CONTENTS

Volume I.—No. 6.]—— SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1858.—— [Price 2 Cents.

STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S
ALLIGATOR.

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For Boys and Girls, and Wives and Husbands, and Venerable Men to read and remember forever!

The corrupt antecedents of Judge Russell and Superintendent Tallmadge—Sad revelations—The founders of Straw Bail dissected to their marrow bones, by a man who was in collusion with them in their deeds of public villainy.

In 1841, I (Stephen H. Branch) went into the law office of Mr. Seely, in Fulton street, who, being absent, I awaited his return. He had an interesting boy to open his office and run errands. I asked him if he was a native of the city, and he said yes, and told me that his father and mother were dead, and that his grandmother had recently died, and that his only surviving relative was an aunt, who was an actress, and travelling over the country, and that she seldom visited the city, which made him feel very lonely and unhappy. I asked him if he would like to have me teach him gratuitously, and he said he would—that he was at school in Connecticut before his grandmother died, and was obliged to close his studies in consequence of her death—and that he would have travelled with his aunt, after his grandmother died, if she had not made him promise on her bed of death, that he would never become an actor. I saw genius in the youth, and strongly sympathised with his loneliness and misfortunes, and soon began to teach him during his leisure hours. His aunt was long absent, and sent him no money, and the lady with whom he boarded got uneasy, and I took him to board with me, at Mrs. Mitchell’s, in Broadway, with whom Otto Dressel, the Reverend Doctor George Potts’ music teacher, subsequently boarded in Bond, and at the corner of Houston and McDougal streets. While we boarded with Mrs. Mitchell, an English boy came there, and formed his acquaintance, who had recently come to America with a German traveller. They were about the same age, and congenial from mutual loneliness, and they immediately formed a devoted friendship. I taught them, both in English and Latin, and I dearly loved them. I did all I could to please them, and improve their minds, and I took them to Flushing, and Newark, and Albany, for pastime. The English boy left the city with the German traveller, and was absent several months. I got the American boy situations in lawyers’ offices and dry goods stores, where he seldom stayed long, and he became a great tax on my limited means, but I clung to him in my darkest hours. He told me that he desired to dine at the Astor House, with the son of a lawyer, in whose employ he had been. I rather doubted his story, but let him go. Soon afterwards, he requested me to let him go again, and I did so, going myself, soon after he left me, and took a position near the door, after the gong had summoned the boarders to dinner. On emerging from the dining room after dinner, I asked him where the son of the lawyer was. He said that he was in the dining hall. I told him that I would like an introduction to him. His cheeks were naturally as red as a rose, but my unexpected presence, and request for an introduction to the lawyer’s son, made his face as pale as a ghost’s, and I saw that he had stolen his dinner, which he slowly acknowledged, and admitted that he had dined twice at the Astor without an intention to pay for his dinners, and that he knew no son of a lawyer residing at the Astor House. I violently upbraided him, and told him that he would ultimately become the tenant of a prison, and perhaps die on the scaffold, if he did not check his thievish propensities. He said that I observed small things, which so provoked me, that I told him I must abandon him,—that he was in the bud and blossom of the precarious Spring, and easily blighted for ever by a frost or tempest,—that even the mighty oak, that has defied the storms of centuries, is felled to the earth by a blast of lightning,—and that the towering avalanche, which is formed from silent and solitary flakes of snow, could bury the largest city of the globe. He evinced great sorrow, and cried bitterly, and assured me that he would never steal another meal. I then paid for both dinners, and left the Astor, and kept a close guard over his movements. In about three weeks, he was arrested for an attempt to rifle a man’s pocket in Wall street. The gentleman did not appear against him, and he was discharged. I then went to an actor to ascertain in what part of the country his aunt was, and immediately wrote to her, and she came to the city, and I surrendered the thievish boy to her future protection. She got him a boarding place, and left the city to fulfil her theatrical engagement. He urged me afterwards to give him a recommendation to the extensive wholesale dry goods firm of Fearing & Hall, in Exchange Place. I told him that I would do them great injustice, as he might steal, and then they would hold me responsible. But he said his aunt had not sent him money for a long time, and that he had nowhere to live, and wept aloud, in Chatham street, and so wrought upon my feelings, that I consented to recommend him. During my interview with Mr. Fearing, (who was the senior partner of the firm,) he said that out of one hundred responses to his advertisement for a clerk, he had chosen my young friend, because he was pleased with his appearance and address, and that he was the only boy out of the one hundred who had removed his hat on entering his counting room. I had a year previous told the boy to always remove his hat when he entered the presence of a lady or gentleman, and this was the propitious fruit of his recollection and exercise of the politeness I had imparted. Mr. Fearing also said that although he could get the boys of affluent parents for nothing, (who deemed the knowledge of business they would acquire as a compensation for their services,) yet he was so pleased with my young friend, that he would give sufficient means to support him, if he proved industrious, and displayed the talents he thought he discovered in him. I left, and the boy went on the following day as a clerk of this extensive firm, who soon informed me that their anticipations were realised as to the capacity of the boy,—that he was as quick as a flash, in all his movements, and was more valuable to them than any boy they ever had. Mr. Fearing made him presents of apparel, and paid his board, and gave him pocket