the top she took three or four pailfuls of
burned papers and emptied them up stairs on the attic floor, in a heap of
ashes.
"On Tuesday next, when Mrs. Haggerty came home from the market, she asked
me if there was anything new about this robbery in the Comptroller's
office; I told her I did not know; I didn't hear nothing, no more than a
man came up stairs to-day, and asked me if I let anybody in on Sunday, or
if I knew anybody to come into the building on Sunday; I told him I did
not know who came in; I didn't attend to the front door; I was cooking,
and had nothing to do with the front door; and I asked the man who sent
him up stairs; and he said a man down in the hall sent him up stairs to
inquire; next, I told Mrs. Haggerty that if I had known it was Charley
Baulch sent him up stairs to find any information from me, I should have
told the man to go down stairs, that Charley Baulch knew as much about it
as I did, and more, for he was one of the men that helped to rob it; she
said to me, 'Christ! If Charley Baulch knowed that, he'd run into the
East River and drown himself--if he knowed you saw him;' this was on
Tuesday night I told her this; Mr. Haggerty left town on Tuesday, saying
he was going to Saratoga with Hank Smith, and he would be home on
Thursday or Friday, and on Wednesday night he got home from Saratoga;
Mrs. Haggerty told him the remarks that I made to her on Tuesday night
about the robbery; that I saw all that passed; she told me on Thursday
morning that she told Mr. Haggerty about it all, last night; that he was
going to wash his feet, but he felt so bad over it; they sat up for two
hours in the room talking, and he didn't wash his feet; on Thursday
morning when Mr. Haggerty came into the kitchen, he came to me, running
in, and said, 'Mary!' I said, 'Sir!' Said he, 'I don't want you to
speak of what you saw passed here on Sunday morning; I don't want you to
tell these old women or old men in the building; Charley Baulch done it
for me, and I done it for another man;' I said, 'I haven't told it to
anyone;' He said, 'You did tell it to Kitty' (his wife); I said, 'She
knew as much about it as I did; she saw the papers burning;' on next
Friday of that same week I saw Mark Haggerty, Mr. Haggerty's brother, who
is a detective in the Mayor's office, I think; I called him up stairs and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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