The Life and Death of Mrs. Maria Bickford, by a Clergyman of Brunswick, ME

For the principal facts embodied in the following narrative, the Author is indebted to the ill-fated female who is the subject of them. It was his lot to be the bearer of a letter to her, in the spring of 1845, from a companion of her childhood. Aware of her forlorn condition, and of many acts of atrocity which characterized the latter part of her erring life, he made it his purpose to learn the history of her career, which was frankly communicated by her own lips.

The Author tenders his acknowledgments to the person who generously placed in his hands the original letters which reveal the passion flame of her FIRST LOVE with a medical student of Brunswick, in Maine. The contents of these letters establish the fact that this student became her seducer, and that he afterwards heartlessly abandoned her to remorse, and the jeers of a scoffing world. She was but fifteen years of age at the time of writing the letters, and they evince not only much purity and depth of feeling, but likewise a mind endowed with rare gifts.

It is not a pleasing duty to record the vicissitudes of the unfortunate. To draw aside the veil which conceals the cherished treasures, the blighted hopes, and the undying remorse of an erring soul, traced through long seasons of unredeeming, rayless wo, is to perform a labor for the benefit of the living. In this the author has striven to be faithful, impartial, and truthful.

Life, as a spectacle, is but dimly seen and feebly comprehended; as a mystery, it is unfathomable indeed. Blown, as it were, a bubble—dark as the transgressions by which it is checkered, it bursts in an hour we know not, as the globe of glass is dashed into fragments. We look on the wreck, and wonder why it had a being, to gather in its train a multitudinous throng of evils, and make its exit in ignominy and shame. The author, it will be seen, is a fatalist—a believer in an unalterable destiny. It is unnecessary here to enter into a defence of that belief—he hopes that all people have an opinion of their own upon this, as on other subjects.

Ye rich and great! ye poor and destitute—children of sin and wanderers from virtue—ye world wronged! cast your eyes over the panorama spread out to your view in the following pages, and, from the sounding depths of crime, learn lessons of wisdom.

Mrs. Maria Bickford was a native of Oldtown, a small parish near the city of Bangor, in Maine—the daughter of poor but respectable parents. Her maiden name was Dunn. She was born in the year 1822, and was, consequently, twenty-three years old at the period of her awful and untimely end. It is said of her, that, from earliest childhood, she had been the sport of ill omens and startling reverses. At her birth, which occurred before sunrise on a beautiful morning in autumn, a light of strange radiance shone into the apartment, and a sparrow fluttered against the window panes, uttering a plaintive wail, as if seeking admittance.

Whether these occurrences were the results of unexplained natural causes, or were the foreshadowings of an invisible fate, the judgment is not for us to pronounce—perhaps a future life and another world will interpret them. But certain it is, that their recital made a most fruitful theme for conjecture with the wonder-loving neighborhood, at the time. Old maids tied their cap-strings with a double knot for many a night thereafter.[1] Old women spun long yarns while smoking their old-fashioned iron pipes in the chimney corners—and the old men scoffed at what they declared to be ridiculous. However it might have been, a marked singularity of thought and action was developed in the succeeding years of Maria’s youth. Her childish prattle was unlike that of other children—she saw not as others see—she heard not as others hear—she laughed not as others laugh—but in all and with all there seemed to be a new development—a strangeness.

At about the seventh year of her age, those visitings of mysterious thoughtfulness which, in after years, imparted to her a peculiar fame, first began to be observed. During the recurrence of these periods she would remain for hours unmoved, regardless of all that was passing around her—as if in communion with the ascended spirit of some loved playmate, or in happy contemplation of the joys to be realized far away in the dim future. It was then that she discovered charms in solitude, Alone, in the fields and in the woods, she laughed with the flowers, and talked with the shadows of the trees—and that oaken giant, near her father’s house, which had sternly derided the blasts of many centuries, creaked as though it were glad when Maria came, as she often did, and leaned against its brawny trunk, and exchanged salutations with the sentinel of time.

“They say I have a soul,” she would say, in a revery, “an immortal soul—that a good man, who was the son of God, died for me, that I might live. What have I done to need such an awful atonement? Is it very wrong to while the Sabbath hours away, out here, with these birds, and bees, and squirrels? Is it a sin to love these pretty violets?—And this cool shade, too, and the breeze which fans me so gently—how calmly I sleep, and how pleasant are my dreams, in their refreshing presence! But they tell me it is not right to cherish the endearments of this world. It is neglecting God. I will kneel down here and pray.”

And this was Maria’s theology. What a mistake it is to teach the young to restrain their love of nature in the desire of “serving God!” As though his works had not the impress of his greatness and beneficence! We cannot but regard this very prevalent practice as the vulgar offspring of ignorance: and we trust that the time is at hand when the religion of nature will assume, in the human mind, the place and importance so long usurped by the hypocritical and soul-deadening religion of formality.[2] What honest heart can entertain a doubt that Maria returned from her Sunday rambles amid the luxuriance and enlivening beauties of nature, a purer and better child than when she had, all the tiresome day, been listening to the dry and repulsive jabbering of a hireling pulpit sycophant? Oh, had the wisdom of the child been the monitor of the woman, varied and sweet would have been the closing years of the life of Maria Dunn.

Maria was blessed with kind and doting parents, who, in the plenitude of their regards for her welfare, were inexorably solicitous that her whole youth might be devoted to the acquirement of knowledge. Themselves ignorant of the common rudiments of education, of course they were incapable of selecting the best methods of instruction. Knowledge, they imagined, came from the school-house. It was manufactured there by some peripatetic old bachelor. To school, then, Maria must go, armed with a spelling-book, at first, and afterwards, an arithmetic: and at school the golden, unreturning hours of her youth rolled into the lap of oblivion, until time had notched her fourteenth year upon his dial. And now there was to be a change in her tuition. Arrangements were completed for her attendance at the high school in Brunswick, an interesting little village, some seventy-five miles distant. The day of departure, for the first time, from beneath the paternal roof, was an important event in her life. It was at hand. She bore it with but little apparent emotion, and brushed from her cheek but a single tear.

“Adieu, ye pensive shades and early joys! I will not say farewell. They tell me there is a recompense for every sacrifice—but my swelling heart—”

The remainder of the sentence was not uttered. The clock struck nine, and the rattling of wheels announced the coach for Brunswick. On this occasion it was full of passengers of high and low degree, from far and near—all strangers. The driver was belated and impatient. In a few moments all was in readiness, and Maria opened the wicket gate, which seemed to swing reluctantly upon its hinges, and entered the coach.

Along they went, at full gallop, leaving grove, and meadow, and friend, and every cherished thing, behind. It was a July morning. The air was soft and fragrant, and merrily the birds rang out their joyful songs. Though ladened with heaviness of spirit, Maria could not but be pleased with the new sights that met her view, and the sounds that saluted her ears.

“And this is the world, the great and wicked world, of which I have heard so much—so long desired to see. How enchanting! And how favored are they who can travel it all over! Such fortunes and pleasures are not mine; they never can be, for I am poor and helpless. But it must be so. Well, I will be contented with a humbler lot: there are millions who are even less fortunate. It is my destiny: I am satisfied.”

These were silent reflections. On and on they rode. Now they ascended a mountain, now launched into a valley, and jolted across a pole-bridge. At length the tall pines laid their shadows on the earth, and other thoughts came into her mind—other emotions into her heart. Day’s parting smile played upon the green foliage, and soon the mellow light announced a golden sunset. Half an hour after this, the driver reined his wearied horses up to a dilapidated hotel, in front of which dangled an old sign, bearing the words, “Half-way House.” They all alighted, to tarry for the night.

This place is known, to this day, by the appellation of the “Lucky Basin,” a title which it then bore. Now (as then) there may be seen some eight or ten slab-sided houses, the largest and best of which is the hotel. Here might have been found, at that time, a very select community, whose reigning queen was a shrivelled old Quakeress who, during twenty years, and until death made a requisition upon her bony frame, enjoyed a world-wide reputation as a fortune-teller. And really a good old dame was she, in head and in heart; for it appeared that not only the name, but the good fortune of the place, was attributable to her fame; that, but for her, the poverty-stricken habitations thereabouts, with their inmates, would have gone to perdition long before. She was respected and venerated, of course, and loaded with caresses, praises, and blessings, by the whole circle of her dependent neighbors—and she was surely a true philosopher’s stone to them, in her own person, even if there was no virtue in that green pebble which the old lady pretended to have received by spiritual bequest, and which was always wrapped in a shiny covering.

It would be out of our province here to enter into any lengthened commentary on fortune-telling. This much we will allow—that when we hear of any helpless woman turning her wits to account in that manner, thereby delighting the countless votaries of curiosity, and earning a lucrative livelihood for herself at the same time, we rejoice heartily, for her sake. Now no one of “the profession” ever made sharper guesses than Quakeress Jemima Soule, (that was her name,) and deep was the frequent surprise thereat. And it was sometimes truly marvellous that her predictions were fulfilled with such exactness. She was honored with visits from many seemingly intelligent persons, some residing more than three hundred miles distant. And when we consider the excitement produced upon those who lived in her own vicinity, or not farther away than a day’s ride, we need not wonder at the fact that Lucky Basin was thronged with anxious, and often bewitching faces, at a rate of not less than three thousand a year.

And let it not be supposed that her visiters were only from among the poorer classes of society. Her widely-spread fame frequently excited deep anxiety among many wealthy persons, who never failed, in their visits, to reward her with gold: and thus was she enabled to extend the sphere of her unostentatious benevolence, and to secure the fervent blessings of the unfortunate.

Maria regarded the present opportunity of being able to see the renowned Seeress, and of having her own fortune read from the book of fate, with inexpressible delight. As soon as the supper was over, away she hurried, with impatient step, to the humble dwelling of Jemima, gave a low tap at the door, and was admitted, without question or ceremony, and motioned to a chair. Several others were present, but none indulged in conversation. To some, the moment and the scene were of much sublimity; to others, inimitably farcical. A part of those present suppressed a rude giggle as it fell to their turn to be ushered, one by one, into the presence-chamber of the Oracle—while others brushed a trembling tear-drop from their cheeks, as they tottered fearfully to the door. It was Maria’s turn at last. All the others had been served, and were gone. On entering the apartment, (which was a three-cornered one,) she encountered the venerable matron, who had risen to meet her. “Daughter of earth,” said the Oracle, “thy hand.” It was given tremblingly, and Maria followed the Seeress to a low stool, (which was by the side of Jemima’s own seat,) and sat down. Fifteen minutes in silence, the blood shot eyes of Jemima being riveted upon the fair girl. Then came a suppressed groan, at which Maria involuntarily shuddered. “Daughter,” said the Seeress, “if the ways of the Lord thy God were as our ways, he were cruel to thee.” “Why so, good Mother?” “Hush! I write.” Jemima then took from a glass case a leaf of fine gilt-edged paper, turned her back towards Maria, and, after consulting the green stone in a yellow box that had strange hieroglyphics scratched all over it, she laid hold of a pen made from a raven’s quill, and wrote the following words: “To love so young—A Lamb and a Wolf—SO YOUNG—A Killing Frost—Destitution—Marriage—Crime—There is Blood—Death.”[3]

It was doubled, and strongly sealed with wax. Then turning her form and face towards the girl, she thus spake: “Daughter, I have written—but before I give it thee, there is a condition. Thee must promise not to open this until thou hast looked upon the sun of thy eighteenth year. Dost agree to the terms?” “I? No, indeed—I cannot,” said Maria, bursting into a laugh, “delay would make me so anxious to know what it contained, that I should die of curiosity, long before the time.” “Daughter, thou art a child of destiny—God wills it. It is hard—but there is a heaven hereafter. Agree to the condition, or the flames will devour the record. Promise, child, before thy God.” A short pause. Maria faltered; her cheeks turned to an ashy paleness; she tried to speak; her heart leaped up to her throat. “I promise,” was all that she could say. “It is thine,” said the Seeress, taking a piece of silver from the hand in which she placed the paper. “Daughter, good night.” And Maria rose immediately, left the dwelling, and hastened back to the hotel. But she came not as she went. There was a change in her whole nature from that moment. The plastic hand of the Divinity remoulded, as it were, her features. She gazed upon the letter, turned it over and over, with ill-concealed anxiety—and then, in the first involuntary burst of indignation at the conditions, cursed the Seeress and the hour of her own birth.

This was disappointment in most provoking shape. The same night a dream disturbed her slumbers. We will relate it, as nearly as memory serves us, in her own language.

THE DREAM.

“A spirit came to me during a fearful tempest, and tendered me wings. I accepted them with feelings, if not with words, of gratitude. She flew, and beckoned me to follow. I then flew with her to the brow of a rocky cliff, where we both alighted. Here we were joined by a troop of my companions and kindred, who immediately struck up a chorus which rang through the arch of heaven, and brought back echoes still more musical. Methought I heard the voice of Gabriel mingling those answering sounds. I clapped my hands with an ecstasy of joy, when lo! all was silent, save the growling tempest beneath. They were gone. I dropped my head and wept. Then a horrible voice accosted me from the cavern below:—‘Thou wert my friend; thou art my enemy—begone!’ I reeled in the dread gloom that enveloped me, and uttered a scream for mercy. At that instant the lightning opened to me a fiery path. My wings lifted me up, and again, though now alone, I flew.

“On and on—there was no rest. At length I espied a sunny island, a thousand leagues at sea. I alighted, and walked, and ran, and danced upon the velvet grass—or methought I was alone at last. Alone, alone! where temptation could not assail me, nor the flatterer’s words beguile! Alone before God, and in prayer! But, as I knelt, that awful voice cried out to me again:—‘Thou wert my friend; thou art mine enemy—begone!’ Where was the source of this awful mandate? It came from the earth; it came on the winds. Then my soul drank from the waters of affliction, and despair gnawed at my brain. The voice came again, but with other words—‘To love so young!—a lamb and a wolf—so young!—a killing frost—destitution—marriage crime—there is blood!—death!’ How little I suspected these words (to me so thrilling) were the very same which the Seeress had just interwoven with my eternal destiny! Alone, and yet alone! Oh now for a friend—ONE MORTAL FRIEND—to support and guide me! Truly, none can estimate the value of human sympathy but they who are destitute of its consolations!

“At this instant a youth saluted me, and clasped me in his arms. His smile was sweet, and in his demeanor there was such an appearance of deep affection for me that, in my ecstasy, I did not, could not, resist his embrace. ‘I am thine!—thine forever!’ he whispered, ‘I have known thee from childhood!—I furnished thee with wings!’ As he spoke, Love’s sweet delirium took possession of my soul, and I was conscious only of intense, unearthly delight. After the vividness of this rapture had subsided, we sank into slumber, imparadised in each other’s arms.

“When I awoke, the youth was gone. I thought he would return, and was satisfied. But he came not. Then the air was filled with hisses. Ten thousand angry serpents could not have uttered a noise so dreadful. I thought my lover’s name was Theodore, and called to him, when, awful presence! a legion of demons rose up at the sound of his name! They were a black, bony, frightful throng, and they greeted me with a terrible shout of exultation. They danced round and round me,

until, from dizziness, I could not see. Then I cursed most bitterly, but they only laughed and hissed. Then the spirit of Murder came into my heart, for I knew my shame!”

The cold sweat stood on Maria’s fair forehead—and this dream, so fraught with terror, (and, as time proved, with reality,) lived in her heart. On awakening at the moment, though in a fright, she believed it to be a visitation of nightmare, and soon slept more quietly.

On the evening of the next day, the company reached Brunswick. Maria arrived at the apartments previously allotted to her, in cheerful spirits, and full of glowing hope. She did not know the feeling of homesickness. Her whole mind was wrapped up in the anticipation of great intellectual advancement. It was Saturday night. Every thing was new and interesting which greeted her eyes. Some of the students, to render her new abode more pleasing at the beginning, serenaded her with very sweet music, beneath her window, at midnight. When the music ceased, she noticed in it a resemblance to that which she had heard in her singular dream at the hotel in the Lucky Basin. As she heard the footsteps of the departing serenaders, she fell into a profound reverie, which was succeeded by a deep, dreamless sleep.

Six months after the time which brought our last chapter to a close, Maria attended the church of which I was pastor, in Brunswick. It was on a Sabbath morning in midwinter. The snow lay deep on the ground, and the merry bells and the happy faces of that morning of gay sunlight and sparkling frost bespoke the pleasures to be anticipated from many a sleigh-ride. On this occasion Maria was accompanied by a young man who had arrived in the village the week previous, and entered the medical college as a student. He was from Georgia, and his manly bearing, brunette face, jet-black eyes, and curling ringlets, indicated his temperament to be as ardent as a Southern sun could make it. His name was Theodore Maxwell. His father trafficked in human flesh, and bartered virtue for a price; and the loose improvidence of the son told plainly of there being great wealth in the family. His demeanor indicated that he was on the best terms with himself, and, moreover, that he had a taste for licentious gratifications. He was rich, (no matter by what means,) and that was quite sufficient to place him in full favor with the women, and render him “a good fellow” with the men. Theodore and Maria entered the church, and seated themselves in a pew on the broad aisle.

I commenced the worship of God by reading the 44th Psalm, the singing of which was followed by an Address to the Throne of Grace. I then read a hymn, which, as well as the psalm, was very well executed by the choir. I then commenced my sermon, from the following text: “Remember Lot’s wife.” As I proceeded, the utmost of my ability was thrown into the subject. I enlarged upon the development of the affections, the gratitude we owe to the Almighty for a thousand gifts, and the blessed union of two hearts by divine sanction: the nature of the evil thoughts that should be cast away, and the principles which secure to virtue the fruits of a blessed reward: the penalty of disobedience, and the iniquity of the seducer. Few there are, among even the most earnest admirers of the Bible, who truly appreciate its sublimity and poetry. From the first line of Genesis to the last of Revelations, it is filled with evidences of its divine origin. As I reached that point in my discourse which depicted the bereavements of Lot, the cords of whose heart were all severed by a decree of God’s wrath, I perceived that Maria and her companion were deeply affected. Their eyes met: it was Love!

There is no genuine love but love at first sight. This is the pure offspring of unpolluted sympathy. All other love is merely the result of observation, reflection, and compromise. The enduring passions flash like the lightning; they scorch the soul, but it is warmed forever! Miserable the creature whose love rises by degrees upon the frigid morning of the mind! Amid the gloom and sorrow of existence, suddenly to behold a form having a kindred soul, and to feel an overwhelming conviction that, with that form, our destiny must be forever entwined; that there is no more joy but in his joy, no sorrow but when he grieves; that in the warmth of his love, in his smile of fondness, is all future bliss—this is love. Magnificent, sublime, divine sentiment! An intense flame burns in the breast of an adoring girl: she is an ethereal being. She is out upon the sea of life, with a gaze fixed to a single star. If that do not shine, there is no further joy in existence!

Oh Indiscretion! Oh Love! In vain are the teachings of moralists, that thou art a delusion! Love, that can illumine the dark hovel and the dismal garret, that can gladden the heart of the slave, and lighten his shackles! The sage may assert that the gratification of vanity is thine aim and end, but Love glances with contempt at the cold-blooded philosophy of calculation.

Such was the beginning of a correspondence of over a hundred letters, and continuing nearly a year. A careful perusal of all of them, in the order in which they were penned, indicates most clearly the phases of an attachment as fatal to an innocent, unfortunate girl, as it was heartless and betraying on the part of Maxwell. The first impulses of their affections were doubtless mutually sincere. Afterwards the feeling of Theodore changed, or his lust triumphed over the better qualities of his nature. And the truth is not here to be disguised, that the love of a man long immersed in the vices of slavery, and nurtured in slavery’s very lap, (as Maxwell had been, from birth,) cannot be reckoned but as the offspring of unmitigated sensuality. The infamy of such a life is seldom surpassed by the atrocities of ocean piracy. A slaveholder cannot appreciate the sublimity and purity of the guardian angel, Virtue. Deadened in feeling by long familiarity with vice, and steeled to all substantial goodness by the inhumanity of the traffic in female loveliness, he desires no higher or purer delight than sensual indulgence. Where earthly prospects are full of promise, the dark demon of lust intrudes, and, strengthened by possession, flaps his wings in exultation that the laws of a Christian community are inadequate to prevent the accomplishment of his dark designs. He riots in the possession of numberless victims to his rapacious appetite! Youth, innocence and beauty are immolated, at his bidding, on the altars of licentiousness!

Wo to the fair daughter of the North, whose pure soul is at the mercy of the Southern hyena! Wo to that spirit of slavish reverence for wealth, which winks at any crime, if the criminal be only a man of wealth! In this penurious and licentious age, money is the arch destroyer of female chastity. Wo to the female votaries of Wealth and Fashion, whose feet are in the snares of the soul-destroying seducer! Better to pine in want till the coming of grey hairs, and die unbefriended, than yield thy honor, poor worldling, to the exacting blandishments of wealth!

The letter of young Maxwell, as above given, may be regarded not only as a fair specimen of the literature of slavery, but likewise as an ebullition of that chivalric spirit which is the peculiar boast of the Southron. Love, pistols, seduction, murder, dogs, horses, alligators, and improvident indolence, are the ingredients of Southern chivalry. All the letters of Theodore to Maria, now in our possession, abound in the same swaggering emptiness. Many of them are filled with the grossest obscenity. It would be foreign to our purpose to insert them here; our history is sufficiently blackened with human frailty, without them.

But we cannot well refrain from presenting the reader with one more of Maria’s letters, evidently written under the withering influence of disappointment and shame. Still the repulsive brutality of Maxwell could not stifle the flame of FIRST LOVE, that burned within her confiding, forgiving, repentant heart. To his iron scoffs she returned tears, tenderness, and supplications.

June, Wednesday Evening.

Beloved Theodore: Shall we ever again meet? Shall I indeed ever again listen to that sweet voice—that voice which sometimes bears such unkind words—and will it tell me again that it loves me, with the selfsame accents that ever ring in my fascinated ear? But oh, Theodore, speak unkindly no more—no more neglect. I feel that there is a stain upon my soul which all the waters of Jordan could not cleanse. But, Theodore, you swore your fidelity in the face of Heaven. If you continue your neglect, I shall die.

Oh, this love is a fever—a fever which has no antidote but death for me! Could I but blot that fatal night from the scroll of time, my bliss would never end. Why did the moon look down so palely, and the gold stars laugh? You bathed my temples in the pearly dew, and spoke so kindly—Oh, were you false even then? And I your victim!

Avaunt! avaunt! thou horrid dream! Begone! He is still true—my soul’s light—my Theodore! But seldom he comes, or writes to me, of late. Dearest love, I thought to meet you yesterday, at your boarding-house. I called with Miss R. But you were gone, and (would you think it?) your landlady tossed her head slyly, and said: “Perhaps he went out of town to some grave-yard, last night!” Horrible! How ugly in her to say that! I heeded not her base insinuation.

Would you suppose it? I went into your bedroom. I contrived to get there unobserved. I was there but a moment—a precious moment. Don’t think it wrong, don’t scold me, dear—but I kissed your pillow, and left a tear-drop on it. I could not help it, dearest, when I reflected that your darling head had rested there so often and so lately. Oh, that I were now at your side! Every thing is so desolate without you—every thing so harrows up the past! Oh that I could forget the past! But I will not be miserable. I will be grateful to Heaven that I have been loved by you.

Theodore! do not let your brow be clouded when you read this. Smile, smile! as when you first greeted me, a stranger! God knows how much devotion I lavished upon you for that kindness. Shall it now curse me? Pray write to me. There is no misery so long as we love; but in the flickering light of hope I see darkly.

To-day I have looked over all your letters. Some I pressed to my bosom as priceless treasures; others dropped from my fingers like lead. Oh my heart! Theodore, you are changeable. I am an unprotected, unbefriended girl. I have reposed all in you. Your love is the only sunlight that can illumine this life. Hot tears gush from my eyes, but that’s no matter. God bless you, Theodore! All will yet go well, will it not? It cannot be that you despise me, as the tongue of envy interprets your indifference. If you do, I can endure this life no longer. Write, write! or visit, this evening, your betrothed but unhappy

Maria.

This letter, like a dozen others which had preceded it, produced no response of any description. About ten days afterwards, towards evening, there was a tap at the door of the house where Maria then was, alone. It was Maxwell. She fell into his arms, and fainted. He had, on that day, been apprised, through a tobacco warehouse in Boston, that his father desired his speedy return to Georgia. He had now come to say farewell—and a long and last farewell he meant it should be. When she regained composure, and wiped the tears from her cheek, she pressed to his forehead a kiss. Then he spoke: “Maria, I am summoned home. To-morrow I go. I am here to bid you farewell. I have long avoided you; now you will trouble me no more. It’s strange that you hang about me so.” “Hush!” interrupted Maria, in a low tone; “speak not, but go.” The blood of pride suffused her face; she saw the fruits of her fidelity trampled in the dust, in these words of Maxwell—her devotedness the mark of his derision. He had now come to announce his abandonment. As this thought broke in upon her brain, she gazed at him with the intenseness of despair.—Maxwell burst into a laugh. “Why, ma chere amie,” said he, “such undauntedness of spirit as that would put two thousand dollars upon your head, at a slave market. Suppose you go to Georgia, and let my father advertise you for sale. Many slave-girls are as white as you are. Then you would be provided for: all your wants supplied. Perhaps some covey would make you his bed-favorite, with the full freedom of his plantation.”[5]

Not a word or emotion escaped Maria during the utterance of this jargon of slavery. Maxwell rose unbidden, and left the dwelling. When he was out of sight, Maria gave utterance to a wild despair. From that moment her nature again put on strange garments, and underwent another change. A new lustre beamed in her eyes. It was the embodiment of an unsleeping revenge. She saw her own wreck: and now that all was engulphed within that avalanche of death, disgrace, she summoned to her aid the powers of a long-slumbering fortitude—the fortitude of an injured woman, and formed a stern resolve.

“I am lost. All is over. A thousand demons are hissing at me. I shrink from the faces of my friends. This night I, too, will leave thee, beautiful village, scene of my destruction! Henceforth my life shall be dedicated to the society of strangers. Bravely will I play my part. I will smile when I curse. I will win to destroy.”

Scarcely were these incoherent sentences finished, before Maria recalled to her mind the old Seeress at the Lucky Basin—the letter of fate, and her own solemn promise not to break its seal before the arrival of her eighteenth birth-day. “Two long years yet,” said she, musingly; “I may cease to breathe before that time; all is blighted even now. I will heed my pledge no longer.” Immediately she started for her portfolio, up stairs, in which it lay. She seized and broke it open in an instant: “To love so young; a Lamb and a Wolf; so young; A Killing Frost; Destitution; Marriage; Crime; there is Blood! Death!” One shriek announced that the forbidden contents were known. Maria lay senseless upon the floor!

In the beautiful bay of Portland, at night—the last night of June, eighteen hundred and thirty-nine—a noble steamer swung at her moorings, pawing the water most impatiently, and spouting smoke and steam from her great nostrils. There was confusion, such as was never known before the days of invention; carriages turning over; people of all classes and ages, on shore and on board, hurrying to and fro. When bedlam was in its zenith—legs breaking, oaths in plenty—the bell rung out the chime of the inferno and away she went.

Out on the sounding sea and in a thronging multitude—the salt spray anon dashing furiously up against the gunwale of the vessel—there moved a stately female figure, seemingly alone. It was the ill-fated subject of these memoirs. Her countenance wore an expression of resoluteness seldom to be seen on the features of woman. Her feet had never trod the deck of a steamboat before, and now, for the first time, her eyes feasted on the sight of ocean. Listlessly, and as if enwraped in spirituality, she gazed on the surging waves. They were crested by the silvery moonlight, each frolicksomely chasing the other, and collectively presenting the appearance of a steel-clad host rushing into battle. Maria was filled with the deepest awe. Words were utterly inadequate to express her emotion. This was that mighty, boundless, fathomless ocean of which she had heard and dreamed so much. It kissed Arabian sands, and sighed its lullaby to a thousand islands, and roared in terror, and lashed the icebergs around the pole! Often and often, in earlier years, had her fancy covered its surface with armed genii in their tiny skins, and with birds of sparkling plumage; a thousand hymning echoes from a thousand sources enchanted the ear. Now all things were trooping fantastically; now they vanished in a twinkling. Peris weaving hair and song and coral; old Neptune careering in the plenitude of power; great serpents snapping their tails: whales swallowing and vomiting Jonahs; these, and many more, were the themes of legend and story which thrilled her nature with wonder and delight! Oh, not as then did her soul now drink from the fountains of pleasing, alluring anticipation and fairy nonsense! Pennyless, forsaken, friendless, in the undulating world; an ardent and a confiding heart already scorched by the living embers of despair, Maria had a part to play in the unknown future, which the genius of a conqueror could not execute or comprehend. A man is brave and bold because he is armed and strong; but where is the man who can or ever did surmount the difficulties and trials which beset the pathway of an unprotected female, whose bark is launched on the precarious tide of a sensual, selfish, scoffing, devilish world? Not all the heroes of all the Greeks and Romans subdued a foe so terrible, as mankind to woman! I have said she was pennyless. When the steward of the boat dingled his bell, giving notice for “all who had not paid their passage to walk up and settle,” she sent word to the Captain requesting an interview. Shortly he came, when, in a most affecting manner, she expressed her inability to pay her fare, and implored his generosity to allow her to pass without charge. He assented, conducted her to a state room, and told her to take courage and sleep without sadness. Generous man! thought she, some of nature’s noblemen are yet living; and with gratitude and prayer she undressed and went to bed. Sleep soon came to her eyelids, for she was weary. But scarcely had sleep veiled the memory, before a portly, well dressed man, stealthily entered the room without a light, took off his clothes and crawled into the same bed! She waked not until his arms were firmly clasped around her form. Then she uttered a scream, but amid the tremendous noise of the boat’s machinery and the dash of the waters, that cry was drowned. She struggled furiously to get away from his grasp, but failed. Then he put his lips to her ear and whispered, “A free passage; you are without money, and I have an abundance; be quiet, and all shall go well with you.” Her brain was confused; her mouth was dum. She felt that her hour had come. He accomplished his purpose, and remained with her through that long, bewildering night.[6]

Gaily broke the morning, and with its coming the boat landed at Foster’s wharf, in Boston. Maria had already risen. She went out, and up the stairway to the promenade deck, to look at Boston. The world seemed new to her. It was not that abode of honor, nor of love, nor of joy, which the years of her fancy had painted it. Boston! to her, a great and wonderful city. How much she had heard of Boston. It was before her, but she did not dream about it now as she had done so many, many times before, when her imagination played upon its hundred spires or traced it through and through. Her eye now drank the great reality, and the confused roar which she heard, and the still greater confusion of human beings and animal, which she saw, with the uneven, smutty-looking buildings, and the narrow avenues which threaded its pulsating heart, made her tremble. Oh! for a friend or a beggar to guide her footsteps. While in this state of uncertainty, a cab driver approached her, and very politely inquired if she wished to be taken to any part of the city? His pleasant and obliging demeanor gave her encouragement, and she frankly explained to him that she was here a stranger; that she must find a boarding house and secure a frugal sustenance by labor. At this he smiled and said “Certainly, step into my cab, and I will find you a good place without difficulty.” She assented; and the cab driver, sure of his prize, drove rapidly from the wharf, as a low and heartless laugh burst from the throats of a gang of starched loafers standing near, who knew both the purposes of the driver and the circumstances of the previous night.

Through winding streets and cross lanes, by sudden turns and jumbles, they drifted along. Now, cabby was in Washington street, amid a sea of trucks and horses, huge omnibusses and small fry, groping as in the dark; now he dashed through another street, on the west side of which spread out, like a moss carpet, the Common; the broad, the beautiful, the world-famed Boston Common. Then a turn was made, and Maria thought that they were going back to the very wharf they had left. But he soon bore off to the right, over by a large brick edifice, standing on an eminence and commanding one of the loveliest prospects which creation affords. As she saw it, through a pane in the cab door, she almost forgot her destitute situation and her sorrows. Passing this, they descended a hill, and at length cabby halted before a house in Lowell street. It was a house of ill-fame. The character of its inmates were of course unknown to her; her heart was even gladdened by the light of a bevy of gay faces at the window. As she alighted on the pavement, a raven, so unusual in that place, darted by so close to her that its pinions brushed the ribbons of her bonnet. She entered the house and was familiarly but respectfully welcomed, saying all the while in her bosom, “Thank God, it is well at last.”

Oh, conjurings of innocence, thy web is woven with threads of chalk—the morality and uprightness of this world! The wolf howls at thy philosophy and is hungering! Dream not of the world’s honor, nor seek disinterestedness among men; for thou wilt not find it. Hearken no more to the seductive accents of friendship; they flow from polluted lips; in them the devil chants thy requiem. Hate and curse and shun the Race; in that and that only is there protection and safety.

The seraglio of vice into which Maria had thus been cast, was daily and nightly visited by men of all grades. Came there the banker in silk stockings; the improvident sailor, just from the wave; the artisan, with the pittance of toil; the sucker-sharp, whose swindlings and lies are the wages of prostitution; the students of Harvard; the silver-haired deacon of the church of God; yea, EVEN THE PREACHER, RIGHT FROM HIS PULPIT, FLUSHED WITH WINE AND LUST![7] Came there the men of the South, ardent as a southern sun could make them: reckless men, who dashed about the country, lavishing the coffers wrung from the blood of slavery. And they not only, but likewise the pomatum beetles and butterflies of Europe, the spawn of an imbecile aristocracy, who are the scavengers of death and hell in every age and clime.

Days, days, days! Whether of pleasure or of pain, how noiselessly they steal away, and leap from the juttings of Time. Say what you will: let theologians crack their skulls in harrowing up proofs to the contrary: we are the creatures of circumstance. Take the fair maiden, in the bloom of a life of promise; how long ere the mirror will proclaim to her the coming of that signet of waning years, the first grey hair? And upon each of us there is written a destiny—a fate. We may put forth our human might and throw up barriers against the tide, it availeth not; we are swept into the lap of that destiny at last.

About four months after the occurrences which we have just narrated, in mid-winter, a young woman sat in the garret of a wooden dwelling at the corner of Harrison avenue and Kneeland street, in the southerly portion of the city of Boston, industriously plying the needle by a small but cheerful fire. It was Maria Bickford, certainly in a much better and more encouraging situation than while sojourning at that abode of iniquity in Lowell street. Her face was worn but not melancholy, and her bosom heaved a sigh and her voice trembled, while she sung the song of “Home, sweet home.” There had been a change in her condition—good had come to her out of evil. The truth of the matter was, that the authorities, being at length informed as to the character of the establishment in Lowell street, made an onset upon it at midnight, captured the inmates, male and female, in their beds, and carried them to Leveret street jail. The next morning, while before the Police Court awaiting sentence—the price of her degradation—she was accosted by a celebrated philanthropist, who desired to speak with her. He told her that it was probable she would be sent to the House of Correction, if no intercession were made to the judge in her behalf; that if she would from that day make a resolution to change her conduct, he would try to procure her discharge, by the payment of a fine. She heard him doubtingly, yet imploringly; for her confidence in any thing like unselfishness in man was small indeed. Through a profusion of tears, which a crowd of idling by-standers ridiculed as harlot’s crocodiles, she thanked him, and gave a promise that if he helped her in that moment of freezing horror, her life should be placed at his disposal. He did effect her release by the payment of ten dollars; led her into the street and told her that she was free; and then began to urge upon her mind, in an earnest and affecting manner, the importance and the glory of reformation. He pointed out the manner by which a respectable livelihood might easily be obtained, if she would but adhere to a resolution never again to fall into the arms of vice.[8] Maria’s heart leaped with gratitude, and she could not give utterance to her feelings in the lameness of language. She pressed his hand and watched his benevolent countenance, and took courage from his unostentatious demeanor. Although betrayed most piteously thus far in life, by every man she had known as an acquaintance, still a conviction dwelt in her nature that there were yet men on earth who were truthful and virtuous in the sight of heaven. Sunlight to thy soul poor thing! you were right. Following the suggestions of this humane individual, Maria applied for work at the counter of an extensive tailoring establishment in Washington street. It was readily obtained. By this she could earn, and was earning, a livelihood. Solitude was now her society, and her voice of song oozed through the shingles of the roof, and without was heard by the passer by. In her hours of recreation, her mind was occupied by literary pursuits. The epistle “to a friend,” as given below, was written by her, and is one of the very best pieces of composition our eyes ever met with. It was forwarded by her to the Editor of the Boston “Olive Branch,” who published it with glowing commendations, and it afterwards went the rounds of the newspaper press throughout this country and Europe.

Life has its hours of sentiment and romance, which Time, with his envious wing, can never darken or obliterate. Such bright and pleasant hours we have had, never to be forgotten—such happy moments, in the friendly intercourse of thought and feeling we have enjoyed. We have wandered in the gardens of Fancy and Hope, and gathered the mayflowers of the spirit—the fadeless roses of the heart. We have had seasons of intimate converse of pure enjoyment, such as lend to life a halcyon wing of rainbow hue, as it glides on, with swift pinion, to its infinite home.

There is a celestial calm—an elevated joy, in the trance of mind; it is a pure and quiet sense of nobler being. There is a sweet serenity—a bliss divine, in the simple and noiseless expressions of virtuous esteem and friendship. And have we not had such serenities and joys, consecrated on the memory and the heart? Ah, who would lose the remembrance of pleasures past—the light of by-gone days, when the confidence of friendship, and the hope of its perpetuity—when the festivals of intellect and the delights of sympathy were truly ours, such as raise and illumine a strengthening attachment, with the fond endearments and bright emotions of undeceitful and happy spirits?

The fair and gentle hand of nature has spread her beauties and her wealth around our pathway, wherewith to make us rich and blest; and if we welcome not her lavish kindness and constant care, some sordid sentiment must blind our minds, or guilty stain defile our hearts. In the dim, hushed hour of twilight, I have sat by my window, and looked, in quiet thought, at the pensile boughs of the willow tree, waving gently their leaves of sadness, and found more of rapture, undimmed by earth, than earth’s brightest honors could bestow. I have wandered over the silent graves of changed humanity, and, wrapped in lonely musings on the sleeping dust of the departed, and on the distant home of immortal being, I have felt more true and tranquil joy than the gathered wealth of the world could ever afford.

To the eye of reason, raised and enlightened by truth, how little, comparatively, is there of what is great and good in the restless pursuit of unenjoyed opulence and honor, or in the transient distinctions of rank and power. Is not the mind, with its electric thought, and the heart, with its sublime emotions—the one darting through the elevated regions of philosophy, the other meandering through the beauteous paradise of poesy—the lasting and essential worth of man—the lofty majesty of merit—the eternal divinity within him? Is not his free and deathless spirit—from heaven descended—over earth outspreading—extending through all time—collecting the treasures of all realms—and, like a vestal fire that struggles to go up to its smiling source, aspiring ever to ascend to that blest home of truth and goodness, “the bosom of its Father and its God”—the pride of his distinction—the grandeur of his glory?

The spirit, if pure, finds friends in all things above and around it. It gazes upon the deep blue of heaven, and its calm; upon the high careering sun, and exults; upon the light floating cloud, and smiles in peace; upon the storm-rolling chariot, and trembles with awe. It looks forth upon the high mountain-tops in their solitary grandeur, and upon the stately forests in their dark sublimity, and forgets earth, with its mutability, littleness and folly. It looks upon the rich waving fields and green meadow lands—upon the quiet lake and the rushing stream—and this world’s darkness, and noise, and strife, fade from its remembrance. It beholds with a smile the circles of beauty and intelligence—the connexions of dignity and grace—the dwellings of purity and love—and the disappointments and sorrows of time vanish for awhile away. Yea, more—it turns its full and eagle eye upon the boundless ocean—that image of benignity and sovereignty, where Omnipotence rides alone on the whirlwind’s wing and directs the dashing storm, or where he sits enthroned in all the bright tranquility of peace and hope—and feels, itself in nature far, far superior to the vanities and vexations of its temporal existence, and yearns, with a quenchless energy, for the revelations and felicities of an infinite hereafter.

But this contemplation of things material and inanimate still leaves a void behind; the heart is unsatiated and unconsoled. We turn to higher objects—to the kindred thoughts and feelings of cultivated men, and study, with a gushing sympathy, the records of their intellectual being. We behold them bursting the chains around them, bounding over the impediments in their path, scorning back to earth its native earthliness, and then unfold freely their golden wings and float away, far above the humiliation, and cares, and murkiness of this transient sphere, and move onward in imagination through the multiplying ages of immortal activity.

But the written records of departed genius cannot enliven and cheer like the eloquent lip and expressive eye of living friendship. Hence we turn to beings of breathing interest, and sentiment, and emotion around us, with the fond hope to find some kindred spirits that can commune with our own; and if, indeed, we meet with such, our mind kindles and our heart rebounds with all the warm and generous simplicity, eagerness and delight of childhood’s years. And then we truly think life has not an object nor a charm without their constant and congenial companionship. We feel, without their society, converse and sympathy, the sky has no beauty, the earth no loveliness, the flow of waters no melody, the words of the mighty in intellect and the strong in passion no power to subdue the soul to tenderness, or raise it to triumph. We long then anxiously to lean on some friendly arm—to feel the beating of some friendly heart. We deeply yearn to look upon some tone of love. We desire intensely to associate with some being of a similar intellectual mould, whose characteristic sentiments and tastes accord harmoniously with those of our own breast.

A few brief months have passed away since two beings met, of thoughts and feelings flowing in unison; one of lofty intellect, dignity and sweetness combined—the other what nature, education, and experience unitedly have formed her. They have conversed on themes of varied interest, opened to each other the temple of the soul, and been mutually happy. And must they yield to the high decree of fate, and part for life? Must the silver chords be severed and the golden bowl be broken that were binding each to other with the strength of affection and the rich fullness of hope? If so, let Heaven’s best will be done. But let this be a token, simple and valueless indeed, that thou hast been a friend, most sincerely esteemed and generously accredited by her who has addressed thee these hurried lines. Let this be a trifling memento of the few happy hours that have shone out brightly upon the silent obscurity of her path, and illumined the page of the past with the hallowed light of thy own pure and radiant spirit. May Heaven’s kindest love, and fairest smiles, and largest blessings, be the friend’s whose name and image will ever be devotedly cherished and sacredly honored in the blighted heart of

M. A. D.

Those who believe in a special providence will stagger to learn that this pleasing picture was soon clouded; that these fair prospects were soon blighted, by the visitation of a dreadful sickness, which brought her to a state of helplessness even more forlorn than any condition she had before undergone. Alone in a sick chamber, emaciated by a long course of fever, with no parent or friend to give solace, or answer her demands! Day succeeded day, and with them came wintry blast and gnawing poverty. The only assistance she received was from the hands of her physician, who, though a man of the world, possessed some kindness of heart. He came each morning and evening, wrote prescriptions for medicines, which she had scarcely the means to purchase from the druggist—placed fuel in the grate, and went away. But she was not then or there to die. Her disease at length made a favorable turn, and, after a few weeks of steady recovery, the rosy flush of health came into her face.

The doctor, however, did not discontinue his visits, and he was welcomed, for Maria’s grateful heart could not but feel that her life had been preserved by his skill and kindness. He was a bachelor, and his deep-set eyes and piercing glance told that he was a man of lust. She had observed this, and was not, therefore, at all surprised when he began to manifest a sensual familiarity with her person, making promises of munificence, and inquiring into the nature of her wants. During that winter there was great depression in the monetary affairs of the country, and consequently a diminished supply of labor for the poor. Such as could be obtained was at prices so much reduced, that many honest people were compelled to steal for a part of their livelihood! Maria was destitute indeed. For her, no work was to be had at any rate, before the coming of spring.[9] At this rate she could not subsist through the winter. It was disgraceful to beg—inhumanity would spurn her from every door! Go, ask the wolf for charity, but not a civilized people!

But why prolong the truth? Maria again yielded to Necessity and to Fate. That physician, with guile upon his lips, seduced her from Virtue’s sanctuary, and there was revelry in the haunts of vice.[10] Their sinful intercourse continued until both winter and spring had passed, when, provided with an ample amount of money, she returned, gaily dressed and accomplished in manners, to her native home.

We need not further minutely relate the remaining acts of her life. It is known that, on the occasion of this visit to her grief-stricken mother, chance made her acquainted with an honest and worthy man, who became enamoured of her charms, and that this attachment soon resulted in their marriage. This person was Mr. Bickford. He followed the trade of a bootmaker, and was much respected by those who knew him. They lived together upwards of two years, (though unhappily,) when she deserted her husband and returned to Boston. The following paper, penned by her own hand, will convey to the reader some idea of the state of her mind soon after her marriage:

August 10th. I have been married just ten days. During that short period, many circumstances have occurred, much tending to dispel the illusive hopes so long and so lately cherished in my imagination and fervent feelings. My husband is possessed of many rare qualities of mind and heart, and he loves me with excessive earnestness. But I have now discovered, what I could not, through infatuation, before marriage—that those passions of his nature which won my admiration are barbed with opposite extremes. At one time he loads me with caresses; at another reviles with unbecoming satire. My petulant disposition impels a retort, and hence frequent altercations. In moments of calmness I explain to him how oppressive and deplorable are these recurrences. He relents with an apology, and then calmly and sweetly do we reason together. Late affectionate attachments are renewed, and a Divine Presence witnesseth the communion of our hearts.

There are several considerations which render our marriage untimely and unwise.

First. Our mutual acquaintance was too short. We did not at all canvass each other’s faults; we rather strove to conceal and veil our eyes before them,—too frequent and important mistakes of love-trapped young people.

Secondly. Our religious predilections are much too dissimilar—he being strictly Calvinistic, a religion to which I am sternly opposed. The mild precepts of our beloved Saviour, and the sacred vows of the altar, are thus desecrated by contention—a double curse.

Thirdly. We are much too poor.

This last consideration is most unfortunately omitted in the anticipatory summing-up of the chances and consequences of married life, by those whose misfortune it is to be poor like ourselves. Reflect upon it as you may, and palliate as you please, poverty marriages are in themselves an evil and a disgrace. In a favored land like this, no industrious single man (unless peculiarly unfortunate) has a right to be pennyless at the age of twenty-five; and such as are imprudent, as well as those who wrap the golden hours of manhood in a napkin, should, by special enactment of law, be not only debarred from the enjoyments of matrimony, but also shamed from the presence of worthy people. As love-fevers are managed in these days, the habiliments of the altar are too often the sport of an illusion, as fatal in its effects as ill-timed in concert. Marriage, under proper regulations, is indeed a boon and a blessing; but when made to minister to the forlorn hopes of the inconsiderate, the poverty-bound, or the helpless, it is a curse of the deepest die. It has darkened the face of creation as a simoon from time immemorial, encompassing the wretchedness of millions, who, had they timely resolved, first to better their conditions, then to marry, might have been independent and happy all their lives.

August 20th. Ten more days have passed—so many saw-teeth. It is painful to trace the pale appearances which have assumed the place of the rose-tint upon my husband’s cheek. Returning from his daily toils, I find him stubborn in manner and bitter in words. All my efforts to humble his towering will have failed. So, between poverty, contention, and disappointment, our pathway to the future is unflowered.

When she had concluded to remove to Boston, there to reside permanently, a new tide rushed in upon her destiny. She was lost. The fountain of her tears was dry. Despair laid its iron fingers upon the strings of her heart. And now began that career of madness and crime which rendered her name a signal of terror to the licentious, who thronged the dens of prostitution. She laughed and was happy in her revengeful determination.—Revenge! at whose shrine of blood she did reverence!

For a period of over four years, she led the van in the battle of Extermination to Man, the plunderer of her life’s joys, her innocence—Man, the rock of her ruin! She saw but to conquer. The devotees of pomatum swarmed about her, lavishing sickening adulations upon her charms. She inwardly mocked at their hollowness, and Murder whetted its beak upon their lies. Twice were her hands imbrued in the blood of her paramours; and, had her existence been prolonged a few more days, it is highly probable that a printer, of a name similar to that borne by the object of her first love, would have fallen a victim to her avenging steel.

But the hour came when the mighty King of Terrors summoned her soul into the presence of that forgiving Jesus who wrote upon the sand, at the harlot’s feet—“Let him among you that is without sin cast the first stone!” By a murderer’s hand she fell, as had others by her own. And then there was heard a noise in the air without, such as had never before greeted human ears. Whence it came, none could tell.

Dark and inexplicable Fate! weaver of wild contrasts, demon of this hoary world, that movest through it as a spirit moveth over the waters, filling the depths of things with a solemn mystery, and an everlasting change! Thou sweepest over our graves, and Joy is born from the ashes: thou sweepest over Joy, and lo, it is a grave! Engine and tool of the Almighty, whose years cannot fade! thou changest the earth as a garment, and as a vesture it is changed: thou makest it one vast sepulchre and womb united, swallowing and creating life, and reproducing over and over, from age to age—from creation to the creation’s doom—the same dust and ashes which stalked under the names of the countless millions who danced to the discordant music of life, and gave up the ghost!

Early on the morning of the awful tragedy which filled the whole country with amazement and dread, and before the newspapers blazed with its horrible details, there was great excitement in the horse-stables and the gambling-shops of Boston. The sucker-sharps, who always, in every part of the world, keep up a telegraphic communication with the frail sisterhood, were on this occasion elated with an event which so absorbed their inquisitive cunning, that they forgot, for a few hours, the game of filching green-horns. Spagnoletto, with all the power of his pencil, would fail in a delineation of those groups of human cormorants, as they surfeited their murderous appetites upon the fresh intelligence. They were jolly-serious—upsetting chairs, swallowing brandy, breaking glasses, and uttering fearful oaths. In one place a sucker preached a tirade to the riotous auditory, himself standing on a large Bible. A murder, of unexampled atrocity, had just been committed by one of the most notorious of their gang.

“Plume’s”
Daguerreotype of Tirrell.

The name of the murderer was Albert J. Tirrell, a young man whose improvidence had, in less than one year, scattered to the winds a patrimony of more than twenty-seven thousand dollars—the life’s earnings of an indulgent parent, whose grey hairs had but lately gone down in sorrow to the grave. His flushed cheeks, his beak-like, pimpled nose, his gallynipper lips, rendered his demeanor the beau ideal of a sucker-sharp. His tongue could rattle off more lies and oaths in a minute than that of any other sucker in Boston, excepting one. These characteristics, accompanied by the most lavish expenditure of his wealth, won for him the appellation of “good fellow,” all about the horse-stables, at least. Whenever he hired a horse and buggy, he carelessly and suavitously tossed a five dollar gold piece, by way of perquisite, to the ostler. Then would the literature of horse-flies load him with slimy phrases. “Liberal-hearted fine gentleman,”—“noble fellow,”—“there’s nothing mean about him,”—“good fellow,” etc., often reverberated through the horse-stalls, and the same learned and pithy remarks were nightly circulating through the upper rooms of a celebrated gambling-house in Sudbury street, for many years the sucker-sharp head quarters, and the devil’s den in Boston. But, as the enterprising Dickinson once remarked to a clan of rebellious compositors, “There is an end to all things,” so the greatnesses of Tirrell’s life were on that morning hurried into a grand tableau.
Tirrell’s Flight. He had slashed open Maria Bickford’s throat with a razor, most valiantly, from ear to ear, and, to slip the noose of the gallows, ran away!

There is no doubt of his INSANITY.

But we cannot dismiss the subject matter of this history until we inform the world of one of Tirrell’s exploits in a business way. No sooner had he tumbled into the possession of his patrimony, than he took up quarters in the city of New York, with the intention of founding a publishing house, on a magnificent scale. After beating about the trade for two or three weeks, without knowing where or how to begin a business of which he was utterly ignorant, and which his rattle-headedness rendered him incapable of comprehending under any circumstances, he made up his mind to commence the publication of a periodical, of some kind or other. Our information runs, that, with this object before his eyes, he called on Mr. Edgar A. Poe, of that city, and tendered him the exclusive editorship and control of the concern, without ceremony or condition. Poe, after a cautious and analytical survey of the gentleman, propounded divers queries which Tirrell had not the capacity to answer. He seemed to be possessed of a belief that if he brought some doubled sheets of printed paper before the people, and the ladies in particular, an illumination as wonderful as the aurora borealis would be the consequence. “The people,” said he, “want knowledge; they thirst for it as the heart panteth for the water brooks.” “Yes, sir, precisely,” said the other, “but engagements compel me to decline your generous offers; I have already promised to do much more than I can possibly accomplish. I think, however, there is a compositor of my acquaintance whose talents are so nearly like your own, that he would prove the very person you are seeking. I will give you his name—it is Silas Estabrook. Explain your plans to that individual, sir, and there will be no lack of projects, I assure you.”

Tirrell was elated with this advice, and forthwith made search for and found the obscure and shrivelled compositor. With the same mountebank bluffness, he made known his wants. “They say you sometimes work in the editing line, sir. Now, sir, I’m about to start a great publishing establishment, like that of the Harpers, and I want to engage you to edit it! If you’ll go into it strong with me, we’ll make Astors of ourselves. I will furnish all the money to begin with.”

Estabrook rubbed his eyes and looked at the man through a spy-glass. “Can it be possible,” thought he, “that good luck has found me at last, and that I am about to realize the Actual from my splendid ideas? This must be the very man whom I have wanted so much to find.” A long and earnest confab took place. Perhaps two persons never before met, whose brains rattled with more incoherence, than did those of Tirrell and Estabrook. If the first was ignorant, impudent and stupid, the other greatly transcended him by a fanatical adherence to his own visionary fooleries. His plans and projects for astonishing the world were as numerous as the phases of a kaleidescope, and his explanations thereof were as voluminous and intelligible as a colloquial parody from that useful bird, the goose.

“I will tell you what it is, Mr. Tirrell,” said he, “we have a fortune within our grasp. I have the mind and you the means. We must get up something which has never been dreamed of before. It’s of no use to think of starting a common newspaper; the very idea of it is vulgar—yet it must be a publication of some kind. Now, I propose that we issue a journal in the shape and style of a Letter; print it in the smallest type—cram a large amount of racy matter into a small space—and then fold it up and seal it. Let the price be six cents a copy, and a figure indicating this sum can be stamped with red ink on the outside, as though it were the postage by mail. Then let us send a copy to every man, woman, and child, in this great city, under a written direction. In this guise and shape every body will jump after it, and the result will be, that we shall sell at least two hundred thousand copies a day. You see they will be so pleased with the contents, that after they receive the first letter they will be still more and more greedy to get the succeeding ones. Now, just reckon up how much 200,000 letters a day, at six cents each, will amount to in a year.”

Tirrell drew from his pocket a ponderous gold pencil and began to cypher. After scratching his head for a half hour he suddenly leaped from his chair in a perfect phrenzy of exultation. The amount was enormous. The golden egg was discovered. Nobody else had found it out. It was the most wonderful idea of the age! He patted Estabrook on the shoulder as fondly as a cat would play with a philosopher’s stone, and immediately invited him to partake of a supper of oysters.

The oysters were devoured. During their mastication, Tirrell was overflowing with so much joy that he was unable to sustain a decent composure. His horse-laughs so annoyed the other patrons of the restorateur, that the host politely ordered him to quit the premises. Tirrell observed the mandate with the most indifferent contempt, and spatting a ten dollar bill on the counter, bawled out for Wine! at the full blast of his lungs.

The preliminaries for publishing the great unexpected were soon arranged. Estabrook manufactured the “copy” with the rapacity and zeal of a starving lunatic. The flow of ideas imparted to his eyes an unnatural stare; his brows were knit; and his teeth chattered as if he were undergoing an attack of the delirium-tremens in a wintry blast. But he heeded not himself nor the movements around him, though Tirrell was constantly peeping over his shoulder and mouthing every sentence as it fell from the pen. In two days the “copy” was completed, and placed in the hands of the printer, who was required by written contract to produce the whole edition in five days. Tirrell launched out his money like water in the purchase of fine letter-sized paper; “the trade” greatly marvelled at what was “in the wind;” and the power of steam was brought into full requisition night and day. At the end of the time specified, the immense job was finished, at a cost of $2,500. Tirrell cashed the bill with readiness and delight. One hundred and twenty-five girls were then hired to double and seal them, and thirty-three clerks were at the same time employed in writing the inscriptions. Every name in Doggett’s octavo directory, of something like 400 closely printed pages, was transcribed to a “letter.” Estabrook, with becoming dignity, reserved to himself the privilege of giving the finishing touch to the whole, by stamping, after the manner of a post mark, the figure “6” on one corner, which was intended as the price of the article. When this was completed, “all hands” were set about arranging them; and let me say to the reader that this feature was no trifling one. It required the machinery of a great post office to assort and arrange that mass of letters, number by number and street by street. The whole being at length completed at an expense of over $700 more, the day at length came when the edition was to be placed into the hands of two hundred efficient carriers, who were to sally forth at the same moment in all parts of the city. Below we give the inner heading of this singular publication, with some extracts, to convey to the reader of these pages a more correct idea of its character and purpose:

By this time the reader may be a little curious to hear the upshot of this magnificent and fair-promising scheme. At a given moment the whole corps of robust carriers was set in motion by command of Tirrell. Then what a ringing of bells and thumping of knockers was there, in that mighty city! How many fond expectations leaped in the bosoms of the fairest, as letters were announced to their pretty names! For about an hour all went off like a charm. Tirrell was in his element—passing hurriedly from street to street—advising, cheering, animating all. And as for Estabrook, he was so overcome with joy that he went up garret and stowed himself away among the old furniture, to reflect upon the question whether human nature was mutable, or not?

But the sport was soon over. Several worthy citizens lodged information with the Police, that a great gang of petty swindlers were taking the city by storm, infringing alike upon the post office laws and the finances of the community. Justice Parker, alarmed by this startling news, promptly issued orders commanding all constables and officers to seize the depredators and bring them before the bar of the Court. A scene now took place which beggars description. In all directions there was pulling and hauling and bawling. The people gaped in amazement from door and window and street-corner. Excitement rose to so high a pitch that some of the “fathers of the city” were really terrified with the idea that every body was about to blow up. Some cried out, “The Vandals are in the city!” The boys shouted “fire!” and the women screamed “murder!” Tirrell, watching the great commotion with intense interest, began to clench his teeth and mutter revenge; but he soon became seized of the conviction that nothing of a joke but Sing Sing would be likely to come out of the “flare up.” Then his heels cut the atmosphere with as much celerity as when he was making his escape from the vicinity of the spot where poor Maria Bickford lay weltering in gore.

Violent hands were laid on Estabrook, while in the very heart of his golden reveries; and when they explained to him the cause of his arrest, he doubted his own senses, and declared the whole to be “a spell.” But it was a wakeful one, for Mr. Justice Parker consigned him to an apartment in the “Egyptian Tombs.”

Immured within the walls of a dungeon, for the only time during his previous and hitherto crimeless life, he threw his lank form upon a flea-infected couch and gave vent to an insupportable grief. When this subsided, he began to review the matter stoically. A thought struck him, that the only relief from the horrors of his present situation lay in a full and frank explanation of all the circumstances connected with the affair, demonstrating most clearly his innocence of any intention to commit a fraud; winding up with an affecting appeal to public sympathy; and publishing the document in the penny papers of the following morning. This he did; and the device was successful. The city folks, after learning the facts, laughed at the singularity of the project, and freely bestowed their sympathy upon the dupe of Tirrell. More than twenty thousand individuals on that morning gathered around the “Tombs” and demanded the liberation of Estabrook. Justice P. trembled in his ermine when he looked upon that mob. In former times he had been a raving politician, and a desciple of the mob spirit; he now thought it prudent to grant the demand of that funny populace, by stipulating a trifling bail for the release of the prisoner. This was instantly given, and Estabrook soon made his appearance amidst thunders of applause. He stood on the massive granite steps of the “Tombs,” and, after gracefully bowing to the multitude, made a thrilling harangue about the magic influence of the pennypress, and on human rights in general. When he concluded the multitude gave him three times three.

These occurrences so wrought upon the curiosity of the people of that city, that they were now even more eager to obtain the Unexpected Letter than had been to suppress it the day previous. It was thrown into the hands of a gallant band of newsboys, who cried it by its name for a week, when the edition became exhausted, and Estabrook had “bettered his fortunes” very materially.

Tirrell returned to Boston about five thousand dollars poorer than he left it a month before. If he ever visited the city of New York after this, it was in disguise.

ARREST OF TIRRELL THE MURDERER!

ON BOARD THE Off New Orleans,

SHIP SULTANA. December 6th, 1845.

FINIS.