Every New Year’s day, or thereabouts, say from Christmas Day on to the end of the year, over a million men and women in New York, Brooklyn, Williamsburg and Jersey City, make about ten millions of good resolutions, of which ten million, at least nine million five hundred thousand are either forgotten or broken, or both, in less than twenty days–say before the date of the first French ball of the new year.
It often, perhaps too often, happens that no particular harm takes place, at least right off, from thus breaking 95 per cent of the good resolves; but I remember one instance in which the breakin’ of one good resolution cost a man his life, and made all the difference between honor and lastin’ dishonor and between the life-long happiness and life-long misery of a loving woman.
Some years ago, three or four days before the New Year’s day–at any rate, somewhere between Christmas and New Year’s, I dropped in at a drinkin’ saloon on Broadway, and saw Troy Dennis, as he was called, at the bar, along with some of his pals.
I know all sorts of people, of course, and I knew Troy Dennis. He was a professional burglar, and as such I took no stock in him whatever; but he was also in himself a clever fellow and good-hearted, a good deal better than his business, and so I nodded to him and finally got into a little talk with him in one corner of the barroom.
I asked him about himself and was very much pleased to hear him say, “I’m going to stop bein’ ‘crooked’ after New Year’s. After the first of next January I am goin’ to be ‘square.’” He looked as if he meant it. I really believe he did mean it, and I congratulated him most heartily on his resolution, and asked him to join me in a glass of egg-nog. We then had some cigars and a little social talk ensued.
Troy Dennis had been concerned in several burglaries and had been rather more successful than the average of professional “cracksmen”; still he had found that, “takin’ one consideration with another, the life of a burglar is not a happy one.” Of all the thousands, got by darin’, skill and crime, that had passed through his hands not a thousand dollars had “stuck” to him. Fast livin’ and faro banks had swallowed ‘em all, and he was convinced from practical and long experience that a skillful burglar didn’t do as well, dollars and sense speakin’, as a skilled mechanic, to say nothin’ of the terrible punishment for crime and the vile disgrace. Especially was he determined to abandon crime to please his wife, a woman of considerable beauty, who really loved him and who had clung to his fortunes with a devotion worthy of a far better and truer man.
“For her sake, Harry,” said Troy Dennis, with some manly tears in his eyes, “I am going to stick to a square life hereafter.” And for her sake I encouraged him in his resolution and took another drink to “her.”
We then parted with hearty handshakin’ (I could afford to shake hands with a repentant thief who wanted to be an honest man), and with mutual good wishes. I never saw Troy Dennis again. Before the first month of the New Year was over he was a dead man, and a dishonored man, sleepin’ the long sleep in a nameless grave, with only a heart-broken wife to lament him. And all on account of a broken resolution.
For a few days after his determination to lead a “square life,” all went well with the reformed burglar. He was a very expert hand with locks, and so had secured honest work at a lock-makin’ factory, and had fair prospects ahead. His wife was a good sewer, and gettin’ a sewin’ machine, and some work, was able to add over a dollar a day to the joint income, beside givin’ her husband a comfortable home.
But about the middle of January his wife fell sick, and her husband (havin’ by this time invested, at his wife’s suggestion, the little money he had in a new patent lock in which he was to have a third interest, and which was really an admirable investment, as it has since made the fortune of those who controlled it) had no ready money for doctors, nurses and for the delicacies that she needed, as part of his weekly wages had to be laid aside to make up the payments necessary to secure his third interest in the patent.
Here he was in a sad predicament indeed. The doctors said that for two or three months to come his wife would require the closest attention and all sorts of expensive luxuries–at least what were expensive luxuries to a man so circumstanced as Troy Dennis was just then. For by his wife’s sickness not only were the husband’s expenses increased, but his weekly income was regularly diminished to the amount that would have been otherwise earned by his wife’s work on the sewing machine.
It really did seem as if the fates had conspired to put Troy Dennis into “a hole.” But these sorts of “holes” are only trials and tests for a strong man; they make him stronger, and he comes out of them like refined gold out of a furnace. But then every man ain’t strong–Troy Dennis wasn’t for one–and the Devil took advantage of his weakness.
One night while thinkin’ over his troubles, broodin’ gloomily over ‘em, he passed a barroom and took a tremendous swig of brandy. The fiery liquid cheered him up for a while, and meetin’ an acquaintance he took another glass of brandy, and then a third.
While in this state of temporary excitement and forced mirth, he came across Dick Casey, the Kid–a man who had been “crooked” from his youth, and who was very ingenious in findin’ out chances for other people to take risks in–risks which would, if followed by success, pay all parties concerned well; but if they failed, would only get into trouble–the other parties, not Dick Casey, who took no personal risks at all. “Heads I win–tails you lose.”
Casey was very glad to meet Troy Dennis then–and to meet him in such a state. He had a scheme on hand for which Troy Dennis would be the very man–bold and active–if only Troy could be coaxed into bein’ “crooked” again.
Casey treated Dennis to a fourth glass of brandy and then commenced to “coax” him. But Dennis was firm–no considerations about himself could induce him to have anythin’ to do with crooked ways again.
Then Casey commenced to talk about Troy’s wife–and here he found he was comin’ to Troy’s strength at once, and weakness.
For it is a strange, sad, yet perfectly natural thing about human nature, that a man’s best side may be his worst, because weakest, sometimes. Every virtue carried too far becomes a vice, and so it was with Troy Dennis.
His love for his wife was the best thin’ about him, yet it led him to his ruin and death. For Casey, by picturin’ his dear wife’s troubles if she didn’t have what money could get her in her sickness; and by showin’ what a lot of ready money could be got at once by a little darin’, brought Troy Dennis, after an hour’s talk and some more brandy, to promising to break his promise, to resolvin’ to break his resolve, and to determinin’ to commit one more burglary, just one more, and for the last–the last time. Let him but just get by this extra crime what had been lost by their extra troubles, and what was absolutely needed for this extra sickness. Let him but just get and start even, and then, come what would, he would never try any crooked ways again. But come what would, he would to take his chances at this extra burglary, and at the ten thousand dollars promised, of which his share was to be just one half–five thousand dollars in cash.
A man called Hughes lived up town in Forty-sixth street, near the North River, in a house all by himself, and had over ten thousand dollars in gold in a box on the second floor, back room, where he slept. He had lost some money in the savin’ banks, so he got all the money he had left in gold and kept it in this box-bank of his own, seldom leaving the little house he rented either day or night, and employing nobody in the house but an old woman, who did his household chores, but went away every night.
The risks of robbin’ such a man as this were considerable, as the man slept in the room with his money, and was probably supplied with a pistol. On the other hand, he was but one man, and an old man. There was nobody else in the house, and there was the ten thousand dollars, all in gold.
There were only three men in this job, Dennis, Casey and a confederate.
There was to be a carriage waitin’ for Dennis and the box, Casey layin’ around outside to keep watch.
Dennis passed several terrible days and nights working at his shop, tendin’ his wife, inspectin’ the old man’s house in Forty-sixth street and drinkin’ brandy. At last a dark night came, a stormy night, a bad night in every sense, and Troy Dennis undertook his last–literally his last–job, in the way of burglary.
After a great deal of difficulty, and with nerve and skill enough exercised in a half hour to carry ordinary honest men along for half a year, Troy Dennis succeeded in effectin’ an entry into the second story of the old man’s solitary house.
Then with infinite difficulty he succeeded in effectin’ an entrance into the old man’s locked and barred room, where he slept with his money.
And then he found himself engaged in the dark in a death grapple with the old man, who had been aroused from his sleep. Troy struggled fiercely, but the old man was fiercer. Had Troy Dennis been, as of old, in desperate earnest in his crime–had he been willin’ to add murder to robbery, and used a knife or pistol on the old man–he might have escaped, and perhaps with the money. But he had only been half-hearted in this job from the first, and did not dare, for his wife’s sake, to stain his hands with blood.
So he lost his chance; and the old man, restrained by no scruples of conscience, thoroughly and earnest in defendin’ himself and his money, found his chance to use his pistol and shot Troy Dennis through the breast, and then threw his body out of the window, breakin’ the poor wretch’s leg in the fall.
Within twenty-four hours, Troy Dennis drew his last breath. He was only a dead burglar, killed in the act, and his wife was only a thief’s widow.
If he had but kept that resolution, New Year’s!
[Editor’s notes: Charles “Troy” Dennis was a real thief, and was hailed as the “king of the second-story workers.” This criminal specialty is burglary of residences by accessing the second floor of the building, often at dinner time, when the meal is being eaten by the residents below. Dennis was known as being very agile, a “human octopus” who would climb up gutters or grasp ivy vines to reach windows.
He did die while on the job, while attempting to rob a Mr. A. R. Morgan of 66 West Fiftieth Street. Dennis had already burgled the adjoining house at 64 West Fiftieth, and was crossing over to the next residence by stepping on a stone arch over an outside doorway. However, the stone arch was not anchored (as required by law), and was only held up by its capstone. Dennis dislodged the capstone and fell, with one of the falling stones of the arch dropping on his head.
There was no old man with a gun; no wife was ever mentioned in newspaper accounts; and there was no New Year’s resolution: Troy Dennis died on October 12, 1876. Perhaps it was a Columbus Day resolution from that morning that he broke.]
