We haven’t got many relics of the past in New York. Gotham hasn’t got much reverence for antiquity. Not half as much as Boston has or Philadelphia, but then Philadelphia and Boston are “old” fogy places anyway, compared to New York, which is essentially “new” and “live.”
But in the old Fifth Ward Hotel, as it was called, there was, less than thirty years ago, a relic of bygone days which had a history of its own. It wasn’t much of a relic to look at, bein’ only a battered piece of carved stone, but such as it was, it was once important enough to have a “general order” issued from a great general about it, and it was town talk in its time.
A little while before I saw the relic it was covered with rubbish and dirt from a torn down buildin’ in Water street. It had been put into shape as far as possible and had been put up in a little garden or back yard in the rear of a store in Water street, where it was visited by the curious.
One of the men connected with the Water street store conceived the idea of makin’ a little money out of this bit of stone, and of chargin’ a dime to see it. But the idea didn’t work. When people can see a whole Bowery Museum, “genuine” albinos, made to order wholesale; tattooed Greek sailors,” who have always lived in Hester street or thereabouts and never saw Greece or the sea, except on the way to Coney Island, in their lives; when they can see these and “double-headed nightingales” and get roped into a “skin game” beside all, for a dime, men weren’t goin’ to pay ten cents to see one old defaced relic, even if it had some “history” connected with it.
Tracin’ the course of this relic backwards, I find that before it was set up in the yard back of the Water Street store, it had been for a while in the possession of Ball Hughes, the Sculptor, who “touched it up” and tried some of the De Cesnola business, I suppose, to make the old thing look as near like its original self as he could, considerin’, of course, he had never seen the original.
Goin’ backwards another step, the old relic to which I allude had been lyin’ around the corporation yard among a lot of other curious odds and ends.
When originally brought to the corporation yard the relic of which I write, which was the statue of a great English statesman, had its head on it; but after knockin’ about the corporation yard the statue did what its original never did, lost its head. This head originally was a separate piece of stone fastened to the body by an iron rod. But the rod got loose from the body, and so, in course of time, the head got lost.
A good many “statesmen” and politicians learn to get along as well without their heads as with ‘em, but this rule don’t apply to their statues, and the loss of the top-piece prevented any attention bein’ paid to the rest of the body till Ball Hughes, the sculptor, came long and tried to restore the statue.
Goin’ backwards one step farther, I find that nobody knew exactly what became of the statue for several years before it got to the corporation yard. It was simply “missin’.” It had, like many livin’ men, disappeared from its first and original position, which was on a pedestal in Wall street, not far from where the Washington statue now stands.
For the relic I have been alludin’ to was the statue of the celebrated English statesman, William Pitt, who was always friendly to America when it was only a colony of Great Britain.
By an act of the old Colonial Legislature of New York a Robert Charles, Esq., and a Sir Charles Baker were authorized to pay for two statues, to be set up in the streets of New York, as emblems of admiration for an allegiance to the mother country. These two statues were those of King George III and William Pitt. These had been ordered by a previous legislature, but there had been some trouble about the funds necessary. But an appropriation bein’ made afterwards, the statues were paid for and put up.
The statue of King George III was placed on the Bowling Green and Pitt was put. as just before stated, in Wall street.
There was quite a time over the puttin’ up of those two statues. A lot of the statesmen and politicians of the day made “buncombe” speeches over ‘em, and some of the heads of our present first families were conspicuous in their “gush” over these “connectin’ links,” as they called ‘em, “between the old world and the new.”
But the public of New York generally didn’t share in this enthusiasm. And the two statues had hardly been set up before they were defaced and mutilated. A great deal of indignation was expressed over their defacements and mutilations, and a watch was kept over the statues. But the constables of old New York didn’t propose to do any more work than they were paid for doin’, and so went to sleep comfortably at night. And it was at night that all the defacin’ was done, of course.
Finally a law was passed imposin’ a fine of one hundred pounds on anybody caught mutilatin’ these two works of “high” art, the offender to be imprisoned till the fine was paid.
But the fine might as well have been made a thousand pounds, for all the effect it had.
You can’t stop public sentiment in this, or for that matter in any other country, by a fine, and in point of fact, the injuries inflicted on the statues increased instead of diminishin’ after the fine was proclaimed.
It is an interestin’ fact that the leadin’ Americans of all parties, the “rebels” as well as the “royalists,” were opposed to the mutilation of these two statues. General Washington himself, when he was in military command of New York, issued a general order forbiddin’ any one defacin’ them under heavy penalties. He looked upon ‘em as works of art, and didn’t exactly see in his cold, calm way, what good would come of hackin’ two pieces of senseless stone.
But the people of New York in this respect differed from their great leader. The statue of George III, in the old Bowling Green was destroyed by a mob, and the statue of Pitt was torn down and carted away one night.
Its subsequent career and misadventures have been described in this chapter, and it shows how soon big things become little, when a bit of stone which was once town talk and the subject of “laws” and “military orders,” became an almost forgotten curiosity in an obscure tavern yard.
