THE OLD-TIME GANGS OF NEW YORK

BY HERBERT ASBURY

HE old-time gangs of New York City the older thieves, to whom they surren­ had their genesis in the tenements, dered their loot. Tsaloons and dance-houses of the old The Chichesters, Roach Guards, Plug Five Points and Paradise Square district; Uglies, Shirt Tails and Dead Rabbits were but their actual organization into working organized in other bogus grocery-stores, units, and the consequent transformation and in time these emporiums came to be of the area into an Alsatia of vice and regarded as the worst dens of the Five crime, followed the opening of the cheap Points, and the centers of its infamy and green-grocery speak-easies which sprang crime. The Shirt Tails were so called be­ up around the Square and along the streets cause they wore their shirts on the outside which, debouching into it, formed the of their trousers, like Chinamen, and the Points. The first of these speak-easies was expressive appellation of the Plug Uglies opened, about 1810, by Rosanna Peers, in came from the enormous plug hats of the Center street, just south of Anthony, now members, which they stuffed with wool Worth street. Piles of decaying vegetables and leather and drew down over their ears were displayed on racks outside the door, to serve as helmets when they went into but Rosanna provided a back room in battle. The Plug Uglies were for the most which she sold the fiery liquor of the part gigantic Irishmen, and included in period, her chief source of revenue, at their membership some of the toughest lower prices than it could be obtained at characters of the Five Points. Even the the recognized saloons. This room soon most ferocious of the Paradise Square eye- became the resort of thugs, pickpockets, gougers and mayhem artists cringed when murderers and thieves. a giant Plug Ugly walked abroad looking The gang known as the Forty Thieves, for trouble, with a huge bludgeon in one which appears to have been the first in hand, a brickbat in the other, a pistol New York with a definite, acknowledged peeping from his pocket, and his tall hat leadership, is said to have been formed in jammed down over his ears and all but Rosanna's establishment, and her back obscuring his fierce eyes. He was an adept room was used as its meeting place, and at rough and tumble fighting, and wore as headquarters by Edward Coleman and heavy boots studded with great hobnails, its other eminent leaders. There they re­ with which he stamped his prostrate and ceived reports from their henchmen, and helpless victims. from its dimly lit corners dispatched the The Dead Rabbits were originally part gangsters on their warlike missions. There of the Roach Guards, organized to honor was also a gang known as the Forty Little the name of a Five Points liquor-seller. Thieves, composed of small boys and girls But internal dissension developed, and at who admired the great deeds of their elders one of the gang's stormy meetings some and strove to emulate them. These chil­ one threw a dead rabbit into the room. dren were principally beggars, sneaks and One of the squabbling factions accepted it pickpockets, and were carefully trained by as an omen and withdrew, forming an in- 478

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED THE OLD-TIME GANGS OF NEW YORK 479 dependent gang and calling themselves the Brady and Slops Connolly, most of whom, Dead Rabbits. Sometimes they were also beside being thugs of the first water, were known as the Blackbirds. Under the lead­ pickpockets, burglars and sneaks. Driscoll ership of such noted gangsters as Kit and Lyons were the two greatest leaders Burns, Tommy Hadden and Shang Allen of the Whyos, and appropriately enough they achieved great renown for their were hanged in the courtyard of the Tombs provv'ess as thieves and thugs. The battle within eight months of each other. Dris­ insignia of the Roach Guards was a blue coll was embroiled in a fight in 1887 with stripe on their pantaloons, while the Dead John McCarthy over the afl!"ections of a Rabbits adopted a red stripe, and at the girl known as Beezy Garrity, and in the head of their sluggers carried a dead rabbit gun fight which followed one of his bul­ impaled on a pike. The Rabbits and the lets hit the girl and killed her. He was Guards swore undying enmity and con­ hanged on January 13, 1888. stantly fought each other at the Points, Lyons succeeded Driscoll to the leader­ but in the rows with the Fourth Ward and ship of the Whyos, and was probably the Bowery gangs they made common cause most ferocious gangster of his period, a against the enemy, as did the Plug Uglies, worthy rival of the later and equally emi­ Shirt Tails and Chichesters. All of the Five nent Monk Eastman. Lyons was also one Points gangsters commonly fought in their of the first of the great gang leaders to avail undershirts. himself of feminine counsel. He frequently Little is known by historians of the ac­ consulted his girls, Lizzie the Dove, Gentle tivities of the Chichesters; it is likely that Maggie and Bunty Kate, all of whom this was a small gang and comparatively proudly walked the streets for him and weak, and that it fought under the banner faithfully gave him their earnings. But of one of the larger and more powerful Lyons was not satisfied with the manner bands in the great gang wars which con­ in which they maintained him. He added tinued in downtown New York for so a fourth girl, Kitty McGown, to his en­ many years and rolled up such an appalling tourage, despite the vigorous objections of list of dead and maimed. Its chief claim to her lover, Joseph Quinn, who swore he immortality is its persistence; it outlived would have vengeance. Both Lyons and all of the other Five Points gangs, and Quinn celebrated the Fourth of July, 1887, from it developed the murderous Whyos, by drinking heavily, and when they met perhaps the most vicious collection of at the Five Points the next morning their thugs and cut-throats that New York has dispositions were even more murderous ever seen. This gang, which took its name than usual. They began blazing away at from the peculiar call of its members, arose each other across Paradise Square, and soon after the Civil War, and was not fin­ Quinn fell dead with a bullet in his heart. ally stamped out of existence until the late Lyons went in hiding for a few months, nineties. The last haunt of the Whyos was but was finally arrested, and on August ii, in a Bowery saloon called the Morgue, the 1888, was hanged in the Tombs. After his owner of which boasted that his product death Gentle Maggie and Lizzie the Dove was equally efficient as a beverage and as quarreled over who loved him most, and an embalming fluid. Lizzie stabbed Maggie. The Whyos attained their period of Another shining light of the old Whyos, greatest renown during the eighties and before the time of Driscoll and Lyons, was early nineties, when the gang produced Dandy Johnny Dolan, who was not only such celebrated criminals as Danny Dris- a street brawler of distinction, but a loft coU, Danny Lyons, Owen Bruen, Hoggy burglar and sneak thief as well; nothing Walsh, Googy Corcoran, Baboon Con­ was too great or too trivial for him to nolly, Red Rocks F.irrcl!, Big Josh, Kid steal. His fellow gangsters regarded him

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 48ο THE AMERICAN MERCURY as something of a master mind because he neck, ripping away the lead from the gut­ improved the current technique of gouging ters. Mr. Noe pounced upon him and out eyes; he is said to have invented an dragged him downstairs, but when they apparatus, worn on the thumb and used reached the ground floor Dandy Johnny by the Whyos with great success in their picked up an iron bar and struck the manu­ fights with other gangs, which performed facturer on the head, inflicting wounds this important office with neatness and dis­ from which Ivlr. Noe died in a week. With patch. He is also credited with having im­ his victim unconscious. Dandy Johnny pro­ bedded sections of sharp ax-blade in the ceeded to rob him, taking a small sum of soles of his fighting boots, so that when money and a gold watch and chain, and he overthrew an adversary and stamped also carrying away Mr. Noe's cane, an ele­ him the consequences were both gory and gant stick with a metal handle carved in final. the likeness of a monkey. Then, for some But ordinarily Dandy Johnny did not obscure reason, Johnny tied his handker­ wear his fighting boots. He encased his feet chief about his victim's face, perhaps in in the finest examples of the shoe-maker's an effort to gag him. The story goes that art, for he was the Beau Brummel of the the thug appeared in the haunt of the gangland of his time, and was extraordi­ Whyos at the Five Points with one of the narily fastidious in his choice of raiment, manufacturer's eyes in his pocket, but that and in the care of his person. Under no cir­ is probably apocryphal. cumstances, not even to take part in a The alert Detective Dorcey was put to brawl that promised to be rich in loot, work upon the case, and within a few days would he appear in public until his hair learned that the watch and chain had been had been properly oiled and plastered pawned at a pawnshop in Chatham street, down against his skull, and his forelock the present Park Row. Sometime later two tastefully curled and anointed. He had a women with whom Dandy Johnny had weakness for handkerchiefs with violent been on intimate terms, but with whom red or blue borders, and for fancy canes, he had quarreled, identified the blue-boi·- especially if the handle of the stick bore dered handkerchief as his, and then reports the carved representation of an animal. Of came to the detective that Johnny had been these he had a great store, to which he seen about the resorts of the Five Points, added as opportunity offered; he frequently and in particular in a small cake and coffee promenaded the Five Points with a vivid restaurant in Chatham street, proudly bear­ handkerchief knotted about his throat and ing a cane with a monkey's head in metal others peeping from his pockets, while he for a handle. He was immediately arrested, jauntily swung a handsom-e cane. and at his trial was identified as the man It was his passion for these articles of who had pawned the watch and chain. On adornment that cost him his life. James H. April XI, 1876, he \vas hanged in the court­ Noe, a brush manufacturer, decided to en­ yard of the Tombs. large his business during the Summer of 1875, ^^^ began the erection of a new fac­ Π tory at 175 Greenwich street. It was his custom to walk to the property each Sun­ The Five Points was one of the earliest day morning to see the progress of the amusement centers of New York, but it work. On Sunday, August li, 1875, he en­ gradually declined as the green-grocery tered the structure as usual, and climbed speak-easies came in and the gangs began the ladders and temporary stairways to the to abuse their privileges as its overlords. roof. There he came upon Dandy Johnny Meanwhile, the Bowery became increas­ Dolan, his eye-gouger upon his thumb and ingly important as a place of recreation. a blue-bordered handkerchief about his As early as 1751, when the waters of the

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Collect pond still covered the present site of Several other theatres soon followed the the Tombs and flowed sluggishly through old Bowery, among them the Windsor, Canal street, the Bowery began to make famous for its performances of "Hands some pretensions to being a street of Across the Sea" and "Johnny Thompson pleasure by the opening of Sperry's Botan- on Hand." For many years these houses cial Gardens, later called VoxhauU's Gar­ presented first-class plays and were fre­ dens, near Astor Place, at the upper end quented by the aristocracy of the city, but of the thoroughfare. Its claims were greatly in time, as the character of the street enhanced soon after the beginning of the changed and the dives and gangsters made Nineteenth Century by the erection of the it a byword from coast to coast, they of­ Bowery Theatre on the site of the old fered blood-and-thunder thrillers of a type Bull's Head Tavern, where George Wash­ that became known as Bowery plays, and ington had quenched his thirst with Bow­ could be seen nowhere else. One of the ery ale on Evacuation Day, in 1783. Later unique playhouses of the early Bowery dis­ the Tavern was removed to Third avenue trict was the Grand Duke's Theatre, in the and Twenty-fourth street, where Daniel basement of a stale beer dive in ii Baxter Drew owned it and laid the foundation of street. It was operated by the street boys his pious fortune. who then swarmed the principal thorough­ For many years the Bowery Theatre was fares, earning precarious livings as crossing one of the principal playhouses of the city, sweepers, cinder-collectors, rag-pickers, and its boards creaked under the tread of beggars and newsboys. They built their the foremost actors and actresses of the own scenery and maintained their own day. It took fire one night about fifteen stock company, charging ten cents admis­ years before the Civil War, and the police, sion and refusing to pay a license fee to recently uniformed by order of Mayor the city, although many attempts were Harper, appeared on the scene in all the made to compel them to do so. Their the­ grandeur of their new suits and glistening atre became famous and was visited by brass buttons. They ordered the mob of curiosity seekers from all over the city. spectators to make way for the firemen, The police finally closed it when it became but the Bowery gangsters jeered and the haunt of most of the juvenile criminals laughed at them as liveried lackeys, and of the lower part of Manhattan Island. refused to do their bidding. The thugs at­ Within a few years after the erection of tacked with great ferocity when someone the first theatre the Bowery was lined with howled that the police were trying to imi­ playhouses, concert-halls, saloons and base­ tate the English bobbies, and many were ment dives, and huge beer-gardens seating injured before they were subdued. So much from 1,000 to 1,500 persons. As late as 1898 ill-feeling arose because of this and similar the Bowery had ninety-nine houses of en­ incidents that the uniforms were called in, tertainment, of which only fourteen were and for several years the policemen ap­ classed as respectable by the police, and peared on the streets with no other insignia there were six barrooms to a block. Now than a star-shaped copper shield, whence the street can muster only a bare dozen came the names coppers and cops. The the­ theatres, all devoted to burlesque or mov­ atre was rebuilt, and was the first in New ing pictures, or to the Yiddish, Italian or York to be lighted by gas. After weather­ Chinese drama. Some of the dives which ing many storms it was finally renamed the dotted the Bowery before and after the Thalia. It still stands in the shadow of the Civil War have never been equalled, even Third avenue elevated railroad, devoted to by Prohibition speak-easies, for the fright­ moving pictures and Italian stock, with ful and deadly quality of their liquor. In occasional performances by travelling Chi­ many of the lower class places drinks were nese troupes. five cents each and no glasses or mugs were

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 481 THE AMERICAN MERCURY used. Barrels of fiery spirits stood on ilege of entertaining the large racial and shelves behind the bar, and poured out political organizations, frequently paying their contents through lines of slender as much as $500 to any association that rubber-hose. The customer, having depos­ would agree to hold an all-day picnic on ited his nickel on the bar, took an end of their premises. the hose in his mouth, and was entitled For many years these huge beer-gardens to all he could drink without breathing. were entirely respectable, but low class The moment he stopped for breath the thugs and hoodlums finally began to in­ watchful bartender turned off the supply, vade them, not to drink beer but to and nothing would start it again but a guzzle hard liquor from flasks, and in time nickel. Some of the Bowery bums became they came to be the resorts of the gang­ so expert in swallowing, and were able to sters and other criminals of the district, hold their breaths for such a long period, and the Bowery assumed the character that they could get dead drunk for five which made it one of the most renowned cents. One famous saloon, in Baxter street thoroughfares in the world. An indignant near the Bowery, provided and extensively writer thus described it during the period advertised a rear chamber called the Velvet of wildness that followed the Civil War: Room. When a customer was reduced to his last nickel, he was given an extra large To be seen in all its glory the Bowery must be visited on Sunday morning and night. Broadway bowl of liquor and escorted with consider­ is quiet, the lower part of the city sti'i, but the able ceremony into the Velvet Room, Bowery is ahvc with excitciu^-nt. The clothing establishments of the Hebrews are opened for where he was permitted to drink himself trade. Many of this race .are apothecaries, jewelers unconscious, and sleep until the effects and keepers of drinking saloons. These men has'c wore off. no conscience in regard to the Christian Sabbath. Early they are at their places of business. Their The most famous of the early Bowery stands on the sidewalks are crowded, and, as their custom is, they solicit trade from all pass- beer-halls was the Atlantic Gardens, next ersby. The degraded population who live in the door to the old Bowery Theatre and now filtliy region east of the Bowery, from Catherine a palace of the moving pictures. Upstairs to Canal street, come up to the pavement of this bi'O.id thoroughfare to breathe and drive their and down it provided seats for more than trade. a thousand, and two four-horse drays, Early in the morning troops of young girls can working ten hours a day, were scarcely be seen, thinly clad and bare-footed, on their way able to keep the customers supplied with to the dram-shops. These shops are very numer­ ous, and, with the larger beer-gardens, are opened beer fresh from the brewery. In this and early, and are crowded. These phrces are mostly other similar establishments there was kept by Germans. The ItaUans and Irish are also in the business. On the afternoon of Sunday the music by pianos, harps, violins, drums and Bowery, for its entire length, is crowded. At brasses; and dice, dominoes, cards and night it is brilliantly illuminated, and the drink­ sometimes rifles for target shooting were ing places are filled by thousands of men, women and children. The lowest drinking places, the provided. Everything was free except the vilest concert saloons, Negro minstrels of the low­ beer, which cost five cents for an enormous est order, and theatricals the most debasing, dis­ tinguish the pastimes of the Bowery. These places mug. Most of the gardens were operated arc jammed to suffocation on Sunday nights. Ac­ by Germans, and at first were frequented tresses too corrupt and dissolute to play anywhere by men and women of that nationality, else appear on the boards at the Bowety. Broad farces, indecent comedies, plays of highwaymen who brought their families and spent the and murderers, are received with shouts by the day quietly. Beer was served by girls from reeking crowds that fill the low theatres. News­ boys, street sweepers, rag pickers, begging girls, twelve to sixteen years old, wearing short collectors of conders, all who can beg or steal a dresses and red-topped boots, which reached sixpence, fill the galleries of these corrupt places almost to the knees and had bells dangling of amusement. There is not a dance cellar, a free- and-easy, a concert saloon, or a vile drinking from the tassels. The sale of the beverage place that presents such a view of the dcptavity was so profitable that the managers of the and degrad.ition of New York as the gallery of a gardens bid against each other for the priv­ Bowery theatre.

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III ricaded with carts and paving stones, and the gangsters blazed away at each other The most important gangs of the early days with musket and pistol, or engaged in close of the Bowery district were the Bowery work with knives, brick-bats, bludgeons, Boys, the True Blue Americans, the Amer­ teeth and fists. On the outskirts of the ican Guards, the O'Connell Guards and the struggling mob of thugs ranged the women, Atlantic Guards. Their membership was their arms filled with reserve ammunition, principally Irish, but they do not appear their keen eyes watching for a break in to have been as criminal or as ferocious as the enemy's defense, and always ready to their brethren of the Five Points, although lend a hand or a tooth in the fray. among them were many gifted brawlers. Often these Amazons fought in the The True Blue Americans were amusing, ranks, and many of them achieved great but harmless. They wore stove-pipe hats renown as ferocious battlers. They were and long black frock coats which reachiJ particularly gifted in the art of mayhem, flappingly to the ankle and buttoned close and during the Draft Riots it was the under the chin, and their chief mission in women who inflicted the most fiendish tor­ life was to stand on street corners and de­ tures upon Negroes, soldiers and police­ nounce England, and gloomily predict the men captured by the mob, slicing their immediate destruction of the British Em­ flesh with butcher knives, ripping out eyes pire by fire and sword. Like most of the and tongues, and applying the torch after sons of Erin who have come to this coun­ the victims had been sprayed with oil and try, they never became so thoroughly hanged to trees. The Dead Rabbits, during Americanized that Ireland did not remain the late thirties and early forties, com­ their principal vocal interest. The other manded the allegiance of the most noted gangs were probably offshoots of the of the female battlers, an angular vixen Bowery Boys, and commonly joined the known as Hell Cat Maggie, who fought latter in their fights with the roaring deni­ alongside the gang chieftains in many of zens of Paradise Square. But their exploits the great battles in the Bowery. She is earned them no place of importance in gang said to have filed her front teeth to points, history. while on her fingers she wore long arti­ For many years the Bowery Boys and ficial nails, constructed of brass. When Hell the Dead Rabbits waged a bitter feud, and Cat Maggie screeched her battle cry and a week seldom passed in which they did rushed biting and clawing into the midst not come to blows, either along the Bow- of a mass of opposing gangsters, even the cry, in the Five Points section, or on the most stout-hearted blanched and fled be­ ancient battle-ground of Bunker Hill, north fore her ripping brass finger nails and her of Grand street. The greatest gang con­ champing teeth. flicts of the early Nineteenth Century were No quarter was asked or given by the fought by these groups, and they con­ early gangsters; when a man fell wounded tinued their feud until the Draft Riots of his enemies leaped joyfully upon him and 1863, when they combined with other kicked or stamped him to death. Fre­ gangs and criminals in an effort to sack quently the police were unable to disperse and burn the city. In these early struggles the mobs, and were compelled to ask the the Bowery Boys were supported by the National Guard and the Regular Army for other gangs of the Bowery, while the Plug aid. The city soon became accustomed to Uglies, the Shirt Tails and the Chichesters seeing regiments of soldiers marching in rallied under the fragrant emblem of the battle array through the streets to quell a Dead Rabbits. Sometimes the battles raged gang riot. Occasionally the artillery was for two or three days without cessation, called out, but generally the gangsters fled while the streets of the gang area were bar­ before the muskets of the infantrymen.

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Much of this work was done by the Twen­ flagration. And the acme of humiliation ty-seventh, later the Seventh Regiment. was to roll to a fire and find that all of the Little knowledge of the activities of fire-plugs had been captured by rival com­ most of the Bowery gangs has survived, panies. To prevent this the Bowery Boy but the lore of the street is rich in legends resorted to typically direct methods. of the Bowery Boys and the prowess of When the fire-alarm sounded he simply their mighty leaders. Sometimes this gang grabbed an empty barrel from a grocery was called the Bowery Β'hoys, which is store and hurried with it to the fire-plug sufficient indication of its racial origin. It nearest the burning building. There he was probably the most celebrated gang in turned the barrel over the plug and sat on the history of the United States, but before it, and defended it valorously against the the eminent Chuck Conners appeared in assaults of rival firemen until his own en­ the late eighties and transformed the type gine arrived. If it did not appear, he at­ into a bar fly and a tramp, the Bowery Boy tempted to maintain his seat on the barrel was not a loafer except on Sundays and until the building was destroyed. If he suc­ holidays. Nor was he a criminal, except ceeded he was a hero and his company had on occasion, until the period of the Civil won a notable victory. Frequently the fight War. He was apt to earn his living as a for fire-plugs was so fierce that the Bowery butcher or apprentice mechanic, or as a Boys had no time to extinguish the flames. bouncer in a Bowery saloon or dance cellar. The original Bowery Boy, who fol­ But he was almost always a '/olunteer fire­ lowed his chieftain in so many forays man, and therein lay much of the strength against the hated Dead Rabbits and other of the gang, for in the early days before Five Points gangs, was a burly ruffian with the Civil War the firemen, nearly all of his chin adorned by an Uncle Sam whisker them strong adherents of Tammany Hall, —the type of American still portrayed by had much to say about the conduct of the the English comic weeklies. On his head city's government. Many of the most emi­ was a stove-pipe hat, generally battered, nent politicians belonged to the fire bri­ and his trousers were tucked inside his gade, and there was much rivalry between boots, while his mighty jaws moved con­ the companies, who gave their engines stantly on a chew of tobacco as he whit­ such names as White Ghost, Black Joke, tled on a shingle with the huge knife Shad Belly, Dry Bones, Red Rover, Hay which never left his possession. In later Wagon, Bean Soup, Old Junk and Old years, a little before the time of Chuck Maid. Such famous New York political Conners, the type changed as new fashions leaders as Mayor Cornelius W. Lawrence, in men's clothing appeared, and the Bow­ Zophar Mills, Samuel Willetts, William ery Boy promenaded his favorite thorough­ M. Wood, John J. Gorman and William fare with his head crowned by a high M. Tweed were volunteer firemen. In still beaver hat with the nap divided and earlier days even George Washington was brushed different ways, while his stalwart an ardent chaser after the fire-engines, and figure was encased in an elegant frock coat, for a short time during his residence in the and about his throat was knotted a gaudy metropolis was head of the New York kerchief. His pantaloons, cut almost as full department. as the modem Oxford bags, were turned up But the rivalry between the fire com­ over his heavy boots. The hair on the back panies whose membership included such of his head was clipped close and his neck men as these was friendly if strenuous, and chin were shaven, while his temple while the Bowery Boy loved his fire-engine locks were daintily curled and heavily almost as much as he did his girl, and con­ anointed with bear's grease or some other sidered both himself and his company dis­ powerful, evil-smelling unguent. His down­ graced if his engine was beaten to a con­ fall had begun in those days, but he was

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED THE OLD-TIME GANGS OF NEW YORK 485 still an unruly and belligerent citizen, and flourished in the thirties, and who cap­ it was unwise to give him cause for offense. tained the gangsters in the most important Some of the most ferocious rough-and- of their punitive and marauding expedi­ tumble fighters that ever cracked a skull tions into the Five Points. His real name or gouged out an eye-ball fought in the remains unknown, and there is excellent ranks of the Bowery Boys, and from their reason to believe that he may be a myth, rough school emerged many celebrated but vasty tales of his prowess and of his brawlers and political leaders. Bill Poole, valor in the fights against the Dead Rab­ the famous butcher and ward heeler, owed bits and the Plug Uglies have come down allegiance to the Bowery Boys, and so did through the years, gaining incident and his murderer, Lew Baker, who shot him momentum as they came. Under the simple to death in Stanwix Hall in 1855. Reddy sobriquet of Mose he has become a legend­ the Blacksmith, and Paudeen McLaughlin, ary figure of truly heroic proportions, at whose nose was che\ved off by an accom­ once the Samson, the Achilles and the Paul plished mayhem artist of the Five Points, Bunyan of the Bowery. And beside him, also learned the art of brawling along the in the lore of the street, marches the dimin­ Bowery. McLaughlin was finally killed by utive figure of his faithful friend and coun­ Dad Cunningham in Butt Allen's dance sellor, by name Syksey, who is said to have house in Howard street. coined the phrase, "hold de butt," an im­ Another noted Bowery Boy was Hand­ pressive plea for the remains of a dead some Sam Suydam, the Apollo of the un­ cigar. derworld. Suydam was apprenticed to a baker, but he soon abandoned this occu­ IV pation for the more congenial one of loaf­ ing, and became one of the foremost leaders The present generation of Bowery riffrafF of the Boys, among whom he was distin­ knows little of the mighty Mose, and per­ guished for his good looks, his lively dis­ haps only the older men who plod that position and his willingness to engage in now dreary and dismal relic of a great any enterprise that promised excitement. street have heard the name. But in the days When he became older he forsook the before the Civil War, when the Bowery Bowery and operated a gambling hall in was in its heyday and the Bowery Boy was Barclay street, one of the most aristocratic the strutting peacock of gangland, songs and exclusive of the many similar estab­ were sung in honor of his great deeds, and lishments which lined such streets as Bar­ the gangsters surged into battle shouting clay, Vesey, Park Place, Park Row and his name and imploring his spirit to join lower Broadway. Handsome Sam exercised them and lend power to their arms. He great care in selecting his clientele, and was scarcely cold in his grave before Chan- none was admitted to his gaming tables frau had immortalized him by writing without providing satisfactory proof of his "Mose, the Bowery B'hoy," which was solvency. At eleven o'clock each evening first performed before a clamorous audi­ Handsome Sam mounted a card table and ence in 1849 at the old Olympic Theatre, impressively struck a huge gong, where­ then still standing in Broadway near upon gambling ceased for an hour, while Bleecker street. uniformed Negro lackeys served supper, Mose was at least seven feet tall and with costly wines and cigars. Occasionally broad in proportion, and his colossal bulk the guests were entertained by artists from was crowned by a great shock of flaming the music halls and the concert saloons. ginger-colored hair, on which he wore a But the greatest of the Bowery Boys, and beaver hat measuring more than two feet the most imposing figure in all the history from croH'n to brim. His hands were as of the New York gangs, was a leader who large as the hams of a Virginia hog, and

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 486 THE AMERICAN MERCURY on those rare moments when he was in wrenched an oak tree out of the earth, and repose they dangled below his knees; it holding it by the upper branches, employed was Syksey's custom to boast pridefully it as a flail, smiting the Dead Rabbits even that his chieftain could stand erect and as Samson smote the Philistines. The Five scratch his knee-cap. The feet of the great Points thugs broke and fled before him, captain were so large that the ordinary but he pursued them into their lairs around boot of commerce would not fit his big toe; Paradise Square and wrecked two tene­ he wore specially constructed foot-gear, ments before his rage cooled. Again, he the soles of which were copper plates stood his ground before a hundred of the studded with nails an inch long. Woe and best brawlers of the Points, ripping huge desolation came upon the gangs of the Five paving blocks from the street and sidewalk Points when the mighty Mose leaped into and hurling them into the midst of his ene­ their midst and began to kick and stamp; mies, inflicting frightful losses. they fled in despair and hid themselves in In his lighter moments it was the play­ the innermost depths of the rookeries of ful custom of this great god of the gangs Paradise Square. to lift a horse car off the tracks and carry The strength of the gigantic Mose was it a few blocks on his shoulders, laughing as the strength of ten men. Other Bowery uproariously at the bumping the passengers Boys went into battle carrying brickbats received when he set it down. When he and the ordinary stave of the time, but quenched his thirst a dray load of beer was Mose, when accoutred for the fray, bore ordered from the brewery, and when he in one hand a great paving-stone and in dined in state the butchers of the Center the other a hickory or oaken wagon- and Fly markets were busy for days in ad­ tongue. This was his bludgeon, and when vance of the great event, slicing hogs and it was lost in the heat of battle he simply cattle and preparing the enormous roasts uprooted an iron lamp-post and laid about and steaks which he must needs consume him with great zeal. Instead of the knife to regain his strength. Four quarts of oy­ affected by his followers, he pinned his sters was but an appetizer, and soup and faith to a butcher's cleaver. Once when the coffee were served to him by the keg. He Dead Rabbits overwhelmed his gang and was, in truth, a giant among men, and one rushed ferociously up the Bowery to wreck of the most eminent citizens New York has' the Boys' headquarters, the great Mose ever had.

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED SAM HOUSTON

BY SAM H. ACHESON

T REMAINED for one of those Italianate overgrown village named in his honor sculptors who infest the hinterland to where he had been most loudly hooted I immortalize both the first and the latest during the birth-pangs of the Confederacy. scions of the Scotch-Irish dynasty in Texas. He was placed astride a bronze steed, and Ma Ferguson sat for him one February af­ the ensuing statue, even as his son had ternoon at the mansion in Austin and he prophesied, resembled "a monkey for a completed his bust of her with a flourish man straddling a jackass." They unveiled around the base reading: "The First Lady the hideous thing on a March day, just Governor of Texas." Then General Sam across the freshly esplanaded Main street Houston, dead sixty years, was dragged from Rice Institute. Someone remembered out of his tomb and his likeness entrusted that it was the anniversary of Houston's to the same artist. birthday. Other pleasantries followed. If the last Governor Ferguson in the ma­ Then the crowd departed, leaving Big ternal line was to regret her indiscretion, Drunk in the night, very uncomfortable there was always the consolation that such on his bronze he-jinny. That night inebri­ a piece of bric-a-brac as her effigy might ated undergraduates officially welcomed be smashed in the next Spring cleaning. him to the academic precincts. But poor Houston was without the protec­ The restoration of old Sam's fame had tion of plaster of paris; the sum of $75,000 begun. For a moment the dark cloud lay in a bank down on the Buffalo Bayou which had hung over the Hero of San and an heroic equestrian statue seemed in­ Jacinto since the "wicked Revolution" of escapable. In vain did Col. Andrew Jackson 1861 seemed to be lifting. The words of Houston, the only surviving son of the Andrew Jackson came perilously near to Hero of San Jacinto, protest the commis­ fulfillment: "Let those who clamor for sion. The court he appealed to listened blood, clamor on; the world will rake care gravely to the old man's ravings, eyeing of Houston's fame." But the dawn proved drowsily that Summer afternoon a model false. By one of those unaccountable shifts which the defendant had placed on a table. of sentiment in which the Latin tempera­ His violence in objecting to this graven ment of the Texans is ever being caught image of his father was against him—what up and diverted, public attention veered did he know about Art? Practically a pub­ to the more immediate matter of the Fer­ lic ward, now entering his eightieth year guson highway scandals. How could the as custodian of a city park, how could he passive whitewashing of the dead com­ sit in judgment against the combined wis­ pete with the joy of tearing down the rep­ dom of the committee—on which were a utations of the living? So the first attempt former police reporter, three directors of at Houston's rehabilitation on a grand the Houston Art Foundation, and an un­ scale was doomed to an end as bad as its dertaker fast blooming into a mortician? medium. The long obscurity fell upon him So the injunction was refused. again. Thus did Sam Houston come back to the But one humiliation the future does not 487

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED