Among the “men about town” that used to flourish in and about the times I’m now writin’ of was a man they called Count Tasistro–Count Louis Fitzgerald Tasistro. He was one of the very handsomest men that ever lived–big, a giant almost, but not in the least clumsy, very well proportioned, and elegant in his manners. He was a very learned man, too, quite a scholar, and quite a writer. He used to publish poetry, and sing songs of his own composition. Such a man as this, pretendin’ to such high-flown connections, was of course very popular among the ladies, and after flirtin’ with and compromisin’ a lot of first-class females, he married a daughter of Judge James Lynch. For a while the two got along pretty well together, but the Count got goin’ wild again, and his intrigues became town talk, when his wife’s friends interfered and procured a divorce for the lady on the ground of his adultery. The Count tried to brazen it out in New York after he was divorced, but New York wasn’t as big or as bad then as it is now, and the Count had to skedaddle to Philadelphia.
There he made quite a big hit again, and keepin’ shady as to his New York rackets, he married a beautiful Quaker City girl, but his New York divorced wife’s friends heard of this second marriage, and they had the Count arrested for bigamy. They held that although the former Miss Lynch was no longer Mrs. (or the Countess) Tasistro, yet the Count Tasistro was so far bound to the former Miss Lynch that he never could marry any other woman durin’ her lifetime. This was regarded as so unfair, that a man who couldn’t any longer claim a woman as his wife could still be claimed by that woman to such an extent that if he married anybody else he was committin’ bigamy, that, although the Count was arrested for a bigamy, he wasn’t held for trial; he got out on bail and then the matter was dropped, the whole case bein’ a queer showin’ of the way things between men and women got mixed in this world.
During the Count’s time, too, another man more distinguished and better known than he was, got himself mixed up in a woman scrape. This was the celebrated Dr. Dionysius Lardner, who came from England with Mrs. Captain Heavysides. The doctor was a smart man, but for a while somethin’ of a scamp, and he made love to and ran away with the wife of a captain in the British army called Heavysides. Lardner eloped with her in London and went to Paris. The captain chased the doctor to Paris, and came across him in a street. He rushed at him and gave him a most tremendous thrashin’. The captain gave it to the doctor as if he was a teamster going for a mule, and if it hadn’t been for two laborers or peasants, who were passin’, the doctor would have been licked to death. After beatin’ the doctor, the captain sent word to his wife that she was welcome to what was left of him, i.e., the doctor; and the two, the doctor and the lady, came to New York. The doctor, bein’ hard up for money, took to writin’ books on science and luxuring on astronomy, and raised the wind that way. Some of the papers pitched into him, but the public generally liked the lectures if they didn’t like his conduct, and in the course of time the doctor made quite a reputation and considerable money in Gotham.
Henry William Herbert, who used to write on sporting matters under the name of “Frank Forester,” was another of the strange men of a quarter of a century ago.
This Herbert was of good family and had some money. He had a country seat near Newark, “The Cedars,” where he used to have all sorts of stag parties. He used to drink long and drink deep, and when in his cups was a dangerous customer.
He had fits and fancies, and in these fits it wasn’t safe to thwart him. He kept up his rackets for weeks at a time, and the neighbors used to avoid his place as if it was haunted. He used to take pleasure in frightenin’ the neighbors, and set all sorts of stories agoin’ about himself. And he got up a first class effigy and hung it from one of the cedars, and it got rumored around that he had hung a man. The neighbors started to cut the man down, and Herbert threatened to shoot anybody who dared to do so. There was a great excitement for a while, till a small boy got up the tree and found out it was only a stuffed figure.
Frank Forester had a strange way about him, and was a sort of mysterious chap any way, but he had a real kind heart when you got to it, and he did many kind actions in secret, and he made some warm friends. But the best friend he had, or thought he had–his wife–went back on him. She was a very fine-lookin’ woman, and he thought the world of her. She, too, was a rather peculiar woman, and had been “through the mill” in the way of love experiences before she met him. She had taken a shine years before to a young actor and had married him. Then she tired of him, or she allowed her family, who were quite “swell” and “aristocratic,” to influence her against him. At any rate she went away with her family from the actor. But he followed her, and at last got a chance to see her one afternoon in private. Then there was a scene. She said she loved him as much as ever, could be happy with no man but him, but begged him all the same to consent to a divorce, so that her friends might be please in public. “Then I will remarry you in secret,” she said, and the foolish young actor believed her and consented to that very singular and very absurd suggestion. She applied for the divorce, sure enough. The young actor let his case go by default as per agreement. The bonds of matrimony between the two were dissolved in public, just as the lady said. But she never remarried him in secret. She never set eyes on the poor fellow again. All he ever got from her was a short letter, returning all his presents–his portrait, his lock of his hair, and about a bushel of his love letters. But the young actor after all wasn’t quite a fool. Instead of makin’ a fuss, he made the best of the situation and went and married a better lookin’ woman. Some time after this little affair Herbert met this lady, and went stark, starin’, ravin’ mad over her–called her all the fine names in the dictionary–and lost his head as well as his heart completely.
Well, in a wild fit Herbert married her, and for a few months lived in a fool’s paradise. Then she heard things about him from other women; he heard things about her, all of ‘em false, doubtless, and there was the deuce to pay between ‘em. There were some fearful scenes at “The Cedars” between the husband and wife. Herbert sometimes swore to kill her, sometimes to kill himself. One day she had a reconciliation with him. They kissed and made up. Herbert was in heaven, and that very night she fled from his roof forever.
Herbert couldn’t believe that she had left him “for good,” and he came to New York to get a house there, to send for her again. But the lady went straight to Indiana, and applied for a divorce in a regular business fashion. Herbert heard of this, and not bein’ a young actor, or an old philosopher, but a middle-aged, passionate man, he couldn’t stand the blow, and killed himself.
And the very night she got the news of his death his wife went to an Odd Fellows ball at Indianapolis and danced for several hours. Such is life!
[Editor’s notes: There are many anecdotes about Herbert, aka Frank Forester, who is acknowledged as the founder of American sporting literature–but the above column provides information not found elsewhere: the episode with the effigy; and the story of his (2nd) wife’s previous marriage.
After Herbert’s death, his cottage burned and became ruins, and by 1873, the local rumors were that the ghost of Herbert himself was still haunting the grounds.]
