Magistrate Furlong

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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: “Bridegroom Was Not 16 When Marriage Occurred,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1902)

March 6, 2010 in Excerpts, Misc., Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

You better keep me away from the time machine. (Image by Brett Weinstein.)

“Magistrate’s Ire Aroused,” declares the sub-heading of this article from the December 1, 1902 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. It seems that several days before he turned 16, a boy married a bride several years his senior and then saw fit to abandon her. The judge wasn’t a fan of these May-December relationships, especially when the groom was a minor. There may have been steam shooting out of his ears during the hearing. An excerpt:

“‘There should be some way of punishing ministers who marry children,’ said Magistrate Furlong, in the Myrtle avenue court yesterday, when Mrs. Tessie Mich Gordon, who says she is 18 years old, caused her 16 year old boy husband, James C. Gordon of 262 Fifteenth street, to be arraigned on a charge of abandonment.

The Magistarte’s face was flushed, and it was obvious he was not in favor of early marriages–at least, early marriages, of that kind. Young Gordon, the groom, who is a mere stripling, both in years and in size, and who has not even the suspicion of a mustache, stood in front of the judge in a semi-dazed way, as if he were not thoroughly conscious of the important step which he had taken in life. His bride, whom he married less than three months ago, was a Miss Tessie Mich, who gives her age at 18, but is thought to be two years older, is a pretty blond, with bright expressive eyes and a rich head of hair falling in innumerable ringlets. She is petite in figure.

When Court Officer William J. Wyse arrested young Gordon at his father’s house, 262 Fifteenth street, on Saturday night, the boy was at supper, with other members of his family.

‘I have seen a great many strange things over the course of my career on the police force,’ said Oficer Wyse, ‘but I can tell you I was surprised on finding out that the man I was in search of on a charge of abandonment was only a boy.'”

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