I IEx iCtbrta SEYMOUR DURST When you leave, please leave this book Because it has been said "Ever thing comes t' him who waits Except a loaned book." Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library GLIMPSES OF GOTHAM City Characters. BY SAMUEL A. MAGKEEVER, THE AMERICAN CHARLES DICKENS- * / PUBLISHED AT THE NATIONAL POLICE GAZETTE OFFICE, NEW YORK. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by RICHARD K. FOX, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington. Samuel Anderson Mackeever. HIS LIFE AMD WHAT HE DID IN IT. In presenting to the public this series of sketches, whose appearance originally in the National Police Gazette achieved immediate and pronounced success, the publisher is actuated by a desire to rescue from the ob avion into which similar fugitive works inevitably fall, some of the best productions of a pen so full of presen t performance and of future promise, that its loss leaves a vast gap in local literature. Samuel Anders on Mackeever was a historic figure in American journalism. He was a journalist only in the sense that hi. ; labors were in the busy field of newspaperdom, instead of in that superior walk of literature in which far interior men win more extended fame, and to high rank in which he held the clearest title : that of genius. Although his duties frequently imposed such tasks upon him, he was by no means a reporter, in the accepted sense of the word. He was a thoughtful student of human nature, an artist whose quick eye, keen natural wit and fertile ancy combined to direct a master hand, which gilded all it touched. What Gavarni and Dickens did with pencil and pen for the two great cities of the Old World, he performed for the metropolis of the New. His works constitute a gallery of word pictures which paint New York a3 it had never b^en painted before. Beaming with light, sombre with shadow, merry in the May sunshine, shud- dering in the February sleet, the varying phases of its teeming life, waking and sleeping, fair and foul, from cellar to garret, from boudoir to brothel, move by in a panorama vivid in local color, strong and symmetri- cal in form, instinct with the vitality which grows only under the artist hand. Few nooks and crannies of either the town or the ways and doings of its people, escaped the busy chronicler. During the past three years his department in the National Police Gazette and the third column of the front page of the Eoeniug Ttlegram became the medium through which the general public found daily and weekly introduction to itself. That they did not object to the way in which the master of ceremonies performed his work, the popularity of the sketches proved. It was not, however, till death rang down the curtain, that the world at large knew anything of the man whose pen had procured them so many pleasant hours, and even then it was only through brief and necessarily more or less incorrect obituaries in the daily press. In consideration of this fact, nothing could be more appropriate as an introduction to this little volume than the story of its creator's life. Samuel Anderson Mackeever used to describe himself as born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, by the accident cf a railway. His father and mother were on their way to Philadelphia, on September 16, 1848, when the event occurred. It cost his mother her life. His early years were spent principally in Philadelphia, where his father for a long term filled the position of Superintendent of the House of Refuge. From time to time during his life, there would crop up in the publications to which the dead journalist was contributor the names of full blown criminals whom he recollected as mere midgets of villainy when he made the round of the jail at his father's side. Once the writer and himself went into a Nassau street restaurant to invite nightmare with a Bohemian compromise between a very late supper and early breakfast after a hard night's work. A flashily dressed young female with red-rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks, and two men were eating oysters at the next table. It was a mockery of revelry such as one rarely sees. One of the men, a handsome, though not prepossessing young fellow, was talking very loudly, cracking rank jokes which no one replied to. But he had his right wrist handcuffed to the other's'left, ! 6 LIFE OF SAMUEL ANDERSON MACKEEVER. half concealed by the table cloth. Tbcy were a western detective and a murderer whom he had hunted down in New York, and captured in the course of a spree in which he and his paramour were squandering the spoil of his crime. The two men were the developments of two Philadelphia House of Refuge boys. One had turned thief, the other thief-taker, and one was leading his old comrade to the gallows. Mr. Mac- keever was recognized by botb, and over the beer-dabbled table, with the maudlin harlot sobbing as she drank herself into hysterics, the murderer and the police spy toasted the man whom they remembered as their old jailer's son, and whom both knew and admired in his profession. The last act of the assassin's life was to address the rude but graphically written story of his career of crime, on the eve of his execution, to New York, with the expressed hope that Mr. Mackeever would have it published " over my name." The thief's vanity lived still at the foot of the gibbet The name of Samuel Anderson Mackeever figured on the roll of the Philadelphia High School at an age when other boys are usually still puzzling their tangled wits over minor studies. He graduated early, and with such honor that his diploma was signed by the entire Faculty of the "People's College," as Phila- delphians are fond of calling it. He had applied for a position in the First National Bank of Philadelphia, and when he went to interview the directors carried his diploma in its tin case as the best recommendation he could advance. It proved such. He commenced a commercial career which ended in his becoming re- ceiving-teller of the bank, a post he only left to embark in journalism. In one of his graphic sketches, " The Bank Clerk," occurs a paragraph which probably is a reflection of his own experience during this portion of his career : "The bank clerk lives constantly in an atmosphere of luxury. The men he meets duriug the day are monied individuals, from the millionaire notch down. If he is in the cash department he handles greenbacks so constantly that the bills passing through his hands actually lose their monetary value, and become to him as so much merchandise. " His work is light and he is well paid for it. The situation is a life one if he behaves himself, and as the old roosters drop from their stools into their coffins he advances along the line of promotion. "In his leisure hours the bank clerk is a great society or sporting man, just as his fancy determines. He lives up town in a first-class boarding house. He is very particular about his dress, generally wearing the English style of clothes which the brokers affect. If he is not calling upon the ladies in the eveDing he is at the theatre, or in some billiard hall where he has a private cue. Too frequently he doesn't {ret home until very late, and when this happens it is necessary for him to have a couple of brandies and soda in the morning before he can get his hand in steady writing trim." The line of promotion advanced too slowly for the ardent fancied, blonde receiving teller, who tound his bright intelligence handicapped by the rigid rules of business. During his clerical career he had two passions. One was the stage, the other literature. To gratify the first he joined a leading amateur com- pany. The other found employment in the production of various fanciful sketches contributed to the local press. His first story which ever found its way into print was identical in plot with the chief motive of "Wilkie Collins' " Moonstone." It was the experience of a somnambulist who plays detective on his own identity and hunts his respected self down. One of the most talented of the amateur company in which the stage struck bank clerk figured as a bright light, was a young lady who on one occasion assumed the part of Columbia in a patriotic burlesque of the literary actor, his first dramatic work, as he often laughingly said. In Columbia Mr. Mackeever found the wife whose tender care sweetened his last hours, and in whoso company he made the last silent journey, from among the rustling palms to the ice-bound cemetery in Philadelphia where he found final rest. His retirement from the bank occurred shortly after his early marriage, and a little while before the birth of his only child. Then commenced his real battle of life, with no better weapon than his pen. At one time, in order to earn the living he required, he was directly connected with four papers and a con- tributor to as many more as he could find a market in. At various times he figured in the columns of every paper in the Quaker City except the Public Ledger.