Old Print Articles

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Old Print Article: “A Blind Steeple Jack,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1902)

October 2, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"The blind man has sold 3,880 pounds of peanuts and 31,000 popcorn balls." (Image by Jack Dykinga.)

Most of these old print articles I bring you are about monkeys burglarizing apartments and immigrants brawling in barber shops, but this one from the January 9, 1902 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle is really heartwarming. The Eagle reprints an account from a Midwestern newspaper about a remarkable blind man who resided in Kokomo, Indiana. An excerpt:

“William Brinkman, the Kokomo, Indiana, blind man, who two years ago married Jennie Lamb, who beside being blind, is totally paralyzed, has disarmed his critics, who insisted that he had his hands full in taking care of himself without assuming additional burdens. In two years, Brinkman, unaided by charity, has paid for a home and improved it to a present worth of $800. The blind man has sold 3,880 pounds of peanuts and 31,000 popcorn balls. After preparing the morning meal and guiding the food to the mouth of the helpless wife, he rolls the peanut roaster downtown, returning home at noon and night for the other meals. He does all the housekeeping.

Beside that, he tunes pianos, repairs clocks and organs. Recently he took an organ of 420 pieces apart, cleaned it and had it together and playing in four hours. He declines all offers of charity. A short time ago Mr. Brinkman performed the perilous feat of climbing the Court House tower and repairing the town clock, when experts had failed. Mr. and Mrs. Brinkman became acquainted at the state blind school and with them it was a case of ‘love at first sight,’ as both expressed it.”

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Old Print Article: “Italian Nobleman Deported,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1901)

September 29, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Bellevue Hospital Ambulance, New York City, 1895.

If America rejected every idiot, insane person and pauper that wanted to come here, it would be a pretty boring country that turned away some of its best and most innovative thinkers. But that was the case in this story from the November 24, 1901 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, in which a colorful Italian nobleman apparently lost his mind and got booted from the country. An excerpt:

“Delli Edouardo Francio, a titled scion of a wealthy Neapolitan family was deported from this country yesterday on the steamship Fuerst Bismarck. Francio has been in the insane pavillion at Bellevue Hospital for the last three weeks and was adjudged insane by Doctors Fitch and Wildman. Being a non-resident of this country and having become a public charge, his case was brought to the notice of the Washington authorities. It was under an act of Congress passed March 4, 1891, designed to keep out of this country idiots, insane persons, paupers, people suffering from contagious diseases and others likely to become public charges within a year that Francio’s deportation took place.

Edouardo Francio is the real name of the man, the prefix Delli being an old Neapolitan title among the nobility of Italy. Francio is a handsome man of classic features and is an accomplished musician and baritone singer. He studied medicine in a college in Naples and after graduating neglected his profession and led a fast life. His father was very wealthy and a minister of customs in Naples. His uncle is in the Italian Chamber of Deputies and he has a brother, a colonel in the Italian Army.

Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, New York, 1901.

About a year ago Francio came to this country with an opera company and toured the States and Canada. While in Canada he is said to have caused a divorce suit and to have gone to the Pan-American Exposition with the divorcee. There he became a bankrupt and got into considerable trouble and left for this city to seek employment. After various unsuccessful attempts he finally secured work in a concert hall in 184 Sullivan street.

This place was also a sort of reproduction of an Italian village restaurant and it attracted many of that set of New Yorkers who seek foreign customs. Several of these people became acquainted with Francio and advanced him money. In this place he sang Italian and French operatic arias at a small salary.

About two months ago Francio’s mind became affected and he thought that his friends were persecuting him. He became violent and on November 1 he was taken to Bellevue Hospital. While in that institution many stylishly dressed women called on him. One handsome woman who called in a carriage advanced the information to Dr. Young of the young man’s identity. Through this source the Bellevue authorities notified the immigration authorities, and they in turn notified the Washington officials, who ordered his deportation.”

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Old Print Article: “A House With A Hoodoo,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1890)

September 26, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Very spooky house. (Image by PollyC.)

A “hoodoo” is a word which dates back to 1875. It means something that brings bad luck, and a Long Island house in the late nineteenth-century apparently had a whole lot of it. An article I found about this forerunner to Amityville originally appeared in the July 20, 1890 of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. It had the ominous subheading, “Its History is a Record of Eccentricity, Avarice, Disappointment and Death–A Grim Hempstead Dwelling.” There is also watermelon involved. An excerpt:

“It is not often in these degenerate days that one runs across a genuine hoodoo or a Jonah, as the term is more popularly expressed. It is much less often that this peculiar characteristic is embodied in a house. Such a house seems to be standing, however, almost in the center of one of Long Island’s most thrifty villages–Hempstead. Of course the house hasn’t really had anything to do with it. But that is a fact which would require a great deal of argument to establish with any certainty among the residents of that respectable locality. One after the other of the occupants of the house have become the victims of accident, disease, insanity or of the suicidal mania. Avarice, eccentricity, sadness, disappointment have had full sway under the weather-beaten shingles. The shadow of the house seems never to have fallen upon anyone but to leave some of its blackness behind.

This hoodoo house is on the south side of Front street, in Hempstead, within two blocks of the business portion of town. Strange as it may seem, the house was built on honor, stanch and substantial enough to last three centuries. Cannan Doolan was the builder, in 1844. Doolan and his wife Margaret lived in the house for a few years and then died within a few months of each other. This was the first unfriendly act on the part of the house.

A son, Valentine, survived the pair, and took up his home in the house where his father and mother died. He was a stone mason as the father before him had been. Valentine had not lived here very long in solitary state before he became peculiar–‘queer’ as the townspeople said. He worked at his trade, but aside from that came to have little to do with humanity. Extreme avarice was his leading characteristic. He became the miser of Hempstead. While he would wear his clothes till there was not a thread of the original material left, he yet had a weakness which he gratified to the utmost. This was a taste for watermelons in winter. Watermelons were his hobby. Several other varieties of rare fruits he also had in abundance and a choice assortment of old wines. Doonan was a large man weighing about two hundred and twenty-five pounds.

(Image by Johann Jaritz.)

The house made its first real conquest early in 1884, when Valentine Doolan walked out of his back door one night, proceeded to the rear of his lot among the clump of trees, and there and then, with malice aforethought, stuck his face in a foot depth of water and drowned. The events which led to this rash deed were trivial in character, but were enough, as it appeared, to finally upset the unbalanced mind. Valentine had let a house to Levi Mottler, to be occupied by the latter on April 1. It turned out that the then occupants of the house concluded to stay. Yalentine asked Mottler to release him from the bargain, but Mottler would not do it unless Valentine would pay him $50. So Valentine, with much weeping and wailing and perturbation of spirit, went a few days before the 1st of April and paid the sum specified. Doolan returned to his home a mental wreck, all on account of the $50. He took sick abed with grief, escaped from his watchers at midnight and committed suicide.”

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Old Print Article: “Judge Massey Has An Interview With Pontius Pilate,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1885)

September 22, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Now here is a patent labor saving toothpick." (Image by HuttyMcphoo.)

It was in the June 18, 1885 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that an article ran about a judge who was subjected to a man who was seemingly arrested for being eccentric, poor and a smartass. “Pontius Pilate,” as the man called himself, had fun with the judge for a while. An excerpt:

“Considerable commotion was created in Judge Massey’s court room this morning by the entrance of Officer Morris and a prisoner who was struggling in a violent manner and attempting to bite his captor. He was put into a cool cell and in about an hour was ready for trial.

‘What was this man doing?’ asked the Judge.

‘He had collected a crowd around him on Butler street, and was acting in a manner which led me to believe that he was either intoxicated or insane,’ replied the officer. ‘He was standing on an ash barrel, which he had turned bottom up, and held an open umbrella above his head. He was bidding the people good bye, and said he was going straight up to heaven. He resisted when I arrested him, saying that he had an appointment with the Archangel Gabriel for 11:30 sharp, and that if I interfered with him I would hear of it later.’

‘What is your name?’ asked the Judge, addressing the prisoner.

‘Pontius Pilate,’ he calmly replied, as he picked cinder out of the lining of his hat.

‘Have you any home?’

‘Have the birds of the air any home?’ replied Pontius, sarcastically.

‘Do anything for a living?’

‘I am an inventor, Judge, but capitalists frown on men and refuse me help. Now here is a patent labor saving toothpick,’ continued the prisoner, presenting a three jointed piece of pipe about six inches long. ‘It would be a boon to humanity if I had a few dollars to introduce it. I am also the author of a theological work entitled The Spiritual Snuff Box to Make Souls Sneeze with Devotion, but the publishers won’t touch it.

‘I will turn you over to the Commisioners of Charities and you can read your manuscript to them,’ said the Judge, wearily, as he looked over the papers in the next case.”

Judge Judy: I once found a hamburger guilty of treason. (Image by Susan Roberts.)

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Old Print Article: “Butler Flirted With Little Miss Brooklyn,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1897)

September 19, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"...to answer to the charge of sending an improper note in a bouquet of roses to Miss Edith Hall..." (Image by Jebulon.)

Either there is more than meets the eye to this story in the July 6, 1897 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, or everyone in the area temporarily lost their minds. The story is about a young dandy who became enamored with a lovely burlesque performer and tried to make her acquaintance. Then everything went haywire. An excerpt:

“Maurice Butler, a well-groomed and stylishly dressed youth 16 years of age was in the Grant street court this morning, accompanied by his father, Dr. William Butler of 507 Clinton avenue, to answer to the charge of sending an improper note in a bouquet of roses to Miss Edith Hall of 428 West Thirty-fifth street, New York, an actress at Bergen Beach, last night. The youth, when taken before Justice Steers to plead, said that he was guilty of the offense charged, but afterward, by advice of his father, withdrew the plea and the case was then adjourned until Thursday next. Dr. Butler signed the bail bond of $500. If young Butler desires to sow his wild oats and lead a gay life he is not likely to repeat his adventure of last night at the popular short resort. He said it was his first attempt to flirt with an actress and it would, he declared, be his last.

Young Butler, who was at one time a student in the Polytechnic Institute, went to the Casino at Bergen Beach last night to see Little Miss Brooklyn, the burlesque show in which Miss Hall appears as Miss Brooklyn. He had visited the place several times before and had become infatuated with Miss Hall, who wears white tights and is graceful and pretty. The young man carried a large bouquet of Jack roses in which, appeared later, was hidden a note requesting her to meet him after the show. Butler watched the performance with much interest and did not fail to applaud loudly when Miss Hall appeared on stage. Before the third act came to a close Mr. Butler sent the flowers to Miss Hall and awaited results. In the note alleged to have been written by him was a request that if the actress would meet him as desired she would wear the flowers when she next appeared on stage.

Not Edith Hall, but a fine representation of the old-timey burleque entertainer. (Image by trialsanderrors.)

When Miss Hall received the roses and discovered the note and the message therein she was quite overcome, but was not long in making her way to Percy G. Williams, the manager of the beach. She showed him the bouquet and the message and asked how to proceed in order to locate the writer. Mr. Williams called his son and asked if he could point out the person who had sent the bouquet, and when he learned that he told Miss Hall to go on with her part and not to fail to wear the flowers, as requested by the sender. She did so.

As soon as Miss Hall left the place she was approached by Mr. Butler, who raised his hat and greeted her pleasantly. The actress asked the youth if he had sent the bouquet and the note attached, and when he replied in the affirmative she invited him to walk toward the swimming pool. The couple had barely reached the swimming pool when Mr. Butler was torn from her side by a crowd of men, which he said this morning, he thought numbered fully one hundred, and was thrown into the pool. He was soused up and down for several minutes until Detective Betts of the Twenty-third Precinct appeared on the scene, and the crowd dispersed. He was assisted to the walk, his clothes soaked. Miss Hall promptly charged him with insulting her and he was treated to a ride to the Flatbush station house where he was locked up. That was at midnight.

Miss Hall was in court this morning to press charges against Mr. Butler. ‘When I left the Casino last night, I did so expecting to horsewhip that boy, but I did not get a chance. I did not know the men expected to give the boy a bath, and my only object in meeting him was to give him a whipping.'”

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Old Print Article: “Langtry Chats–A Talk With The Actress In Her Dressing Room,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1889)

September 15, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Between the acts he would inject cocaine into my nose with the assistance of a rubber tube."

Lillie Langtry, the British actress who died in 1929, may only be a name that sort of, kind of rings a bell today, but she was remarkably famous during her lifetime and for a considerable period thereafter. In the April 11, 1889 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Langtry, then in New York starring in The Lady of Lyons, shared an odd story with a local reporter who visited her dressing room at the Park Theater. Langtry related a tale about her doctor administering cocaine treatments to her between acts of plays. The same exact thing still happens on Broadway today, though there’s no doctor involved. An excerpt:

“‘I am not at all well,’ said Mrs. Langtry, as the reporter took the chair offered by the maid. ‘Still, I am feeling much better than I did a week ago.’

‘How do you account for so many leading stars breaking down this season?’

‘I was thinking of that very thing myself to-day. It is rather strange, isn’t it? I cannot imagine what the cause can be unless it is the mildness of the Winter. It seems quite remarkable and I don’t understand it. I do think, though, that on the whole we actors and actresses keep up wonderfully well when you consider the hardship we go through. We must plan out work six months beforehand and travel over the country in all sorts of weather. The public little know how we suffer sometimes, even in their presence.

When I was playing Lady Macbeth in New York a few weeks ago I could not breathe through my nose for eight days, owing to catarrhal troubles. I had my physician with me constantly, and between the acts he would inject cocaine into my nose with the assistance of a rubber tube. Of course the pain was very severe, but it wouldn’t do to let the audience know I had suffering. On one occasion I was carried from my bedroom to my carriage and managed to get through the evening without the audience suspecting that I was ill.

I should  like to warn ladies against using cocaine unless advised to by a physician. I kept spraying it up my nose to get relief and because the sensation was pleasant. But I soon discovered that it affected my heart and I had a narrow escape from nervous prostration. Now, I know that many of my lady friends are becoming habituated to the use of cocaine, and I wish to warn them before it is too late. It is one of those habits which creep up on people unawares.'”

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Old Print Article: “He Was Taken Down Stairs,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1885)

September 11, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

The innocent victim of an Englishman.

An Englishman visits Brooklyn, gets drunk, claims to be a Lord, provokes a fight with a pig and is arrested. Just another day in the borough in the 19th-century. A report from an October 8, 1885 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Tuesday afternoon, while Sergeant Brophy sat behind the desk in the east New York Police Headquarters, Roundsman Ringheiser conducted a fine specimen of a real, live, Englishman. He was awfully English, awfully drunk, and looked as if he had been trying to absorb all the rain that was falling. His high silk hat had been carefully brushed the wrong way, and his collar was on its way down to meet the yellow tops of his shoes, while his broadcloth coat and lavender trousers would have been very much improved by being passed through a clothes wringer. The roundsman found him on Alabama avenue, disputing with a pig as to which of them were entitled to a choice spot under a leaky hay shed. With all the dignity accessible under such distressing circumstances, the prisoner described himself as Lord Caufield.

‘But, my Lord,’ submitted Sergeant Brophy, ‘you are very drunk; you will have to go on the blotter as being drunk and disorderly.’

‘I know, your Honor,’ hiccoughed the distinguished prisoner, ‘but what could I do, you know, I was so wet outside that I had to even it up. I’ll pay my fine, you know.’

At this point his lordship produced a large roll of bills. He was taken downstairs.”

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Old Print Article: “Mrs. Nation Leaves Coney,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1901)

September 8, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Carrie Nation was apparently overjoyed by President McKinley’s assassination, because he was rumored to be a secret drinker.

Carrie Amelia Moore, a Topeka, Kansas, native who became famous as “Carrie Nation” in pre-Prohibition America, was a very large woman with an even larger distaste for alcohol. Nation didn’t just preach about the evils of drink–she used her hatchet just as readily as her mouth. At six feet and and one-hundred-eighty pounds, Nation cut a wide swath when she stormed into bars and, hatchet in hand, hacked the wood and glass until the police–sometimes seated at the bar–intervened. In its September 10, 1901 issue, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle recalls one of Nation’s mad temperance missions, this one in Coney Island. It was one of the dozens of times before she passed away in 1911 that Nation was arrested for her “hatchetations.” An excerpt:

“Carrie Nation has packed her hatchets and handbags and linen dusters and has left Coney Island behind her. A trolley car bore her to a busier part of the greater city yesterday afternoon, and as one of the old time songs relates, she will never go there any more. Her last hours at the beach were passed in the Coney Island court, where she was arraigned before Magistrate Furlong on a charge of disorderly conduct. Policeman George Ryder described how the Topeka smasher had done things to a show case owned by Jacob Wollenstein at an amusement place on the Bowery. Ryder said she made things hum for a while and then Carrie’s turn came to tell her story. She ignored the charge and discussed the question of the sobriety of Policeman Ryder. She said all the cops were ‘snakes and vipers and were drunkards.’

Magistrate Furlong said nice things to Carrie, explaining how dangerous it was to attempt to run Coney Island and then suspended sentence. Van Driver Connolly expected to take the smasher to jail, but he was disappointed.”

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Old Print Article: “Pigs Missing From A Theater,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1902)

September 4, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

If you find our actor, don't eat him.

You could keep pigs–or pretty much anything–in a theater basement in Brooklyn in 1902. Nobody cared what you did. I came across this small item about a pair of pig “actors” escaping from a theater in the January 15, 1902 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:

“In the play now being produced at the Park Theater, in Fulton street, by the Spooner Stock Company, two pigs are introduced in a pen during a first act. In the last act one of the pigs is carried on the stage by one of the actors. Between the performances the pigs are kept in the cellar of the theater. On Sunday night the pigs escaped from their pen and made a tour of exploration through the deserted play house. Last night, after the performance, the pigs were penned in the cellar as usual. Their pen adjoins the engine room. When the engineer was taking his ashes out last night the pigs escaped from the building and ran down Adams street to Willoughby street and as far as Gold street. The management of the Park Theater is anxious to learn the whereabouts of the pigs, desiring them for us in to-night’s performance of the play, ‘A Nutmeg Match.'”

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Old Print Article: “Practical Joking In Flatbush,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1885)

September 1, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Once we've murdered the cobbler, we'll all have a good laugh. (Image by Catleen Thorbecke,)

Practical jokes aren’t really funny unless several people are sued and arrested. In Brooklyn in 1885, a pack of jackass neighborhood kids played pranks seemingly endlessly on an elderly Flatbush cobbler with a funny name. Their many humorous attempts at maiming him and ruining his life were unfortunately interrupted by that uptight, unfunny thing called the law. An excerpt from a Brooklyn Daily Eagle article on the topic that ran in the July 23, 1885 edition, with  the subtitle “Local Humorists Under Arrest”:

“For a long time past the more youthful portion of Flatbush has found much pleasure in playing practical jokes on Mr. Charles Brankenhausen, a local shoemaker, somewhat advanced in years, but the recreation seems to have come to a sudden stop. Previous to the last election, Mr, Brankenhausen was inveigled into delivering a stump speech at a burlesque banner-raising to have it hopelessly ruined by the explosion of a cannon cracker beneath the barrel on which he stood.

This he passed lightly by, but when the humorists found him asleep they partially tarred and feathered him, the result was not so pleasing. He sued Ravenhall, the proprietor of the house where the tarring was done, for $10,000, and got $250 in a compromise. On July 4 Mr. Brankenhausen was awakened at an unseemly hour by the terrific explosion of a vast number of big crackers, distributed judiciously about his sleeping room, and narrowly escaped injury. Suspicion fell on Adrian Bergen and Joseph Smith, two youthful wits, who were both arrested. The trial has been twice postponed, but will come up finally before Justice Cox this evening.”

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Old Print Article: “A Yarn From Seattle–Capture of A Singular Creature Resembling A Merman,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1896)

August 29, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Hastily raising his weapon his lordship fired and hit the creature between the eyes."

I checked the date of this 1890’s Brooklyn Daily Eagle article about some English fishermen who allegedly killed a merman (male mermaid). I intiially assumed it was an April Fool’s Day prank, but the story was reported in earnest. The article doesn’t say it, but these Brits were likely drunk out of their skulls. Also: They may have murdered a hobo who’d gone swimming. An excerpt:

“A party of Englishmen who have been porpoise fishing in the Pacific discovered and killed a monster that resembled a merman. The party was off the island of Watmoff on a housing boat and Lord Devonshire, one of the fishers, had just shot a porpoise, when some one called out ‘Look there,’ pointing to a frightful looking monster about a cable’s length away. Hastily raising his weapon his lordship fired and hit the creature between the eyes. The shot, though it did not kill it, so stunned the animal that it lay perfectly still on the surface of the sea.

It showed fight when hauled into the boat and had to be killed to prevent it from swamping the craft. The monster is said to be one of the strangest freaks ever put together. It measures 10 feet from its nose to the end of its fluke shaped tail and the girth of its human shaped body was just six feet. It would weigh close to 500 pounds. From about the breast bone to the point at the base of the stomach it looked like a man. Its arms, quite human in shape and form, are very long and covered completely with long, coarse, dark reddish hair, as is the whole body.

It had, or did have, at one time four fingers and a thumb on each hand, almost human in shape, except that in place of finger nails there were long, slender claws. But in days probably long since gone by, it had evidently fought some monster that had got the best of it, for the forefinger of the right hand, the little finger of the left and the left thumb are missing entirely. Immediately under the right breast is a broad, ugly looking scar which looked as if sometime in the past it had been inflicted by a swordfish. The creature is now being preserved in ice at Seattle and will be shipped to the British museum.”

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Old Print Article: “Hyman Wolf’s Whiskers–He Says Moe Karp Pulled Them Out By The Roots,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1898)

August 26, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

It hurt like a bastard. (Image by Frank Schulenburg.)

In a Brooklyn tailor shop in the 19th-century, two nudniks started talking trash about one another and then one of the a-holes pulled off part of his rival’s beard. It was a brutal and shocking crime. At least nobody got kicked in the vagina. An excerpt from the completely unnecessary story that ran in the March 11, 1898 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“A little bunch of whiskers which at one time adorned the chin of Hyman Wolf, a Brownsville tailor, appeared as part of the evidence in an assault case in which Wolf was the complainant in the Gates avenue court this morning. Wolf works in a tailor shop kept by a man named Diamond on Stone avenue, near Belmont avenue, and at the bench next to his own sits Moe Karp, another tailor. A few days ago Karp and Wolf held a conversation which terminated in a quarrel and before Wolf could prevent it, he says, Karp had hold of his whiskers.

Karp pulled hard and Wolf howled with pain. Several other tailors rushed in to separate the two and when they were finally parted Wolf’s theretofore even beard had a rugged appearance, and the indentations in its edges could have been filled out nicely with the portions of his hirsute growth which were discovered in Karp’s clutches. In some unexplained manner. Wolf obtained the missing parts of his facial adornment and carefully preserved them in a piece of paper. The case was adjourned this morning.”

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Old Print Article: “Let The People Be Clean,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1897)

August 24, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Some of them keep away from baths now because they never had one and are afraid to begin." (Image by Kristen Holden.)

People in Brooklyn in the late-nineteenth century were apparently a bunch of slobs who lacked indoor plumbing and needed a good scrubbing. They stunk to the high heavens, and everyone was close to fainting from the nasty smell. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle offered a solution for the cleansing of filthy citizens in the most demeaning, insulting terms in its August 13, 1897 edition: Build some public baths, so these miserable scumbags could be less stanky. An excerpt:

“An enthusiastic support of Mr. Henriques’ device to build public baths under the bridge is assured from a majority of the people. It cannot be denied that baths of some sort are sadly needed in quarters of the city. Ocular and olfactory evidence of that fact is offered only too freely. We have a few floating baths, but they are ridiculously inadequate to the demands upon them. On any warm day you shall see the string of youngsters extended far up the pier, and many are their dodges to escape the vigilance of the police in order to get in ahead of their turn or even commit the offense of going in twice.

Bathing is to be encouraged in the young. If they persist in it the custom will adhere to them through life. It is desirable that it should adhere to everybody. If not, other things will. It is not the individual alone who profits by the practice of bathing, but the community. If we could feel assured that every citizen in Brooklyn took a bath daily we could laugh at cholera and bubonic plague. Even diphtheria and allied diseases would be lessened, not because clean people are always exempt from them, but because a habit for personal cleanliness begets a habit for cleanliness and order in one’s surroundings and the clean man will desire to live in a clean house.

The average Brooklyn resident in 1897. (Image by Jim Champion.)

Near the bridge are unclean persons who live in houses that menace the health of the whole river front. More over, apart from its most obvious virtue bathing has sanitary influence as a stimulant and a sedative. People are awakened by a bath at noon, and a dip on a hot night often enables them to sleep. The swimming and other exercise induced by a plunge in a large pool are likewise beneficial. But why restrict these baths to the edges of the town? They should be for the whole people. Water is a public property, even if we are a little short of it at this moment. In any case, there is the Atlantic Ocean to draw from, for bathing purposes, too, if we are very short.

Rome had baths so fine and solid in their architectural setting that their ruins are still more substantial than half of the buildings in Brooklyn, and so general and constant were they in use that it was possible to put them at the service of the multitude for a penny or two, while the plunge baths were free to all comers. The regular bath was similar to what we know as the Turkish bath and included sweating, shampooing, swimming and drying. What a different people those of the east side of New York might be if they were persuaded into establishments like that, at least once a week!

And in time they could be. Some of them keep away from baths now because they never had one and are afraid to begin. This is serious, indeed, too serious. If they could be persuaded to try one many of them would like it. They would induce their friends and command their offspring to try them. Then they would begin to clean up their homes a little and desist from throwing trash about their streets. In time they would become as Americans and would exhibit that virtue which is next to godliness.”

Old Print Article: “A Monkey Story,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1882)

August 19, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

They'll never take me alive. (Image by T. Lersch.)

Justice wasn’t blind so much as dumb in Brooklyn courtrooms in the 1880s. That’s the conclusion I drew after reading this article in the July 29, 1882 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in which a monkey was the subject of a terrible miscarriage of justice. Either that or the judge in the case was an incredible smartass. An excerpt:

“The general opinion that monkeys are of no earthly use to mankind, except to exhibit at circuses, and that they are wanting in human instincts is shown to be erroneous by the part which one of these animals played this morning in an altercation between two men in the Eastern District.

Thomas Connors and Frederick Weldler were having a set to in the house of the latter, on North Eighth street. From hot words the parties came to blows, and after three or four rounds it became evident to Weldler that his opponent was too much for him. Upon a table was a large monkey, an interesting observer of all that was taking place. When Weldler found that his chances of victory were very dubious unless he resorted to some new tactics the happy thought came to him to enlist the aid and sympathies of his long tailed protege, and, grabbing the monkey by the tail, he threw him on the face of his antagonist.

A most interesting fight then ensued. The monkey began to claw, scratch, bite and otherwise spoil the countenance of Mr. Connors. The monkey was by far too much for his man, and at last Connors, bleeding and panting, was obliged to leave the house. He sought Officer Phelan, the veteran guardian of the peace in the Fourteenth Ward, and had him arrest Weldler for assault and battery. The parties were taken before Justice Nasher.

After hearing his story Justice Nasher said to Connors: ‘Then it was the monkey who assaulted you.’

‘Yes, it was the monkey, but Weldler threw him at me and set him on,’ replied the defeated man.

‘Well, you have no case, as I see,’ said the court,’ against Mr. Weldler. It appears that the monkey is the guilty party, and if you will bring him here we will examine him. Mr. Clark make out a warrant for the arrest of the monkey.’

Connors did not wait for the warrant but left the court room, remarking as he did so something about taking the law into his own hands and having satisfaction.”

Judge Judy: I once ruled in favor of a salamander. (Image by Susan Roberts.)

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Old Print Article: “John Bunny Dies; Movie Funmaker,” New York Times (1915)

August 16, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

John Bunny: "Round and puffy, with little gimlet-hole eyes."

Before Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and the rest, New York City native John Bunny was the first international film comedian. But Bunny, a stage actor who made a very successful transition to the big screen, died in Brooklyn in 1915 during the still-nascent film era, and he isn’t remembered as well as the other silent greats. I came across his obituary in the New York Times. An excerpt form the article subtitled, “Fat, Big, Round-Faced Actor Who Made Millions Laugh Succumbs at 52”:

“John Bunny, the moving picture actor whose big round face and fat form were familiar to millions of patrons of the movie theaters, died yesterday at his residence, 1.416 Glenwood Road, Brooklyn, from Bright’s Disease. Mr. Bunny was stricken with illness about three weeks ago while on a tour with his production, “John Bunny in Funnyland.”

The name of John Bunny will always he linked with the movies. For while he was identified with this branch of the amusement world during only a comparatively small part of his career as an actor, it was the motion picture that first brought him fame and fortune.

Mr. Bunny had been a comedian for a quarter of a century before he went into moving pictures. He was the ninth John Bunny of a line of English sea captains, and the first of the line not to follow the sea. He was born in this city fifty-two years ago. As a young man he made up his mind to be an actor and he began as a member of a small touring minstrel show. Moderate success was the reward of his efforts and eventually he gained that goal of all American actors–a place in Broadway’s incandescent sun. He was blessed with a strong comedy sense, to which endowment nature had added a comic aspect that proved especially valuable for his later work. He was seen frequently in musical comedies, with Hattie Williams in one of her successes, and with Lew Fields in “Old Dutch,” among others.

But it was with the coming of the movies that Mr. Bunny’s fame became universal, till at the time of his death his face was one of the best known in the world. The comedian foresaw the importance of cinema was to play in amusing the multitude, and at the same time he appreciated his abundant qualifications as a comedian of the screen. He had grown exceedingly heavy–he weighed 260 pounds–and as he was beneath the average height his figure immediately suggested the comic. His face, in keeping with his pudgy body, was round and puffy, with little gimlet-hole eyes that peered out from their depths in a kindly, humorous way. It was a mobile face that broke into ripples when Mr. Bunny laughed.”

Below: “Troublesome Secretaries” (1911).


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Old Print Article: “A Broken Heart,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1881)

August 12, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

No, not that Frankenstein, you silly.

I found this odd postmortem about a deceased artist named John Frankenstein in the April 17, 1881 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. He apparently came from a bohemian family of German immigrant painters and sculptors and had many siblings. (Although the article only mentions a trio of brothers, he also had two sisters.) I can only find a little information online about the Frankenstein artistic dynasty of the nineteenth century, so if anyone out there is an art historian with more knowledge on the topic, please drop me a line.

Although the piece doesn’t say it explicitly, Frankenstein, a recluse with money problems, may have committed suicide. An excerpt from the article, which is subtitled, “What Followed the Completion of Somebody’s Bust”:

“John Frankenstein, the painter, sculptor and poet, who, as briefly related in the Eagle of yesterday, was found dead in the midst of the most squalid surroundings, in a lonely dwelling, located on the extreme southern end of the village of East New York, is, as was discovered after a lengthy search, by a reporter, one of the four brothers of marked ability, well known in different portions of the United States. All of them were painters, who ranked high, but they were all eccentric and possessed of too much theory to enable them to accumulate wealth in this (to a marked extent) practical country. Counselor Sackett of this city, who was well acquainted with them, says they lived in an age which had not progressed sufficiently to appreciate them. They were entirely engrossed in art, as an element that tended to elevate mankind and it was repugnant to their natures to regard it as merely a method of obtaining bread and butter. He has known them to suffer the necessities of life, when by disposing of their work for a fair sum of money they would have been enabled to live comfortably. They were very kind hearted and had they been wealthy, would have been philanthropists. They seemed to think that rich men should endow them, so that they could pursue art without a thought of daily necessities.

A bust, but not by Frankenstein. (Image by Oleg Alexandrov.)

They were deep thinkers, and on any subject that was broached, they could converse with more than average ability. One of the brothers is dead. He, as an artist and poet, was far superior to any of the others. Another is a learned mathematician. He holds the position of professor of mathematics in a college in Chicago. Several years ago he created quite a sensation in the scientific world by announcing he had discovered a method whereby the intersection of colored lines at certain angles could produce light. He called this discovery Magic Reciprocals. It was a wonderful discovery, it is said. As yet, no practical use has been made of it.

George Frankenstein, the third brother, is an artist, and has a studio on Broadway in New York City. His paintings are said to be very beautiful and valuable. At one time the deceased was with this brother, but at length he tired of the world, and sought the hermit like retirement which he found in East New York.

His life had been a very sad one, and no one who reads it as depicted in his satire entitled American Art, can fail to be impressed with a feeling of deep sympathy for him. The physician, Dr. F. H. Miller, who saw him several days before his death, is inclined to believe he died of a broken heart. He had been engaged for some time on a bust of great value, and had just completed it, when accidentally he knocked it from the stand upon which he kept it. Falling to the floor, it was irretrievably injured. It seemed to completely crush him, and although he was beginning the work again, he pined away, until he died. His body is at the morgue. It will be claimed by his brother, who will have it interred in Evergreens Cemetery. Among his numerous effects which will be taken charge of by the public administrator, together with the money in the neighborhood of $200, found in his pockets, was a beautiful original poem, entitled “The Falling of Snow,” the first line of which was:

‘I sat at the window and watched the snow fall/
Its mantle of purity thrown over all.'”

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Old Print Article: “Genius At Four,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1896)

August 9, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Oil on canvas, Winter Landscape, by Emile Jean Crapuchettes.

Emile Jean Crapuchettes, he of the unfortunate surname and the precocious artistic talent, was born in 1889 and lived and created his whole life in Northern California, until his death in 1972. He’s not particularly well-known today, but seems to have been renowned in his time. Emile, the son of working-class parents, was a child prodigy who drew amazing chalk illustrations on the sidewalk outside of his family’s Bay Area laundromat. The San Francisco Call reported on the boy’s great talent when he was just four (and misspelled his last name, leaving off the “s”). The Brooklyn Daily Eagle subsequently reprinted the story on June 26, 1896, with the subtitle, “A Young San Francisco Boy Who Makes Remarkable Pictures.” An excerpt:

“The very latest California discovery in the way of infant prodigies is that of a 4 year old artist, who bids fair some day to rival the Gibsons, the Abbeys, the Vierges in the field of illustration. The work of the child wonder is the subject of no end of comment in the vicinity of his home, and the predictions as to his future are as numerous as the host of enthusiastic observers of his efforts, while the fame that is foreseen by all these ready made critics is of a variety as bright as the coals that keep the flatirons hot and as glowing as the polished shirt fronts to which the mother of the astonishing youngster has imparted the finishing touches in her little French laundry on Folsom street.

 

Steam engine in 1893, much like the one young Crapuchettes sketched. (Image by A.P. Yates.)

Mme. Crapuchette regards her little son Emile as a valuable assistant in affairs of her household; for, as young as he is, he is already quite competent to peel the potatoes, scrape the carrots, shell the peas and run errands in the neighborhood; but Mme. Crapuchette places no especial value on the artistic genius displayed by her precocious heir. In fact, Emile has often given offense by indulging his habit of scratching odd caricatures on the whitewashed walls, and ruining with his black pencil marks much good white paper which might otherwise be put to use in sending notices to forgetful patrons to the effect that there has been no recent diminution in the amount of their indebtedness. And then again, Emile covers the sidewalks with chalk figures that sweeping does not easily remove and that cause crowds to stop in front of the laundry door to talk foolishly about Emile being a ‘natural born artist.’

It has been remarked by the proprietress of the laundry that those people who halt and talk so much about the genius of the young Crapuchette never bring much work to the establishment, and, therefore, the madam would be quite as well pleased if they would go along about their business. The truth is that Emile’s parents do not take much stock in what strangers with busy tongues call ‘Emile’s gifts.’ Monsieur Crapuchette, it is very likely is looking forward to the day when his son Emile will be able to do much more than clean vegetables and run short errands–when that boy shall take his place on the delivery cart and exercise his wits in drumming up customers for the laundry. What a disappointment there will be when Emile, having grown old enough to drive the cart and solicit patronage, straightway washes his hands of the occupation by which his parents gained a livelihood. And then, how he will surprise those parents when he is earning handfuls of gold money for making pictures for the newspapers and the magazines.

Emile may be seen upon almost any sunny afternoon playing about the door of the laundry at 1,007 Folsom street. He goes bareheaded always, and is usually dressed in check apron and brown overalls. He isn’t beautiful, but is wonderfully bright. His brilliant brown eyes show keen intelligence. His complexion is light, and a rather flat nose mars the regularity of his features. When a Call man found him yesterday he was sketching a steam engine on the sidewalk, and near him was a box of colored crayons, with which some kindly interested and generous person had supplied him.

‘My boy, who showed you how to make the pictures of a steam engine?’ asked the newsgatherer.

‘No one showed me,’ answered the child, with a decidedly French accent. ‘I see it all the time go by.'”

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Old Print Article: “Paints Her Own House,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1900)

August 4, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Paintbrushes: Not intended for dainty girl hands. (Image by Hans Bernhard.)

It was in Brooklyn, New York, in November of 1900 that one of the most unimportant victories in the history of the women’s rights movement was won. Seriously, some lady wanted her house to be painted and her husband was really busy, so she did it herself. And everyone apparently went a little nuts because a woman dared to commit the shocking act of painting a house! People have always been terrible.

An excerpt from a story about the so-called scandal, which ran in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and is subtitled, “This Woman Doesn’t Propose to Pay a Man for Drinking Beer”:

“Mrs. Charles W. Hollister, who is the wife of a carpenter well known in East New York, and who is the mother of an interesting family of children, is painting her own house at 113 Sheppard avenue. She says:

‘The painters all demand too much money for the work and they use inferior paint. My husband did not have time to do the work so I made up my mind to do it myself and don’t think it’s anybody’s business but my own.

‘I know all the neighbors are talking about me and men make remarks as they pass by that are not nice. I pay no attention to them. I don’t care to have a man around here with a pipe in his mouth, drinking beer half the time and his boss charging me for it. The whole matter is that I want the house painted to suit myself so I do the work.'”

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Old Print Article: “Life Of An Old Time Clown,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1896)

July 31, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Grotesque appearance." (Image by Rinina25 & Twice25)

John Foster was an elderly clown passing through Brooklyn in 1896 when he was profiled by the local papers. Born into poverty in Pennsylvania and orphaned at a very early age, he made a place for himself in the itinerant circus world. An excerpt from an article about him in the July 19, 1896 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“A few weeks ago, in the outlying districts of Brooklyn, an old fashioned country circus was going about. Like all other small circus companies, they had an original tattooed lady, the wild men of Borneo, etc., but in their troupe was one man who is known from one end of the country to the other, that is, by theatrical or circus men. That man is John Foster, clown, Shakespearean jester and the last of the old school, i.e., those who depend on talking and singing rather than gesture and pantomime as the clowns of to-day do.

Mr. Foster is probably to-day the eldest clown in the business, over fifty-two years having passed since he first stepped into a circus ring.

Modern clown: I salute you, John Foster. (Image by Robert Lawton.)

He was born of poor parents, both of whom died in his infancy, in the little town of Chamberburg, Pennsylvania. Brought up in hardship and having had little opportunity for schooling, he early made up his mind to do something worth while in the world.

So one spring day in the year 1845, clad only in a large straw hat, check shirt and pantaloons, and with no shoes on, he applied for a job with the Robertson & Eldridge circus, which was then playing in Chambersburg.

His grotesque appearance, combined with his determination to carry his point, made a favorable impression on the managers, who hired him and put him to work washing the clothes and doing odd jobs about. His natural abilities showed itself, however, and before he had been six months with the company he had begun his professional career as a clown and ring performer.

In his time Mr. Foster has played with and known to every performer and circus man of note during the last half century, and has been with shows in every civilized country.

Mr. Foster is a short, thick set man, quite gray and wears a small mustache and goatee. He loves children, and when at home always has a lot of them about.”

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Old Print Article: “Did The Monkey Steal?” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1895)

July 28, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

I only steal what I need. (Image by Stougard.)

You think monkey-related theft is bad today? You should have been alive in 1895–that was the golden age of monkey robbers! I came across this article, which is subtitled “An Organ Grinder Accused of Teaching His Assistants Bad Habits,” in the April 19, 1895 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:

“Joseph Lavico, an Italian organ grinder, was sent to jail for twenty-five days by Justice Harriman in the Gates avenue police court this morning on a charge of exhibiting a monkey without a permit. This was the technical charge, but Officer Brockman who arrested Lavico expressed his belief that the monkey had been trained to steal by its owner. A number of people have complained to the police that after Lavico’s monkey had visited their apartments they have missed small articles of jewelry and never found them again. When sentence was pronounced Lavico wanted to compromise the case by giving the monkey to Justice Harriman, but without success.”

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    Old Print Article: “Inflated A Boy With Air,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1900)

    July 24, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Operating pneumatic drill with air tube.

    No one had a brain in his or her head in 1900. How else to explain the story of a Philadelphia boy who was killed after an older boy inflated him with air? In addition to this report of remarkably dumb and bizarre behavior, this story features the word “skylarking,” which long ago passed into disuse. It meant “to frolic.” There must have been a lot more than frolicking going on, however. An excerpt from an article titled “Inflated a Boy with Air,” which ran in the May 9, 1900 edition of Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

    “Jospeh Currier, aged 16 years, who worked in the Cramps’ shipyard under the name of John Frier, was to-day committed to prison on the charge of being partly responsible for the death of Christopher Donnegan, the 13 year old who was pumped full of wind on Monday afternoon. Currier said he was merely skylarking with Donnegan and had no vicious intent.

    Donnegan’s death was due to an unnatural inflation of the body caused by the inhalation of air through a tube attached to a pneumatic drill. Before his death the victim accused Currier and other boys at the shipyard of being the cause of his condition. The coroner is investigating.”

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    Old Print Article: “The Evil Eye,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1900)

    July 21, 2010 in Misc., Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

    "...and whatever he wanted the jailer had to give to him, whether it was pie or liberty." (Image by Sugar Pond.)

    Today you need a high-priced lawyer to get out of jail, but back in 1900 you just had to know hypnosis. According to an asinine article I found in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, a jailbreak in Indiana occurred with the help of hypnosis. And the practice was likely to spread from Hoosier State to everywhere else, so something needed to be done. An excerpt:

    “A prisoner in the jail at Geneva, Indiana, who had been locked up for murderous assault, was not there when the keeper went in to feed him. On the contrary, an assistant jailer was there, looking dazed and apparently trying to think. It appears that the prisoner had transfixed the keeper with his glittering eye, told him to unlock the door, and when his instruction had been obeyed he walked into the free air, in which ambient and exhilarant medium he has disported ever since.

    He was a hypnotist, the prisoner was. He had only to look hard at the jailer, make him believe that he was under an influence, and whatever he wanted the jailer had to give to him, whether it was pie or liberty. This may lead to changes in the penal practice. If a convict can not be trusted to keep his eyes off his bosses he will have to wear green spectacles, or the keys will have to be kept in the office and not allowed in the hands of too sensitive underlings, or the matter may be arranged by putting the keepers into blinders. They would look funny in blinders, to be sure, but if the evil eye could be averted by wearing them, they might be work.”

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    Old Print Article: “Again Guldensuppe’s Head,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1897)

    July 18, 2010 in Misc., Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Don't throw me back into the creek.

    People had just as little common sense in Brooklyn at the end of the 19th-century as they do today, perhaps even less. I came across this odd article in the July 14, 1897 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In the aftermath of a murder, two local men come into contact with what may be the disembodied head of the victim, and then handle their discovery with less than sheer brilliance. Despite the bungling, William Guldensuppe’s murderer was eventually captured and convicted; it was a barber named Martin Thorn, who had designs on his victim’s girlfriend and wanted him out of the picture. An excerpt:

    “James Ceter, an Italian rag picker, who says he lives somewhere on Purdy place, went to the Sixth Precinct Police Station this morning and told a story that may have important bearings on the Guldensuppe murder case.

    Ceter said that while he was working very early in the morning at the dump on Scott avenue, near Newtown Creek, he was approached by an unknown man, apparently a German, who held in his hand a human head. The Italian says that the head had a small black mustache and a gash on the left cheek.

    In accosting the Italian, the German said: ‘Look at this! I found it down at the creek.’ The two men talked together for a moment and came to the conclusion, so Ceter says, that the proper course would be to throw the head back into the creek. This, the Italian said, was done.

    Acting on the Italian’s story the police of the Sixth Precinct are engaged to-day in grappling in the waters of the creek. Ceter describes his chance acquaintance as a man of medium height and about 50 years of age. He had a reddish gray mustache and wore dark clothes and a jersey.

    The dredging of the creek was done by Detective Sergeant Baker and Officer Trenchard and Tracy, under the personal direction of Captain Lees. They were still at work when the Eagle went  to press. They were watched by a large and curious crowd.”

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    Old Print Article: “Reminscences Of The Three Card Monte Man,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1878)

    July 14, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

    An 1890 painting of three-card monte dealers.

    Edward Valentine, better known as the “Chow Chow Man,” was a colorful and controversial Coney Island three-card monte dealer in the latter part of the 19th-century. (He was apparently so nicknamed because he loved chow chow pickle relish.) A paunchy man with bright green spectacles, Valentine would take his cards and a board and set up the game in a heavily trafficked area of the beach and let the suckers come to him. Valentine was regularly arrested for gambling, so there were numerous articles published about him in the New York Times and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which sternly labeled him a public nuisance. But editorial writers seemed to miss his larger-than-life quality the second the Brooklyn character died. An excerpt from an April 28, 1879 piece in the Eagle that recalled the amusing con man:

    “Poor old Chow Chow–by another and his own name, Edward Valentine–is dead. The police know it; a good many other people, with more money than brains, know it also. It is not often that a newspaper is called upon to record the demise of a man to whom the world owed so little, who owed himself the world so much, and yet, who was, in his daily life, so close on the line dividing the honest man from the criminal, technically, and who enjoyed such an immunity from legal persecution and prosecution as did the subject of this sketch.

    (Image by ZioDave.)

    Valentine was a man not intended by Mother Nature for a rascal. He had a large, generous nature, which regarded humanity either in distress or on a spree, as something to which he was necessarily to attach himself, either a as promoter of charity or of good feeling, wherever either might appeal to him. He differed from the ruffian type. Reddy the Blacksmith is recorded as holding the theory that, and as putting it habitually into practice, ‘that a sucker had no right to have any money under any circumstances,’ and it is alleged that no matter what the circumstances were, whether his victim were foe or circumstantial friend, he got his money if he could. That was not the style of Valentine.

    He would go to work and with his deft and light fingered art–and art it was, without question, would beat a sucker out of his money, and then if the man was in distress, would not only give it all back to him but go out of his way to do something to help the sufferer.

    Of his methods it is not necessary to say anything here. He was a master of the three card monte game. There was nothing in it that he did not possess. All of his points, fine and common, which the professors of the three card art possess were child’s play to him. And he was always willing to show those who knew him how he did it.

    A notable instance recurs to memory, when Chow Chow having been in bad luck, or worse, was aided to the extent of a few dollars by well known newspaper men, was asked to show his skill. He promptly responded by throwing his cards around, explaining how his tricks were done, and then ending up by winning drinks all around through an exercise of digital skill which he himself thoroughly delineated.”

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    Old Print Article: “A Monkey Wheelman,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1897)

    July 12, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

    "Here the monkey sits, dressed in a pair of little red bloomers." (Image by Rob.)

    Monkeys had free run of metropolitan areas in the late 19th-century. How else can you explain a newspaper report about a Philadelphia monkey who drank out of fire hydrants and took bicycle rides? This story from the Philadelphia Record was so vital to the continued freedom of our democracy that it was picked up by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and run in the January 24, 1897 issue. An excerpt:

    “Not content with having a dog, cat, white rats, rabbits, turtles and other pets, Aleck Munchweiler, a downtown boy, purchased a monkey about two weeks ago. Because of the little animal’s penchant for drinking water from a hydrant, he has been named Spigots. Spigots has developed a mania for cycling. His master has arranged a little seat on the front of the wheel and here the monkey sits, dressed in a pair of little red bloomers.

    The queer pair were out on their wheel the other day and attracted much attention. Spigots enjoyed himself hugely, and looked with disdain on the dogs that barked as he rode by. All went well until the wheelmen got as far as Broad and Wharton streets, and there Spigots attempted to stand up in his seat, getting frightened at two vicious looking canines, which were springing up at him. The result was that he fell and had his right foot run over. Aleck took him to a nearby drug store and had the wounded part bandaged with care. Spigots now presents a queer sight, sitting on the front step, with his arm in a sling, and at the sight of a wheel runs into the house crying piteously.”

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