Broadbrim’s New York Letter.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 869, 26 October 1888, Page 10

Broadbrim’s New York Letter.

It is a queer life this life in a great city ; to reside for a year next door to a man and know no more about him than if he lived in Kamsehatca or the Himalayas. Of course this sort of thing has its advantages, but it also has its setbacks, and just now I am reminded of a number of cases which have fallen under mv observation in the past few years. On the opposite side of the block from me lived a very nice gentlemen and his family, a wife and three children, and a most admirable family they were. As I sat at my desk writing, day after day, I could see my neighbour at work in his back room, though a light gauze curtain prevented me seeing the nature of it. I had no particular cause for concealment myself, so in summer time my windows were wide open, and the backs of both eur houses looked out on pleasant little gardens. As Shakespeare remarks, * Not as deep as a well nor as wide as a church door, but enough.’ My neighbour’s wife was a moat exemplary woman, and her children were models of good behaviour. She was quite active in church work and gave liber, ally to the poor. About this time the United States Secret Service was considertiiblv exorcised over the appearance of a counterfeit Lnited States 10 dollar note. The work was admirable and the paper a tac simile of that used by the United States. The engravings of the plates and the printing was -then done by the American Bank Note Company. The only conclusion that could be arrived at was that some of the paper had been stolen from the mills, for the Becret of its manufacture was held at the time by a paper mill in Massachusetts which supplied the government paper. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of this counterfeit were scattered abroad before tho authorities were made aware of it. In the meantime I had got up a nodding acquaintance with my neighbour. He recognised -me as the man he saw writing at the back window, and I recognised him aa the man that I sometimes saw on his baok stoop playing with a little poodle dog. When we next met on the cars, aa we frequently did, he nodded and said ‘ Good day,’'which salutation I always returned. One day he asked me to take a drink ; it is not necessary for the truth of history to say whether I did or not, but I certainly thought it very civil of him, and he hoped we might get better acquainted, and 1 said ‘Yes.’ " Some weeks after that there was the wildest excitement in police circles. The forger of the 10 dollar Treasury note had.been caught, and better than that, the plate itself had been secured. It was a fine pieej. of . detective work and the result of manyt months of severe labour. On the day of tho trial I thought I would go over and report the case. After entering the court I took my place near the reporters’ table. The clerk called, ‘Oh, yes ; oh, yes ; oh, yes ; come into, court,’ when who should inarch in between a couple of officers but my respectable neighbour, who turned out to be Brockwa>, one of the cleverest forgers in the world. He was convicted and sentenced to a long term in States Prison, whioh owing to good conduct was shortened several years. He is now out of prison, bub it is unnecessary to say that we have not yet renewed our T Almost every week some one dies here

who in li'e seemed poor enough ; but after death it is discovered that sometimes they possessed millions, and frequently hundreds of thousands. It is hardly, necessary to speak of Payne, who led a life of .misery, filth, starvation and rags, and who died in a wretched room, six by eight, upon a pile of rags, and yefc for twenty years a friend ox his had three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in bank bills tied up in an old pocket handkerchief, and not a living soul knew it —not even the holder of the handkerchief till after Payne’s death. Another case was that of an outcast printer who for years was so filthy and disgusting that no office in the city would give him work, although he was a skilful printer. PTe got hiß food out of the ash-barrels and swill cans, and at last died iu the gutter ; when they cut his shirt away from his foul body they found eight bank books with deposits aggregating forty-two thousand dollars ! Another case was that of two old maid sisters who lived in ail old-fashioned house down town. They lived most peuuriously, keeping a girl, whom they nearly starved to death. At last they both became so weak that it became necessary to get further assistance. A stout young Irishman was engaged, and he acted as a sorb of major doino. Then the elder sister died ; after that the younger, who was about seventy, seemed to grow stingier than ever. Patrick had a pretty Hard time to live,' and harder still to get his wages. This old woman had only one faded calico dress whioh she wore continually, and sho spent most of her time in a dark gloomy room, lying on an old ragged lounge. A clerical-looking gentleman used to come on the firßt of the month and give her a package of bank bills, and without any unnecessary words, depart. One day the old lady was fonnd dead on the ragged lounge iu the kitchen, and shortly afterward a will was presented for probate, the estate footing up one million and six hundred thousand dollars. The clerical gentleman was named therein for a trifling bequeßt ot five hundred thousand dollars, and was virtually given charge of the other eleven hundred thousand dollars to dispense to certain charities and churches as ho saw fit. This brings me to the bequest of an old fool by the name of Wood, who, by one of these freaks of nature, no fellow is nows exactly how, accumulated property amounting to over a million of dollars. He was a fussy, arrogant, pompous old fool, who looked at everything from a financial standpoint. He had made money, and consequently he was a great imm ; his neighbour had not made money, and as a consequence he was of no account. He lived a fool and he died a fool, his only desire being to perpetuate his name. He might have had an immense bust of himself made in wood as big as the Statue of Liberty, and ou top of the head he might have placed a block of wood, and theu left it to posterity to guess the enigma, but he did not. Ouc time he was going to build the biggest steamboat in the world, and again he thought of a twenty-story house.. Some one suggested the founding of a hospital; he thought that was a grand idea and so made his will. Two weeks after, a couple of clever knaves got hold of him and induced (him to stop the hospital idea and found the Wood College of Music.. Better still. Here was a chance to have his praises sung forever. The trustee told him that if he would found the college he would have it inserted in the charter that every year for a thousand years a grand chorus of five thousand voices should sing a psean of praise to his memory. And he forthwith composed tho following verse ‘Hurrah for Wood ! Hurrah for Wood ! He did us all consid’able good ! He did U 3 all the good he could 1 Hurrah for Wood ! Hurrah for Wood !’

That settled it. He destroyed the other will and made one founding the Wood College of Music, and then turned up his toes. Ten years have almost passed since, and the trustees have taken care of the old man’s property. No college of music has yet materialised, and the oatate has rapidly dwindled away while, the pockets of the trustees have grown fat. But it is no use talking ; there is no Act of -Congress against tnen making fools of themsslves. Wood don't care, for the presumption is that Wood is now clay. It has been a week of abasement and humiliation. Many prominent people have been called before the Fassett Committee, and the exhibition there made has filled us all with shame and sorrow. Rank perjury has been committed by meu whom the community in times past have exalted to high official station. Ex-Mayor Grace swear 3 to statements of facts involving the moral turpitudo of tho Governor of the State ; and Judge Muller, the Governor’s fiiend and partner, swears to a directly opposite state of facts, which if true, make the Ex-Mayor of New York an envenomed perjurer. Both statements cannot be true ; but whichever way we turn we are confronted by the fact that the politics of the time are evil. Richard J. Morrison, the private .secretary of ex-Mayor Grace, gets 12,000 dollars from the aqueduct contractors, ostensibly for services as counsel, but really tor getting thorn the contract, and puts his brother in the fat position of bookkeeper to see that the money was paid. Thfei Governor’s notes for 30,000 dollars are paid by contractors and political heelers, and not one dollar of it by the maker of the notes. Contraots are given, not to the lowest bidder, but to the highest. The politicians rob the contractors, arid the contractors rob the people, while those in charge of the city’s interest sit by and share the ‘plunder. ’Thank God for at least one honest man in this city of a million and a quarter of people. jjNoi ' corruption has been traced to Mayor Hewitt’s door. It has mattered not to him whether they were Democrats or Republicans, if they were dishonest he hunted them down. He Is not popular with political thieves—he never will be. He may be deceived at times.—ho may make mistakes. I think one of the greatest mistakes of his life was the endorsement of the More.v-Garfield forgery ; 'but that is all past. You could no more move him to any intentional dishonesty than you could move the rock of Gibraltar. So I say again, in the midst of this deplorable showing, thank God we have an honest Mayor. Another case of perjury lies between one Mcßean and a General Lefevre, Mcßean

swears that Lefevre told bim that he wanted: 150,000 -dollars to buy three of the Commissioners, and Lefovre swears pointblank that ho never had any conversation with Mcßean on tho subject. One of these men ought to bo behind States Prison bats. But these are only sample bricks of the whole affair. Rottenness, lying, speculation, robbery. forgery, and even crimes of a more deadly and desperate character, are spread out in the piercing sunlight of this terrible investigation. Men who have hitherto stood fair in this community will henceforth go through life with smirched characters and blackened reputations. Where will it all end? The Tweed gang is stricken down, and the Boodle thieves take their places ; we drive .them into exile or States Prison, but the horde that succeeds them are worse than the Boodle thieves. ; What will become of us? I don’t know—we can only watch and wait, Thank fortune we have been spared one humiliation, in part, at least. Richard K. Fox, the patron of prize-fighters and the proprietor of the Police Gazette, gave orders to Billy Harding to give Jake Kilrain a big reception that would knock the Blaine reception cold. So Billy hired a steamboat, and a brass band and cannon, and invited all the pugs and gamblers to go down to meet the Etruria and Kilrain. Tboy were a delightful crowd, arid as refreshments were plentiful and free while they were cruising around, they all got full as ticks. The programme wat, if the Etruria got in on fciatuiday, to meet the champion, take him off ou the boat, escort him to the wharf, where they had carriages decorated with American and other flags, and thence escort him with a procession and a band of to his hotel. Fortunately the Etruria arrived in the night, and her captain refused to let the pugs come aboard ’ his ship. Kilrain finally got away about twelve o’clock at night and under cover of the darkness was taken to the Metropolitan ou Broadway, where a fine suite of rooms had been engaged for him by Billy Harding, Richard K. Fox paying all the bills. All tnis to-do is about a prizefightmo ruffian who, Fox thinks, can down John L. Sullivan. No need of Kilrain, Mr Fox • John L. Sullivan has downed himself. He ’tackle-1 a greater tough than Kilrain when ho entered the ring with a whisky bottle. The bottle knocked John out the first round. Good bye, John. Yours truly, Bkoadbrim.