Lights and Shadows of New York Life Part 51

Mr. Bonner is married, and has a family. He owns a country seat in Westchester county, to which he repairs in the summer. His city residence is on the south side of Fifty-sixth street, a few doors west of the Fifth avenue. It is a handsome brown stone mansion. In the rear of it, on Fifty-fifth street, is his stable, a large and tasteful edifice of brick. It is the most perfect establishment of its kind in the country.

Everything is at hand that is necessary for the comfort and care of the horses, and the men in charge of the place are thoroughly skilled in their business. Mr. Bonner owns seven of the finest horses in the world.

First on the list is "Dexter," the fastest horse "on the planet." He has made his mile in 2.17.25 in harness, and 2.18 under the saddle.

"Lantern," a splendid bay, 15.5 hands high, has made his mile in 2.20.

"Pocahontas" has made her mile in 2.23, and "Peerless," a fine gray mare, has followed close on to her in 2.23.25. The former is said to be the most perfectly formed horse in the world. "Lady Palmer" has made 2 miles, with a 350 pound wagon and driver, in 4.59, while her companion, "Flatbush Mare," has made a 2 mile heat to a road wagon in 5.01.25. The "Auburn Horse," a large sorrel, 16.5 hands high, with four white feet and a white face, was declared by Hiram Woodruff to be the fastest horse he ever drove. These horses cost their owner over two hundred thousand dollars, and he would not part with them for double that sum. He will not race them, though almost every inducement has been offered him to do so, as he is opposed to racing for money. He bought them for his own enjoyment, and drives them himself.

[Picture: ROBERT BONNER.]

Mr. Bonner is now very wealthy. He lives simply, however, and detests and shuns personal notoriety or ostentation. He has the reputation of being a warm-hearted, generous man, and has many friends. He is short, thick-set, and solidly made. His hair is sandy, his complexion florid, his forehead large and thoughtful, his eye bright and pleasant, and his manner frank, genial, and winning.

LXXI. PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

The Public Buildings of New York are not numerous. Some of them are handsome, and others are models of ugliness. We shall mention here only those which are not described elsewhere in this volume.

The most prominent is the City Hall, which is located in the City Hall Park. It faces the south, and the ground line is perpendicular to Broadway. It is a handsome edifice, and is surmounted by the best clock tower in the Union, above which is a marble image of Justice. The front and ends of the City Hall are constructed of white marble, but the rear face is of brown stone. The building was erected between the years 1803 and 1810, and the city fathers, sagely premising that New York would never extend above the Park, decided to save the difference between marble and brown stone at this side, "as this portion would face the country." The building contains the offices of the Mayor and city officials. Some of its rooms are very handsome, and are elegantly decorated.

The clock tower and the upper portions of the building were set on fire by the pyrotechnical display in honor of the Atlantic Telegraph of 1859.

They were rebuilt soon afterwards, in much better style.

"Previous to the completion of the new cupola, our city fathers contracted with Messrs. Sperry & Co., the celebrated tower-clock makers of Broadway, to build a clock for it, at a cost not exceeding four thousand dollars, that our citizens might place the utmost reliance upon, as a time-keeper of unvarying correctness. During the month of April the clock was completed, and the busy thousands who were daily wont to look up to the silent monitor, above which the figure of Justice was enthroned, hailed its appearance with the utmost satisfaction. It is undoubtedly the finest specimen of a tower-clock on this side of the Atlantic, and, as an accurate time-keeper, competent judges p.r.o.nounce it to be unsurpa.s.sed in the world. The main wheels are thirty inches in diameter, the escapement is jewelled, and the pendulum, which is in itself a curiosity, is over fourteen feet in length. It is a curious fact that the pendulum bob weighs over three hundred pounds; but so finely finished is every wheel, pinion, and pivot in the clock, and so little power is required to drive them, that a weight of only one hundred pounds is all that is necessary to keep this ponderous ma.s.s of metal vibrating, and turn four pairs of hands on the dials of the cupola. The clock does not stand, as many suppose, directly behind the dials, but in the story below, and a perpendicular iron rod, twenty-five feet in length, connects it with the dial-works above."

[Picture: THE CITY HALL.]

To the east of the City Hall, and within the limits of the Park, is the Hall of Records, a stone building, covered with stucco. It was erected in 1757, as a city prison. It is now occupied by the Registrar of the city and his clerks.

In the rear of the City Hall, and fronting on Chambers street, is the New County Court House, which, when completed, will be one of the finest edifices in the New World. It was begun more than eight years ago, and is constructed of "East Chester and Ma.s.sachusetts white marble, with iron beams and supports, iron staircases, outside iron doors, solid black-walnut doors (on the inside), and marble tiling on every hall-floor of the building, laid upon iron beams, concreted over, and bricked up.

With a basis of concrete, Georgia-pine, over yellow-pine, is used for the flooring of the apartments. The iron supports and beams are of immense strength--some of the girders crossing the rooms weighing over fifty thousand pounds. The pervading order of architecture is Corinthian, but, although excellent, the building cannot be said to be purely Corinthian.

An additional depth of, say, thirty feet, would have prevented a cramping of the windows on the sides, which now necessarily exists, and have added power and comprehension to the structure as an entirety; but the general effect is grand and striking in the extreme. The building is two hundred and fifty feet long, and one hundred and fifty feet wide. From the base-course to the top of the pediment the height is ninety-seven feet, and to the top of the dome, not yet erected, two hundred and twenty-five feet. From the sidewalk to the top of the pediment measures eighty-two feet; to the top of the dome two hundred and ten feet. When completed, the building will be surmounted by a large dome, giving a general resemblance to the main portion of the Capitol at Was.h.i.+ngton. The dome, viewed from the rear, appears something heavy and c.u.mbrous for the general character of the structure which it crowns; but a front view, from Chambers street, when the eye, in its upward sweep, takes in the broad flight of steps, the grand columns, and the general robustness of the main entrance, dissipates this idea, and attaches grace and integrity to the whole. One of the most novel features of the dome will be the arrangement of the tower, crowning its apex, into a light-house, which, from its extreme power and height, it is supposed, will furnish guidance to vessels as far out at sea as that afforded by any beacon on the neighboring coast. This is the suggestion of the architect, Mr. Kellum, but, whether or not it will be carried out in the execution of the design, Mr. Tucker, the superintendent of the work, is unable to say.

The interior of the edifice is equally elaborate and complete, and several of the apartments are now occupied by the County Clerk, the Supreme Court, and as other offices. The portico and stoop, now being completed, on Chambers street, will, it is said, be the finest piece of work of the kind in America."

It was this building which furnished the Ring with their favorite pretext for stealing the public money. The manner in which this was done has been described in another chapter.

The Bible House is a ma.s.sive structure of red brick, with brown stone tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and covers the block bounded by Third and Fourth avenues and Eighth and Ninth streets. It covers three-quarters of an acre, its four fronts measuring a total of 710 feet. It was completed in 1853, at a cost, including the ground, of $303,000, and is to-day worth nearly double that sum. It contains fifty stores and offices, which yield an aggregate annual rent of nearly $40,000. These rooms are occupied chiefly by benevolent and charitable societies, so that the Bible House has become the great centre from which radiate the princ.i.p.al labors of charity and benevolence in the City and State.

The Bible House is owned by, and forms the headquarters of the American Bible Society. The Bibles of this Society are printed here, every portion of their publication being carried on under this vast roof. The receipts of the Society since its organization in 1816 have amounted to nearly $6,000,000. Thousands of copies are annually printed and distributed from here. The entire Union has been canva.s.sed three times by the agents of the Society, and hundreds of thousands of dest.i.tute families have been furnished each with a copy of the Blessed Book. The Bible has been printed here in twenty-nine different languages, and parts of it have been issued in other languages.

About 625 persons find employment in this gigantic establishment. Of these about three hundred are girls, and twenty or thirty boys. The girls feed the presses, sew the books, apply gold-leaf to the covers ready for tooling, etc. About a dozen little girls are employed in the press-room in laying the sheets, of the best description of Bibles, between glazed boards, and so preparing them for being placed in the hydraulic presses. Every day there are six thousand Bibles printed in this establishment, and three hundred and fifty turned out of hand completely bound and finished.

[Picture: TAMMANY HALL.]

Tammany Hall, in East Fourteenth street, between Irving Place and Third avenue, is a handsome edifice of red brick, with white marble tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.

It contains several fine halls, and a number of committee rooms. The main hall is one of the handsomest in the city, and was formerly used as a theatre. It was in this hall that the National Democratic Convention of 1868 was held. The building is the property of the "Tammany Society."

This Society was organized in 1789 as a benevolent a.s.sociation, but subsequently became a political organization and the ruling power in the Democratic politics of the City and State.

[Picture: NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN.]

The Academy of Design is located at the northwest corner of Fourth avenue and Twenty-third street. It is one of the most beautiful edifices in the city. It is built in the pure Gothic style of the thirteenth century, and the external walls are composed of variegated marble. It has an air of lightness and elegance, that at once elicit the admiration of the gazer. The interior is finished with white pine, ash, mahogany, oak, and black walnut in their natural colors; no paint being used in the building. Schools of art, a library, reading room, lecture room, and the necessary rooms for the business of the inst.i.tution, occupy the first and second stories. The third floor is devoted to the gallery of paintings and the sculpture room. At certain seasons of the year exhibitions of paintings and statuary are held here. None but works of living artists are exhibited.

[Picture: STEINWAY AND SONS' PIANO FACTORY.]

One of the most imposing buildings in the city is the new Grand Central Depot, on Forty-second street and Fourth avenue. It is constructed of red brick, with iron tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs painted white, in imitation of marble.

The south front is adorned with three and the west front with two ma.s.sive pavilions. The central pavilion of each front contains an illuminated clock. The entire building is 696 feet long and 240 feet wide. The s.p.a.ce for the accommodation of the trains is 610 feet long and 200 feet wide. The remainder of the edifice is devoted to the offices of the various railways using it. Waiting-rooms, baggage-rooms, etc. The car-shed is covered with an immense circular roof of iron and gla.s.s. The remainder of the building is of brick and iron. The princ.i.p.al front is on Forty-second street. This portion is to be occupied by the offices and waiting-rooms of the New York and New Haven and the Sh.o.r.e Line railways. The southern portion of the west front is occupied by the offices and waiting-rooms of the New York, Harlem, and Albany Railway, and the remainder of this front by the offices and waiting-rooms of the Hudson River and New York Central railways. These roads are the only lines which enter the city, and they are here provided with a common terminus in the very heart of the metropolis. The waiting-rooms and offices are finished in hard wood, are handsomely frescoed, and are supplied with every convenience. The height of the roof of the main body of the depot is 100 feet from the ground; the apex of the central pavilion on Forty-second street is 160 feet from the ground.

The car-house const.i.tutes the main body of the depot. It is lighted from the roof by day, and at night large reflectors, lighted by an electrical apparatus, illuminate the vast interior. The platforms between the tracks are composed of stone blocks. Each road has a particular portion a.s.signed to it, and there is no confusion in any of the arrangements.

The roof is supported by thirty-one handsome iron trusses, each weighing forty tons, and extending in an unbroken arch over the entire enclosure.

The gla.s.s plates in the roof measure 80,000 feet. The interior of the car-house is painted in light colors, which harmonize well with the light which falls through the crystal roof.

About eighty trains enter and depart from this depot every day. The running of these is regulated by the depot-master, who occupies an elevated position at the north end of the car-house, from which he can see the track for several miles. A system of automatic signals governs the running of the trains through the city.

The building was projected by Commodore Vanderbilt. Ground was broken for it on the 15th of November, 1869, and it was ready for occupancy on the 9th of October, 1871.

LXXII. PATENT DIVORCES.

It may not be generally known in other parts of the country, but it is very well understood in the city, that New York is the headquarters of a powerful Ring of corrupt and unscrupulous lawyers, whose business is to violate the law of the land, and procure by fraud divorces which will not be granted by any court after a fair and full hearing of the case. It may be a.s.serted at the outset, that those who are fairly and justly ent.i.tled to such a separation, never seek it through the Divorce Ring.

In any issue of certain city newspapers, you will see such advertis.e.m.e.nts as the following:

ABSOLUTE DIVORCES LEGALLY OBTAINED, in New York, and States, where desertion, drunkenness, etc., etc., are sufficient cause. No publicity; no charge until divorce obtained; advice free. M--- B---, attorney, 56 --- street.

The all-sufficient cause with these lawyers is the desire for a separation on the part of the husband or wife, and they never trouble themselves with questions of law or morality. The law of New York allows a divorce with the right to marry again, upon one ground only--that of adultery.

"The lawyers of the Divorce Ring are the pariahs of their profession--men who have been debarred in other States (sometimes in other countries) for detected malpractice; men who began life fairly, but sank into ignominy through dissipation, political failure, or natural vicious tendencies; men, even, who never opened a law-book before entering upon their present avocation, but gleaned a practical knowledge of the legal alternative of 'wedded woe' by a course of training in the private detective's trade.

These latter worthies often hire the use of practising lawyers' names.

Occasionally they hire the said lawyers themselves to go through the mummeries of the courts for them; and we could name one of our most eloquent and respectable criminal pleaders who, on a certain occasion at least, permitted himself to be nominally a.s.sociated with one of the boldest operators of the Ring.

"The dens of the divorcers are situated chiefly on the thoroughfares most affected by lawyers of the highest caste, though even Broadway is not wholly exempt from them; and Wall street, Pine street, and especially Na.s.sau street, contain a goodly number each. Without any ostentatious display of signs or identifications, they are generally furnished in the common law-office style, with substantial desks and chairs, shelves of law-books, and usually a shady private apartment for consultations.

Sometimes the name upon the 'directory' of the building and name over the 'office' itself will be spelled differently, though conveying the same sound; as though the proprietor thereof might have occasional use for a confusion of personalities. Along the stairs and hallways leading to these dens, at almost any hour of the day, from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M., may be met women in flashy finery and men with hats drawn down over their eyes--all manifestly gravitating, with more or less shamefacedness, towards the places in question. They may be dissolute actresses, seeking a spurious appearance of law to end an old alliance and prepare for a new one. They may be the frivolous, extravagant, reckless wives of poor clerks or hard-working mechanics, infatuatedly following out the first consequences of a matinee at the theatre and a 'Personal' in the _Herald_. They may be the worthless husbands of unsuspecting, faithful wives, who, by sickness, or some other unwitting provocation, have turned the unstable husbandly mind to thoughts of connubial pastures new and the advertising divorcers. They may be the 'lovers' of married women, who come to engage fabricated testimony and surrept.i.tious unmarriage for the frail creatures whose virtue is still too cowardly to dare the more honest sin. They are not the wronged partners of marriage, who, by the mysterious chastising providence of outraged hearths and homes, are compelled, in bitterest agony of soul, to invoke justice of the law for the honor based upon right and religion.

"The manufacture of 'a case' by the contrabandists of divorce is often such a marvel of unscrupulous audacity, that its very lawlessness const.i.tutes in itself a kind of legal security. So wholly does it ignore all the conventionalities of mere legal evasion, as to virtually lapse into a barbarism, knowing neither law nor civilization. A young woman in flaunting jockey hat, extravagant 'chignon,' and gaudy dress, flirts into the den, and turns a bold, half-defiant face upon the rakish masculine figure at the princ.i.p.al desk. The figure looks up, a glance between the two tells the story, and the woman is invited to step into the consulting-room (if there be one), and give her husband's name and offence. A divorce will cost her say twenty-five, or fifty, or seventy-five dollars--in fact, whatever sum she can afford to pay for such a trifle. She can have it obtained for her in New York, or at the West, just as her husband's likelihood to pry into things, or her own taste in the matter, may render advisable. Not a word of the case can possibly get into the papers in either locality. She can charge 'intemperance,' or 'desertion,' or 'failure to support,' or whatever else she chooses; but, perhaps, it would be better to make it adultery, as that can be just as easily proved, and 'holds good in any State.' This point being decided, the young woman can go home, and there keep her luckless wretch of a husband properly in the dark until her 'decree' is ready for her. If the applicant is a man, the work is all the easier; for then even less art will be required to keep the unconscious 'party of the second part' in ignorance of the proceedings. The case is now quietly put on record in the proper court (if the 'suit' is to be 'tried'

in New York), and a 'summons' prepared for service upon the 'defendant.'

To serve this summons, any idle boy is called in from the street, and directed to take the paper to defendant's residence or place of business, and there serve it upon him. Away goes the boy, willing enough to earn fifty cents by this easy task, and is met upon the stoop of the residence, or before the door of the place of business, by a confederate of the divorce-lawyer, who sharply asks what he wants. 'I want to see Mr. ---,' says the boy. 'I am Mr. ---,' returns the confederate, who is thereupon served with the summons. Back hurries the boy to the law-office, signs an affidavit that he has served the paper upon defendant in person, is paid for the job, and goes about his business.

The time selected for the manoeuvre is, of course, adapted to what the 'plaintiff' has revealed of her husband's hours for home or for business; and, after the improvised server of the 'summons' has once sworn to his affidavit and disappeared, there is no such thing as ever finding him again! A 'copy of the complaint' is 'served' in the same way; or, the 'summons' is published once a week for a month in the smallest type of the smallest obscure weekly paper to be found. This latter device, however, is adopted only when the plaintiff (having some moral scruples about too much perjury at once) charges 'desertion,' and desires to appear quite ignorant of unnatural defendant's present place of abode.

If, for any particular reason, the party seeking a divorce prefers a Western decree, the 'lawyer,' or a clerk of his, starts at once for Indiana, or some quiet county of Illinois; and, after hiring a room in some tavern or farm-house in the name of his client (to establish the requisite fact of residence!), gives the case into the hands of a local attorney with whom he has a business partners.h.i.+p. This Western branch of the trade has reached such licence that, not long ago, a notorious pract.i.tioner of the Ring actually issued an advertis.e.m.e.nt in a paper of New York, to the effect that he had just returned to this city from the West with a fresh stock of blank divorces! The wording was not literally thus, but such was its obvious and only signification. Whether the 'trial' is to take place in New York or Indiana, however, there is but one system commonly adopted in offering proof of the truth of the complaint upon which a divorce is demanded. Plaintiff's villainous attorney, after waiting a due length of time for some response from the defendant in the case(!), asks of the Court, as privately as possible, the appointment of a referee.

"His Honor the Court, upon learning that 'defendant' does not oppose (of course not!), names a referee, who shall hear the testimony in the case, and submit a copy thereof, together with his decision thereon, to the Court for confirmation. Then, before the referee--who is to be properly feed for his officiation--go the divorce-lawyer and two or three shabby-genteel-looking 'witnesses,' who from thenceforth shall never be findable by mortal man again. The 'witnesses' swear to any thing and every thing--that they have seen and recognized defendant in highly improper houses with improper persons; that they know plaintiff to be pure, faithful, and shamefully misused in the marriage relation, etc., etc. As 'defendant,' not even aware that he or she _is_ a 'defendant,'

makes no appearance, either in person or by counsel, to combat this dreadful evidence, the referee must, of course, render decision for plaintiff--'the law awards it, and the Court doth give it.' The judge subsequently confirms this decision; a decree of full divorce is granted, _in due and full legal form_, to the triumphant plaintiff; and the 'defendant' is likely to become aware of the suit for the first time on that night."

The acts of the divorce Ring are no secrets in New York. Yet neither the judges nor the Bar a.s.sociation make any efforts to rid the courts of such wretches. "A citizen of New York, whose misguided wife had secretly obtained a fraudulent divorce from him through such practice as we have described, and who, in turn, had successfully sued in the legitimate way for the dissolution of marriage thus forced upon him, sought to induce his legal adviser, a veteran metropolitan lawyer of the highest standing, to expose the infamous divorce 'Ring' before the courts, and demand, in behalf of his profession, that its pract.i.tioners should be at least disbarred. The response was, that the courts were presumed to be entirely ignorant of the fraudulent parts of the proceedings referred to; that the offenders could be 'cornered' only through a specific case in point against them, and, besides, that the referees in their cases were nearly all connected, either consanguinely or in bonds of partners.h.i.+p interest, with the judges who had appointed them, and before whom the motion for disbarment would probably come! For this last curious reason no lawyer could, consistently with his own best interests, inaugurate a movement likely to involve the whole referee system in its retributive effects. A lawyer so doing might, when arguing future cases in court, find a certain apparent disposition of the Bench to show him less courtesy than on former occasions--to snub him, in fact, and thereby permanently prejudice his professional future likelihoods in that jurisdiction!"