I Lift My Lamp Beside the Laundry Soap

This cartoon is from an 1884 issue of Life (Vol. 3, p.326): commentary on the plastering of ads everywhere in New York City which is relevant today, too. The ad on Liberty's arm looks like a tattoo, doesn't it? Of course Lungoria and Snook's Laundry Soap were not real products, but the names are close enough to what actual soap and medicines were called.

As some of you may know, November 1 starts National Novel Writing Month and therefore until December 1 I will be (in theory) writing at least 1700 words a day in order to make a 50,000 word first draft appear in my hard drive. So by necessity the posts here will be a little shorter  and I will be tailoring them to the research I'm doing for the novel. It is a mystery (again - this is my 4th NNWM) set in Brooklyn in 1896-7, called Frozen Charlotte. My profile at the NNWM site is linked on the left hand sidebar - just click on the logo to go there, if you like.

So I'll be looking up things about Green-Wood Cemetery, Coney Island, transportation, everyday life, fortune-tellers and true crime. And I will write some of them down here, with a sprinkling of ads and ephemera.

The Haunted Reptile House

Charley Snyder was the head keeper of the New York Zoological Society - also known as the Bronx Zoo - in 1915. And he had a huge problem on his hands that summer: all the keepers of the reptile house were convinced that it was haunted by an unknown ghost. This ghost whistled every morning, around opening time,  from a window at the southeast corner of the reptile house.

At first, of course, some of the men thought that it was a practical joke. For two weeks everyone checked the window several times a day, trying to catch the culprit. But there was no whistler there. Some thought it might be a zoo visitor. Finally a keeper called Toomey told Charley Snyder in confidence that he thought it was a ghost. He said he had heard not just a whistling sound but a voice crying 'lookooser.'

This anecdote was passed around and soon all the employees at the zoo knew about it, "even Gateman Minks at the West Farms entrance." Sensible Mr. Decker, "a very sober-minded man," said that he too had heard a strange voice in the reptile house. And then Mr. Ditmars told Snyder that he "had dreamed that the big boa and the West African crocodile had held an animated conversation." And when the sensible people start feeling nervous, Snyder thought, that's when it's time to put on the Sherlock Holmes hat.

But who was going to play Sherlock Holmes? Another zoo resident, as it turned out. Charley Snyder had a "lady friend" who was a fortune teller, and he told her all about the strange goings-on at the Bronx Zoo. He wouldn't tell the New York Times (or anyone) what she said, because he was pledged to secrecy. In fact, he really didn't like people knowing about his fortune-telling lady friend. But (Snyder said) she mentioned something about "a dark cloud" over the reptile house which gave the building a "disturbed aureole" (by which she meant an aura, which usually pertains to something surrounding a living body). She said that Snyder would get help from a "little one" with a "pompadour, a wizened fact and whiskers."

Snyder thought that she must mean the new saki, which had recently arrived from Peru. "Gee," Snyder recalled thinking, "How is that long-tailed monkey going to help solve the mystery?" Snyder said he wanted the saki to use its psychic abilities to help, but the saki was scared of the iguana. The saki fled to his own cage and refused to go near the reptile house even after Snyder relocated the iguana.

On the next attempt to get the saki to do some detecting, it managed to "upset a box of toads" which was going to be the snakes' dinner.  The saki then ripped up Toomey's trousers. Finally, in a panic, the poor saki blundered into  the last place he wanted to be - the iguana's cage - and got so upset that "he has not yet recovered."

At last, though, keepers Toomey and Deckert solved the mystery when they were spraying water on some salamanders in boxes of moss. They heard the whistle up close and were terribly frightened. The noise was coming from one of the smaller boxes. Deckert found the culprit: a single, tiny narrow-mouth frog from Trinidad which "had escaped the nightly roll call" since it was no bigger than a postage stamp. The water spray had excited the little frog and this is what made him whistle. "That frog sang every morning because it was glad to see us," said Charley Snyder - and so ended a ghost story with an uncharacteristically happy ending.

Source: "Singing Frog Made Bronx Zoo Shudder," New York Times, Sept. 13, 1915, p. 14.

The Bronx Zoo in 1911 from NYPL Digital Gallery.
The picture of the saki, French ca 1830, is from NYPL Digital Gallery also. And the narrow-mouthed frog photo is from Wikipedia.

A Trumpet In Your Ear

As so many of you guessed, this lovely little silver object is in fact an ear trumpet.

Possibly inspired by people cupping a hand to the ear to improve hearing, the ear trumpet has existed for centuries although the earliest print references date from the 17th century. Originally made out of animal horns, ear trumpets were generally made of wood or metal by the Victorian era. Often the metal was covered with a thin coat of vulcanized black rubber to make the device less obvious.

Until the electronic hearing aid began to be available in the 1890s, the ear trumpet was the best option for improving one's hearing. Beethoven used several kinds of ear trumpet in the early 19th century; a picture of the ones he used can be seen here. The English writer Harriet Martineau also used one; in the advertisement below, from Philadelphia in 1857, you can see that one ear trumpet has been named for her.

Many audible hand-claps and hurrahs to those who guessed that this was an ear trumpet:

Thomas MacEntee at geneabloggers 
FreshHell at Life In Scribbletown 
Jen of The Transmogrifier's Tale
Descartes at If You Write It 
Grace at Hugz Before You Go
Jude at Mature Not Senile
Debbi at Debbi's Random Thoughts
RE Ausetkmt at EntrePOD 
Jen at Redhead Ranting

And thank you also to -

Harriet M. Welsch at spynotes
Patricia Rockwell at Subjective Soup
Amanda at Time Machine to the Twenties
Joanne Olivieri at Poetic Shutterbug
Wendy at November Obscura
John at English Wilderness
Bill [no blog link]

For more on ear trumpets:

Vintage Ear Trumpets at Retrospectacle
Victorian-Era Concealed Hearing Devices
Ear Wax Museum 

The drawing of ear trumpets (with ear in middle) is from George Tiemann's 1879 book American armamentarium chirurgicum.
A patent for an ear trumpet very similar to the mystery object is here, and dates from 1880.
The picture of the man cupping his ear is from NYPL Digital Gallery.
The advertisement for ear trumpets and other medical devices made by Pugh Madeira of Philadelphia is from the 1857 Directory of the Borough of West Chester [Chester County, Pennsylvania], p. 121.

An Attractive Victorian Device

This week's mystery object is silver, and has an attractive decorative grid, and dates from the end of the 19th century. There are any number of things that it could be. I can think of several. But what do you suppose it was, and how was it used?

I'll tell you all about it on Monday!

The Ghost of Third Avenue

If you had been taking an evening walk up Third Avenue, late in August 1894, you would have had a problem getting through the crowd at the corner of Third and 72nd Street.

For several nights, there were hundreds of people gathered there from dusk until midnight. So many hundreds of people were there that four extra policemen were assigned to the area to keep everyone calm.

What were they waiting for? A celebrity? Perhaps a comet or shooting star was predicted to appear in the night sky? In fact, they were waiting for a ghost to show himself - a ghost who had recently moved into the neighborhood and had established a residence at 1253 Third Avenue, in a vacant room on the second floor. Everyone in the neighborhood was talking about how the ghost would go to the window, wave its arms and "perform such tricks as ghosts are wont to perform."

The room was vacant - as was the rest of the building - because there had been a fire in it earlier in August. The paint store on the main floor was totally destroyed, and the second-floor apartment in which the O'Connor family had been living, was badly damaged too. After the fire, several people saw the ghost there. The most interesting part of the Times coverage of this story was the list of witnesses who had seen the ghost - with names and addresses. The men had all gone to a notary to affirm that they had seen the ghost (I don't know why they all did this).

On the night that the Times reporter was there with the crowd, someone noticed that the gaslight was on in the flat. Several people thought that the ghost might prefer darkness and at 10pm someone was sent upstairs to turn the gas off. Everyone waited for 2 more hours, to no avail. And then - in a great anticlimax - they all straggled off and went home.

Note: In February 1894, a former manufacturer of trimmings named Alexander H. Strouse died suddenly, of apoplexy, at Minke Causse's restaurant - at Third Avenue and 72nd Street. Could he have been the ghost?

Photograph of Third Avenue at 72nd Street from NYPL Digital Gallery. The storefront at bottom left is very possibly the correct building, as 1253 is right on the corner of Third and 72nd.

"The Ghost Declined To Walk," New York Times, Aug. 20, 1894, p. 8.
"Sudden Death of A.H. Strouse," New York Times, Feb. 19, 1894, p. 2.

The Great New York Aquarium

The official New York Aquarium was opened at Castle Garden, in Battery Park (the southernmost tip of Manhattan) in 1896. It was the earliest continuously-operating aquarium in the US. It remained in operation at Castle Garden until 1941, and was reopened at Coney Island (where it remains today) 16 years later.

This advertisement is for a rival operation, the Great New York Aquarium at 35th Street and Broadway. It was opened in 1876 by William Cameron Coup (the former business manager of Barnum's Circus) and an animal dealer named Henry Reiche.

P.T. Barnum popularized the aquarium in the US, after seeing how popular there were in England on his trip there in 1855. The following year, he opened one at his American Museum; one opened in Boston in 1859, which Barnum took over a few years later.

The Great New York Aquarium was not a long-term success. According to Coup's book on his aquarium and circus adventures, Spangles and Sawdust, it was terribly expensive transporting the white whales, sea lion and other creatures - never mind the cost of keeping them. There were 42 fresh and salt water tanks to maintain. Furthermore, he and Reiche argued over whether to open the Aquarium on Sundays (Coup didn't want to, Reiche did). They decided to resolve their differences by flipping a coin. Whoever won the coin toss would take over the Aquarium and its satellite operation at Coney Island.

Reiche won the coin toss. Coup doesn't tell us anything more (this is in fact the last sentence in the book) but presumably the Aquarium did not last long after that. By 1880, Henry Reiche, working as an "Animal and Bird Importer," was living in Hoboken, New Jersey [Henry Reiche household, Hoboken Ward 2, Hudson, NJ; #443/781, Series T9, Roll 786, p. 209].

Image from the NYPL Digital Gallery.

Sources

Coup, W.C. Sawdust and Spangles: Stories and Secrets of the Circus. (Chicago, 1901).
Kisling, Vernon N. Zoo and Aquarium History (2001), pp 155-6.
Popular Science (July 1899), p. 362.

The East Williamsburgh Head Muff

Today we are celebrating the incredible inventiveness of Mr. Helmann Fürst of East Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, in 1876 - behold his amazing Improved Head Muff, just in time for the cold weather!

It seems to be for men only and is not worn, exactly, but "applied to the head." And it is portable, too.

I didn't find Mr. Fürst's patent, but a Mr. Isaac B. Kleinert of New York City patented an Improvement in Head-Muffs in 1875. It is very similar to this one but also protects the mustache.

One obvious problem with the Head Muff is that it is made out of some kind of mesh or cloth, and does not look as if it offered much protection from the cold. But that is so often the way with trendy accessories: you may not be warm, but you'll cut quite the fashionable figure.

From the fabulous NYPL Digital Gallery.

Note: Helmann Fürst thus far is a rather shadowy figure - not in the census, not in Brooklyn directories, and not in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle - as far as I can tell. Furthermore, the NYPL does not indicate the source of this cutting.

Another Note: Many many thanks to my friend Caroline Rance at The Quack Doctor (one of my favorite history blogs!) for finding the Head Muff patent filed by Furst. The link is here.

The Assistant Sexton and Patrick Henry's Ghost

George Herbert, a "wideawake young man," was the assistant sexton of the North Reformed Dutch Church, Clermont Avenue, Brooklyn in the mid-1890s. It was probably just around Christmas 1895 that Herbert started having problems. And it was all President Grover Cleveland's fault.

Cleveland had, in July of 1895, referred to the Monroe Doctrine when insisting that the British must use arbitration in settling their dispute with Venezuela. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was masterminded by then-President James Monroe and his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. It is a landmark in American foreign policy, stating that any European interference or attempt to colonize US lands would be considered an act of aggression and treated accordingly by the US government. In turn, the US would not interfere with existing European colonies.

Herbert was very distressed by Cleveland's threatening action against Britain in reference to its Venezuelan issues. The pastor of North Reformed, T. Calvin MacClelland, had preached about this, advocating for peace and the brotherhood of nations - which seems perfectly reasonable. Not according to Herbert - or to the ghosts which began appearing in his dreams.

Ever since Cleveland's remarks in July, Herbert had been having "troubling visions" in which the ghosts of the Founding Fathers shook their fists in his face while martial music played loudly. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were among the figures who also "dance[d] in fury" in Herbert's dreams.

By the winter of 1895 one of the ghosts took things a step further. One night during services, Herbert went down to the church basement to check on the steam heat (this was one of his regular jobs). Suddenly, he said, an invisible hand hit him sharply on the right side of his face, and whispered something angry in his ear. The ghost hissed that the Monroe Doctrine must be upheld at all costs. Herbert was pretty sure that this was the ghost of Patrick Henry because it was wearing knee breeches, buckled shoes and a periwig. He also recognized his features and pose from the well-known 1851 painting of Henry giving his famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses, by Peter F. Rothermel . Patrick Henry's ghost made it known to Herbert that it was especially angry at Pastor MacClelland and his talk of "peace at any price."

Herbert decided that the best idea would be to protect himself by wrapping himself in an American flag whenever he had to check on the steam heat in future. He had a Brooklyn tailor make one specially for him, adapted for him to wear (the New York Times, recounting the story, did not specify how). He advised MacClelland to order one, too.

But when MacClelland heard what Herbert had to say, he "gave him his walking papers" - and the ghostly problem was solved, for MacClelland and the parishioners, at least. But what happened to George Herbert? I wish I knew. I would like to know how long he was troubled by patriotic ghosts and the crashing of martial music in his head - and what became of him.

Oddly, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle appears not to have picked up this story (I found nothing there, after an extensive search). I would have thought that it was just their cup of sensational tea, but they seem to have ignored the whole thing. If I do find out anything more about this story and poor George Herbert, I will let you know.

Image of what is probably the North Reformed (since this is a photo of Clermont at Myrtle) is from NYPL Digital Gallery. The ghost in 18th century dress (actually the ghost of Samuel Johnson, who is standing in for Patrick Henry) is also from the NYPL Digital Gallery. The Rothermel painting is from Wikimedia Commons.

Source: "Ghost Scared A Sexton," New York Times, Jan. 4, 1896, p. 8.

A Magical Mystery

Congratulations to John, Shinade, Grace, Joanne Olivieri and Jen for guessing with magical accuracy - this is indeed a magician's set, made in France in the 1850s. It is over at Martinka's Museum of Magic. I wrote a poem about a 1971 ad for this shop, also known as the Flosso Hornmann Magic Co., in this post. A far more edifying post on the shop is here at The Bowery Boys.

Several pieces in this set were made of tin (cups and balls, which seem not to have survived). The ones in the picture are mostly made of boxwood, which is one of the few woods denser than water, and is often used to make chess pieces (which these resemble a little).

The upper right hand corner piece (with reddish wooden egg sitting just to the left of it) was, according to Martinka, a trick which enabled one to give the illusion of having magically inserted a playing card into a real egg. Here is how the trick, called The Hatched Card, can be done; another version, called Egg à la Card, is here in John Scarne's Scarne on Card Tricks (2003).

The red and blue item just above the wand at the bottom is a Scotch Purse, a trick purse that one put coins into that seemingly then disappeared, though one's audience could still feel the coins inside. This picture at left is the closest modern equivalent of the Scotch Purse that Icould find to show you. It is available at Wonder Workshops.

Apparently, a "bonus genus doll" is missing from the set. This was used in a trick called "Bonus Genus" or "The Little Messenger." One used a trick coin, a small wooden doll and a miniature cape that fitted over the doll to perform this trick. The magician made the doll disappear, provided with invisible money, to some fantastic place to have adventures (this was often done for children). A complete explanation of how this trick was done is discussed in Paul Curry's Magician's Magic (2003, pp 20-25), Curry notes that it was a favorite of Charles Dickens, who was an enthusiastic amateur magician - and who might just have owned a set such as the one pictured above. The illustration at right is from this book, p. 24.

Thank you to all who guessed this week:

John at English Wilderness
Robin Egg's Bleu
Daisy the Curly Cat
Shinade at The Painted Veil
Grace at Hugz Before You Go
Debbi at Debbi's Random Thoughts
Jayne at Our Great Southern Land
Life In Scribbletown
Brett Payne at The Photo Sleuth
Wendy at November Obscura
Pam Walter at Satisfied Sole
Catherine at Sharp Words
Relax Max at Clarity 2009
Alison at EleanorBlog
Susanne Saville at Caffeinated Natter 
Joanne Olivieri at Poetic Shutterbug
Jen at Redhead Ranting

A Set Of Strange Little Victorian Objects

It's a History Mystery Friday, and that means a confounding photograph of a confounding historical something.

Here is a set - of something. It does date from the Victorian period, but that's all I will tell you for now.

Have fun guessing - and all shall be revealed on Monday!

******

Edited to add: I am - for now - putting the EC widget back on, primarily so that I can use the toolbar to visit my favorite blogs, and drop on them. Not to be dropping the eleventy-zillion cards I was dropping (don't have time for that!). And I will just see what happens. But I want to use it as a way to visit people. And we'll see how it all goes. There, that's that - see you tomorrow!

Gunzer's Ghost

Henry Dierking was a 25 year old grocer with a business at 813 Park Avenue, Brooklyn, when he married wealthy widow Appolonia Gunzer after a whirlwind courtship of a month and a half.

Appolonia's late husband John Gunzer (George in some accounts) was a saloon owner in East Williamsburgh, Brooklyn. He had died suddenly in May 1877 - murdered while asleep in bed, bludgeoned with a knife or possibly killed by an air-gun (this was one of the many mysteries of the case). His widow was the main suspect in the case but nothing was ever proved and she was not arrested.* She inherited an estate worth about $30,000, which included the saloon. Appolonia - or Abby, as she was sometimes called - ran it alone until a customer brought a friend called Henry Dierking in to meet her. After a six weeks' courtship, she and Dierking married October 15, 1878.

The honeymoon, such as it was, did not last long. Dierking had had no idea of Mrs. Gunzer's history, though it had been the talk of East Williamsburgh only a few years before. Of course, he was not from there - 813 Park was roughly in the neighborhood of Bushwick, just to the southeast. And now, every time he went into a shop in East Williamsburgh and identified himself, the shopkeeper would gasp, and say how brave he had been to marry Abby Gunzer.

At this point, Gunzer's ghost began to appear to Dierking. The ghost was "covered in blood" and full of advice. His advice: get far, far away from Abby. The ghost also said that Abby "was still [his] property, and it would admit of no interlopers or usurpers." Dierking was now frightened of both Gunzers, the widow and the ghost. But he tried to forget about it all. He had only just married, after all, and was living comfortably on that $30,000. So Gunzer's ghost decided to reinforce the message. He reappeared, this time holding a large (but ghostly) club, and urging Henry to leave.

The second round of ghostly threats - not to mention the club - worked. On November 16, a month after the wedding, Dierking fled to Hoboken, New Jersey. And he stayed there, while he had a lawyer draw up separation papers. Henry told people that Abby was "dangerous" but did not specify why. When Abby was "enticed" to visit him in Hoboken in January, Henry got her to sign the separation papers - not telling her, of course, what they were.

As soon as Dierking returned to Brooklyn, Appolonia sued him for abandonment. Dierking countered this by suing her in turn for an absolute divorce.** The abandonment suit was dismissed, but Henry got his divorce. I have been unable to trace Henry and Abby after the divorce, though an Abby Gunzer was living with her three children in another area of Brooklyn in 1880 (see note below).

The Gunzers were an unlucky family. Four years later, in 1883, there was another violent death in the Gunzer family - this time, a tragic accident. Gunzer's mother Victoria, 80 years old, was walking to her local post office from her home in New Lots, Brooklyn when she wasstruck and killed by a New York Woodhaven and Brighton Beach train. She was nearly blind and deaf, and there were no gates at the train crossings. At the inquest, it was suggested that gates be put up all along the line to prevent future tragedies of this nature.

*There were a couple of suspects, initially, but they were completely cleared and circumstantial evidence pointed strongly to Appolonia. nothing was ever proved and she was never arrested, though.

**There is a charming note in the reports of the court proceedings about how the plaintiff, defendant, counsel and spectators "all adjourned to a neighboring bar-room" to discuss the case while drinking beer and eating cheese sandwiches (from "Gunzer Turned Up Again," New York Times, Mar. 18, 1879, p. 8).

Note: Abby Gunzer age 32 and her 3 children were living at 11 Flushing Avenue in the Maspeth/Ridgewood area of Queens, see here at FamilySearch. This was where many Germans had settled at that time.

Sources

"Gunzer Turned Up Again," New York Times, Mar. 18, 1879, p. 8.
"A Haunted Husband," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mar. 18, 1879, p. 2.
"The Dierking Divorce," New York Times, Mar. 23, 1879, p. 8.
"A Widow Ghost," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jun. 19, 1880, p. 4.

"Cut To Pieces," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jul. 27, 1883, p. 4.
"R.R. Accidents," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jul. 31, 1883, p. 2.

There are many articles about the "Gunser" murder in the Eagle; see, for example, "A Dark Deed" (Jul. 14, 1877), which first casts doubt upon Mrs. Gunzer, and "The Gunsers," May 30, 1877, which has includes interesting testimonies.

John (not Frank, as in BDE stories) and Victoria ('Tidelia' in transcript) Gunzer are listed in New Lots, Brooklyn in 1880 census, see here.

Image of the ghost from NYPL Digital Gallery. Image of Graham Avenue at Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburgh, also from NYPL Digital Gallery.

Music Monday: The Talk of the Town, 1929

I couldn't resist doing a Music Monday here as well as on The Doubletake because I wanted to share this song from 1929 that's got stuck in my head: "The Talk of the Town," played by Ted Weems and his orchestra and set to still pictures of Mabel Normand (1893* -1930), the silent screen's Queen of Comedy. Weems was a famous orchestra leader in the 20s and 30s, and this bouncy song would have been perfect for a movie of that era, don't you think?

Normand was an incredible comedienne who was one of the first women to not only act but also write, direct and produce movies. At the height of her fame in the late teens and early 1920s, she even had her own studio and production company.

She was a New York girl, born on Staten Island in 1892 or 1893, and had a model for artist Charles Dana Gibson in her teens before being discovered by Mack Sennett. She often costarred with Charles Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. This little clip will give you an idea of what Normand was like on film. And she wasn't just funny - she was brave. The lion in the last half of this clip is real (the movie is The Extra Girl, 1923).



Ironically, she and Arbuckle were both plagued with bad publicity in the 1920s, which effectively ended their careers. Though she was never a suspect, Normand was unfortunately was associated with the murder of director William Desmond Taylor in 1922 and the shooting of Courtland D. Hines two years later. Hines was shot by Normand's chauffeur with Normand's pistol. She died of tuberculosis in 1930.

Here is Mabel Normand in her heyday, though: "The Talk of the Town" -



*Normand's birthdate is sometimes given as 1892 but according to the 1900 census she was born in November 1893 (Claude Norman[d] household, 1900 US Census, Richmond Boro Ward 1, Richmond, NY; #119/148, Series T623, Roll 1153, p. 105).

The official Mabel Normand website, Madcap Mabel, is here - lots of excellent information and images.

And the official home of Music Monday is Lady Java's Lounge.

******
Thank you so so much to PJ at PJ's Prose for honoring all three of my blogs as her Site of the Week! PJ has a gorgeous blog that I always like visiting, so please drop by there and enjoy it, too.

Very Gentlemanly On the Head

Well, Eureka indeed!

It is Friday and we are going to take a little recess from the history mysteries, though I promise that it will return regularly. Often enough to be fun, but not so often that we all get tired of it.

There will be more ghost stories in the "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn" series, this month, too. And I am also just beginning work on the life story of an eccentric whose life is even more astonishing than that of Fred Bell, the pugilist, Primitive Methodist preacher and fortune teller.

But Fridays, in any case, demand something entertaining and here is just the thing. A hat for all seasons!

You can wear this when you are traveling, especially by steamer boat. And then you can wear it out for an evening on the town in New York, New York after the boat docks down at Pier 49.

Yes, you will be the most styling gentleman of 1874 in your black felt hat, "very gentlemanly on the head." Wear the brim up or turn it down so that it covers your ears (that's what Warnock, the hatter, suggests in the ad) - that will look great. Like a big black felt bucket.

It will go with the big black mustache, no doubt about it.

From the NYPL Digital Gallery.