The Confessions of Eleanor Burton

A Lady of 1850 Resolves to Live Her Own Life, With Extremely Melodramatic Results

EDMUND PEARSON

THE appalling wickedness of city-life, and the especial depravity of New York is always such a gratifying topic in the rural districts that the newsdealer, or keeper of a general store in the country, must have found it easy, even in I852, to sell his copies of:

THE

STARTLING CONFESSIONS

OF

ELEANOR BURTON:

A THRILLING TRAGEDY FROM REAL LIFE

EXHIBITING A DARK PAGE IN THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CRIMES OF THE "UPPER TEN"

OF NEW YORK CITY

Although the story of the criminous career of Eleanor Burton was "an authentic disclosure", published by a firm and for a class of readers who held that fiction is grossly improper, and the perusal of novels a sad waste of time, the criminologists of New York are strangely silent in this matter. Chief Walling, Officer McWatters and Barrister Dunphy all passed her by. Nevertheless, she was one of those who refused to fulfill our notions of the young lady of the Victorian era, and therefore deserves attention. She anticipated many of our modern practitioners in her ruthless methods.

In her maidenhood, Eleanor was a thoroughly good girl, of polished manners, elegant exterior, and connected with one of the first families of New York. Her father was a wealthy merchant with a princely mansion; in fact, two princely mansions: one in the country. She was betrothed to Eugene Burton, her father's chief clerk, whose form was graceful and yet manly, his complexion a rich bronze, his eyes dark, penetrating, and exceeding melancholy.

If young ladies, such as Eleanor, had been allowed to follow their tastes in the direction of noble young clerks, honest tradesmen, or superb sons of magnificent farmers, there would not have been so many tragedies and confessions. Always, instead, they were forced to take up with some snake of a millionaire.

In this instance the plutocrat was called Mr. Morton, and he was very disagreeable.

He was over fifty years of age, corpulent in form, and baldheaded. His florid face bore the undeniable traces of a life "exhausted in sensual indulgence."

Mr. Morton held the wealthy merchant's note for three hundred thousand dollars, and the payment of this would leave the wealthy merchant bankrupt.

Moreover, as Mr. Morton had discovered, Eleanor's father had been dabbling a little—yes, more than a little,—in the African slave trade. One word to the Government, and her venerable parent, to use his own language, would be forced "to rot in a felon's cell." Once in jail, at that time, it was obligatory to rot.

The alternative which Mr. Morton proposed was, of course, the "hand" of the merchant's lovely daughter. The Government were not informed about the slave-trading, and, says Eleanor:

"The next day we were married. In the dusk of the evening, four figures stood in the spacious parlour of my father's mansion, by the light of a single waxen candle. There was the clergyman, gazing in dumb surprise upon the parties to this ill-assorted marriage; there was my father, his countenance vacant almost to imbecility—for the blow had stricken his intellect; there was the bridegroom, his countenance glowing with sensual triumph; and there was the bride, pale as the bridal dress which enveloped her form, about to be sacrificed on the altar of an unholy marriage. We were married, and between the parlour and the bridal-chamber one hope remained. Rather than submit to the unworthy sensualist, I had determined to die upon the threshold of the bridal chamber. I had provided myself with a poignard. But alas! a glass of wine, drugged by my husband's hand, benumbed my reason, and when morning light broke upon me again, I found myself in his arms."

THE married career of Mr. and Mrs. Morton Mfa§ in accprd with the prescribed custom of'life in New York at all periods of its history.

The unworthy sensualist gave parties at their home, to the profligate of both sexes, selected from a certain class of the so-called "fashionables" of New York. Revels, prolonged from midnight until dawn, disturbed the quiet of the mansion; and, says Eleanor, "in the wine-cup, and amid the excitement of these fashionable but unholy orgies, I soon learned to forget the pure hopes of my maidenhood."

Three months passed with no word from Eugene. The good Eugene, by the way, had been sent on a trumped-up business mission to Havana, Mexico, and other points South.

The merchant, meanwhile, was sinking deeper every day into hopeless imbecility. At length, in the early part of summer, Mr. Morton gathered together a party of his fashionable friends, and they departed on a tour to Niagara Falls.

At Niagara, however, things were no better.

They stayed at the - Hotel,—"and the orgies which had disgraced my father's mansion were again resumed." Mr. Morton was one who insisted on regularity and system in his orgies.

Our chaste ears are not assaulted by the loathesome details, but, so far as I can discover, the orgies consisted in drinking champagne and singing songs. The results were appalling.

The orgies, however, bored Eleanor, and she began to take moonlight walks, near the Falls. Putting on a bonnet and veil she would walk out to Goat Island, and thence to Luna Island. One evening, she met her affianced lover, Eugene, who was also looking at the moon. He had arrived, in a mysterious fashion, via Mexico. She dared not tell him of her marriage, and they fondly embraced and exchanged tender words, before they parted.

Eleanor returned to the edge of the Falls, determined to commit suicide. But the chorus of a drinking song fell upon her ears: Mr. Morton had come out to the Falls, bringing his orgy with him. At least, "he was confused and excited by the fumes of the champagne." As he stood looking over, his wife had a splendid idea. Here is her version of it:

"His attitude, the cataract so near, my own lost and hopeless condition, all rushed upon me. Veiling my face, I darted forward and uttered a shriek. Startled by the unexpected sound, he turned, lost his balance, and fell backwards into the torrent. But as he fell, he clutched a branch which overhung the water. Thus scarcely two yards from the brink, he struggled madly for his life, his face upturned to the moon. I advanced and uncovered my face. He knew me, for the shock had sobered him.

" 'Eleanor, save me—save me!" he cried.

"I gazed upon him without a word, my arms folded on my breast, and saw him struggle and heard the branch snap, and, heard his death howl, as he was swept over the Falls."

The artist says that she cut the twig to help Mr. Morton over the Falls, so there is evidently the usual dispute about the facts.

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She returned to New York and married Eugene. But, after a year, he turned nasty and began to wander to Philadelphia. Eleanor followed him, disguised as a boy, and found that he was preparing to elope with a girl named Ada Bulwer. Eleanor still had her "poignard", and her taste for disposing of husbands had been whetted by the incident at Niagara. She assassinated Eugene, and again returned to New York.

Her subsequent career closely approached downright wickedness. She seduced a popular preacher, named the Reverend Herbert Lansing. She set up orgies of her own. They had rather a fascination for her, and she has left a discriminating classification of them:

"I sought the society of that class of fashionables, to whom my husband— Morton—had introduced me. I kept open house for them. Revels, from midnight until dawn, in which men and women of the first class mingled, served for a time to banish reflection, and sap, tie by tie, every thread of hope which held me to a purer state of life. The kennel has its orgies, and the hovel, in which ignorance, and squalor join in their uncouth debauch; but the orgies of the parlour, in which beauty, intellect, fashion and refinement are mingled, far surpass, in unutterable vulgarity, the lowest orgies of the kennel."

This may be true, but there will be some persons to suggest that an orgy in which beauty, intellect, fashion and refinement are mingled sounds like a rather pleasant party.

Eleanor, together with one of her friends, named Dudley Haskins, engaged in a hideous plot against the affianced wife of Mr. Lansing,—a plot that brought them all into the depths of tragedy, and seems to have ended in the suicide of the heroine herself.

Mr. Haskins is known in the narrative as The Seducer. Many will wish to understand his attractions, so it should be said that he was over forty years of age, tall in stature, with a florid face, short curling hair, and sandy whiskers. He was a roue, and a gambler, and—Heaven save the mark —"one of the first fashionables of New York." Dudley dressed in a "showy style",—blue coat, red velvet vest, plaid "pants", brimstone colored gloves, and a profusion of rings and other jewelry.

The artist presents "The Seducer and His Victim,"—a group of four persons in a rich Empire interior. Two ladies—Eleanor and Miss Somers, the affianced bride of Mr. Lansing—appear in the picture in attitudes indicating deep distress. The Rev. Mr. Lansing, with wasp-waisted frock-coat, and hair arranged like that of the late Elbert Hubbard, is striding about the room in evident agitation. By the ottoman, stands The Seducer, in the senatorial pose of some eminent Confederate statesman. His right hand is placed within the red velvet vest, and his face wears a mild simper.

It was all very sad and painful. But I am glad to announce that the career of the vampire and her satellites was soon ended. Eleanor died by inhaling the fumes of charcoal, and is now buried in Greenwood. The Seducer fled to California, but instantly made himself unpopular in that State and was hanged. Mr. Lansing went mad, but seems to have recovered. The one clear lesson which emerges from the story of Mrs. Burton is that a life devoted to orgies cannot be cleared of its stains, nor rendered acceptable to the moralist, even by murdering two husbands.