University of Virginia Library

COLONEL CULPEPER TO MAJOR BRANDE.

My dear Major,—I am sorry to inform you that
yesterday morning at daylight, or a little before, a large
portion of the inhabitants of this city ran mad, in a
most singular, I might say, original manner; for I
dont remember to have seen this particular species

described in any work on the subject. This infirmity is
peculiar to this precise season of the year, and generally
manifests itself a day or two previous to the crisis, in a
perpetual fidgeting about the house; rummaging up
every thing; putting every thing out of place, and
making a most ostentatious display of crockery and tin
ware. In proof of its not having any affinity to hydrophobia,
it is sufficient to observe that the disease invariably
manifests itself in a vehement disposition to
scrubbing floors, washing windows, and dabbling in
water in all possible ways. The great and decisive
symptom, and one which is always followed by an almost
instantaneous remission of the disorder, is scrambling
out of one house as fast as you can, and getting
into another, as soon as possible. But as I consider
this as one of the most curious cases that ever came
under my observation, I will give you a particular account
of every prominent symptom accompanying it,
with a request you will communicate the whole to Dr.
Brady, for his decision on the matter.

It being a fine, bright, mild morning, I got up early,
to take a walk on the Battery, the most glorious place
for a morning or evening stroll, to be found in the world.
It is almost worth coming here, to inhale the exquisite
coolness of the saline air, and watch the ever moving
scenery of little white sails, majestic displays of snowy
canvass that look like fleecy clouds against the hills of
Jersey and Staten Island, and all the life of nature,
connected with her beautiful repose on the bosom of
the still mirror of the expansive bay. Coming down
into the entry, I found it cluttered up with a specimen of

almost every thing that goes to the composition of house
keeping, and three or four sturdy fellows with hand
barrows, on which they were piling Ossa upon Pelion.
I asked what the matter was, but all I could get out of
them was, “First of May, sir—please to stand out of
the way—first of May, sir.” So I passed on into the
street, where I ran the gauntlet, among looking glasses,
old pictures, baskets of crockery, and all other matters
and things in general. The side walks were infested with
processions of this sort, and in the middle of the streets,
were innumerable carts loaded with a general jail delivery
of all the trumpery, good, bad and indifferent, that the carelessness
of servants had broken, or the economy of the
housewives preserved. If I stopt to contemplate this
inexplicable scene, some male monster was sure to
bounce against me out of a street door, with a feather
bed, or assault me in the breach with the corner of a
looking glass, or some projection still more belligerent;
while all the apology I got, was “First of May—take
care, sir—first of May.” Sometimes I was beleaguered
between two hand barrows, coming different ways, and
giving each other just enough room to squeeze me half
to death. At others, I was run foul of by a basket of
crockery or cut glass, with a woman under it, to the
imminent risk of demolishing these precious articles so
dear to the heart of the sex, and got not only sour looks
but words, while my bones were aching with bumps and
bruises.

Finding there was no peace in Israel, I determined
to get home without farther delay, and ensconce myself
snugly, until this fearful irruption of the household gods,

and their paraphernalia, had passed away. But I forgot
that “returning were as tedious as go o'er.” There
was not an old chair, or a looking glass, or a picture, or
any article cursed with sharp angles, that did not appear
to have an irresistible attraction towards some part of
my body, especially that portion which oftenest comes
in contact with other bodies. In attempting to steer
clear of a hand barrow, I encountered a looking glass,
which the lady owner was following with pious care,
and shattered it into a thousand pieces. The lady
fainted; in my zeal to apologize and assist her, I unfortunately
grazed a glass lustre, which caught in my
button hole, and drew after it a little French woman, who
luckily lighted on a feather bed which an Irishman had
set down to rest himself: “Mon Dieu!” cried the little
woman: “Jasus!” exclaimed the Irishman; the lady
of the looking glass wept; the little demoiselle laughed;
the Irishman stole a kiss of her; and the valiant Colonel
Culpeper, sagely surmising that the better part of valour
was discretion, made a masterly retreat into the entry of
his domicil, where by the same token he ran full against
my landlady, who in a paroxysm of the disorder was
sallying forth with both hands full, and demolished her
spectacles irrevocably.

Finding myself thus environed with perils on all sides,
I retreated to my bed chamber, but here I found the
madness raging with equal violence. A servant maid
was pulling up the carpet, and pulling down the curtains,
and making the dust fly in all directions, with a feverish
activity that could only have been produced by a degree
of excitement altogether unnatural. There was no

living here, so I retreated to the dining room, where
every thing was out of its place and the dust thicker,
than in the bed room; mops going in one corner,
brooms flourishing in another, sideboards standing in
the middle of the room, and dining tables flapping their
wings, as if partaking in that irresistible propensity to
motion which seemed to pervade every thing animate
and inanimate.

“Pray, sir,” said I to a grave old gentleman, who
sat reading a newspaper, apparently unmoved amid the
general confusion. “Pray, sir, can you tell me what all
this confusion means?” “O its only the first of May,”
he replied, without taking his eyes off the newspaper.
Alas! he too is mad, thought I. But I'll try him
again.

“The first of May, what of the first of May?”

“'Tis moving time.”

“Moving time! what is that?”

“The time when every body moves.”

“But why does every body move just at this time?”

“I cant tell except it be because it is the first of
May. But,” added he, looking up at last with a droll
smile, “you seem to be a stranger, and perhaps dont
know that the first of May, is the day of all others in the
year, when the good people of this town, have one and
all agreed to play at the game of move all. They are
now at it with all their might. But to-morrow, all will
be quiet, and we shall be settled in a different part of
the street.”

“O then the people are not mad,” said I.

“By no means, they are only complying with an old
custom.”

“'Tis an odd custom.”

“It is so, but not more odd than many others in all
parts of the world.”

“Will you be so obliging as to tell me its origin, and
the reason for it?”

“Why as to the reason, half the old customs we
blindly follow are just as difficult to account for, and
apparently as little founded in reason as this. It would
be too much to make people give reasons for every
thing they do. This custom of moving in a body on
May day, is said however to have originated at a very
early period in the history of New York, when there
were but two houses in it. The tenants of these taking
it into their heads to change their domicil, and having no
others to remove to, agreed to start fair at one and the
same time with bag and baggage, and thus step into
each other's shoes. They did so, and the arrangement
was found so convenient that it has passed into general
practice ever since.”

“And so the good people take it for granted that a
custom which necessity forced upon them when there
were but two houses in the city, is calculated for a
city with thirty thousand. A capital pedigree for an
old custom.”

“'Tis as good as one half the old customs of the
world can boast of,” replied the philosopher, and resumed
his studies. “But,” said I, “how can you possibly
read in all this hub-bub?” “O,” replied he, “I've
moved every May day for the last forty years.”

Inquiring where the house was situated, into which
the family was moving, I made for it with all convenient
speed, hoping to find there a resting place for
my wearied and bruised body. But I fell out of the
frying pan into the fire. The spirit of moving was here
more rampant than at my other home, and between
moving in and moving out, there was no chance of escaping
a jostle or a jog, from some moving moveable, in its
arrival or departure. Despairing of a resting place here,
I determined to drop in upon an old friend, and proceeded
to his house. But he too was moving. From thence
I went to a hotel in hopes of a quiet hour in the reading
room; but the hotel was moving too. I jumped into a
hack, bidding the man drive out of town as fast as possible.
“I'm moving a family, sir, and cant serve you,”
cried he; and just then somebody thrust the corner of
a looking glass into my side, and almost broke one of
my ribs. At this critical moment, seeing the door of a
church invitingly open, I sought refuge in its peaceful
aisles. But alas! major, every thing was in confusion
here; the floors in a puddle, the pews wet, the prayer
books piled in heaps, and women splashing the windows
furiously with basins of water. “Zounds!” said
I to one of them, “are you moving too?” and without
waiting for an answer, walked into the church yard, in
hopes I should find them quiet there. Here I sauntered
about, reading the records of mortality, and moralizing
on the contrast between the ever moving scene without
and the undisturbed repose within. There was but a
wooden fence to mark the separation between the region
of life and that of death. In a few minutes my perturbation

subsided, the little rubs and vexations I had undergone
during the day faded into insignificance before the
solemn meditations on that everlasting remove to which
we all are destined. I went home, dined at my old
house, slept in my new lodgings, on a wet floor,
and caught a rheumatism in my left shoulder.

Adieu, major. If you ever visit New York beware of
the first of May.