The recent efforts of old Mr. Gibbs, the cold water and milk man, to make an imposin’ moral spectacle out of Billy McGlory, and to make capital out of him for the temperance cause (two very good things to do, if they could be done), reminds me of the big but temporary excitement that Oliver Dyer and others try to get up years ago here in New York about John Allen, who kept a dance house down in Water street, and whom Oliver Dyer wrote up once as “the wickedest man in New York.”
At the time Oliver Dyer wrote him up John Allen was about forty-five years old, and worth, one way or another, close on to a hundred thousand dollars.
He came of good family–so it was said–and had two brothers who were ministers; in fact, Allen himself had one studied to be a minister, when he turned school teacher, and it was even said at one time he took to writin’ poetry. Perhaps it was this last habit that led him to goin’ down hill, for bad poetry leads to almost everythin’ else bad, and that is perhaps why so many poor poets get to be so very poor.
Yet, even when at his lowest, John Allen was a tolerably well-educated and smart man. He used to take a good many daily and weekly papers, among ‘em the New York Observer and the Independent, and he used to read ‘em between drinks.
And he used to have his family around him in his den, especially his little five-year-old boy, who got to be one of the chief curiosities and attractions of the place.
This boy was called Chester–but not in honor of the President, who was then not very “high Jinks” as a politician–and his father played him for all he was worth.
He managed his little son Chester precisely as if he was the star of a combination. He crammed the little fellow full of all sorts of subjects that he couldn’t possibly understand, but which he could talk about on the principle of the poll parrot. As for Chester himself, he loved, like all smart children, to hear himself talk.
Allen had a rough-and-ready way with him, and was a good off-hand speaker. One time Mr. Albert C. Arnold, of the Howard Mission, three clergyman, two policemen and Oliver Dyer visited his place. Allen was ready for ‘em–told the orchestra to “toot up” in their honor, set his girls to dancin’ and then yelled out to a big woman, standin’ by, “Hartford, go up stairs and get my baby.”
“Hartford” went up stairs, and then Allen turned to his visitors with a leer and a wink. “Now, gents,” said he, “you are all writers and ministers and philosophers, and think you know everythin’, but I’m now goin’ to show you that my baby knows as much as any of you. He’s hell on writin’, prayin’ and fightin’, Chester is.”
The good folks squirmed at this kind of talk but they squirmed more when “the baby” was brought down.
Chester was in his night gown, just woke out of sleep. A real kind father who truly loved his child wouldn’t have woke him up just then in his first baby sleep, not for all the visitors and advertisements in the world.
But the poor little “star” baby was used to this sort of a thing, and soon he was wide awake and pert, and answered a lot of questions in geography, arithmetic and all that, the good people lookin’ on and applaudin’ instead of protestin’ and insistin’ that the baby should be sent to bed. “Now, Chester, give us a song,” cried his father. Then Chester sang a low comic song.
“And now give us a break-down, Chester,” shouted his father. The little shaver danced like a sailor.
“And now, Chester, give us a prayer.” And right on top of the song and dance the baby repeated the Lord’s Prayer, and then looked round for applause.
After some more singin’ and dancin’, poor, tired baby was taken up stairs again to bed, and then John Allen invited his reverend visitors to sail in and have a dance with the girls. “The girls shan’t harm you, gents,” he said, laughin’. “I’ll watch over you myself like a hen over her chickens. Ha, ha!” and he burst out in a laugh so hearty that, spite of their surprise and anger, some of the dominis joined in the laugh ‘emselves.
One of the ministers finally asked him if he wouldn’t allow a regular prayer meetin’ in his place, to which Allen with his characteristic free and easy cool impudence replied right off: “What with my pious newspapers and you fellows comin’ and singin’ camp meetin’ hymns here, I am already looked upon by my neighbors as a little out of the way; but really, gents, if on top of all this you were to start a camp meetin’ here, why, I would lose what little character I have left, ha! ha!” and here he burst into another fit of laughin’, in which the dominies did not join.
But the good people were bound to have their prayer meetin’s at Allen’s place. So one night in the latter part of May, about midnight, six clergyman again accompanied by Mr. Arnold and a policeman, as a guard, got up a raid and marched to Allen’s dance house.
They found the place closed, but a light peeped through the shutters, so they knocked. They heard Allen’s voice tellin’ somebody to open the door, and then rushin’ in they found Allen with his head all soapsuds, gettin’ a shampooin’, so as to send him to bed sober.
“This is the best way to get rid of a drunk, gents,” he said, addressin’ the reverend gents. “I’ve tried all sorts of ways, but this is the shortest and cheapest. I recommend it to any of you gentlemen if you are ever inclined that way. Whenever you find yourself drunk about bed time you just take a good shampoo and you’ll find the investment pay a big dividend in the mornin’.” And here John Allen paused in his peculiar temperance lecture, for by this time he had done shampooin’, had braced up, and invited all hands “to take a drink.” His invitation not bein’ accepted, he proposed a social smoke. But the “social smoke” was declined, like the “social glass.”
“Then what can I do for you, gentlemen?” asked Allen.
“We’ve come to pray,” said Arnold, of the Howard Mission.
“You shan’t pray here,” growled Allen; “I do all the prayin’ here myself.”
He walked off cursin’ to the bar, but Arnold and the rest prayed, and the next day it was all in the papers, and John Allen calculated that in twenty-four hours he got over a thousand dollars free advertisin’, and I guess he did.
The good people were in dead earnest, though, and even got Allen to close his place for a while, and prevailed upon him to attend church at the Howard Mission and to publicly announce that he should never open his place again on the old basis.
So far so good–very good–and if it had stopped right here the cause of good order would have gained. But, unfortunately, while the ministers and missionaries and pious ladies were sincere, Allen, Tommy Hadden, Slocum and Kid Burns were not. They only went into the affair as a matter of biz and notoriety, and after the excitement and the advertisement was over they went back to the old rut worse than ever.
As for Allen, he and his wife and several of his girls were arraigned before Justice Dowling ror robbin’ a sailor out of fifteen dollars.
And certainly John Allen couldn’t have been the wickedest man in New York before the “revival” at his place for the simple reason that he was worse after it.
Sensational “repentances” seldom last any longer than the “sensation.” There are very, very, very few “Awful” Gardners or Jerry McAuleys.
[Editor’s notes: The above column likely drew on more than one source: “The Wickedest Man As He Is,” Harper’s Weekly, Aug. 8, 1868; Dyer, Oliver. “The Wickedest Man in New York,” Packard’s Monthly, July, 1868; McCabe, James D. The Secrets of the Great City, Jones Brothers and Co., 1868.
I examined John Allen’s background in my project to annotate Herbert Asbury’s The Gangs of New York. His original surname was Van Allen. John Allen was unrelated to a later dance hall manager contemporary with Harry Hill, Theodore “The.” Allen, who ran a place called the “American Mabille.”
The column also refers to Billy McGlory, yet another infamous dance hall manager, who operated several places, notably Armory Hall.
Both Billy McGlory and The. Allen were called by some “the wickedest man in New York,” but the first to earn that title was John Allen. Harry Hill himself was also labeled with that term on a few occasions.]
