Read Ebook: The Life and Death of Mrs. Maria Bickford A beautiful female who was inhumanly murdered in the moral and religious city of Boston on the night of the 27th of October 1845 by Albert J. Tirrell her paramour arrested on board the Ship Sultana off New Orleans by Clergyman Of Brunswick Me

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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.

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.

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 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."

"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."

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.

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! 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.

TO A REFORMED FEMALE FRIEND.

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. 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. 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, 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:

A SHORT DIARY AFTER MY MARRIAGE.

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 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.

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!

"And where her frown of hatred darkly fell, Hope withering fled, and mercy sighed farewell."

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.

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.

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. 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 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 ,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 0 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:

EDITOR'S SALUTATORY--TO THE READER.

We are twin-links in that grand chain, which hung out from the primeval chaos that was ere the golden sun shone on a virgin world, and hath come down through the juttings of fifty-nine epochs of time, to this hour. Onward to the future goeth its silvery trail, weaving everlasting issues.... But myself and thee move not. Here stand we--links in the grand chain of human destiny--as watchers on a storm beaten rock, whereon also millions are. We hear the sound of voices and of footsteps. Hammers clink and dollars jingle. It is the din of a city. Out in the fields there, the lillies grow and the bee sings. Far away and high in the mountains, where the eaglet's eyrie is, graze the flocks of the humble shepherd. Let us bow to the harmony of nature and the majesty of God! But--but I am astray already. This is not the strain with which I meant to open up to you.... Life, you know, is tumultuous; at least, I know it. Half-wrecked already. I am an invalid, seeking through the Race-stubble around me--sympathy! Forasmuch as my departure to the Great Homestead draweth near, I am panting for those pure vestments of mortality which shall grace its heaven-wide halls. Thus far, how hard to discover! All my methods are thread-bare and fruitless. But sympathy is a law of the Universe, plentifully abounding, and without its strengthening influences this world were an ungladdened waste. Wherefore I have wrought a new manner to commune with thee--this present.... I had a dream lately. A frame of dilapidated bones stood by the side of a stream. The rains pelted and the winds whistled through it. In the place where, in flesh-time, the breath case had been, was a machine of wonderful handiwork--now not less silent and awful than the frame that held it--which might be sacrilegiously likened unto a spinning-jenny. There were its gearings yet; and I named it Mystery. There were its charmed threads--thousands, millions--issuing in all directions, so that the Race were supplied, each with one. And I was amazed to behold how reluctantly Age yielded them up to the eager grasp of Youth. I cried out for the history and the name of his Boneniness. And they said "Fame! Fame!" And when I heard of the great number who were struggling in their might to rear unto themselves their own frame, with a like appendage--lavishing thereon, with an idol-worship, the genius of the head, of the heart, of the hand--I marvelled much the more.... Cogitate severally, while you contemplate the

REFLECTIONS OF A TAILOR-POET.

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