Read Online The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York by Matthew Goodman - Free Book Online
Authors: Matthew Goodman
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merchant, Sir.
M.—What do you deal in?
P.—Goods, to be sure, and what does your honor suppose I’d be after dealing in?
M.—Where’s your store?
P.—(Rather bothered) Why—its—its—what’s that you say?
M.—Where’s your store?
P.—O, your honor, I meant I was a travelling merchant.
M.—Ah, you’re a pedler, then—where are you from?
P.—I have the misfortune to have come from Ireland.
M.—Then you call it a misfortune to be an Irishman?
P.—I do, your honor,—If ever the Almighty erred it was when he made my native country—my own swate Ireland. (Laughter.)
M.—Stop Sir, we don’t allow blasphemy here.
P.—(Seating himself very coolly) Very good.
Nothing like this had ever appeared in an American newspaper. Wisner’s police reports were at once scary and amusing and titillating, a daily glimpse into a world previously hidden from the public’s gaze.
New Yorkers were riveted by the spectacle; the police office column instantly became the most popular feature of the paper.
George Wisner was proving immensely valuable to Benjamin Day, and within weeks the two men had struck a new deal: Wisner would continue to receive four dollars a week, but he and Day would now split the Sun’ s profits, with Wisner’s share being applied toward a half ownership of the paper. By the end of October the Sun ’s masthead read: “Published daily, at 222 William Street, by Benjamin H. Day and George W. Wisner.” Day had originally conceived of the Sun primarily as a means of publicizing his printing business, and he was always more interested in the business side of the paper than in the actual writing of it. Though he retained the title of senior editor, he increasingly devoted his attention to production, advertising, and circulation, and after winning the printing contract for the nearby American Museum (the large – 39 – 0465002573-Goodman.qxd 8/25/08 9:57 AM Page 40
the sun and the moon
collection of oddities that would later be acquired by P. T. Barnum) he left the editorial duties almost entirely to Wisner.
By the beginning of 1834 George Wisner was the de facto editor of the Sun, and the paper increasingly reflected his brand of radical politics, which included—highly unusual in a New York newspaper editor—strong sympathy for the city’s abolition movement, a small but impassioned band of reformers comprising mostly middle-class blacks and whites led by two wealthy silk merchants, the brothers Arthur and Lewis Tappan. One Sun article, for instance, reported gleefully that the anniversary dinner of the New-York Colonization Society (a group encouraging the migration of free American blacks to Africa—a pet cause of the editors of the Courier and Enquirer and the Commercial Advertiser ) had collected only $238, while the previous day’s benefit for the American AntiSlavery Society had garnered ten times that amount. In another story, reporting the arrest of a runaway slave by one of the city’s marshals, the Sun acknowledged that while the officer had performed his duty as required by law, “We believe the day is not far distant when the clanking of slavery’s chains will be heard no more—and America stand before the world practicing, as well as preaching, the glorious doctrine that all men are created free and equal.”
In one especially striking item, Wisner reported the story of a Missouri slave driver who had purchased a young black woman married to another slave. The woman had been given ten minutes to prepare her departure and was not permitted to see her husband, although she did manage to send word to him that she was gone. Hearing the news, the husband was “absolutely stunned with the most unexpected blow” and thought to follow the slave driver into town to say good-bye, but this idea caused him greater anguish than he could bear. When he was asked what he intended to do, the slave replied, “I will tell master to sell me to the driver, and go with my poor wife;
M.—What do you deal in?
P.—Goods, to be sure, and what does your honor suppose I’d be after dealing in?
M.—Where’s your store?
P.—(Rather bothered) Why—its—its—what’s that you say?
M.—Where’s your store?
P.—O, your honor, I meant I was a travelling merchant.
M.—Ah, you’re a pedler, then—where are you from?
P.—I have the misfortune to have come from Ireland.
M.—Then you call it a misfortune to be an Irishman?
P.—I do, your honor,—If ever the Almighty erred it was when he made my native country—my own swate Ireland. (Laughter.)
M.—Stop Sir, we don’t allow blasphemy here.
P.—(Seating himself very coolly) Very good.
Nothing like this had ever appeared in an American newspaper. Wisner’s police reports were at once scary and amusing and titillating, a daily glimpse into a world previously hidden from the public’s gaze.
New Yorkers were riveted by the spectacle; the police office column instantly became the most popular feature of the paper.
George Wisner was proving immensely valuable to Benjamin Day, and within weeks the two men had struck a new deal: Wisner would continue to receive four dollars a week, but he and Day would now split the Sun’ s profits, with Wisner’s share being applied toward a half ownership of the paper. By the end of October the Sun ’s masthead read: “Published daily, at 222 William Street, by Benjamin H. Day and George W. Wisner.” Day had originally conceived of the Sun primarily as a means of publicizing his printing business, and he was always more interested in the business side of the paper than in the actual writing of it. Though he retained the title of senior editor, he increasingly devoted his attention to production, advertising, and circulation, and after winning the printing contract for the nearby American Museum (the large – 39 – 0465002573-Goodman.qxd 8/25/08 9:57 AM Page 40
the sun and the moon
collection of oddities that would later be acquired by P. T. Barnum) he left the editorial duties almost entirely to Wisner.
By the beginning of 1834 George Wisner was the de facto editor of the Sun, and the paper increasingly reflected his brand of radical politics, which included—highly unusual in a New York newspaper editor—strong sympathy for the city’s abolition movement, a small but impassioned band of reformers comprising mostly middle-class blacks and whites led by two wealthy silk merchants, the brothers Arthur and Lewis Tappan. One Sun article, for instance, reported gleefully that the anniversary dinner of the New-York Colonization Society (a group encouraging the migration of free American blacks to Africa—a pet cause of the editors of the Courier and Enquirer and the Commercial Advertiser ) had collected only $238, while the previous day’s benefit for the American AntiSlavery Society had garnered ten times that amount. In another story, reporting the arrest of a runaway slave by one of the city’s marshals, the Sun acknowledged that while the officer had performed his duty as required by law, “We believe the day is not far distant when the clanking of slavery’s chains will be heard no more—and America stand before the world practicing, as well as preaching, the glorious doctrine that all men are created free and equal.”
In one especially striking item, Wisner reported the story of a Missouri slave driver who had purchased a young black woman married to another slave. The woman had been given ten minutes to prepare her departure and was not permitted to see her husband, although she did manage to send word to him that she was gone. Hearing the news, the husband was “absolutely stunned with the most unexpected blow” and thought to follow the slave driver into town to say good-bye, but this idea caused him greater anguish than he could bear. When he was asked what he intended to do, the slave replied, “I will tell master to sell me to the driver, and go with my poor wife;
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