Lights and Shadows of New York Life Part 21

At the northern end of the Ramble rises a fine gothic stone tower, which forms a prominent feature in almost any view of the park. This is the Belvedere, and is intended to serve as an observatory from which the entire park may be seen at a glance. The rock upon which it stands is the highest point in the park.

[Picture: VIEW ON THE CENTRAL LAKE.]

At the foot of this tower are the Croton Reservoirs. There are two of them. The old or lower one is a parallelogram in form, covering an area of thirty-one acres, and capable of holding 150,000,000 gallons of water.

The new reservoir lies to the north of the old, and is separated from it by a transverse road. It is a ma.s.sive structure of granite, irregular in form, and extends almost entirely across the park. It covers an area of 106 acres, and will hold 1,000,000,000 gallons of water. Thus the two reservoirs take 136 acres from the park. The landscape gardeners have so arranged them that they const.i.tute a very attractive feature of the landscape.

North of the new reservoir is the Upper Park. This has been less improved than the Lower Park, but is naturally very beautiful. A large part of it is taken up with the great ravine formerly known as McGowan's Pa.s.s. It was through this wild glen that the beaten and disheartened fragments of the American army escaped from the city of New York after their disastrous rout at the battle of Long Island. Close by they were rallied in time to make a stand at Harlem Plains. On the hills in the extreme northern part of the park are still to be seen the remains of a series of earthworks, which have been carefully turfed over, and on one of these heights, known as The Bluff, is an old stone structure said to have been used as a block-house or magazine during the war of 1812-15. A small part of the "old Boston Road" is still to be seen in this portion of the park, and in the distance a view is to be obtained of the High Bridge, the Heights of Westchester county, and the Palisades, on the New Jersey sh.o.r.e of the Hudson, while Washington Heights rise boldly to the northward. To the eastward one may see the white sails of the vessels in Long Island Sound, and get a faint glimpse of the town of Flushing, on Long Island, and New Roch.e.l.le, on the mainland, while nearer are h.e.l.l Gate, the picturesque East and Harlem rivers, with their islands and public buildings, and the lovely little village of Astoria.

The park occupies the centre of the island, from north to south, for a distance of two miles and a half. The cross streets do not extend through it, and all vehicles of a business nature are excluded from the pleasure drives. It was foreseen from the first that it would be necessary to provide means of communication between the eastern and western sides of the island, without compelling wagons and trucks to pa.s.s around the upper or lower ends of the enclosure. At the same time it was felt to be desirable to make these roads as private as possible, so that the beauty of the park should not be marred by them, or by the long trains of wagons, carts, and such other vehicles as would pa.s.s over them.

The genius of the constructing engineers soon settled this difficulty. A system of transverse roads was adopted and carried out. There are four of them, and they cross the park at Sixty-fifth, Seventy-ninth, Eighty-fifth, and Ninety-seventh streets. They are sunken considerably below the general level of the park, and are securely walled in with masonry. Vines, trees, and shrubbery are planted and carefully trained along the edges of these walls, which conceal the roads from view. The visitors, by means of archways or bridges, pa.s.s over these roads, catching but a momentary glimpse of them in some places, and in utter ignorance of them in others.

Near the northeastern end of the park is an elevation known as Mount St.

Vincent. It is crowned with a large rambling structure princ.i.p.ally of wood, to which is attached a fine brick chapel. The building was originally used as a Roman Catholic Seminary for young men. It is now a restaurant, kept by private parties under the control of the Commissioners. The chapel is used as a gallery of sculpture, and contains the models of the works of the sculptor Thomas Crawford. They were presented to the city by his widow in 1860.

Just below this hill is the North Lake, into which flows a stream noted for its beauty.

At the Fifth and Eighth Avenue gates are the stations of the Park Omnibuses. These are controlled by the Commissioners, and transport pa.s.sengers through the entire park for the sum of twenty-five cents.

They are open, and afford every facility for seeing the beauties of the place.

The original cost of the land included within the park was $5,028,884, and up to the close of the year 1869, there had been expended upon it an additional sum of $5,775,387; making the total cost of the park, up to January 1st, 1870, $10,804,271. Since that time it has cost about $1,000,000 additional.

The park is controlled by the Commissioners of the Department of Public Parks. The princ.i.p.al executive officer is the President. The discipline prescribed for the employes is very rigid. A force of special policemen, who may be recognized by their gray uniforms, has been placed on duty in the park, with the same powers and duties as the Metropolitan Police.

One of these is always on duty at each gateway, to direct visitors and furnish information, as well as to prevent vehicles from entering the grounds at too rapid a rate. Others of the force are scattered through the grounds at such convenient distances that one of them is always within call. None of the employes are allowed to ask or to receive pay for their services. Their wages are liberal. When an article is found by any of the employes of the park, it is his duty to carry it to the property clerk at the a.r.s.enal, where it can be identified and recovered by the rightful owner.

Improper conduct of all kinds is forbidden, and promptly checked.

Visitors are requested not to walk on the gra.s.s, except in those places where the word "Common" is posted; not to pick flowers, leaves, or shrubs, or in any way deface the foliage; not to throw stones or other missiles, not to scratch or deface the masonry or carving; and not to harm or feed the birds.

No one is allowed to offer anything for sale within the limits of the enclosure, without a special licence from the Commissioners. There are several hotels, or restaurants, in the grounds. These are conducted in first-cla.s.s style by persons of responsibility and character. Private closets for men, which may be distinguished by the sign, "For Gentlemen only," are located at convenient points throughout the park, and cottages for ladies and children are as numerous. These latter are each in charge of a female attendant, whose duty it is to wait upon visitors, and to care for them, in case of sudden illness, until medical aid can be procured.

The establishment of the park has been a great blessing to all cla.s.ses, but especially to the poor. It places within reach of the latter a great pleasure ground, where they may come and enjoy their holidays, and obtain the fresh air and bodily and mental enjoyment of which they are deprived in their quarters of the city. In mild weather they come here in throngs, with their families, and on Sundays the park is crowded with thousands who formerly pa.s.sed the day in drunkenness or vice. The Commissioners have no trouble in enforcing their rules. All cla.s.ses are proud of the park, and all observe the strictest decorum here. No crime or act of lawlessness has ever been committed within the limits of the Central Park since it was thrown open to the public. The popularity of the place is attested by the annual number of visitors. During the year 1870, 3,494,877 pedestrians, 75,511 equestrians, 1,616,935 vehicles, and 234 velocipedes, pa.s.sed within the park gates. The total number of persons that entered the park during that year, including drivers and the occupants of carriages, was 8,421,427.

XXI. THE DETECTIVES.

I. THE REGULAR FORCE.

The Detective Corps of New York consists of twenty-five men, under the command of a Captain, or Chief. Though they really const.i.tute a part of the Munic.i.p.al Police Force, and are subject to the control of the Commissioners and higher officers of that body, the detectives have a practically distinct organization. The members of this corps are men of experience, intelligence, and energy. These qualities are indispensable to success in their profession. It requires an unusual amount of intelligence to make a good Detective. The man must be honest, determined, brave, and complete master over every feeling of his nature.

He must also be capable of great endurance, of great fertility of resource, and possessed of no little ingenuity. He has to adopt all kinds of disguises, incur great personal risks, and is often subjected to temptations which only an honest man can resist. It is said that the Detective's familiarity with crime is in itself a great temptation, and often leads him from the path of right. However this may be, it is certain that a member of the New York force committing an act savoring of dishonesty is punished by immediate expulsion from his post.

The Detectives have a special department a.s.signed them at the Police Head-quarters in Mulberry street. There they may be found when not on duty, and the Chief, when not in his office, is always represented by some member of the corps. They are kept quite busy. The strangers who visit the city throw an immense amount of work upon the Detectives.

These people often get drunk over night, and frequent houses of bad repute, where they are robbed. They naturally invoke the aid of the police in seeking to recover their property. Frequently, by making a plain statement of their cases, they recover their money or valuables, through the a.s.sistance of the Detectives. Sometimes the stolen property cannot be regained at all. These people, as a rule, refuse to prosecute the thieves, and declare their determination to submit to the loss rather than endure the publicity which would attend a prosecution. Thus the Detectives are forced to compound felonies. The injured party refuses to prosecute, and the Detective knows that to make an arrest in the case would simply be to take trouble for nothing. Consequently, if the plunder is returned, the thief is allowed to escape without punishment.

None but those whose duty it is to search out and punish crime, can tell how much the administration of justice is embarra.s.sed, how much the officers of the law are hampered, and how greatly their labors are increased by the refusal of respectable persons to prosecute criminals.

These refusals are not confined to those who seek to avoid such an exposure as is mentioned above. Merchants and bankers who have been robbed by thieves, seem to care for nothing but the recovery of their money or property. They will even sacrifice a portion of this to regain the remainder. The Detective may fairly work up his case, and fasten the crime upon the perpetrator, but he is not sure of meeting with the cooperation upon the part of the injured person that he has a right to demand. The thief seeing that an arrest is inevitable, may offer to return a part or the whole of the property on condition of his being allowed to escape. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the proposal is accepted. The merchant recovers his property, and immediately exerts himself to secure the escape of the thief. He refuses to prosecute the wretch, or if the prosecution is carried on in spite of him, his evidence amounts to nothing. He has protected his own interests, and he cares nothing for society or justice. He throws his whole influence against both, and aids the thief, in going free, to commit the same crime in another quarter. The Detectives complain, and with justice, that it is of no use for them to arrest a burglar where the stolen property can be recovered. If persons who have been wronged in this way would refuse all proposals for a compromise, and would endeavor to secure the punishment of the offender, the criminal cla.s.s would be wonderfully thinned out, and the Detectives would not, as now, be obliged to arrest the same person over and over again, only to see him go free every time.

In June, 1870, a gentleman, pa.s.sing through Bleecker street, on his way home, at two o'clock in the morning, was knocked down and robbed of his watch and money. He was struck with such violence by the highwayman that his jaw was permanently injured. He was very eloquent in his complaints of the inefficiency of a police system which left one of the princ.i.p.al streets of the city so unguarded, and was loud in his demands for the punishment of his a.s.sailant, and the recovery of the property stolen from him. The best Detectives in the force were put in charge of the case, and the highwayman was tracked, discovered and arrested. The friends of the culprit at once returned the stolen property to its owner, and promised to reward him liberally if he would not press the prosecution of their comrade, who was one of the leading members of a notorious and dangerous gang of ruffians from whose depredations the city had been suffering for some time. The offer was accepted, and the gentleman flatly refused to prosecute, and when compelled by the authorities to state under oath, whether the prisoner was the man who had robbed him, became so doubtful and hesitating that his identification was worth nothing. This, too, in the face of his previous a.s.sertion that he could readily identify the criminal. In spite of his misconduct, however, there was evidence enough submitted to secure the conviction of the prisoner, who was sentenced to an imprisonment of ten years.

The Detectives are in constant telegraphic communication with other cities, and intelligence of crimes committed is being constantly received and transmitted. Criminals arrested for serious offences are photographed, and their pictures placed in the collection known as the "Rogues' Gallery." These likenesses are shown to strangers only under certain restrictions, but they aid the force not a little in their efforts to discover criminals. The amount of crime annually brought to light by the Detectives is startling, but it does not exhibit all the evil doings of the great city. "The Police Commissioners of New York,"

says Mr. Edward c.r.a.psey, "have never had the courage to inform the public of the number of burglaries and robberies annually committed in the metropolis; but enough is known in a general way for us to be certain that there are hundreds of these crimes committed of which the public is not told. The rule is to keep secret all such affairs when an arrest does not follow the offence, and hardly any police official will venture to claim that the arrest occurs in more than a moiety of the cases.

There are hundreds of such crimes every year where the criminal is not detected, and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property stolen of which the police never find a trace."

The individuality of crime is remarkable. Each burglar has a distinct method of conducting his operations, and the experienced Detective can recognize these marks or characteristics as he would the features of the offender. Thanks to this experience, which comes only with long and patient study, he is rarely at a loss to name the perpetrator of a crime if that person be a "professional." Appearances which have no significance for the mere outsider are pregnant with meaning to him. He can determine with absolute certainty whether the mischief has been done by skilled or unskilled hands, and he can gather up and link together evidences which entirely escape the unpractised eye. He rejects nothing as unimportant until he has tested it, and is able to conduct his search in a systematic manner, which in the majority of cases is crowned with success.

A few years ago a man came into one of the police stations of the city, and complained that his house had been robbed. He had pursued the thief without success, but the latter had dropped a chisel, and had torn up and thrown away a piece of paper in his flight. The captain commanding the station and an experienced Detective were present when the complaint was made. They carefully examined the owner of the house as to the mode by which the entrance had been effected, the marks left by the tools, the kind of property taken, and the action and bearing of the thief while running away. When these facts were laid before them, the two officers, without a moment's hesitation, concluded that the robbery had been committed by a certain gang of thieves well known to them. This settled, it became necessary to identify the individual or individuals belonging to this gang, by whom the robbery had been committed. The chisel was examined, but it could give no clue. The house-owner had fortunately secured the bits of paper which the thief had thrown away. The officers spread a layer of mucilage over a sheet of paper, and on this fitted the sc.r.a.ps which were given them. This at once disclosed the name of the robber, who was well known to the police as a member of the gang to whom the officers attributed the robbery. Their suspicions were at once confirmed, and the next step was to make the arrest. The Detective said that the thief would certainly be at one of three places, which he named.

Three policemen were accordingly sent after him, one to each of the places named, and in an hour or two the culprit was safely lodged in the station-house.

It would require a volume to relate the incidents connected with the exploits of the Detective Corps of New York. Sometimes the search for a criminal is swift and short, and the guilty parties are utterly confounded by the suddenness of their detection and apprehension.

Sometimes the search is long and toilsome, involving the greatest personal danger, and abounding in romance and adventure. Some of the best established incidents of this kind would be regarded simply as Munchausen stories, were they related without the authority upon which they rest. Such adventures are well known to the reading public, and I pa.s.s them by here.

But the Detectives are not always successful in their efforts. If they are ingenious and full of resource, the criminals they seek are equally so, and they find their best efforts foiled and brought to naught by the skill of this cla.s.s in "covering up their tracks." To my mind the most interesting cases are not those in which the Detective's labors have been crowned with success, but those in which he has been baffled and perplexed at every step, and which to-day remain as deeply shrouded in mystery as at the time of their occurrence.

Inspector James Leonard, in the spring of 1869, related the following case to Mr. Edward c.r.a.psey, in whose words it is presented here:

"One spring morning, during the first year of the war, a barrel of pitch was found to have disappeared from a Jersey City pier, and the porter in charge, when reporting the fact to his employers, took occasion to speak of the river-thieves in no very complimentary terms.

"On the same day, Ada Ricard, a woman of nomadic habits and dubious status, but of marvellous beauty, suddenly left her hotel in New York, without taking the trouble to announce her departure or state her destination. The clerks of the house only remarked that some women had queer ways.

"A few days after these simultaneous events, the same porter who had mourned the lost pitch, happening to look down from the end of his pier when the tide was out, saw a small and shapely human foot protruding above the waters of the North River. It was a singular circ.u.mstance, for the bodies of the drowned never float in such fashion; but the porter, not stopping to speculate upon it, procured the necessary a.s.sistance, and proceeded to land the body. It came up unusually heavy, and when at last brought to the surface, was found to be made fast by a rope around the waist to the missing barrel of pitch. There was a gag securely fastened in the mouth, and these two circ.u.mstances were positive evidence that murder had been done.

"When the body was landed upon the pier, it was found to be in a tolerable state of preservation, although there were conclusive signs that it had been in the water for some time. It was the body of a female, entirely nude, with the exception of an embroidered linen chemise and one lisle-thread stocking, two sizes larger than the foot, but exactly fitting the full-rounded limb. The face and contour of the form were, therefore, fully exposed to examination, and proved to be those of a woman who must have been very handsome. There was the cicatrice of an old wound on a lower limb, but otherwise there was no spot or blemish upon the body.

"In due time the body was buried; but the head was removed, and preserved in the office of the city physician, with the hope that it might be the means of establishing the ident.i.ty of the dead, and leading to the detection of the murderer.

"The police on both sides of the river were intensely interested in the case; but they found themselves impotent before that head of a woman, who seemed to have never been seen upon earth in life. They could do nothing, therefore, but wait patiently for whatever developments time might bring.

"Chance finally led to the desired identification. A gentleman who had known her intimately for two years, happening to see the head, at once declared it to be that of Ada Ricard. The Detectives eagerly clutched at this thread, and were soon in possession of the coincidence in time of her disappearance and that of the barrel of pitch to which the body was lashed. They further found that, since that time, she had not been seen in the city, nor could any trace of her be discovered in other sections of the country, through correspondence with the police authorities of distant cities. They had thus a woman lost and a body found, and the case was considered to be in a most promising condition.

"The next step was to establish the ident.i.ty by the testimony of those who had known the missing woman most intimately. The Detectives, therefore, inst.i.tuted a search, which was finally successful, for Charles Ricard, her putative husband. He had not lived with her for some time, and had not even seen or heard of her for months; but his recollection was perfect, and he gave a very minute statement of her distinguishing marks. He remembered that she had persisted in wearing a pair of very heavy earrings, until their weight had slit one of her ears entirely, and the other nearly so, and that, as a consequence, both ears had been pierced a second time, and unusually high up. He regretted that her splendid array of teeth had been marred by the loss of one upon the left side of the mouth, and told how a wound had been received, whose cicatrice appeared upon one of her limbs, stating exactly its location.

He dwelt with some pride upon the fact that she had been forced, by the unusual development, to wear stockings too large for her feet, and gave a general description of hair, cast of face, height, and weight that was valuable, because minute.

"When he gave this statement he was not aware of the death of his wife, or of the finding of her body, and without being informed of either fact he was taken to Jersey City, and suddenly confronted with the head. The instant he saw it he sank into a chair in horror.

"His statement having been compared with the head and the record of the body, the similitude was found to be exact, except as to the teeth. The head had one tooth missing on each side of the mouth, and this fact having been called to his attention, Ricard insisted that she had lost but one when he last saw her, but it was highly probable the other had been forced out in the struggle which robbed her of her life, and the physician, for the first time making a minute examination, found that the tooth upon the right side had been forced from its place, but was still adhering to the gum. He easily pushed it back to its proper position, and there was the head without a discrepancy between it and the description of Ada Ricard.

"The Detectives found other witnesses, and among them the hair-dresser who had acted in that capacity for Ada Ricard during many months, who, in common with all the others, fully confirmed the evidence of Charles Ricard. The ident.i.ty of the murdered woman was therefore established beyond question.

"Naturally the next step was to solve the mystery of her death. The Detectives went to work with unusual caution, but persisted in the task they had a.s.signed themselves, and were slowly gathering the shreds of her life, to weave from them a thread that would lead to the author of her tragical death, when they were suddenly 'floored,' to use their own energetic expression. Ada Ricard herself appeared at a down-town New York hotel, in perfect health and unscathed in person.

"The explanation was simple. The whim had suddenly seized her to go to New Orleans; and she had gone without leave-taking or warning. It was no unusual incident in her wandering life, and her speedy return was due only to the fact that she found the Southern city only a military camp under the iron rule of General Butler, and therefore an unprofitable field for her.

"The ghastly head became more of a mystery than before. The baffled Detectives could again only look at it helplessly, and send descriptions of it over the country. At last it was seen by a woman named Callahan, living in Boston, who was in search of a daughter who had gone astray.

She instantly p.r.o.nounced it to be that of her child, and she was corroborated by all the members of her family and several of her neighbors. The identification was no less specific than before, and the perplexed authorities, glad at last to know something certainly, gave Mrs. Callahan an order for the body. Before, however, she had completed her arrangements for its transfer to Boston, a message reached her from the daughter, who was lying sick in Bellevue Hospital, and so the head once more became a mystery. And such it has always remained. The body told that a female who had been delicately reared, who had fared sumptuously, and had been arrayed in costly fabrics, had been foully done to death, just as she was stepping into the dawn of womanhood--and that is all that is known. Her name, her station, her history, her virtues, or it may be, her frailties, all went down with her life, and were irrevocably lost. There is every probability that her case will always be cla.s.sed as unfinished business."

On Friday, July 20th, 1870, Mr. Benjamin Nathan, a wealthy Jewish resident of New York, was foully and mysteriously murdered in his own dwelling by an unknown a.s.sa.s.sin. All the circ.u.mstances of the case were so mysterious, so horribly dramatic, that the public interest was wrought up to the highest pitch.