News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-02-28
SANCTUM TRAGEDIES.
CLOSING SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A
NUMBER OF NEW YORK EDITORS.
what John Swinton who Knew Them
Well has to Say about Them.

What W K9hp ns swintsn W pHn. Knew Them
There has been widespread grief
among the newspaper men of New York
over the tragical ending. few days ago,
of the life of John B. Wood, familiarly
known as Doc Wood. the "Great Ameri-
can Condenser" of the San, by shock
and exposure through falling into the
ice-b bound river at midnight.
The tragedy of his death brings to my
mind a score of other tragedies of the
sanctum that have cast lurid light over
the years of my career upon the press of
New York. I will tell of few of the
more notable of them, without going far
back in my memory.
The first editor of the New York
World. which was started as an ortho-
dox religious paper, was Mr. Spaulding,
a grave, taciturn man of large frame and
powerful intellect When the World
fell into financial straits and threw re-
Iigion overheard, about 1868, Mr..
Spaulding took a place upon the editor
ial staff of the Times, under Henry J.
Raymond. whose first assistant I then
was and there he showed himself to be
the bOldest master of political invective
ever known on the American press. To
recruit his health, he made a voyage to
New Orleans, but on an excursion up the
Mississippi his boat met with i'll luck.
and he was cast on a deserted bank of
land where he almost starved to death.
The first | knew of his return to New
York was at a very late hour of one
night, when, being on duty in the edi-
torial quarters of the Times, a ''whistle
up the pipe" from the publication Office,
and message that Mr.. Spaulding had
muttered my name, hurried me down
stairs. l found him PROSTATE on his
back upon the stone flooring, evidently
struck by paralysis, and entirely uncon-
scious. In few moments he caught
my voice, and began stammering out
Latin words, disjointed quotations from
Virgil, Horace and his other favorite au-
thors, occasionally pressing his head
with his hands and breaking into
sort of wild laugh. It was after mid
night by the City Hall clock when I left
his side, fastened over to the old New
York Hospital, then in Broadway, rang
up the young doctor in charge, who
agreed to take him in, returned to the
Times with a stretcher, called down four
compositions, who lifted the PROSTATE
man from the floor, and accompanied
them back to the hospital, where [ saw
him placed safely upon a cot under
doctors charge. 1t was half an hour of
the time for going to press when I got
back to the editors sanctum, and if the
editorial columns of next days Times
were short or otherwise imperfect, the
reason is now for the first time told.
Though Mr.. Spaulding was over fifty
years old, he had been married but a
few months before, and in the morning l
telegraphed to his young wife, then in
one of the towns up the Hudson River,
who appeared at the hospital in very
few hours. She tended him devotedly
during the days in which he could not
be removed from the cot, and then had
him taken to her fathers country home,
where he soon afterward bowed his head
in death. In this tragical way ended
the life of the first editor of the New
York World, a man of great soul and
honest purpose.
Even more tragical was the closing
scene, in June, 1862 of the life of Henry
j. Raymond himself, the distinguished
founder and editor of the New York
Times. He had been at the Times
on the afternoon of the night in which
he was found dead, and inquired for me;
but l happened to be engaged elsewhere
in work which he had put upon me-
writing a criticism of Woolsey's "Reform
Against Nature" then just published.
Leaving word that he desired to see me
as soon as possible. he left the office in
his usual CHEEKY mood, took dinner at
p4r i
to a political meeting. But little is
known of his subsequent movements
until midnight of that day (June 49,.
when his wife, who was drawn down
stairs by hearing noise, found him
lying dead at the door of his house. In
the midst of great career in the press
and in politics, his life ended in tragedy
never yet cleared up. In the very early
years of my manhood, Mr.. Raymond |
had given me my first opportunity on |
the press by inviting me to his paper,
and during the-ten years that preceded, |
included, and followed the great war for |
abolition, or from 1859 to 1869, when | |
was his daily associate, he proved him |
self to be the most amiable of men, as /
he was one of the most accomplished ed |
itors.
But / set out to tell, with the fewest |
words, the tragedies of a score of New
York editors of my acquaintance. in a |
single column, and already 1 find it near
ly full.
The tragedy of the death in a mad |
house of Horace Greeley, the founder and |
editor of the New York Tri6une-who |
has not been shocked by the story of it? |
The tragedy of the death of the vener-
a Nnll ID |
of the EUenilg Post, who fell before nv
eyes under a sunstroke in the Central
Park five years ago, which l have prev
iously described
How suddenly and unexpectedly. in
the summer of last year. death struck
my associate, VIM. o. Bartlett, of the |
Sun, man of great mind and great |
heart.
The tragedy of the death last Septem-
Der of the jOvial Hugh J. Hastings, the |
editor of the Commercial AdUertiser of |
n: I. city, was caused through shock |
which he got when his carriage came in
collision with an express wagon.
How suddenly and grievously in De-
cember last fell William L. Clarke, edi-
tor of the New York Star, the good and |
talented man, who had so often thought |
IL MS duty to assall me for the deeds |
that L did under the highest sense of
duty.
The managing editor of the New York
Herald during nearly the whole of the |
life OF the elder Bennett was Mr.. Hud- |
son, who came to tragical end in the |
Massachusetts town of Concord, few
years ago, through being crushed by a
railway train.
Time fails me to tell of the lesser
of the Herald, Ned Sey-
mour and Mills, of the Times, Adams, of |
the Sun, and how many others. What
a line of tragedies OF the sanctum is I'M
rolled before my eyes Tragedies which
have shocked my spirit every year since
first l stood, as a stripping, within the
innermost circles of the daily press of
New York.
The tragedy of poor Doc Wood is the
latest on the roll.
The Future of Our Earth.