The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York by Matthew Goodman Page B
Authors: Matthew Goodman
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familiarize the community, and especially the younger parts of it, to the details of misdemeanor and crime.” (“Besides,” the Post added pragmat-ically, “it suggests to the novice in vice all the means of becoming expert in its devices.”) The Sun, on the other hand, reveled in the police court reports, which appeared without fail and eventually filled as much as a third of the entire news page. Every morning George Wisner rose at three and made his way through the dimly lit streets of Lower Manhattan to the long yellow police court building behind City Hall, settling himself into a corner of the noisy, crowded courtroom with his paper and pencil to await the call of the morning’s cases.
William Smith, alias Fitz, “got drunk by drinking too much.” The magistrate informed him that this was the way in which people always got drunk, and admonished him to lead a sober life in the future; after which he was discharged.
John Votey, of Reed street, was charged with getting drunk, and assaulting his father and mother. John was a mischievous boy of about
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38—his father was 93, and his mother who appeared as complainant, was 88. John was in the constant habit of getting drunk and abusing his parents—yet the mother couldn’t find it in her heart to have him sent to prison. The old lady was so overcome with the fatigue of getting to the police so early in the morning, that she fainted. One of the officers supported her in his arms until she recovered, and, taking the arm of her drunken, disgraceful son, she left the office in tears.
Mr. and Mrs. Townsend made their appearance this morning to settle their connubial disputes after the manner the law has prescribed. It appeared on investigation, that Mrs. Townsend asked her husband yesterday for a two shilling piece to buy some brandy “to wash the children’s heads”; that the husband not believing that his lady would allow the spiritous liquid to go as high as the head, without saluting it with her lips, refused to grant the request; a quarrel ensued, and Mr. Townsend was driven out of the house by the infuriated dame. Last evening, when Mr. T. returned from his work to get his supper, he found his wife in an unmentionable condition, and upon his upbraiding her, she took up the tongs and smote him over the head. Mr. T. then knocked her down.
They were both committed.
Susan Burke—a lady vagrant—hadn’t any home for 3 months. The magistrate said it was time she had one, and gave her one for 6 months.
Passing through the courtroom each morning was a dismal parade of drunkards and wife beaters, con men and petty thieves, prostitutes and their johns. But Wisner could also see love, fear, anger, jealousy, greed, sometimes even tenderness and generosity, and while it is an overstatement to call him “the Balzac of the daybreak court,” as he was called by a historian of the Sun, he did display a novelist’s eye for the telling detail, the ability to limn a character in a few short strokes. His police reports were filled with the distinctive voices of the Five Points and its environs, by turns argumentative, wheedling, rueful, furious, mocking of themselves and those around them. Many of the cases he dispensed with in a single brisk sentence (“George McCarthy was charged with stealing a stove from 491
Pearl street. Committed.”). Most he granted a couple of sentences, but sometimes, when the material seemed especially inviting, Wisner presented his readers little set pieces, complete with dialogue and stage directions:
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The News of the City
Hugh Kelly, was charged with attempting to pass bills of a broken bank, knowing them to be such. Mr. Kelly was a man of about 40—bald head—long face—and had on a neat gray quaker coat.
Mag.—What’s your occupation, Kelly?
Pris.—(quite angry) My occupation!! I’m a
William Smith, alias Fitz, “got drunk by drinking too much.” The magistrate informed him that this was the way in which people always got drunk, and admonished him to lead a sober life in the future; after which he was discharged.
John Votey, of Reed street, was charged with getting drunk, and assaulting his father and mother. John was a mischievous boy of about
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0465002573-Goodman.qxd 8/25/08 9:57 AM Page 38
the sun and the moon
38—his father was 93, and his mother who appeared as complainant, was 88. John was in the constant habit of getting drunk and abusing his parents—yet the mother couldn’t find it in her heart to have him sent to prison. The old lady was so overcome with the fatigue of getting to the police so early in the morning, that she fainted. One of the officers supported her in his arms until she recovered, and, taking the arm of her drunken, disgraceful son, she left the office in tears.
Mr. and Mrs. Townsend made their appearance this morning to settle their connubial disputes after the manner the law has prescribed. It appeared on investigation, that Mrs. Townsend asked her husband yesterday for a two shilling piece to buy some brandy “to wash the children’s heads”; that the husband not believing that his lady would allow the spiritous liquid to go as high as the head, without saluting it with her lips, refused to grant the request; a quarrel ensued, and Mr. Townsend was driven out of the house by the infuriated dame. Last evening, when Mr. T. returned from his work to get his supper, he found his wife in an unmentionable condition, and upon his upbraiding her, she took up the tongs and smote him over the head. Mr. T. then knocked her down.
They were both committed.
Susan Burke—a lady vagrant—hadn’t any home for 3 months. The magistrate said it was time she had one, and gave her one for 6 months.
Passing through the courtroom each morning was a dismal parade of drunkards and wife beaters, con men and petty thieves, prostitutes and their johns. But Wisner could also see love, fear, anger, jealousy, greed, sometimes even tenderness and generosity, and while it is an overstatement to call him “the Balzac of the daybreak court,” as he was called by a historian of the Sun, he did display a novelist’s eye for the telling detail, the ability to limn a character in a few short strokes. His police reports were filled with the distinctive voices of the Five Points and its environs, by turns argumentative, wheedling, rueful, furious, mocking of themselves and those around them. Many of the cases he dispensed with in a single brisk sentence (“George McCarthy was charged with stealing a stove from 491
Pearl street. Committed.”). Most he granted a couple of sentences, but sometimes, when the material seemed especially inviting, Wisner presented his readers little set pieces, complete with dialogue and stage directions:
– 38 –
0465002573-Goodman.qxd 8/25/08 9:57 AM Page 39
The News of the City
Hugh Kelly, was charged with attempting to pass bills of a broken bank, knowing them to be such. Mr. Kelly was a man of about 40—bald head—long face—and had on a neat gray quaker coat.
Mag.—What’s your occupation, Kelly?
Pris.—(quite angry) My occupation!! I’m a
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