THE NEW YORK METROPOLITAN POLICE. A PICTORIAL ANALYSIS OF THE REPORT TO THE LEGISLATURE 66 The consequence of which is, that the poor pa 66 The police service continues, however, to be ad mirably efficient, and quite a number of backcarriages are actively employed on pressing po lice duty, as above depicted. SOME OF THE POLICE SCANDAL" PICTURES Why don't you make us a page of Police Scandal'?" Police scandal, a perennial development in New York, was then, as ever, a subject of unfailing interest. Nast prepared the page and prompt acceptance followed. Published in March, 1859, it was his first appearance in the great weekly where he was to make his fame. It seems fitting that it should have been a protest against civic abuse. CHAPTER V LOVE AND A LONG JOURNEY More than two years were to elapse before any regular connection with Harper's Weekly began. Young Nast was not idle. Encouraged by the success of the police sketches, he assailed the gambling houses. With a detective he made the rounds, and a paper called the Sunday Courier published his work. He also contributed quite frequently to the Comic Monthly and to Yankee Notions-the illustrated humorous papers of that day. But now something wholly unexpected came into the young man's life. He fell in love. At 745 Broadway, in the old residence later occupied by Charles Scribner and Sons, there dwelt in 1859 the "jolly Edwards family "-a household wherein a lack of wealth was more than offset by an abundance of merry entertainment and good will. James Parton was a cousin of this family, and the home of the talented Edwards girls and their brilliant mother was a favorite meeting place for many of the gifted ones of that time. Parton brought his friends, and his friends in turn brought others. Books, painting, theatricals and even politics were discussed in a lively and exhaustive manner by the members of that clever, fun-loving circle, which included "Doesticks," Thomas Butler Gunn-a descendant of Samuel Butler of "Hudibras" fame-J. G. Haney, publisher of the Comic Monthly, and many others, now dead and almost forgotten. They were all young then and many were the festivities they planned and carried out together. Each year a grand theatrical performance was given at the Théâtre des Edwards (sometimes spelled "Edouards" on the printed announcements), and these THOMAS NAST IN 1859 entertainments were really very wonderful affairs, with plays, poems and scenery prepared for each occasion, and with programmes very pretentious indeed. It was during the early summer of 1859 that publisher Haney one evening introduced his young contributor, Tommy Nast, to this blithesome crew. They promptly dubbed him MISS SARAH EDWARDS (From a sketch by Nast, 1859) a title sup conform to his "Roly-poly" a posed to physical characteristics and set him to work in their preparations for a famous Fourth of July picnic, which took place near Nyack on the Hudson, and was subsequently celebrated in a poem by Edward Welles, with pictures by "The young artist friend who along with us came, And is rushing along on the turnpikes of fame." CARICATURE OF THE ARTIST OF THE PICNIC BOOK, BY HIMSELF The poem as preserved is in the form of a little sketch-book, wherein the written lines fall exactly beneath the proper illustrations, showing that artist and amanuensis must have worked side by side-perhaps, at times, even hand in handfor the amanuensis was no other than one of those fascinating Edwards girls, Sarah, with whom the young artist had immediately fallen in love. Their courtship must have run very smoothly that pleas- "THE COMPANY AND THE FIRST EX ant summer of 1859, and on the CURSION (From the Picnic Book) Christmas programme of the Théâtre des Edwards of that year we find the name of one "Thommaso " Nast set down as" Scenic Artist in Chief." Farther down appears a certain "Signor Nastonetti " as "Bibbobobo-bubble, a valet and barber," in the pièce de résistance of the evening, while in the Christmas poem he is appreciatively referred to as "that young artist of high and rare promise Whose surname is Nast and whose prænomen Thomas." on FAME (Word who's ruching along me the tunfiths of Fame ) THE POET AND THE ARTIST It is recorded that Tommy Nast had a most infectious laugh in those days, and a rich musical voice, and that on this evening he gave an impromptu imitation of a popular and very fat Italian opera opera favorite, Amodio, which "brought down the house," and doubtless enshrined him still more deeply in Miss Edwards's affections. But the time of matrimony was not yet. In November, another weekly, called the New |