Stephen H. Branch's Alligator, Vol. 1 no. 04, May 15, 1858

In Short

This fourth issue of a nineteenth-century satirical and polemical broadsheet blends ferocious municipal muckraking with a wildly digressive personal confession. Across its frantic pages, an embattled journalist wages war against corrupt Tammany-era politicians, spars in surreal theatrical dialogue with the Mayor, and recounts a youth plagued by classical study, violent brawls, and a relentless, body-wide case of the itch. It endures as a raw, unfiltered time capsule of antebellum New York’s gutter journalism, capturing the neurotic intersection of high-stakes city graft and deeply humiliating bodily reality.

The Story

The text opens with a blistering attack on George W. Matsell and a web of civic elites—including Peter Cooper, Mayor Daniel E. Tiemann, James W. Gerard, and Ambrose C. Kingsland—accusing them of secret conspiracies, broken loyalties, and betrayal during the recent mayoral election. The narrative praises Frederick A. Talmadge for his leniency and backbone, while championing William Curtis Noyes as the legal savior who helped depose Matsell. From there, the gaze widens to indict Richard B. Connolly, dubbed "Slippery Dick," exposing a trail of perjured alienage, falsified naturalization papers, and public funds swallowed by corrupt printing and record commissions. Flagg, Purser, and prominent editors like Greeley and Bryant are dragged into the same web of silent complicity or active plunder, accused of draining the honest laborer through taxation.

Shifting register, the text transforms into a bizarre, dramatic dialogue titled "The Mayor and Charley," set in the corridors of municipal power. Mayor Tiemann and the contractor Charley trade insults, accusations over street-opening keys, and physical threats while wrestling with dysentery, old political debts to Fernando Wood, and the greasy realities of city contracts. Tiemann dominates the exchange, treating Charley like an instrument to sweep the streets and plunder Record Hall, before the two men briefly soften over shared ailments and conclude with a cynical farewell poem.

From the smoke-filled halls of New York politics, the publication swerves abruptly into an eccentric, multi-decade autobiography of its own creator. This life story tracks a hyper-sensitive, emotionally volatile youth working across New England printing houses and newspapers. It lingers over a traumatic early memory of Samuel J. Smith throwing himself into the grave of his betrothed, who died horribly of lockjaw after a sewing needle accident. The narrator moves to Providence as a post-office clerk, nearly succumbing to a moment of temptation at the midnight money till before his moral-minded father redeems him with tears and grace.

Intellectual ambition strikes next: the narrator throws himself into Greek and Latin studies, sparking intense jealousy among fellow clerks and a physical, cat-screaming brawl with Postmaster Edward J. Mallett that nearly drives Mallett to jump from a window. Protected by Governor James Fenner, the narrator flees to schools in Andover and Cambridge, entering Judge Story’s law school. There, disaster strikes in the form of a filthy bed in Boston that infects him with the itch. The condition becomes a monstrous, all-consuming companion, driving him to secret scratchings, long medicinal ointments, and woolen mittens disguised as boxing lessons.

The arc reaches a painfully comic crescendo during a snowy sleigh ride back from Andover with a student named Terry. After an icy spill that leaves Terry mourning his seemingly frozen nose, the two share a room and a heavy night of punch and warmth. The heat awakens the narrator’s dormant torment, driving him to claw himself into bloody relief while Terry sleeps soundly. Weeks later, the curse completes its inevitable literary transmission: Terry discovers angry pimples on his own calves, realizes he has contracted the affliction, and contemplates suicide, bringing the text to an abrupt, suspended climax right as the narrator delivers his final verdict on despair.

How It Unfolds

• The denunciation of Matsell — The text launches straight into a fiery tirade against George W. Matsell and his aristocratic political allies, warning them of impending ruin and disgrace. It contrasts their corruption with the noble restraint of figures like Frederick A. Talmadge and legal counsel William Curtis Noyes.
• The anatomy of public plunder — The focus shifts to Richard B. Connolly and a syndicate of commissioners who siphon millions from public records and municipal printing. The narrative exposes forged naturalization papers and accuses prominent editors of turning a blind eye to civic extortion.
• The dialogue of the spoilsmen — A sharp, theatrical clash breaks out between Mayor Daniel E. Tiemann and the contractor Charley over missing keys, municipal contracts, and physical ailments. The argument moves from fierce mutual threats to a begrudging, cynical reconciliation.
• The shadow of early grief — The perspective pivots to the narrator’s early printing days and the haunting memory of a young actress’s tragic death from lockjaw. This loss triggers a lifelong emotional volatility and a deep susceptibility to sorrow and grandeur.
• The post office riot — An earnest attempt at self-education and clerkship at the Providence Post Office curdles into bitter office politics and a wild, physical assault on Postmaster Edward J. Mallett. Only the intervention of the narrator’s father and Governor Fenner pulls the confrontation back from disaster.
• The creeping plague — A lodging house in Boston imparts a severe case of the itch, forcing the narrator into a secret, frantic regimen of ointments and boxing gloves. The affliction follows him through legal studies and social visits, dictating his every waking and sleeping hour.
• The transmission of suffering — A snowy winter excursion with a fellow student named Terry ends in a dark, feverish night of punch and mutual confinement. The heat revives the narrator's torment and quietly passes the relentless, skin-deep curse onto an unsuspecting Terry.

The People

George W. Matsell seeks a restoration to his old municipal position, backed by a network of political elites. Standing in his way are public watchdogs, legal pushback from William Curtis Noyes, and bitter journalistic attacks. He ends up exposed as the leader of a dangerous urban banditti.

Richard B. Connolly ("Slippery Dick") wants massive wealth and election as City Comptroller. He is impeded by his exposed perjured alienage and public outrage over multi-thousand-dollar printing schemes. He ends up branded a public thief with a million-dollar fortune.

Mayor Daniel E. Tiemann wants to hold onto executive power while projecting an image of personal integrity. His path is blocked by bickering contractors like Charley and his own severe dyspepsia. He ends up locked in a crass, pragmatic bargain with the city's corrupt machinery.

Charley wants fat meat, oyster stews, and unobstructed municipal contracts. He is thwarted by Tiemann’s aggressive interrogations over office keys and health slurs. He ends up surrendering his keys and sliding into political submission.

The Narrator wants moral uprightness, classical learning, and release from inner turmoil. He is thwarted by his volcanic temper and an excruciating, body-wide case of the itch. He ends up an aged, defiant eccentric scratching out his memoirs and transferring his physical curse to an unsuspecting peer.

In Its Own Voice

The narrator issues a dark warning to the men attempting to return a disgraced official to power.

Beware, then, Cooper Tiemann, Gerard and Kingsland, and other trembling conspirators, or we will make you howl, and open the gates of Tartarus, and set a million dogs and devils at your heels

The Mayor character bluntly asserts his political dominance and appetite during a heated argument with a contractor.

By all the bellonas and doughnuts of the world, I’d rather be a hog and grow as fat as Matsell, than to be a cadaverous crow, and live on vultures, and the shadows of the moon.

The narrator describes the physical and mental torment of a stubborn, body-wide affliction acquired in a Boston hotel.

I felt cold, and made a rousing fire, and went to bed, and had a violent perspiration, and out popped the itch again like a porpoise, and made me scratch so hard and incessantly, that I could not sleep of nights

What It's Really About

Beneath its chaotic surface of name-calling and municipal gossip, the book investigates the moral rot of antebellum American democracy. It asks who truly owns a city when immigrants are forged into citizens, public records become engines of private extortion, and high office is traded like butcher's meat. Simultaneously, it turns an unsparing, gallows-humor lens inward upon the human animal. The text suggests that lofty political crusades and high-minded classical ambitions are constantly undermined by base physical realities—whether a broken heart over a needle prick, a violent fury in a post office, or the relentless, humiliating torture of an itch that turns high-minded scholars and statesmen into scratching, frantic beasts.

Why Read It Today

Readers drawn to the wild, unhinged margins of American letters—fans of early tabloid journalism, historical grit, and unvarnished eccentricity—will find this a mesmerizing artifact. Reading it feels like stumbling into a noisy nineteenth-century tavern where a brilliant, hyperactive pamphleteer is shouting gossip, quoting Shakespeare, and scratching himself all at once. What stays with you is the sheer sensory immediacy of the prose, where high-flown rhetorical classical allusions crash directly into vulgar street slang, physical disgust, and raw paranoia.

Yet the book does not yield easily to modern sensibilities. Its difficulty lies in its relentless, venomous barrage of obscure mid-century New York figures, dense bureaucratic grievances, and casual ethnic and political vitriol. Furthermore, the prose can feel dizzying and disjointed, careening from grand-jury indictments of public plunder to slapstick accounts of frozen noses and nocturnal clawing sessions. You have to endure the furious, paranoid ranting and the indignities of 1850s medical folklore to reach its strange, darkly hilarious humanity, making it a demanding but unforgettable window into a lost, febrile urban underworld.