CONTENTS
| Page | |
| For Boys and Girls, and Wives and Husbands, andVenerable Men to Read and Remember Forever! | 2 |
| Life of Stephen H. Branch. | 10 |
| Legislative Robbers. | 13 |
Volume I.—No. 6.]——SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1858.——[Price 2 Cents.
STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S
ALLIGATOR.
For Boys and Girls, and Wives and Husbands,and Venerable Men to read andremember forever!
The corrupt antecedents of Judge Russelland Superintendent Tallmadge—Sad revelations—Thefounders of Straw Bail dissectedto their marrow bones, by a man who was incollusion with them in their deeds of publicvillainy.
In 1841, I (Stephen H. Branch) went intothe law office of Mr. Seely, in Fulton street,who, being absent, I awaited his return. Hehad an interesting boy to open his office andrun errands. I asked him if he was a nativeof the city, and he said yes, and told me thathis father and mother were dead, and thathis grandmother had recently died, and thathis only surviving relative was an aunt, whowas 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 haveme teach him gratuitously, and he said hewould—that he was at school in Connecticutbefore his grandmother died, and was obligedto close his studies in consequence of herdeath—and that he would have travelled withhis aunt, after his grandmother died, if shehad not made him promise on her bed ofdeath, that he would never become an actor.I saw genius in the youth, and strongly sympathisedwith his loneliness and misfortunes,and soon began to teach him during his leisurehours. His aunt was long absent, andsent him no money, and the lady with whomhe boarded got uneasy, and I took him toboard with me, at Mrs. Mitchell’s, in Broadway,with whom Otto Dressel, the ReverendDoctor George Potts’ music teacher, subsequentlyboarded in Bond, and at the cornerof Houston and McDougal streets. While weboarded with Mrs. Mitchell, an English boycame there, and formed his acquaintance, whohad recently come to America with a Germantraveller. They were about the same age,and congenial from mutual loneliness, and theyimmediately formed a devoted friendship. Itaught them, both in English and Latin, andI dearly loved them. I did all I could toplease them, and improve their minds, and Itook them to Flushing, and Newark, and Albany,for pastime. The English boy left thecity with the German traveller, and was absentseveral months. I got the American boysituations in lawyers’ offices and dry goodsstores, where he seldom stayed long, and hebecame a great tax on my limited means, butI clung to him in my darkest hours. He toldme that he desired to dine at the Astor House,[Pg 3]with the son of a lawyer, in whose employ hehad been. I rather d