Memoirs of an editor : fifty years of American journalism / Edward P. Mitchell.

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MEMOIRS OF AN EDITOR

I prefer, however, to leave to time the explanation which I
think it will furnish.
The world is full of dual personalities, but it is not the
easiest thing to define the triality which included within
a single cranium the practical diplomatist of the reciprocity negotiations, the acidulous satirist of "The Tender
Recollections" and of "Dollie and the Two Smiths," and
the idealist who labored for sixteen years in a spiritualistic
community to weld the philosophy of Plato with the doctrines of Swedenborg and the sociology of Fourier.
Those comer windows overlooking the City Hall plaza,
with Broadway in the background and the multitudinous,
variegated traffic of Park Row swarming directly beneath
them, framed hundreds of pictures that do not fade. The
odd little occurrences, as anybody rash enough to attempt
reminiscence speedily discovers, persist even more clearly
than the most imposing pageants. How could I ever have
dreamed, for instance, that it was to be my privilege to
behold, from the third story of the ancient Tammany
Hall, a cobra hunt such as Rudyard Kipling would have
given his left ear for the opportunity to observe and describe? Yet there it was, one fine afternoon, right before
my eyes. The large hooded reptile, escaped somehow from
Holden's zoological emporium up Chatham Street, approached John McComb's beautiful City Hall by the
route frequented by Brooklyn aldermen and distinguished
guests of the municipality. Newsboys, bootblacks, public
officials, and wayfaring citizens scattered in dismay. The
"sparrow cops," as the gray-coated park policemen of that
day were called, were stupefied into inertness; they simply
did not understand the procedure for the arrest of a big

snake without a warrant. Meanwhile the fugitive East
Indian glided its way into the jungle of shrubbery that
then clustered about the east end of the building. There
it was lost to view but not forever. Presently a pursuing