The other day, when the last honors were paid to the great lawyer, Charles O’Conor, in the Cathedral, among the crowd of mourners were two who shed genuine tears of sorrow at the lost of their best earthly friend. Those two were the widow Ritli and her only son, connected with whom is an episode which illustrates the kind, true heart which beat in the great lawyer’s breast, under his icicle exterior.
About thirty years ago there came to this country a young Swiss called Ritli. This young man was a thorough mixture of natural advantages, carelessness and bad luck–not an uncommon combination. He was born in Aran, Switzerland, and his father was a well-to-do maker of musical boxes. He received a good education at Zurich, and could talk German, French, Italian, Spanish and English. He was tall, handsome, athletic, graceful, polished in his manner, and possessed a fine tenor voice. In addition to these gifts he was a penman of extraordinary skill, in fact an artist in pen and ink.
Yet with all these advantages of mind, person and education, he lacked steadiness and common prudence, was rather indolent and high tempered, too, and was always gettin’ into trouble.
He got into trouble with his father, quarreled with him, and was sent to London in disgrace, though with a considerable sum of money to start him in the world.
But with his usual carelessness he squandered his money, and then came to New York to retrieve his fortunes.
The first chance that presented itself here was to utilize his fine tenor voice singin’ at the few beer gardens that were then in full blast in the metropolis. He made a hit as a singer in this line, and was one of the first to introduce the Tyrolean songs which have since become so popular.
Here was a good and easy livin’ for him, and many a man would have played it for all it was worth, and got fat on it. But what did Ritli do but fell in love with a pretty waiter girl, without a dollar in the world. And then, as this girl had a good many admirers, for her pretty face and fine figure, he went into courtship head over heels, and won her, at the risk of what was almost as important to him then as his life, his voice.
He followed up his courtship so vigorously that he exposed himself to all the vicissitudes of weather, and at last caught a heavy cold, which bein’ neglected became chronic, and so his fine tenor voice vanished forever. He won his wife but lost his voice, and really just then he could afford much better to do without a wife than without a voice.
This of course wound up his career as a singer, so he fell back on his penmanship, and literally lived from hand to mouth. For a while his pen and ink sketches took by way of a novelty, and they were exhibited in the windows of Appleton the publisher, then occupyin’ a store near where the New York Life Insurance buildin’ stands to-day.
But as soon as the novelty died out, the charm of the pen and ink sketches departed with it, and if it hadn’t been for his wife’s earnings as a pretty good dressmaker, the family would have starved. Then his wife got sick and Ritli, seein’ no other way of earnin’ a dollar applied to a Frenchman called Touloose, whom he had known for some time, and who was a waiter at Delmonico’s, on Chambers Street and Broadway. Through Touloose’s aid Ritli got a position as a waiter. But here his gentlemanly education was a disadvantage and made him dissatisfied with his menial position, and takin’ offense at somethin’ said to him one day, he left Delmonico’s.
He then drifted into copyin’ for lawyers. He wrote a fine, legible hand and soon got all the work he could attend to. But he didn’t attend to it and took to drink, which disturbed his nerves and took away that steadiness of hand which is indispensable to a penman. Still he managed to keep a goin’ after a fashion, and at last met with, and did some copyin’ for, a lawyer named Gleeson, who was a friend of Mr O’Conor’s and in some indirect way connected with him in business.
Gleeson had an office adjoinin’ Mr. O’Conor’s office, when the latter was located in Wall street, near the Custom House, and Ritli one day called to see Gleeson. While talking with Gleeson Ritli heard a sound, once as familiar to him as his father’s voice, but which he had not heard for years–the sound of a musical box sweetly playin’ in the adjoinin’ office of Mr. O’Conor.
The musical box was playin’ a Swiss air at the time, and this brought vividly back to Ritli’s mind the “Old Folks At Home” in Switzerland. So many sweet, sad memories were associated with this musical box performance that Ritli bowed his head and wept. Gleeson, seein’ a man in tears, naturally asked their cause, and thus learned the fact, for the first time, that Ritli’s father had been a maker of musical boxes, and Ritli felt sure that the very music box he was now hearin’ in Mr O’Conor’s room was one of the boxes made by his father. There was something in its tone which so impressed him.
Charles O’Conor was very fond of these musical boxes. They were almost his only recreation. They exerted a very wholesome influence over him, and soothed him to a greater degree than any other agency. He was a connoisseur in musical boxes, in short; and of all makers of those instruments he preferred those havin’ the name of Ritli, maker.
Young Ritli was right. The box he had heard in O’Conor’s office was, indeed, one of his own father’s make. This was one of those strange coincidences which are always happening in this funny world, and it thus established a sort of link between the famous lawyer and the poor copyist.
Gleeson, the lawyer, rather liked Ritli, and when he heard about the musical box and Ritli’s father, he instantly suggested to Ritli that there was a chance in this fact for him to make O’Conor’s acquaintance on a favorable basis, and suggested to the young man that he should write to O’Conor, mention the circumstances and requestin’ some more copying jobs. Besides, as Gleeson suggested, Mr. O’Conor was at that time retained in a case involvin’ some points about Switzerland; and it occurred to Gleeson that, perhaps, Ritli, by his knowledge of that country, might aid the lawyer somewhat in his case.
The idea was a good one, and a sensible man, in Ritli’s case, would have written the letter to O’Conor and sent it to him that very day. But, in his usual shiftless way, Ritli let a week pass by before he wrote, and when his letter got to O’Conor’s office, the great lawyer was too busy to read it for some time. He had a case on then which demanded all his energies, and his letters were suffered to take care of ‘emselves till the rush was over.
At last the rush ended–for O’Conor won his suit–and one mornin’ havin’ set his music box to work, the great lawyer began to read over his accumulated correspondence. Among other letters, he read that of Ritli, and felt favorably inclined to consider his petition for work. Ritli, very foolishly, had not put his address in his letter. So O’Conor had inquiries made concerning him, but all in vain, for even Gleeson didn’t know his address, and so O’Conor thought no more about the matter.
One mornin’ about a month later, a faded but still fine-lookin’ woman, poorly but decently clad in deep black, called and requested to see Mr. O’Conor in person. Although as a rule the great lawyer never received the calls of a stranger direct, but insisted upon his statin’ first by letter the object of his call, in this case as soon as he heard the name of Ritli sent in by the woman, he at once ordered her to be admitted.
He was ready now for the sake of his music box to give Ritli all the legal copyin’ he wanted, but alas, it was too late, too late. Just a week before his wife’s call upon O’Conor, poor weak, gifted but foolish Ritli, had got rid of his troubles by throwin’ himself into the North River.
The day before his death he had mentioned O’Conor’s name to his wife, and rememberin’ this, the widow in her distress now came to the world-renowned lawyer, with no claim upon him save that her husband’s father had been the best maker of his pet music boxes.
Charles O’Conor received the woman with great courtesy, and was very much shocked to learn of her husband’s death. He bitterly reproached himself with not havin’ read his letters sooner, in which case Ritli still might have been in the land of the livin’, and from that moment on he always made it and invariable point to read and attend to his letters every day.
But he did more, much more, than vain regret or resolves for the future. He became a friend, a true friend and benefactor of the widow of the son of his musical box maker: gave her money, and what was more, gave her his legal services gratuitously in a case which transpired sometime after. By his advice the widow contested the will of her husband’s father, which disinherited his son, and gained her case. All his life long Charles O’Conor was the untirin’ friend of Mrs. Ritli, and hence her attendance with her son when the last honors were paid to the great lawyer in the Cathedral.
[Editor’s notes: O’Conor was a noted New York trial lawyer and Democratic Party politician. He was nominated for President in 1872 to run against incumbent Ulysses S. Grant, but many Democrats instead supported the “Liberal Republican” nominee, Horace Greeley, who was easily defeated by Grant. He died May 12, 1884–about three weeks before this column appeared.
Though the above anecdote is a fine example of the 19th century taste for romantic melodrama, there is reason to be skeptical of its truthfulness. No matching “Ritli” family can be found in the New York census rolls (or spelling variants Retli, Retley, Ritley, etc). Nor does there appear to be any notable musical box maker with a name close to “Ritli.”
Also, the “Harry Hill’s Gotham” writer was known in at least one other case to fabricate a fictional episode in the life of a recently deceased notable figure, Gordon Burnham.]
