The Galaxy, May, 1877 Part 28

Who was Christ?--The Holy Spirit.

Are you a sinner?--No.

Did you never sin? and do you love G.o.d perfectly?--Yes.

This reminds us of the Cambridge (England) student who, on his divinity examination, being called upon to give the parable of the Good Samaritan, after reciting the benevolent man's promise to the host, "and when I come again I will repay thee," wound up with "This he said, knowing he should see his face no more."

--Ex-Mayor Hall has made a very needless stir in New York and throughout the country, and seems to have managed his disappearance very bunglingly. Is it not, indeed, very commonly the case that men who wish to go away secretly and have their whereabouts unknown--perpetrators of great frauds, robberies, murders, and the like--neglect what seems to disinterested persons the easiest, most obvious, and most sure means of concealment, while they lay themselves out with great labor and ingenuity upon others which are of secondary importance, and which seem not likely to present themselves to the inquiring mind under such peculiar circ.u.mstances? Mr. Hall, we a.s.sume for good reasons, wished to leave New York suddenly, to live in retirement, and not to have the place of his retreat known. He therefore gathers a little money together, and without saying a word to any one, takes ship at Boston and goes to England. He simply disappears. Consequently within twenty-four hours suspicion is aroused, within forty-eight anxiety is felt, and in the course of three or four days a hue and cry is sent over the whole country. It goes to England, of course, by telegraph, and when the steamers arrive a prying, mousing gentleman, whose business it is to find out things for the New York press, visits them one by one, pa.s.ses the pa.s.sengers under inspection, and of course finds Mr. Hall, spectacles and all. It is strange that a man of Mr. Hall's experience of the world, a criminal lawyer, an ex-mayor, a political a.s.sociate of Tweed, Sweeney, and Connelly, should not have seen that such would be the inevitable course of events if he should leave New York as he did.

But how natural for him to say that he was called East, or West, or South by important business which would keep him away ten days or a fortnight, to provide his family and his clerk with that response to inquiries, even if the former suspected the true state of the case, and then to start for England. True enough, in the end his flight would be known, which was inevitable; but he would have had a full fortnight's start, and would have been comfortably on the continent or hidden in the wilderness of London, probably the best place in the world for the concealment of a fugitive person who is not very singular in appearance and in habits, and who is not known at all to the London police. Mr.

Hall might, with a little forethought, have so arranged his affairs that he would have been out of reach and past recognition before suspicion was aroused, not to say before a hue and cry was raised. But as it was, this astute lawyer, this crafty politician, who has been familiar with the ways of tricky people all his life, who knows by constant intercourse with them the habits of men that fly and men that pursue, who is practically acquainted with journalism, does just what defeats his purpose--whatever was the occasion of his leaving New York so suddenly, as to which we say nothing.