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vol. title: Vol Four of The Theosophical Society of The Arya Samaj of Arya-wart vol. period: Sept 1878 – Sept 1879 pages in vol.: 350 |
New York Notes
Scattering the Ashes of Baron de Palm—A Strange Night Scene in Gotham—The Mysterious Hindoo High Priest—How Some Tramps Surprised prised Brother Murphy—The Remarkable Dwight Insurance Affair—High Rents and Amusements—An Old-Time Scene in the Old Bowery, Etc.
From Our Own Correspondent.
New York, Nov. 22.—Heirophant Olcott, Madame Blavasky, the mysterious Hindoo High Priest, and the whole kit and boodle, so as to speak of Theosophists, have wound up the Baron de Palm business at last.
Down to the waters of New York Bay, |
It was none of my funeral, so I can afford to keep my spirits up, anyway. But to the strange narrative. In a French flat far up town began the last rites. There were present the mighty and illustrious Hierophant, and also the learned Blavatsky, who fills the import post of Secretary to the Theosophists. Some twenty others, including one newspaper man, were likewise present. Nineteen of the twenty are said to have been Theosophists, though it was not supposed that Gotham had so large a number of them in all its borders. They were present, I say, but before they became present each and every one had to pass three sentries, one after another, and produce to each sentry certain evidence that it was all right.
was not there then. He was not far away, though, and when the moment came for the ceremonies to begin, the High Priest produced himself in some mysterious way that puzzled the newspaper man sorely. He did not rise through the floor, nor fall through the ceiling, nor enter by a door, and yet he was there marvelously muffled from head to foot, and so shut up within his garments that it was out of the question to get a good square look at him with a view to future identification. The Heirophant was also muffled, but not so impenetrably as the High Priest, and so, likewise, in a moderate way, was the Blavatsky. The rites, which soon began, consisted of chants which sounded like incantations, accompanying the reburning of what might be called a pinch of the Baron's ashes, on an aromatic funeral pyre that had been prepared in the room. The High Priest did most of the chanting, and the language he employed is said to have been pure Hindoo. The ceremonies at the house lasted a considerable time, and when they were over the party, High Priest, Heirophant and all, proceeded with great solemnity to a dock near by, one carrying the urn that contained the ashes of the Baron. They then boarded a small vessel, that had been engaged to carry them down the bay, where the ashes should be cast upon the sea, as the Hindoo casts the ashes of his dead into the Ganges. There had been a proposition to consider the Shrewsbury River a Ganges for that occasion only, but it was voted down, as the Shrewsbury does not contain any crocodiles, and a motion to make the sea their receptacle was adopted. As already remarked, the funeral party, if one may so call it, sailed down the bay, and stopped opposite Governor's Island. The vessel then headed to the east and steadied, and Heirophant Olcott, holding the urn breast-high, cast some of the white ashes to the sea, with an invocation that the sea should keep them till “the Great Pralaya come.” After the invocation he poured what remained of the ashes into the sea, and the vessel headed back for New York, while the sentinels over on Governor's Island, who witnessed the strange proceeding at a distance, were almost beside themselves with joy in the momentary belief that they had a clue to the whereabouts and whatabouts of the remains of A. T. Stewart.
It was William Black, I think, who wrote a lively magazine story about the visit of the Shah of Persia to England a few years ago. There was a rich old fellow, with a vulgar wife and a pretty daughter, and a smart young man in love with the daughter, but who hadn’t enough money to bless himself withal. The vulgar wife, whose great ambition was to get up in society, promised the young man her daughter if he would bring the Shah to her house as a guest. The young man said he would, and when the momentous night came, sure enough, a horrible foreign fellow, strangely dressed, and accompanied by a suite of semi-savages, arrived at the house, and behaved in the abominable manner which the hostess had been given to understand that the Shah and his body guard always adopted. The smart young man got the pretty girl for a wife, but it subsequently came to pass that the Shah was a bogus Shah, and the real Shah had not been there at all. The story comes to my mind, oddly enough, in connection with the Hindoo High Priest who officiated at the last rites over the ashes of Baron de Palm. Where did this High Priest came from, and where did he go to when his work was done? When the body of the Baron was cremated in the furnace at Washington, Pa., a mysterious personage was seen there and hints were given that he was a distinguished Hindoo who attended to see that all things were done in the proper way. When the cremation was over the mysterious stranger disappeared as suddenly as though a cyclone had borne him away, and nobody saw him again until the ceremonies in the French flat began two nights ago. Then he came forth in the person of the High Priest who uttered strange incantations at the funeral pyre. When the party returned from the singular performance down the bay, the High Priest stepped ashore with the rest, and when one of the company looked for himhe had vanished from human sight. The inquisitive person hunted around, but not a trace of the mysterious High Priest could he find. The smart young man in the Shah story had induced one of his chums to dress up for the distinguished potentate from the East and play a game on the woman who wanted to get up in society. But of course Heirophant Olcott would not resort to anything of that sort in connection with the ashes of Baron de Palm. And yet it is very queer. Who is the High Priest, where did he come from, and where did he go?
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