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Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards » Suspects » Tumblety, Francis » The Tony Pastor Song « Previous Next »

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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Chief Inspector
Username: Mayerling

Post Number: 577
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 6:49 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I have just seen this tune for the first time on the website http://www.mikedist.com/fascinatum/2002/fascinatum-052002-2.html

[I hope I got that straight.]

This site gives the song "The Carte-de-Visite Album" that Pastor sang that mentions Dr. Tumblety. Until the last couple of days I had not really known about this tune, and so if I say something that has already been written about it I apologize.

This is a "list" song, similar to those patter tunes of W.S. Gilbert in his operettas with Sullivan (like the Major General's song in The Pirates of Penzance that mention many people that most people don't usually think about). This tune is set in the year 1864 or so. It mentions the following celebrities:

Mayor (or ex-Mayor) Fernando Wood of New York City,

Shakespearean Actor (and idol of the Nativists in the Astor Place Riots) Edwin Forrest

Actress Laura Keen (actually mispelled, it's Keene), who is best recalled for starring in the revival of "Our American Cousin" that Lincoln watched when he was shot.

Steamboat and shipping tycoon (and Nativist political backer) George Law

Harriet Beecher Stowe the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley.

Dan Bryant (I don't know him at all).

Ellen Grey (I don't know her either).

Ada Menken (again mispelled - Adah Mencken - poet and actress. She was best recalled for her performance in the play "Mazeppa" where she was seen on stage, supposedly tied to a horse while naked. Sophia Loren spoofs this in the movie HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS.)

Johnny Heenan (America's boxing champion, who fought Tom Sayers of England in a famous, indecisive bare knuckled bout in 1863. Heenan and Mencken were married for a few years).

Doctor Tumblety

Madame Restell (more later about her, and the placing of her with Tumblety).

Young Booth (John Wilkes?)

Cora Hatch (I don't know her at all).

Wendell Phillips (a well known abolitionist - the "joke" about him is very racist regarding female african americans).

Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles

Confederate General Pierre Gustave Beauregard (victor of Fort Sumter and First Bull Run)

Union General Benjamin Butler (who was confronting Beauregard - and being outgeneralled - in the Bermuda Hundreds Campaign in Virginia in the summer of 1864.

Confederate General Joseph Johnston (who had been confronting Sherman before Atlanta until replaced by John Bell Hood in July 1864).

William Yancey - a leading "fire eater" of the South in the years leading to secession, and subsequently given a foreign diplomatic post to get rid of him. Actually he was dead in 1863.

Robert Toombs of Georgia - a former cabinet officer in the Federal Government in the Buchanan administration, but a supporter of the secession of the South. By 1864 he was a forgotten political figure in the South.

Robert E. Lee - the Confederate military leader.

Henry Wise - former governor of Virginia, and leader of the secession movement there. He was the governor of Virginia who oversaw the trial and execution of John Brown.

Abe Lincoln - the U.S. President.

Elmer Elsworth - Colonel of the New York State Fire Zouaves, a volunteer army group who had come to Washington in the first months of hte war. Ellsworth (correct spelling) worked as a law clerk for Lincoln, who considered him a member of his family. Ellsworth was shot and killed by a Confederate hotel owner in Alexandria, Virginia in May 1861 when he tore a rebel flag down from the roof of the man's hotel (the man, a Mr. Jackson, was shot and bayonetted to death immediately afterwards by a Union soldier). Lincoln was shocked by the loss of Ellsworth, who was considered the first Union "martyr" of the war.

Nathaniel Lyons and John Sedgwick - two Northern Generals who were killed int he war (Lyons at the battle of Wilson's Creek, Mo., in August 1861, and Sedgwick at Spottsylvania Courthouse, Va., in June 1864. I don't know who "Lander" is - presumably another Northern General.

George Washington (? - he died in 1799, but they did not have "carte - de - visites" back then).

Jeff Davis - President of the Confederate States

W.T. Sherman - The northern general who burned Atlanta and led the march to the sea.

It is an odd grabbag of names (and I wish I knew the more obscure ones), but the song (despite the disparaging and insulting couplet involving Wendell Phillips) is pro-Union and anti-Confederate.

Now about Dr. T.

The quote for him is:

"The famous Doctor Tumblety,
The knight of pill and pestle,
Stuck in a corner there you'd see
Along with Madame Restell."

The idea of the song is that Pastor is describing an album of these 19th Century collectables called "cartes-de-visites", which were small photographs of celebrities, usually with copies of their signature underneath. They were expensive, and were handed out by well-known people instead of name cards. [If you are up to famous Victorian killers, the egomaniac Dr. Edward William Pritchard of Glasgow, Scotland loved to give such cards of his "magnificent" bearded self out to people, even if they hadn't asked for one!]

All of the figures in the song were subjects of such cards (including such stage stars as Laura Keene and "young Booth"). Dr. Tumblety would certainly have been pleased to give out such cards, probably showing off himself in a phony uniform or gaudy costume.

But he is put with Madame Restell. Madame Restell was Mrs. Anna Lohman, the wife of a quack doctor (sound familiar), who - when he died - became very rich. Her mansion on fifth Avenue (the site is now the site of the Empire State Building) was imposing. It was called, "the mansion built of baby skulls". You see, Restell was New York's leading abortionist.

A good account of her career is in Lloyd Morris's excellent INCREDIBLE NEW YORK. Despite occasional police problems, the charges were always dropped. You see, she knew secrets about New York City's leading families, and so nobody wanted to really cross her.

Until 1878. Then someone as strong-willed as she came up. His name was Anthony Comstock. If you have heard of the word (coined in derision by George Bernard Shaw) "comstockery" it is based on Comstock's lifetime crusade against vice. He was a terrible censor (sometimes ridiculously so). Shaw coined the dismissive word after Comstock tried to prevent one of his plays from appearing in New York City.

[Although I am opposed to most of Comstock's point of view, after reading about the man I note that he did do valuable work in another sphere that he entered after getting involved with anti-abortion work. He noted the newspapers were full of patent medicine advertisements. Comstock was interested in 19th Century contraceptives, but it irked him to see so many poisons sold to desperate people as cancer cures and the like. He started a campaign in the 1890s against these, and it helped lead the way to the Pure Food and Drug Act. Unfortunately for his historical reputation, his crusade against vice is recalled more than this.]

In April 1878 Comstock went to Restell's mansion, and said he was desperate. His wife was pregnant and they could not afford any children. When he wanted to be, Comstock could be a convincing actor, and Restell believed him. She handed him some contraceptive. He immediately revealled who he was, and arrested her. Although Restell apparently tried to pressure him, she suddenly found that Comstock did not care if famous New Yorkers had secrets that Restell knew - he was willing to testify against her. After her lawyer paid her bail Restell went home. She cut her throat in her bathroom.

The tune pushed Tumblety next to Restell in the album. It is now understandable why Tumblety might not have cared for the tune - Restell was not a person one wanted to be associated with, even in a "funny" song. So his reaction is a little more understandable.

Jeff
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Alan Sharp
Chief Inspector
Username: Ash

Post Number: 782
Registered: 9-2003
Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 7:45 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Jeff

Just to fill you in on one of your "I don't knows", Cora Hatch was a well known 19th Century Spiritualist and Medium.
"All I know of morality, I learned from football" - Albert Camus
Visit my website - http://www.ashbooks.co.uk/
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Chief Inspector
Username: Mayerling

Post Number: 579
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 8:44 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Alan,

Thanks for explaining who Cora Hatch was (although what she has to do with John Wilkes Booth - if "young Booth" refers to John Wilkes - is anyone's guess). 19th Century Spiritualists could get entwined with celebrities in other fields. The American Arctic Explorer, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, married one of the spiritualist Fox sisters secretly before his death in 1857.

I found out who Lander was. According to the volume FORWARD TO RICHMOND (page 84) of the Time-Life series on the Civil War, it turned out he was General Frederick W. Lander, a favorite of General George B. McClellan, who died in February 1862 (just before the beginning of the Peninsula Campaign) of a "congestive chill", which may have been pneumonia. It is odd, however, that Lander is included with Lyons and Sedgwick. Yes, they are three generals who died in the Civil War, but Lander died of natural causes, not of wounds on the battlefield.

Jeff
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Donald Souden
Inspector
Username: Supe

Post Number: 448
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 8:47 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Jeff,

The Dan Bryant in the patter was most likely the showman who ran and starred in Dan Bryant's Minstrels. It was at Bryant's request that one of his performers, Dan Emmett, wrote a new song that became famous as "Dixie." Emmett's composition, "Dixie's Land," premiered in NYC on April 4, 1859.

Incidentally, Anthony Comstock came from my hometown in Connecticut. I've spent time spelunking in the local historical society's records. Up until he returned from the Civil War he seems to have been the same as his putative peers -- an unaffected farm boy. Some time I have to find the time (and the money to give me the time) to really research his early years. There remain several local landmarks named after the family.

Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Chief Inspector
Username: Mayerling

Post Number: 580
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 9:02 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Don,

I just looked up Dan Bryant on "Google" and found a photo of him that mentioned he was a minstrel.

If you are interested there is an old biography of Comstock by Heyward Broun and Margaret Leech called ANTHONY COMSTOCK: ROUNDSMAN FOR THE LORD.
It was pretty good, and tries to show Comstock as fairly as possible. The authors point out that Comstock's personality changed after he began recovering from a serious wound he got in the war.

Jeff
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Chief Inspector
Username: Mayerling

Post Number: 581
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 8:48 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi folks,

Re: General Frederick Lander (d. 1862). If you plug his name into "Google" it turns out he was rather well known in New York and the United States in the years prior to 1862. He was involved in exploring and surveying the American West in the 1850s, warning of threats to American control over California unless there was closer contact (i.e. a transcontinental railroad). His daughter would eventually establish a scholarship worth $2,500.00 a year for Native Americans going to college in the General's name. There is a peak called "Lander's Peak" (like Pike's Peak is named for explorer and military man, General Zebulon Pike) named for General Lander. A painting of it by Albert Bierstadt is on one of the websites.

Jeff

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