Dynasties: A Family Dynasty Omnibus by Cowles Virginia

Author:Cowles, Virginia [Cowles, Virginia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2018-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five — Two Cousins

‘It’s outrageous,’ the great Mrs Astor’s son, John Jacob IV, exclaimed to the press in the autumn of 1894, ‘that a man can commit such an offence and not be punished. If he goes free hundreds of other people may take it into their heads to do the same thing!’

Mrs Astor had not yet moved uptown to her new palace but was still living, greatly inconvenienced, in her old red-brick house at 34th Street, next door to that new hotel, the Waldorf, which her disobliging nephew had just completed. A woebegone tramp had been attracted by the bright lights and stood for some time watching the carriages clattering up to the hotel entrance and the resplendent doorman bowing out the occupants — men in evening dress and top hats, accompanied by glamorous actresses with painted faces. After a while, the tramp’s interest waned and he moved along. But as he passed the large house next to it he saw a light coming from the basement door which was ajar. Being a curious soul, he walked in and suddenly found himself in a comfortable, empty bedroom. He was tired and had nowhere to go so he lay down and went to sleep. The bedroom belonged to the Astor laundress, but she was away for the night so the tramp was not disturbed until the servants found him in the morning. They called the police and he was arraigned before a magistrate.

Times were hard in the spring of 1894. The stock market had crashed six months earlier and now there was an economic depression and widespread unemployment. The vagrant had not committed any crime, so the magistrate fined him five dollars for entering a private house. Unfortunately the tramp could not pay and was sent to jail. The case received a good deal of publicity with Mrs Astor’s son assuming the role of family spokesman. ‘It does not seem right,’ John Jacob IV complained, ‘that a man can enter a house and only be fined five dollars. My mother is frightfully alarmed over the matter and something must be done to punish him so he will not repeat the offence.’

The public apparently did not share the Astors’ concern, for while the newspapers moralized on rich and poor, on the right of a landlord to evict and the right of a tramp to sleep, an unknown citizen stepped forward and paid the tramp’s fine. Jack Astor was horrified by this intervention which he regarded as utterly anarchistic. ‘I am at a loss to understand why anyone would want to let him get away,’ he fumed. ‘Imagine escaping with only two days in prison! A great injustice has been done.’

Meek and mild Jack Astor was under the thumb of his domineering mother and his aggressive wife Ava. Apparently these two ladies refused to let the matter drop, and despite public opinion, which was wholly on the side of the tramp — now known to the world as Mr Garvey — goaded John Jacob IV into pursuing the luckless offender.

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