“One hundred thousand devils!” burst out the Dutchman, expressing the extent of his anger by the number of evil spirits he invoked—“It is an Admiral van der Eyck!”
“Indeed?” remarked the scientific traveller, “thank you. Are there a good many of these admirals in your country?” and he drew forth his note book to write down the little fact.
“Death and the devil!” swore the enraged Dutchman again—“come before the Syndic and you shall find out all about it!” So he collared the astounded onion-peeler, and despite all he could say, dragged him straightway before the magistrate, where his scientific zeal suffered a dreadful quencher in the shape of an affidavit that the “onion” was worth four thousand florins—about $1600—and in the immediate judgment of the Court, which “considered” that the prisoner be forthwith clapt into jail until he should give security for the amount. He had to do so accordingly,and doubtless all his life retained a distaste for Dutchmen and Dutch onions.
These stories about such monstrous valuations of flower roots recall to my mind another anecdote which I shall tell, not because it has anything to do with tulips, but because it is about a Dutchman, and shows in striking contrast an equally low valuation of human life. It is this. Once, in time of peace, an English and a Dutch Admiral met at sea, each in his flag ship, and for some reason or other exchanged complimentary salutes. By accident, one of the Englishman’s guns was shotted and misdirected, and killed one of the Dutch crew. On hearing the fact the Englishman at once manned a boat and went to apologize, to inquire about the poor fellow’s family and to send them some money, provide for the funeral,etc., etc., as a kind hearted man would naturally do. But the Dutch commander, on meeting him at the quarter-deck, and learning his errand, at once put all his kindly intentions completely one side, saying in imperfect English:
“It’sh no matter, it’sh no matter—dere’s blaanty more Tutchmen inHolland!”
JOHN BULL’S GREAT MONEY HUMBUG.—THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE IN 1720.
The “South Sea Bubble” is one of the most startling lessons which history gives us of the ease withwhich the most monstrous, and absurd, and wicked humbugs can be crammed down the throat of poor human nature. It ought also to be a useful warning of the folly of mere “speculation,” as compared with real “business undertakings.” The history of the South Sea Bubble has been told, before, but it is too prominent a case to be entirely passed over. It occupied a period of about eight months, from February 1, 1720, to the end of the following September. It was an unreasonable expansion of the value of the stock of the “South Sea Company.” This Company was formed in 1711; its stock was at first about $30,000,000, subscribed by the public and handed over by the corporators to Government to meet certain troublesome public debts. In return, Government guaranteed the stockholders a dividend of six per cent., and gave the Company sundry permanent important duties and a monopoly of all trade to the South Pacific, or “South Sea.” This matter went on with fair success as a money enterprise, until the birth of the “Bubble,” which was as follows:—In the end of January, 1720, probably in consequence of catching infection from “Law’s Mississippi Scheme” in France, the South Sea Company and the Bank of England made competing propositions to the English Government, to repeat the original South Sea Company financiering plan on a larger scale. The proposition of the Company, which was accepted by Government, was: to assume as before the whole public debt, now amounting to over one hundred and fifty millions of dollars; and to be guaranteed at first a five per cent. dividend, and afterward a four per cent. one, to thestockholders by Government. For this privilege, the Company agreed to pay outright a bonus of more than seventeen million dollars. This plan is said to have been originated and principally carried through by Sir John Blunt, one of the Company’s directors. Parliament adopted it after two months’ discussion—the Bubble having, however, been swelling monstrously all the time.
It must be remembered that the wonderful profits expected from the Company were to come from their monopoly of the South Sea trade. Tremendous stories were told by Blunt and his friends, who can hardly have believed more than one half of their own talk, about a free trade with all the Spanish Pacific colonies, the importation of silver and gold from Peru and Mexico in return for dry goods, etc., etc.; all which fine things were going to produce two or three times the amount of the Company’s stock every year. When the bill authorizing the arrangement passed, South Sea stock had already reached a price of four hundred per cent. The bill was stoutly opposed in Parliament by Mr.—afterwards Sir—Robert Walpole, and a few others but in vain. Under the operation of the beautiful stories of the speculative Blunt and his friends, South Sea stock, after a short lull in April, began to rise again, and the bubble swelled and swelled to a size so monstrous, and with colors so gay, that it filled the whole horizon of poor foolish John Bull:—perfectly turned his bull-headed brain, and made him for the time absolutely crazy. The directors opened books on April 12th for £5,000,000 new stock, charging, however, £300 for each share of £100, or three hundred per cent. to begin with. Double the amount was subscribed in a few days; that is, John Bull subscribed thirty million dollars for ten millions of stock, where only five millions were to be had. In a few days more, these subscribers were selling at double what they paid. April21st, a ten per cent. dividend was voted for midsummer. In a day or two, another five million subscription was opened at four hundred per cent. to begin with. The whole, and half as much more, was taken in a few hours. In the end of May, South Sea stock was worth five hundred to one. On the 28th, it was five hundred and fifty. In four days more, for some reason or other, it jumped up to eight hundred and ninety. The speculating Blunt kept all this time blowing and blowing at his bubble. All summer, he and his friends blew and blew; and all summer the bubble swelled and floated, and shone; and high and low, men and women, lords and ladies, clergymen, princesses and duchesses, merchants, gamblers, tradesmen, dressmakers, footmen, bought and sold. In the beginning of August, South Sea stock stood at one thousand per cent! It was really worth about twenty-five per cent. The crowding in Exchange Alley, the Wall street of the day, was tremendous. So noisy, and unmanageable and excited was this mob of greedy fools, that the very same stock was sometimes selling ten per cent. higher at one end of the Alley than at the other.
The growth of this monstrous, noxious bubble hatched out a multitude of young cockatrices. Not only was the stock of the India Company, the Bank of England,and other sound concerns, much increased in price by sympathy with this fury of speculation, but a great number of utterly ridiculous schemes and barefaced swindles were advertised and successfully imposed on the public. Any piece of paper purporting to be stock could be sold for money. Not the least thought of investigating the solvency of advertisers seems to have occurred to anybody. Nor was any rank free from the poison. Almost a hundred projects were before the public at once, some of them incredibly brazen humbugs. There were schemes for a wheel for perpetual motion—capital, $5,000,000; for trading in hair (for wigs), in those days “a big thing;” for furnishing funerals to any part of Britain; for “improving the art of making soap;” for importing walnut-trees from Virginia—capital, $10,000,000; for insuring against losses by servants—capital, $15,000,000; for making quicksilver malleable; “Puckle’s Machine Company,” for discharging cannon-balls and bullets, both round and square, and so on. One colossal genius in humbugging actually advertised in these words: “A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.” The capital he called for was $2,500,000, in shares of $500 each; deposit on subscribing, $10 per share. Each subscriber was promised $500 per share per annum, and full particulars were to be given in a month, when the rest of the subscription was to be paid. This great financier, having put forth his prospectus, opened his office in Cornhill next morning at nine o’clock. Crowds pressed upon him. At threeP. M., John Bull had paid this immense humbug$10,000, being deposits on a thousand shares subscribed for. That night, the financier—a shrewd man!—modestly retired to an unknown place upon the Continent, and was never heard of again. Another humbug almost as preposterous, was that of the “Globe Permits.” These were square pieces of playing-cards with a seal on them, having the picture of the Globe Tavern, and with the words, “Sailcloth Permits.” What they “permitted” was a subscription at some future period to a sailcloth-factory, projected by a certain capitalist. These “permits” sold at one time for $300 each.
But the more sensible members of Government soon exerted their influence against these lesser and more palpable humbugs. Some accounts say that the South Sea Company itself grew jealous, for it was reckoned that these “side-shows” called for a total amount of $1,500,000,000, and itself took legal means against them. At any rate, an “order in council” was published, peremptorily dismissing and dissolving them all.
During August, it leaked out that Sir John Blunt and some other “insiders” had sold out their South Sea stock. There was also some charges of unfairness in managing subscriptions. After so long and so intense an excitement, the time for reaction and collapse was come. The price of stock began to fall in spite of all that the directors could do. September 2, it was down to 700.
A general meeting of the company was held to try to whitewash matters, but in vain. The stock fell, fell, fell. The great humbug had received its death-blow. Thousands of families saw beggary staring them in theface, grasping them with its iron hand. The consternation was inexpressible. Out of it a great popular rage began to flame up, just as fires often break out among the prostrate houses of a city ruined by an earthquake. Efforts were meanwhile vainly made to stay the ruin by help from the Bank of England. Bankers and goldsmiths (then often doing a banking business) absconded daily. Business corporations failed. Credit was almost paralyzed. In the end of September, the stock fell to 175, 150, 135.
Meanwhile violent riots were feared. South Sea directors could not be seen in the streets without being insulted. The King, then in Hanover, was imperatively sent for home, and had to come. So extensive was the misfortune and the wrath of the people, so numerous the public meetings and petitions from all over the kingdom, that Parliament found it necessary to grant the public demand, and to initiate a formal inquiry into the whole enterprise. This was done; and the foolish, swindled, disappointed, angry nation, through this proceeding, vented all the wrath it could upon the persons and estates of the managers and officers of the South Sea Company. They were forbidden to leave the kingdom, their property was sequestrated, they were placed in custody and examined. Those of them in Parliament were insulted there to their faces, several of them expelled, the most violent charges made against them all. A secret investigating committee was set to rip up the whole affair. Knight, the treasurer, who possessed all the dangerous secrets of the concern, ran away to Calais and the Continent, and so escaped.
The books were found to have been either destroyed,secreted, or mutilated and garbled. Stock bribes of $250,000, $150,000, $50,000 had been paid to the Earl of Sunderland, the Duchess of Kendal (the King’s favorite,) Mr. Craggs (one of the Secretaries of State,) and others. Mr. Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had accumulated $4,250,000 and more out of the business. Many other noblemen, gentlemen, and reputable merchants were disgracefully involved.
The trials that were had resulted in the imprisonment, expulsion or degradation of Aislabie, Craggs, Sir George Caswell (a banker and member of the House,) and others. Blunt, a Mr. Stanhope, and a number more of the chief criminals were stripped of their wealth, amounting to from $135,000 to $1,200,000 each, and the proceeds used for the partial relief of the ruined, except amounts left to the culprits to begin the world anew. Blunt, the chief of all the swindlers, was stripped of about $925,000, and allowed only $5,000. By this means and by the use of such actual property as the Company did possess, about one-third of the money lost by its means was ultimately paid to the losers. It was a long time, however, before the tone of public credit was thoroughly restored.
The history of the South Sea bubble should always stand as a beacon to warn us that reckless speculation is the bane of commerce, and that the only sure method of gaining a fortune, and certainly of enjoying it, is to diligently prosecute some legitimate calling, which, like the quality of mercy, is “twice blessed.” Every man’s occupation should be beneficial to his fellow-man as well as profitable to himself. All else is vanity and folly.
BUSINESS HUMBUGS.—JOHN LAW.—THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME.—JOHNNY CRAPAUD AS GREEDY AS JOHNNY BULL.
In the “good old times,” people were just as eager after money as they are now; and a great deal more vulgar, unscrupulous, and foolish in their endeavors to get it. During about two hundred years after the discovery of America, that continent was a constant source of great and little money humbugs. The Spaniards and Portuguese and French and English all insisted upon thinking that America was chiefly made of gold; perhaps believing, as the man said about Colorado, that the hardship of the place was, that you have to dig through three or four feet of solid silver before the gold could be reached. This curious delusion is shown by the fact that the early charters of lands in America so uniformly reserved to the King his proportion of all gold and silver that should be found. And if gold were not to be had, these lazy Europeans were equally crazy about the richmerchandise which they made sure of finding in the vast and solitary American mountains and forests.
In a previous letter, I have shown how one of those delusions, about the unbounded wealth to be obtained from the countries on the South Sea, caused the English South Sea bubble.
A similar belief, at the same time, in the neighboring country of France, formed the airy basis of a similar business humbug, even more gigantic, noxious, and destructive. This was John Law’s Mississippi scheme, of which I shall give an account in this chapter. It was, I think, the greatest business humbug of history.
Law was a Scotchman, shrewd and able, a really good financier for those days, but vicious, a gambler, unprincipled, and liable to wild schemes. He had possessed a good deal of property, had traveled and gambled all over Europe, was witty, entertaining, and capital company, and had become a favorite with the Duke of Orleans and other French nobles. When the Duke became Regent of France at the death of Louis XIV, in 1715, that country was horribly in debt, and its people in much misery, owing to the costly wars and flaying taxations of the late King. When, therefore, Law came to Paris with a promising scheme of finance in his hand, the Regent was particularly glad to see him, both as financier and as friend.
The Regent quickly fell in with Law’s plans; and in the spring of 1716, the first step—not, however, so intended at the time—toward the Mississippi Scheme was taken. This was, the establishment by royal authority of the banking firm of Law & Co., consisting of Law and his brother. This bank, by a judicious organization and issue of paper money, quickly began to help the distressed finances of the kingdom, and to invigorate trade and commerce. This success, which seems to have been an entirely sound and legitimate business success, made one sadly mistaken but verydeep impression upon the ignorant and shallow mind of the Regent of France, which was the foundation of all the subsequent trouble. The Regent became firmly convinced, that if a certain quantity of bank bills could do so much good, a hundred thousand times as many bills would surely do a hundred thousand times as much. That is, he thought printing and issuing the bills was creating money. He paid no regard to the need of providing specie for them on demand, but thought he had an unlimited money factory in the city of Paris.
So far, so good. Next, Law planned, and, with the ever ready consent of the Regent, effected, an enlargement of the business of his bank, based on that delusion I spoke of about America. This enlargement was the formation of the Mississippi Company, and this was the contrivance which swelled into so tremendous a humbug. The company was closely connected with the banks, and received (to begin with) the monopoly of all trade to the Mississippi River, and all the country west of it. It was expected to obtain vast quantities of gold and silver from that region, and thus to make immense dividends on its stock. At home, it was to have the sole charge of collecting all the taxes and coining all the money. Stock was issued to the amount of one hundred thousand shares, at $200 (five hundred livres) each. And Law’s help to the Government funds was continued by permitting this stock to be paid for in those funds, at their par value, though worth in market only about a third of it. Subscriptions came in rapidly—for the French community was far more ignorant about commercial affairs, finances, and the real resources of distant regions, than we can easily conceive of now-a-days; and not only the Regent, but every man, woman, and child in France, except a very few tough and hard-headed old skeptics, believed every word Law said, and would have believed him if he had told stories a hundred times as incredible.
Well, pretty soon the Regent gave the associates—the bank and the company—two other monopolies: that of tobacco, always monstrously profitable, and that of refining gold and silver. Pretty soon, again, he created the bank a state institution, by the magnificent name of The Royal Bank of France. Having done this, the Regent could control the bank in spite of Law (or order either); for, in those days, the kings of France were almost perfectly despotic, and the Regent was acting king. I have mentioned the Regent’s terrible delusion about paper-money. No sooner had he the bank in his power, than he added to the reasonable and useful total of $12,000,000 of notes already out, a monstrous issue of $200,000,000 worth in one vast batch, with the firm conviction that he was thus adding so much to the par currency of France.
The Parliament of France, a body mostly of lawyers, originating in the Middle Ages, a steady, conservative, wise, and brave assembly, was always hostile to Law and his schemes. When this great expansion of paper-currency began, the Parliament made a resolute fight against it, petitioning, ordaining, threatening to hang Law, and frightening him well, too; for the thorough enmity of an assembly of old lawyers may well frighten anybody. At last, the Regent, by the use of the despotic power of which the Kings of France had so much, reduced these old fellows to silence by sticking a few of them in jail.
The cross-grained Parliament thus disposed of, everything was quickly made to “look lovely.” In the beginning of 1719, more grants were made to Law’s associated concerns. The Mississippi Company was granted the monopoly of all trade to the East Indies, China, the South Seas, and all the territories of the French India Company, and of the Senegal Company. It took a new and imposing name: “The Company of the Indies.” They had already, by the way, also obtained the monopoly of the Canada beaver-trade. Of this colossal corporation, monopolizing the whole foreign commerce of France with two-thirds or more of the world, its whole home finances, and other important interests besides, fifty thousand new shares were issued, as before, at $100 each. These might be bought as before, with Government securities at par. Law was so bold as to promise annual dividends of $20 per share, which, as the Government funds stood, was one hundred and twenty per cent. per annum.!Everybody believed him. More than three hundred thousand applications were made for the new shares. Law was besieged in his house by more than twice as many people as General Grant had to help him take Richmond. The Great Humbug was at last in full buzz. The street where the wonderful Scotchman lived was busy, filled, crowded, jammed, choked. Dangerous accidents happened in it every day, from the excessive pressure. From the princes of the blood down to cobblers and lackeys,all men and all women crowded and crowded to subscribe their money, and to pay their money, and to know how many shares they had gotten. Law moved to a roomier street, and the crazy mob crowded harder than ever; so that the Chancellor, who held his court of law hard by, could not hear his lawyers.
A tremendous uproar surely, that could drown the voices of those gentlemen! And so he moved again, to the great Hotel de Soissons, a vast palace, with a garden of some acres. Fantastic circumstances variegated the wild rush of speculation. The haughtiest of the nobility rented mean rooms near Law’s abode, to be able to get at him. Rents in his neighborhood rose to twelve and sixteen times their usual amount. A cobbler, whose lines had fallen in those pleasant places, made $40 a day by letting his stall and furnishing writing materials to speculators. Thieves and disreputable characters of all sorts flocked to this concourse. There were riots and quarrels all the time. They often had to send a troop of cavalry to clear the street at night. Gamblers posted themselves with their implements among the speculators, who gambled harder than the gamblers, and took an occasional turn at roulette by way of slackening the excitement; as people go to sleep, or go into the country. A hunchback fellow made a good deal of money by letting people write on his back. When Law had moved into the Hotel de Soissons, the former owner, the Prince de Carignan, reserved the gardens, procured an edict confining all stock-dealings to that place; put up five hundred tents there, leased them at five hundred livres a month each,and thus made money at the rate of $50,000 a month. There were just two of the aristocracy who were sensible and resolute enough not to speculate in thestock—the Duke de St. Simon and the old Marshal Villars.
Law became infinitely the most important person in the kingdom. Great and small, male and female, high and low, haunted his offices and ante-chambers, hunted him down, plagued his very life out, to get a moment’s speech with him, and get him to enter their names as buyers of stock. The highest nobles would wait half a day for the chance. His servants received great sums to announce some visitor’s name. Ladies of the highest rank gave him anything he would ask of them for leave to buy stock. One of them made her coachmen upset her out of her carriage as Law came by, to get a word with him. He helped her up; she got the word, and bought some stock. Another lady ran into the house where he was at dinner, and raised a cry of fire. The rest ran out, but she ran further in to reach Law, who saw what she was at, and like a pecuniary Joseph, ran away as fast as he could.
As the frenzy rose toward its height, and the Regent took advantage of it to issue stock enough to pay the whole national debt, namely, three hundred thousand new shares, at $1,000 each, or a thousand per cent. in the par value. They were instantly taken. Three times as many would have been instantly taken. So violent were the changes of the market, that shares rose or fell twenty per cent. within a few hours. A servant was sent to sell two hundred and fifty shares of stock; found on reaching the gardens of the Hotel de Soissons,that since he left his master’s house the price had risen from $1,600 (par value $100 remember) to $2,000. The servant sold, gave his master the proceeds at $1,600 a share, put the remaining $100,000 in his own pocket, and left France that evening. Law’s coachman became so rich that he left service, and set up his own coach; and when his master asked him to find a successor, he brought two candidates, and told Law to choose, and he would take the other himself. There were many absurd cases of vulgarians made rich. There were also many robberies and murders. That committed by the Count de Horn, one of the higher nobility and two accomplices, is a famous case. The Count, a dissipated rascal, poniarded a broker in a tavern for the money the broker carried with him. But he was taken, and, in spite of the utmost and most determined exertions of the nobility, the Regent had him broken on the wheel in public, like any other murderer.
The stock of the Company of the Indies, though it dashed up and down ten and twenty per cent. from day to day, was from the first immensely inflated. In August 1719, it sold at 610 per cent.; in a few weeks more it arose to 1,200 per cent.All winter it still went up until, in April 1720, it stood at 2,050 per cent. That is, one one-hundred dollar share would sell for two thousand and fifty dollars.
At this extreme point of inflation, the bubble stood a little, shining splendidly as bubbles do when they are nearest bursting, and then it received two or three quiet pricks. The Prince de Conti, enraged because Lawwould not send him some shares on his own terms, sent three wagon-loads of bills to Law’s bank, demanding specie. Law paid it, and complained to the Regent, who made him put two-thirds of it back again. A shrewd stock-gambler drew specie by small sums until he had about $200,000 in coin, and lest he should be forced to return it, he packed it in a cart, covered it with manure, put on a peasant’s disguise, and carted his fortune over the frontiers into Belgium. Some others quietly realized their means in like manner by driblets and funded them abroad.
By such means coin gradually grew very scarce, and signs of a panic appeared. The Regent tried to adjust matters by a decree that coin should be five per cent. less than paper; as much as to say, It is hereby enacted that there is a great deal more cointhan there is! This did not serve, and the Regent decreed again, that coin should be worth ten per cent. less than paper. Then he decreed that the bank must not pay more than $22 at once in specie; and, finally, by a bold stretch of his authority, he issued an edict that no person should have over $100 in coin, on pain of fine and confiscation. These odious laws made a great deal of trouble, spying, and distress, and rapidly aggravated the difficulty they were meant to cure. The price of shares in the great company began to fall steadily and rapidly. Law and the Regent began to be universally hated, cursed, and threatened. Various foolish and vain attempts were made to stay the coming ruin, by renewing the stories about Louisiana sending out a lot of conscripted laborers, ordering that all payments must be made in paper,and printing a new batch of notes, to the amount of another $300,000,000. Law’s two corporations were also doctored in several ways. The distress and fright grew worse. An edict was issued that Law’s notes and shares should depreciate gradually by law for a year, and then be worth but half their face. This made such a tumult and outcry that the Regent had to retract it in seven days. On this seventh day, Law’s bank stopped paying specie. Law was turned out of his public employments, but still well treated by the Regent in private. He was, however, mobbed and stoned in his coach in the street, had to have a company of Swiss Guards in his house, and at last had to flee to the Regent’s own palace.
I have not space to describe in detail the ruin, misery, tumults, loss and confusion which attended the speedy descent of Law’s paper and shares to entire worthlessness. Thousands of families were made paupers, and trade and commerce destroyed by the painful process. Law himself escaped out of France poor; and, after another obscure and disreputable career of gambling, died in poverty at Venice, in 1729.
Thus this enormous business-humbug first raised a whole nation into a fool’s paradise of imaginary wealth, and then exploded, leaving its projector and many thousands of victims ruined, the country disturbed and distressed, long-enduring consequences, in vicious and lawless and unsteady habits, contracted while the delusion lasted, and no single benefit except one more most dearly-bought lesson of the wicked folly of mere speculation without a real business basis and a real businessmethod. Let not this lesson be lost on the rampant and half-crazed speculators of the present day. Those who buy gold or flour, leather, butter, dry goods, groceries, hardware, or anything else on speculation, when prices are inflated far beyond the ordinary standard, are taking upon themselves great risks, for the bubble must eventually be pricked; and whoever is the “holder” when that time comes, must necessarily be the loser.
DOCTORS AND IMAGINATION.—FIRING A JOKE OUT OF A CANNON.—THE PARIS EYE WATER.—MAJENDIE ON MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE.—OLD SANDS OF LIFE.
Medical humbugs constitute a very critical subject indeed, because I shall be almost certain to offend some of three parties concerned, namely; physicians, quacks, and patients. But it will never do to neglect so important a division of my whole theme as this.
To begin with, it is necessary to suggest, in the most delicate manner in the world, that there is a small infusion of humbug among the very best of the regular practitioners. These gentlemen, for whose learning, kind-heartedness, self-devotion, and skill I entertain a profound respect, make use of what I may call the gaseous element of their practice, not for the lucre of gain, but in order to enlist the imaginations of their patients in aid of nature and great remedies.
The stories are infinite in number, which illustrate the force of imagination, ranging through all the grades of mental action, from the lofty visions of good men who dream of seeing heaven opened to them, and all its ineffable glories and delights, down to the low comedy conceit of the fellow who put a smoked herring into the tail of his coat and imagined himself a mermaid.
Probably, however, imagination displays its real power more wonderfully in the operations of the mind on the body that holds it, than anywhere else. It is true that there are some people even so utterly without imagination that they cannot take a joke; such as that grave man of Scotland who was at last plainly told by a funny friend quite out of patience, “Why, you wouldn’t take a joke if it were fired at you out of a cannon!”
“Sir,” replied the Scot, with sound reasoning and grave thought, “Sir, you are absurd. You cannot fire a joke out of a cannon!”
But to return: It is certainly the case that frequently “the doctor” takes great care not to let the patient know what is the matter, and even not to let him know what he is swallowing. This is because a good many people, if at a critical point of disease, may be made to turn toward health if made to believe that they are doing so, but would be frightened, in the literal sense of the words, to death, if told what a dangerous state they are in.
One sort of regular practice humbug is rendered necessary by the demands of the patients. This is giving good big doses of something with a horrid smell and taste. There are plenty of people who don’t believe the doctor does anything to earn his money, if he does not pour down some dirty brown or black stuff very nasty in flavor. Some, still more exacting, wish for that sort of testimony which depends on internal convulsions, and will not be satisfied unless they suffer torments and expel stuff enough to quiet the inside of Mount Vesuvius orPopocatepetl.
“He’s a good doctor,” was the verdict of one of this class of leather-boweled fellows—“he’ll work your innards for you!”
It is a milder form of this same method to give what the learned faculty term a placebo. This is a thing in the outward form of medicine, but quite harmless in itself. Such is a bread-pill, for instance; or a draught of colored water, with a little disagreeable taste in it. These will often keep the patient’s imagination headed in the right direction, while good old Dame Nature is quietly mending up the damages in “the soul’s dark cottage.”
One might almost fancy that, in proportion as the physician is more skillful, by so much he gives less medicine, and relies more on imagination, nature, and, above all, regimen and nursing. Here is a story in point. There was an old gentleman in Paris, who sold a famous eye-water, and made much gain thereby. He died, however, one fine day, and unfortunately forgot to leave the recipe on record. “His disconsolate widow continued the business at the old stand,” however—to quote another characteristic French anecdote—and being a woman of ready and decisive mind, she very quietly filled the vials with water from the river Seine, and lived respectably on the proceeds, finding, to her great relief, that the eye-water was just as good as ever. At last however, she found herself about to die, and under the stings of an accusing conscience she confessed her trick to her physician, an eminent member of the profession. “Be entirely easy, Madam,” said the wise man; “don’t be troubled at all. You are the most innocent physician in the world; you have done nobody any harm.”
It is an old and illiberal joke to compare medicine to war, on the ground that the votaries of both seek to destroy life. It is, however, not far from the truth to say that they are alike in this; that they are both preëminently liable to mistakes, and that in both he is most successful who makes the fewest.
How can it be otherwise, until we know more than we do at present, of the great mysteries of life and death? It seems risky enough to permit the wisest and most experienced physician to touch those springs of life which God only understands. And it is enough to make the most stupid stare, to see how people will let the most disgusting quack jangle their very heartstrings with his poisonous messes, about as soon as if he were the best doctor in the world. A true physician, indeed, does not hasten to drug. The great French surgeon, Majendie, is even said to have commenced his official course of lectures on one occasion by coolly saying to his students: “Gentlemen, the curing of disease is a subject that physicians know nothing about.” This was doubtless an extreme way of putting the case. Yet it was in a certain sense exactly true. There is one of the geysers in Iceland, into which visitors throw pebbles or turfs, with the invariable result of causing the disgusted geyser in a few minutes to vomit the dose out again, along with a great quantity of hot water, steam, and stuff. Now the doctor does know that some of his doses are pretty sure to work, as the traveler knows that his dose will work on the geyser. It is only the exact how and why that is not understood.
But however mysterious is nature, however ignorant the doctor, however imperfect the present state of physical science, the patronage and the success of quacks and quackeries are infinitely more wonderful than those of honest and laborious men of science and their careful experiments.
I have come about to the end of my tether for this time; and quackery is something too monstrous in dimensions as well as character to be dealt with in a paragraph. But I may with propriety put one quack at the tail of this letter; it is but just that he should let decent people go before him. I mean “Old Sands of Life.” Everybody has seen his advertisement, beginning “A retired Physician whose sands of life have nearly run out,” etc. And everybody—almost—knows how kind the fellow is in sending gratis his recipe. All that is necessary is (as you find out when you get the recipe) to buy at a high price from him one ingredient which (he says) you can get nowhere else. This swindling scamp is in fact a smart brisk fellow of about thirty-five years of age, notwithstanding the length of time during which—to use a funny phrase which somebody got up for him—he has been “afflicted with a loose tail-board to his mortal sand-cart.” Some benevolent friend was so much distressed about the feebleness of “Old Sands of Life” as to send him one day a large parcel by express, marked “C. O. D.,” and costing quite a figure. “Old Sands” paid, and opening the parcel, found half a bushel of excellent sand.
THE CONSUMPTIVE REMEDY.—E. ANDREWS, M. D.—BORN WITHOUT BIRTHRIGHTS.—HASHEESH CANDY.—ROBACK THE GREAT.—A CONJURER OPPOSED TO LYING.
There is a fellow in Williamsburg who calls himself a clergyman, and sells a “consumptive remedy,” by which I suppose he means a remedy for consumption. It is a mere slop corked in a vial; but there are a good many people who are silly enough to buy it of him. A certain gentleman, during last November, earnestly sought an interview with this reverend brother in the interests of humanity, but he was as inaccessible as a chipmunk in a stone fence. The gentleman wrote a polite note to the knave asking about prices, and received a printed circular in return, stating in an affecting manner the good man’s grief at having to raise his price in consequence of the cost of gold “with which I am obliged to buy my medicines” saith he, “in Paris.” This was both sad and unsatisfactory; and the gentleman went over toWilliamsburg to seek an interview and find out all about the prices. He reached the abode of the man of piety, but, strange to relate, he wasn’t at home.
Gentleman waited.
Reverend brother kept on not being at home. When gentleman had waited to his entire satisfaction he came back.
It is understood it is practically out of the question to see the reverend brother. Perhaps he is so modest and shy that he will not encounter the clamorous gratitude which would obstruct his progress through the streets, from the millions saved by his consumptive remedy. It is a pity that the reverend man cannot enjoy the still more complete seclusion by which the state of New York testifies its appreciation of unobtrusive and retiring virtues like his, in the salubrious and quiet town of Sing Sing.
A quack in an inland city, who calls himself E. Andrews, M. D., prints a “semi-occasional” document in the form of a periodical, of which a copy is lying before me. It is an awful hodgepodge of perfect nonsense and vulgar rascality. He calls it “The Good Samaritan and Domestic Physician,” and this number is called “volume twenty.” Only think what a great man we have among us—unless the Doctor himself is mistaken. He says: “I will here state that I have been favored by nature and Providence in gaining access to stores of information that hasfellto the lot of but very few persons heretofore, during the past history of mankind.” Evidently these “stores” were so vast that the great doctor’s brain was stuffed too full to have room left for English Grammar. Shortly, the Doctor thus bursts forth again with some views having their own merits, but not such as concern the healing art very directly: “The automaton powers of machinery”—there’s a new style of machinery, you observe—“must be made toWORK FOR,insteadofas now, against mankind; the Land ofall nationsmust be madeFREEto Actual Settlers inLIMITEDquantities. No one must be born withouthis birthrightbeing born with him.” The italics, etc., are the Doctor’s. What an awful thought is this of being born without any birthright, or, as the Doctor leaves us to suppose possible, having one’s birthright born first, and dodging about the world like a stray canary-bird, while the unhappy and belated owner tries in vain to put salt on its tail and catch it!
Well, this wiseacre, after his portentous introduction, fills the rest of his sixteen loosely printed double-columned octavo pages with a farrago of the most indescribable character, made up of brags, lies, promises, forged recommendations and letters, boasts of systematic charity, funny scraps of stuff in the form of little disquisitions, advertisements of remedies, hair-oils, cosmetics, liquors, groceries, thistle-killers, anti-bug mixtures, recipes for soap, ink, honey, and the Old Harry only knows what. The fellow gives a list of seventy-one specific diseases for which his Hasheesh Candy is a sure cure, and he adds that it is also a sure cure for all diseases of the liver, brain, throat, stomach, ear, and other internal disorders; also for “all long standing diseases”—whatever that means!—and for insanity! In this monstrous list are jumbled together the most incongruous troubles. “Bleeding at the nose, and abortions;” “worms, fits, poisons and cramps.” And the impudent liar quotes General Grant, General Mitchell, the Rebel General Lee, General McClellan, and Doctor Mott of this city, all shouting in chorus the praises of the Hasheesh Candy! Next comes the “Secret of Beauty,” a “preparation of Turkish Roses;” then alot of forged references, and an assertion that the Doctor gives to the poor five thousand pounds of bread every winter; then some fearful denunciations of the regular doctors.
But—as the auctioneers say—“I can’t dwell.” I will only add that the real villainy of this fellow only appears here and there, where he advertises the means of ruining innocence, or of indulging with impunity in the foulest vices. He will sell for $3.30, the “Mystic Weird Ring.” In a chapter of infamous blatherumskite about this ring he says: “The wearer can drive from, or draw to him, any one, and for any purpose whatever.” I need not explain what this scoundrel means. He also will sell the professed means of robbery and swindling; saying that he is prepared to show how to remove papers, wills, titles, notes, etc., from one place to another “by invisible means.” It is a wonder that the Bank of Commerce can keep any securities in its vaults—of course!
But enough of this degraded panderer to crime and folly. He is beneath notice, so far as he himself concerned; I devote the space to him, because it is well worth while to understand how base an imposture can draw a steady revenue from a nation boasting so much culture and intelligence as ours. It is also worth considering whether the authorities must not be remiss, who permit such odious deceptions to be constantly perpetrated upon the public.
I ought here to give a paragraph to the great C. W. Roback, one of whose Astrological Almanacs is before me. This erudite production is embellished in frontwith a picture of the doctor and his six brothers—for he is the seventh son of a seventh son. The six elder brethren—nice enough boys—stand submissively around their gigantic and bearded junior, reaching only to his waist, and gazing up at him with reverence, as the sheaves of Joseph’s brethren worshipped his sheaf in his dream. At the end is a picture of Magnus Roback, the grandfather of C. W., a bull-headed, ugly old Dutchman, with a globe and compasses. This picture, by the way, is in fact a cheap likeness of the old discoverers or geographers. Within the book we find Gustavus Roback, the father of C. W., for whom is used a cut of Jupiter—or some other heathen god—half-naked, a-straddle of an eagle, with a hook in one hand and a quadrant in the other; which is very much like the picture by one of the “Old Masters” of Abraham about to offer up Isaac, and taking a long aim at the poor boy with a flint-lock horse-pistol. Doctor Roback is good enough to tell us where his brothers are: “One, a high officer in the Empire of China, another a Catholic Bishop in the city of Rome,” and so on. There is also a cut of his sister, whom he cured of consumption. She is represented “talking to her bird, after the fashion of her country, when a maiden is unexpectedly rescued from the jaws of death!”
Roback cures all sorts of diseases, discovers stolen property, insures children a marriage, and so on, all by means of “conjurations.” He also casts nativities and foretells future events; and he shows in full how Bernadotte, Louis Philippe, and Napoleon Bonaparte either did well or would have done well by following his advice. The chief peculiarity of this impostor is, that he really avoids direct pandering to vice and crime, and even makes it a specialty to cure drunkenness and—of all things in the world—lying! On this point Roback gives in full the certificate of Mrs. Abigail Morgan, whose daughter Amanda “was sorely given to fibbing, in so much that she would rather lie than speak the truth.” And the delighted mother certifies that our friend and wizard “so changed the nature of the girl that, to the best of our knowledge and belief, she has never spoken anything but the truth since.”
There is a conjurer “as is a conjurer.”
What an uproar the incantation of the great Roback would make, if set fairly to work among the politicians, for instance! But after all, on second thoughts, what a horrible mass of abominations would they lay bare in telling the truth about each other all round! No, no—it won’t do to have the truth coming out, in politics at any rate! Away with Roback! I will not give him another word—not a single chance—not even to explain his great power over what he calls “Fits! Fits! Fits! Fits! Fits!”
MONSIGNORE CRISTOFORO RISCHIO; OR, IL CRESO, THE NOSTRUM-VENDER OFFLORENCE.—A MODEL FOR OUR QUACK DOCTORS.
Every visitor to Florence during the last twenty years must have noticed on the grand piazza before theDucal Palace, the strange genius known as Monsignore Créso, or, in plain English, Mr. Crœsus. He is so called because of his reputed great wealth; but his real name is Christoforo Rischio, which I may again translate, as Christopher Risk. Mrs. Browning refers to him in one of her poems—the “Casa Guidi Windows,” I think—and he has also been the staple of a tale by one of the Trollope brothers.
Twice every week, he comes into the city in a strange vehicle, drawn by two fine Lombardy ponies, and unharnesses them in the very centre of the square. His assistant, a capital vocalist, begins to sing immediately, and a crowd soon collects around the wagon. Then Monsignore takes from the box beneath his seat a splendidly jointed human skeleton, which he suspends from a tall rod and hook, and also a number of human skulls. The latter are carefully arranged on an adjustable shelf, and Créso takes his place behind them, while in his rear a perfect chemist’s shop of flasks, bottles, and pillboxes is disclosed. Very soon his singer ceases, and in the purest Tuscan dialect—the very utterance of which is music—the Florentine quack-doctor proceeds to address the assemblage. Not being conversant with the Italian, I am only able to give the substance of his harangue, and pronounce indifferently upon the merit of his elocution. I am assured, however, that not only the common people, who are his chief patrons, but numbers of the most intelligent citizens, are always entertained by what he has to say; and certainly his gestures and style of expressions seem to betray great excellence of oratory. Having turnedthe skeleton round and round on its pivot, and minutely explained the various anatomical parts, in order to show his proficiency in the basis of medical science, he next lifts the skulls, one by one, and descants upon their relative perfection, throwing in a shrewd anecdote now and then, as to the life of the original owner of each cranium.
One skull, for example, he asserts to have belonged to a lunatic, who wandered for half a lifetime in the Val d’Ema, subsisting precariously upon entirely vegetable food—roots, herbs, and the like; another is the superior part of a convict, hung in Arezzo for numerous offences; a third is that of a very old man who lived a celibate from his youth up, and by his abstinence and goodness exercised an almost priestly influence upon the borghesa. When, by this miscellaneous lecture, he has both amused and edified his hearers, he ingeniously turns the discourse upon his own life, and finally introduces the subject of the marvellous cures he has effected. The story of his medical preparations alone, their components and method of distillation, is a fine piece of popularized art, and he gives a practical exemplification of his skill and their virtues by calling from the crowd successively, a number of invalid people, whom he examines and prescribes for on the spot. Whether these subjects are provided by himself or not, I am unable to decide; but it is very possible that by long experience, Christoforo—who has no regular diploma—has mastered the simpler elements of Materia Medica, and does in reality effect cures. I class him among what are popularly known as humbugs, however, for he is a pretender tomore wisdom than he possesses. It was to me a strange and suggestive scene—the bald, beak-nosed, coal-eyed charlatan, standing in the market-place, so celebrated in history, peering through his gold spectacles at the upturned faces below him, while the bony skeleton at his side swayed in the wind, and the grinning skulls below, made grotesque faces, as if laughing at thegullibility of the people. Behind him loomed up the massive Palazzo Vecchio, with its high tower, sharply cut, and set with deep machicolations; to the left, the splendid Loggia of Orgagna, filled with rare marbles, and the long picture-gallery of the Uffizi, heaped with the rarest art-treasures of the world; to his right, the Giant Fountain of Ammanato, throwing jets of pure water—one drop of which outvalues all the nostrums in the world; and in front, the Post Office, built centuries before, by Pisan captives. If any of these things moved the imperturbable Créso, he showed no feeling of the sort; but for three long hours, two days in the week, held his hideous clinic in the open daylight.
Seeing the man so often, and interested always in his manner—as much so, indeed, as the peasants or contadini, who bought his vials and pillboxes without stint—I became interested to know the main features of his life; and, by the aid of a friend, got some clues which I think reliable enough to publish. I do so the more willingly, because his career is illustrative, after an odd fashion, of contemporary Italian life.
He was the son of a small farmer, not far from Sienna, and grew up in daily contact with vine-dressers and olive-gatherers, living upon the hard Tuscan fare ofmacaroni and maroon-nuts, with a cutlet of lean mutton once a day, and a pint of sour Tuscan wine. Being tolerably well educated for a peasant-boy, he imbibed a desire for the profession of an actor, and studied Alfieri closely.
Some little notoriety that he gained by recitations led him, in an evil hour, to venture an appearanceen grand role, in Florence, at a third-rate theatre. His father had meanwhile deceased and left him the property; but to make the début referred to, he soldalmost his entire inheritance. As may be supposed, his failure was signal. However easy he had found it to amuse the rough, untutored peasantry of his neighborhood, the test of a large and polished city was beyond his merit.
So, poor and abashed, he sank to the lower walks of dramatic art, singing in choruses at the opera, playing minor parts in show-pieces, and all the while feeling the sting of disappointed ambition and half-deserved penury.
One day found him, at the beginning of winter, without work, and without a soldo in his pocket. Passing a druggist’s shop, he saw a placard asking for men to sell a certain new preparation. The druggist advanced him a small sum for travelling expenses, and he took to peripatetic lectures at once, going into the country and haranguing at all the villages.
Here he found his dramatic education available. Though not good enough for an actor, he was sufficiently clever for a nomadic eulogizer of a patent-medicine. His vocal abilities were also of service to him in gathering the people together. The great secret of success in anything is to get a hearing. Half the object is gained when the audience is assembled.
Well! poor, vagabond, peddling Christopher Risk, selling so much for another party, conceived the idea of becoming his own capitalist. He resolved to prepare a medicine of his own; and, profiting by the assistance of a young medical student, obtained bona fide prescriptions for the commonest maladies. These he had made up in gross, originated labels for them, and concealing the real essences thereof by certain harmless adulterations, began to advertise himself as the discoverer of a panacea.
To gain no ill-will among the priests, whose influence is paramount with the peasantry, he dexterously threw in a reverent word for them in his nomadic harangues, and now and then made a sounding present to the Church.
He profited also by the superstitions abroad, and to the skill of Hippocrates added the roguery of Simon Magus. By report, he was both a magician and physician, and a knack that he had of slight-of-hand was not the least influential of his virtues.
His bodily prowess was as great as his suppleness. One day, at Fiesole, a foreign doctor presumed to challenge Monsignore to a debate, and the offer was accepted. While the two stood together in Cristoforo’s wagon, and the intruder was haranguing the people, the quack, without a movement of his face or a twitch of his body, jerked his foot against his rival’s leg and threw him to the ground. He had the effrontery toproclaim the feat as magnetic entirely, accomplished without bodily means, and by virtue of his black-art acquirements.
An awe fell upon the listeners, and they refused to hear the checkmated disputant further.
As soon as Cristoforo began to thrive, he indulged his dramatic taste by purchasing a superb wagon, team, and equipments, and hired a servant. Such a turnout had never been seen in Tuscany since the Medician days. It gained for him the name of Créso straightway, and, enabling him to travel more rapidly, enlarged his business sphere, and so vastly increased his profits.
He arranged regular days and hours for each place in Tuscany, and soon became as widely known as the Grand Duke himself. When it was known that he had bought an old castle at Pontassieve on the banks of the Arno, his reputation still further increased. He was now so prosperous that he set the faculty at defiance. He proclaimed that they were jealous of his profounder learning, and threatened to expose the banefulness of their systems.
At the same time, his talk to the common people began to savor of patronage, and this also enhanced his reputation. It is much better, as a rule, to call attention up to you rather than charity down to you. The shrewd impostor became also more absolute now. It was known that the Grand Duke had once asked him to dine, and that Monsignore had the hardihood to refuse. Indeed, he sympathized too greatly with the aroused Italian spirit of unity and progress to compromise himself with the house of Austria. When at lastthe revolution came, Cristoforo was one of its best champions in Tuscany. His cantante sang only the march of Garibaldi and the victories of Savoy. His own speeches teemed with the gospel of Italy regenerated; and for a whole month he wasted no time in the sale of his bottighias and pillolas, but threw all his vehement, persuasive, and dramatic eloquence into the popular cause.
The end we know. Tuscany is a dukedom no longer, but a component part of a great peninsular kingdom with “Florence the Beautiful” for its capital.
And still before the ducal palace, where the deputies of Italy are to assemble, poor, vain Cristoforo Rischio makes his harangue every Tuesday and Saturday. He is now—or was four years ago—upward of sixty years of age, but spirited and athletic as ever, and so rich that it would be superfluous for him to continue his peripatetic career.
His life is to me noteworthy, as showing what may be gained by concentrating even humble energies upon a paltry thing. Had Créso persevered as well upon the stage, I do not doubt that he would have made a splendid actor. If he did so well with a mere nostrum, why should he not have gained riches and a less grotesque fame by the sale of a better article? He understood human nature, its credulities and incredulities, its superstitions, tastes, changefulness, and love of display and excitement. He has done no harm, and given as much amusement as he has been paid for. Indeed, I consider him more an ornamental and useful character than otherwise. He has brightened many a traveler’s recollections, relieved the tedium of many a weary hour in a foreign city, and, with all his deception, has never severed himself from the popular faith, nor sold out the popular cause. I dare say his death, when it occurs, will cause more sensation and evoke more tears, than that of any better physician in Tuscany.
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH STREET GHOST.—SPIRITS ON THE RAMPAGE.
In classing the ghost excitement that agitated our good people to such an extent some two years ago among the “humbugs” of the age, I must, at the outset, remind my readers that there was no little accumulation of what is termed “respectable” testimony, as to the reality of his ghostship in Twenty-seventh street.
One fine Sunday morning, in the early part of 1863, my friends of the “Sunday Mercury” astonished their many thousands of patrons with an account that had been brought to them of a fearful spectre that had made its appearance in one of the best houses in Twenty-seventh Street. The narrative was detailed with circumstantial accuracy, and yet with an apparent discreet reserve, that gave the finishing touch of delightful mystery to the story.
The circumstances, as set forth in the opening letter (for many others followed) were briefly these:—A highly respectable family residing on Twenty-seventh Street, one of our handsome up-town thoroughfares, became aware, toward the close of the year 1862, that something extraordinary was taking place in their house, then one of the best in the neighborhood. Sundry mutterings andwhisperings began to be heard among the servants employed about thedomicile, and, after a little while it became almost impossible to induce them to remain there for love or money. The visitors of the family soon began to notice that their calls, which formerly were so welcome, particularly among the young people of the establishment, seemed to give embarrassment, and that the smiles that greeted them, as early as seven in the evening gradually gave place to uneasy gestures, and, finally to positive hints at the lateness of the hour, or the fatigue of their host by nine o’clock.
The head of the family was a plain, matter-of-fact old gentleman, by no means likely to give way to any superstitious terrors—one of your hard-headed business men who pooh-poohed demons, hobgoblins, and all other kinds of spirits, except the purest Santa Cruz and genuine old Otard; and he fell into a great rage, when upon his repeated gruff demands for an explanation, he was delicately informed that his parlor was “haunted.” He vowed that somebody wanted to drive him from the house; that there was a conspiracy afoot among the women to get him still higher up town, and into a bigger brown-stone front, and refused to believe one word of the ghost-story. At length, one day, while sitting in his “growlery,” as the ladies called it, in the lower story, his attention was aroused by a clatter on the stairs, and looking out into the entry he saw a party of carpenters and painters who had been employed upon the parlor-floor, beating a precipitate retreat toward the front door.
“Stop!—stop! you infernal fools! What’s all this hullabaloo about?” shouted the old gentleman.
No reply—no halt upon the part of the mechanics, but away they went down the steps and along the street, as though Satan himself, or Moseby the guerrilla, was at their heels. They were pursued and ordered back, but absolutely refused to come, swearing that they had seen the Evil One, inpropria persona; and threats, persuasions, and bribes alike proved vain to induce them to return. This made the matter look serious, and a family-council was held forthwith. It wouldn’t do to let matters go on in this way, and something must be thought of as a remedy. It was in this half-solemn and half-tragic conclave that the pater-familias was at last put in possession of the mysterious occurrences that had been disturbing the peace of his domestic hearth.
A ghost had been repeatedly seen in his best drawing-room!—a genuine, undeniable, unmitigated ghost!
The spectre was described by the female members of the family as making his appearance at all hours, chiefly, however in the evening, of course. Now the good old orthodox idea of a ghost is, of a very long, cadaverous, ghastly personage, of either sex, appearing in white draperies, with uplifted finger, and attended or preceded by sepulchral sounds—whist! hush! and sometimes the rattling of casements and the jingling of chains. A bluish glare and a strong smell of brimstone seldom failed to enhance the horror of the scene. This ghost, however, came it seems, in more ordinary guise, but none the less terrible for his natural style of approach and costume. He was usually seen in the front parlor, which was on the second story and faced the street.There he would be found seated in a chair near the fire place, his attire the garb of a carman or “carter” and hence the name “Carter’s Ghost” afterward frequently applied to him. There he would sit entirely unmoved by the approach of living denizens of the house, who, at first, would suppose that he was some drunken or insane intruder, and only discover their mistake as they drew near, and saw the fire-light shining through him, and notice the glare of his frightful eyes, which threatened all comers in a most unearthly way. Such was the purport of the first sketch that appeared in the “Sunday Mercury,” stated so distinctly and impressively that the effect could not fail to be tremendous among our sensational public. To help the matter, another brief notice, to the same effect, appeared in the Sunday issue of a leading journal on the same morning. The news dealers and street-carriers caught up the novelty instanter, and before noon not a copy of the “Sunday Mercury” could be bought in any direction. The country issue of the “Sunday Mercury” had still a larger sale.
On Sunday morning, every sheet in town made some allusion to the Ghost, and many even went so far as to give the very (supposed) number of the house favored with his visitations. The result of this enterprising guess was ludicrous enough, bordering a little, too, upon the serious. Indignant house-holders rushed down to the “Sunday Mercury” office with the most amusing wrath, threatening and denouncing the astonished publishers with all sorts of legal action for their presumed trespass, when in reality, their paper had designated no place or person at all. But the grandest demonstrationof popular excitement was revealed in Twenty-seventh street itself. Before noon a considerable portion of the thoroughfare below Sixth Avenue was blocked up with a dense mass of people of all ages, sizes, sexes, and nationalities, who had come “to see the Ghost.” A liquor store or two, near by, drove a splendid “spiritual” business; and by evening “the fun” grew so “fast and furious” that a whole squad of police had to be employed to keep the side-walks and even the carriage-way clear. The “Ghost” was shouted for to make a speech, like any other new celebrity, and old ladies and gentlemen peering out of upper-story windows were saluted with playful tokens of regard, such as turnips, eggs of ancient date, and other things too numerous to mention, from the crowd. Nor was the throng composed entirely of Gothamites. The surrounding country sent in its contingent. They came on foot, on horseback, in wagons, and arrayed in all the costumes known about these parts, since the days of Rip Van Winkle. Cruikshanks would have made a fortune from his easy sketches of only a few figures in the scene. And thus the concourse continued for days together, arriving at early morn and staying there in the street until “dewy eve.”
As a matter of course, there were various explanations of the story propounded by various people—all wondrously wise in their own conceit. Some would have it that “the Ghost” was got up by some of the neighbors, who wished, in this manner, to drive away disreputable occupants; others insisted that it was the revenge of an ousted tenant, etc., etc. Everybody offered his own theory, and, as is usual, in such cases, nobody was exactly right.
Meanwhile, the “Sunday Mercury” continued its publications of the further progress of the “mystery,” from week to week, for a space of nearly two months, until the whole country seemed to have gone ghost-mad. Apparitions and goblins dire were seen in Washington, Rochester, Albany, Montreal, and other cities.
The spiritualists took it up and began to discuss “the Carter Ghost” with the utmost zeal. One startling individual—a physician and a philosopher—emerged from his professional shell into full-fledged glory, as the greatest canard of all, and published revelations of his own intermediate intercourse with the terrific “Carter.” In every nook and corner of the land, tremendous posters, in white and yellow, broke out upon the walls and windows of news-depots, with capitals a foot long, and exclamation-points like drumsticks, announcing fresh installments of the “Ghost” story, and it was a regular fight between go-ahead vendors who should get the next batch of horrors in advance of his rivals.
Nor was the effect abroad the least feature of this stupendous “sell.” The English, French, and German press translated some of the articles in epitome, and wrote grave commentaries thereon. The stage soon caught the blaze; and Professor Pepper, at the Royal Polytechnic Institute, in London, invented a most ingenious device for producing ghosts which should walk about upon the stage in such a perfectly-astounding manner as to throw poor Hamlet’s father and the evil genius of Brutus quite into the “shade.” “Pepper’s Ghost” soon crossed the Atlantic, and all our theatres were speedily alive with nocturnal apparitions. The only real ghosts, however—four in number—came out at the Museum, in an appropriate drama, which had an immense run—“all for twenty-five cents,” or only six and a quarter cents per ghost!
But I must not forget to say that, really, the details given in the “Sunday Mercury” were well calculated to lead captive a large class of minds prone to luxuriate in the marvelous when well mixed with plausible reasoning. The most circumstantial accounts were given of sundry “gifted young ladies,” “grave and learned professors,” “reliable gentlemen”—where are those not found?—“lonely watchers,” and others, who had sought interviews with the “ghost,” to their own great enlightenment, indeed, but, likewise, complete discomfiture. Pistols were fired at him, pianos played and songs sung for him, and, finally, his daguerreotype taken on prepared metallic plates set upright in the haunted room. One shrewd artist brought out an “exact photographic likeness” of the distinguished stranger on cartes de visite, and made immense sales. The apparitions, too, multiplied. An old man, a woman, and a child made their appearance in the house of wonders, and, at last, a gory head with distended eyeballs, swimming in a sea of blood, upon a platter—like that of Holofernes—capped the climax.
Certain wiseacres here began to see political allusions in the Ghost, and many actually took the whole affair to be a cunningly devised political satire upon this or that party, according as their sympathies swayed them.
It would have been a remarkable portion of “this strange, eventful history,” of course, if “Barnum” could have escaped the accusation of being its progenitor.
I was continually beset, and frequently, when more than usually busy, thoroughly annoyed by the innuendoes of my visitors, that I was the father of “the Ghost.”
“Come, now, Mr. Barnum—this is going a little too far!” some good old dame or grandfather would say to me. “You oughtn’t to scare people in this way. These ghosts are ugly customers!”
“My dear Sir,” or “Madam,” I would say, as the case might be, “I do assure you I know nothing whatever about the Ghost”—and as for “spirits,” you know I never touch them, and have been preaching against them nearly all my life.”
“Well! well! you will have the last turn,” they’d retort, as they edged away; “but you needn’t tell us. We guess we’ve found the ghost.”
Now, all I can add about this strange hallucination is, that those who came to me to see the original “Carter,” really saw the “Elephant.”
The wonderful apparition disappeared, at length, as suddenly as he had come. The “Bull’s-Eye Brigade,” as the squad of police put on duty to watch the neighborhood, for various reasons, was termed, hung to their work, and flashed the light of their lanterns into the faces of lonely couples, for some time afterward; but quiet, at length, settled down over all: and it has been it seems, reserved for my pen to record briefly the history of “The Twenty-seventh street Ghost.”