Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1873-09-06

The End of the Pennsylvania Av.
enue FOp II Beau Brummeit
whose Name never was KnOWn-
The Bar-rOOms' Loss.
For more than quarter Of a century,
dating from about 1916, one of the most
noticeable objects Of interest in Wash
ington was-,n various phases OF pros
perity and adversity-a singular genius
known as Beau Hickman" During
the whole of the period extending from
the beginning of our troubles with Mex
leo to his death he was as well known,
not only to residents but to visitors, as
the Capitol itself; and it was his boast
that he had been on terms of intimacy
with every respectable member OF Con-
gress from Webster and Clay down to
the time when responsibility in Congress
was the exception and not the rule.
Robert Singleton Hickman, as he was
known, was born III Maryland about
1873. After wild and dissipated career
in all parts of the country, but princi-
pally in the South, Hickman drifted to
Washington, and there he developed
most extraordinary passion for dress,
his chief ambition being to shine as the
fop of the day. He became an adept In
personal adornment, and being easy and
graceful in manners, and possessing
some means which he disbursed with
lberality, he soon occupied the position
of the American Beau Brummell, ana
assumed that worthy title with all due
dignity. He hobnobbed with all the
great men of his day who were given to
sensual pleasures-and there we're lew
up to twenty years ago who were not
-and numbered among his regular and
occasional companions in the debauch
and at the gaming table some OF the
brightest ornaments of the Senate and
the House.
But the time came when he could no
longer shine but in borrowed plumage,
and Beau became the walking advertise
ment of the fashionable tailors and the
stool pigeon of the gamblers. Little by
little he went down in the scale, and
when old age began to creep upon HIM
he was frequently dependent for the
necessities of life upon the maid SER
want of the hotels and upon the charity
of strangers, whom he levied upon with
cool impudence that was always IRE
sistible.
Beau Hickman is dead. A week ago
the poor wreck, the victim of a wasted
life, was stricken with paralysis. On
Saturday he was removed to the hospital,
and yesterday morning he breathed his
last. 49,.
His real name was unknown, his fam
ily, supposed to have been one OF the
wealthiest in Maryland or Virginia, hav-
ing sent to him stipulated sum every
wear on condition that he should keep
their secret. He never told anybody
even the name of the place where he
was born, and nobody ever knew where
he lived in Washington until one night
in Louisiana avenue fire turned HIM
into the street with his wardrobe in his
arms. Frequently at the Washington
bars, while tipping glasses with the poll
ticians, he said it was a poor city that
couldn't support him like a gentleman,
and it was his intention to make Wash
inglon support him, and he did, even to
the extent of lesying twenty-five cents
on each of the young bucks of the town,
and larger sums from the larger animals.
For the last few years of his life, having
been afflicted with inhsmmatory rheu-
matism, he made no use whatever OF IN
toxicating liquors.