10
wishing to get his trunks &c from the house in 27th
street, has it s key refused him by a watchman who demands
$50 and odd for protecting the house, during the six weeks
absence of the family. Bellew, by a lawyers advice breaks open
the door. Cahill is about with him all day. Haney goes
over to Brooklyn, stays all night. I decline accompanying
him, intending to work, so read half the afternoon and sleep
the rest, and in the evening Cahill and Arnold came up and
find me drawing, or preparing to draw in Haney s room
my fire having gone out for the third time. They had been
drinking with Doesticks, Sol Eytinge and Krauth, one of
the Mercury proprietors, and both were as Cahill would phrase
it rather bosky. First they had drunk in a Spruce street
cellar, imbibing white wine a sort of be-devilled vinegar; then
adjourned to Goslings where they supped and Arnold stole
a plated spoon and asked the waitresses whether they didn t
come from the north of Ireland? Quitting the others they
rushed into shops and priced things on Broadway, where Arnold
bought a dandy sword cane. When they came up to me Cahill s
condition was pretty evident, but Arnold only talked more
than usual. Cahill lay on Haney s bed, got a fit of hiccup-
ing and we put him through the multiplication table which
he repeated in an exceedingly drunken manner. But it cured
his hiccups. Then he got two-thirds out of window, which
he closed guillotine fashion, kicking his legs up violently
within the room. (They are excessively meager legs, and
Cahill is always funnily demonstrative with them, when
drunk.) Arnold left at 11, saying he d got to get shaved.
Cahill went to bed, where, as I learnt afterwards,
| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Nine: page eighteen |
| Description: | Describes George Arnold and Frank Cahill's night out drinking. |
| Date: | 1857-10-28 |
| Subject: | Arnold, George; Bellew, Frank; Cahill, Frank; Drunkenness; Eytinge, Solomon; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Haney, Jesse; Krauth; Thomson, Mortimer (Doesticks) |
| Coverage (City/State): | [New York, New York] |
| Coverage (Street): | Broadway; Spruce Street |
| Scan Date: | 2011-02-02 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Nine |
| Description: | Includes descriptions of boardinghouse living, a picnic at Hoboken with other New York artists and journalists, his drawing and writing work in New York, attending a lecture by Lola Montez, visits to James Parton and Fanny Fern and the Edwards family, a controversy over Fitz James O'Brien's story ''The Diamond Lens,'' artist Sol Eytinge's relationship with writer Allie Vernon, the suicide of writer Henry William Herbert, antics of the New York Bohemians, the interest of people living in his boarding house in spiritualism, a visit to his friend George Bolton's farm in Canada, a visit to Niagara Falls, and a scandal involving Harbormaster Willis Patten, who lives in his boarding house. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Bohemians; Farms; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Publishers and publishing; Suicide; Travel; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York; Rochester, New York; Elmira, New York; Paris, Ontario, Canada |
| Note: | Thomas Butler Gunn was born February 15, 1826, in Banbury, England, and came to New York in 1849. During the Civil War he worked as a correspondent for the New York Tribune and the New York Evening Post. He returned to England in 1863, and died in Birmingham in April 1903. The collection includes twenty-one volumes of his diaries, including newspaper clippings, letters, photographs, sketches, and various other items inserted by Gunn. Diary entries date from July 7, 1849, to April 7, 1863, and include his experiences with the New York publishing and literary world, his descriptions of boarding houses, his travels throughout the United States, and his experiences traveling with the Federal army as a Civil War correspondent. |
| Publisher: | Missouri History Museum |
| Rights: | Copyright 2011 Missouri History Museum. |
| Source: | Page images, transcriptions, and metadata of the Thomas Butler Gunn diaries have been provided by the Missouri History Museum. |
