Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 02, May 1, 1858
History
Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 02, May 1, 1858
New York (N.Y.) -- Politics and government
Bennett, to the exclusion of the other editors, because he had been
true in our adversity, when the hands of all mankind seemed uplifted
to annihilate our pale and feeble frame. We had boarded with Horace
Greeley, for seven years, at the Graham House, in Barclay street,
and all our relations had been of the most friendly character; and
yet we deemed it our sacred duty to send our Pilgrim letters to Mr.
Bennett, and also give him Carson’s famous Report, to the exclusion
of Greeley, because Bennett’s fidelity was next to our Father’s.
Greeley was a formidable candidate for the Mayoralty, when Carson’s
Report appeared, and if we had given it to him instead of Bennett, he
would have been the successor of Mayor Woodhull. But in giving it to
Bennett for publication one day in advance of Greeley, so exasperated
the latter against Carson and ourself, that he attacked the Report
like a ferocious bull dog, and slew himself, whose name was hardly
whispered in the Mayoralty Convention that soon followed. Alderman
Morgan Morgans, (President of the Board of Aldermen,) Alderman Robert
H. Hawes, Alderman George H. Franklin, and Mayor Woodhull himself were
also candidates. But as they were all severely denounced in Carson’s
Report, for discharging culprits without examination or trial, and
for other offences common to Aldermen in those days, they were all
rejected by the Convention, when the oily Ambrose C. Kingsland entered
the arena, and was nominated and easily elected, which proved to be
the saddest municipal calamity of that period, as he was in collusion
throughout his term with official scoundrels, and made more money than
any Mayor who preceded him, as one of our Aldermanic pupils often
assured us; and if Kingsland will publicly deny our accusations, we
will adduce our informant’s name, and paralyse him. And to be briefly
explicit, our informant was connected with Kingsland and Draper’s
operations to rob the city of the Gansevoort property. Kingsland’s
appointment of Matsell as Chief of Police partially corroborates the
assertion of the Alderman who imparted his precious information.
Kingsland’s appointment of Matsell was effected thus: According to his
custom, with Mayors elect, Matsell invited Kingsland to a ride into
the Metropolitan suburbs, on the morning after his election, and in
passing a gaudy edifice, the Brandon Chieftain halted and exclaimed:
“Kingsland, my boy, is not that a fascinating mansion?” Kingsland
crimsoned, and gazed rapiers and scabbards, and in baffled accents,
mildly ejaculated in the expressive language of Jemmy Twitcher: “Vell,
vot of it?” “O, nothing,—only I thought I would inquire how you
enjoyed yourself in its rainbow halls on Friday evening last. And,
by the way, how about the appointment of Chief of Police? Have you
resolved whom to appoint?” “Certainly I have. You well know my ancient
love for you, and that you are my choice for Chief, beyond any being
living or dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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