The Polyanthos
Dixon performed in Boston through the end of February 1838. That spring, he moved to New York City, where he re-entered the publishing business with a newspaper called the Polyanthos and Fire Department Album. Dixon again championed the lower class and aimed to expose the sordid affairs of the rich, especially those who preyed upon lower-class women.
An early Polyanthos alleged that Thomas Hamblin, manager of the Bowery Theatre, was engaging in an affair with Miss Missouri, a teen-aged performer there. Within ten days of publication, Miss Missouri turned up dead, reportedly killed by "inflammation of the brain caused by the violent misconduct of Miss Missouri's mother and the publication of an abusive article in The Polyanthos." On July 28, Hamblin accosted Dixon. Another assault in August prompted Dixon to start carrying a pistol. Undaunted, Dixon continued his attacks on Hamblin and others in the Polyanthos. He exposed another alleged affair, this between a merchant named Rowland R. Minturn and the wife of a shipmaker named James H. Roome. Twelve days after the publication, Roome killed himself.
Another article alleged that Francis L. Hawks, an Episcopalian rector and reverend at the St. Thomas Church of New York, had been engaging in illicit sexual behavior. On December 31, Dixon was in court, charged with libel. Dixon spent a week in jail, then paid the $2000 bail. However, before he could even leave the jailhouse, he was arrested for a charge leveled by Rowland Minturn's brothers that Dixon's article had resulted in the man's death.
Bail was raised to $9000, an enormous amount, which Dixon protested. The prosecution argued that "The accused is a criminal of the blackest dye, and by his infamous publication is morally guilty of no less than three murders, and I hope the court will not diminish the amount of bail one iota!" It did not. Nevertheless, a notorious New York madam named Adeline Miller paid it, and Dixon walked free. Only a month later, though, she had sent Dixon back to jail for unknown reasons. Facing seven counts (four from Hawks and three from the Minturns), the singer and editor remained incarcerated for two months while he awaited trial.
The Minturn case came first, on April 15, 1839. After three days, the jury came back unable to reach a verdict, and the Minturn brothers dropped the charges. Dixon returned to jail, but Hawks dropped his charges from four to three. The judge lowered bail to $900 on April 20, and Dixon walked free.
The press renewed their attacks on him:
To those who know the true character, and something of the personal history of this imbecile vagrant, the exuberance of indignation with which he is pursued, appears truly ridiculous. That he is disgusting, a nuisance, and a bore, we know—and so is a spider. Nobody would dream, however, of extinguishing the latter insect with a park of artillery; though all the city seem to have fancied that George Washington Dixon could be conquered with no less. The truth of him is, that he is a most unmitigated fool; and as to his pursuing any person with malice, he is not capable of any sentiment requiring the appreciation of real or fancied injury. If he were kicked down stairs, he could not decide, until told by some one else, whether the kick was the result of accident or design, and if design, whether it was intended as a compliment or an insult.
Dixon fought back in the Polyanthos by defending himself and his motives, and to some degree, he seems to have succeeded. The Herald for one admitted that his trial had exposed an unsavory facet of the upper class. Nevertheless, on May 10, Dixon changed his plea to guilty regarding one count, and the next day did the same for the other two. He was sentenced to six months of hard labor at the New York State Penitentiary at Blackwell's Island. Dixon reportedly responded, "This is a pretty situation for an editor." He would later claim that Hawks had paid him $1000 to change his plea.
The press reacted with its usual fervor:
Dixon is a mulatto, and was, not many years ago, employed in this city, in an oyster house to open oysters and empty the shells into the carts before they were carried away. He is an impudent scoundrel, aspires to every thing, and was fit to be any body's fool. Somebody used his name (such as he called himself, for negroes have, by right, no surnames) as the publisher of a newspaper, in which every body, almost, was libelled. He is now caged, and, we may hope, will, when he comes out of prison, go to opening oysters, or some other employment appropriate to his habits and color.
Dixon served out his sentence then returned to New York. He resumed the Polyanthos, emerging as the leader of a cadre of like-minded editors interested in exposing immorality. Dixon now focused his efforts on Austrian dancer Fanny Elssler, whom he accused of sexual misconduct. On August 21, 1840, he went so far as to rally a riot against her and then published the inciting speech in the Polyanthos. He then targeted men who seduced young, working-class women, boarders who cheated their landlords, dysfunctional banks, and so-called British agents who were supposedly stirring up anti-American sentiment among American Indians and black slaves. Dixon claimed to be "a battering-ram against vice and folly in every shape", writing:
The Polyanthos cannot die. The protecting Providence that watches over the safety of the just, and defeats the machinations of the wicked, will make it bloom. . . . We prophesy that the latest descendant of the youngest newsboy will animate his hearers with the desire to emulate the enviable fame of DIXON! Our name will be handed down to the end of time as one of the most independent men of the nineteenth century! Our very hat will become a relic.
On February 16, 1841, Dixon turned to a crusade against a New York abortionist known as Madame Restell. He vowed to reprint an anti-Restell editorial every week until the authorities took notice or Restell stopped running newspaper ads for her abortion services. As for abortion itself, Dixon claimed that it subverted marriage by inhibiting procreation and encouraged female infidelity.
Dixon kept his word, illustrating the editorial in later runs with woodcuts of Restell carrying a skull-and-crossbones emblem. When the March 17 New York Courier quoted the New York grand jury as saying "We earnestly pray that if there is no law that will reach this, which we present as a public nuisance, the court will take measures for procuring the passage of such a law", Dixon responded with the March 20 headline "Restell caught at last!" On March 22, Ann Lohman, part of the husband-and-wife team behind the Restell name, was arrested. Dixon claimed vindication and covered the trial over several issues of the Polyanthos. After her conviction on July 20, he wrote, "the monster in human shape . . . has . . . been convicted of one of the most hellish acts ever perpetrated in a Christian land!"
On September 12, a man in the street struck Dixon in the head with an ax, which prompted some of the only positive press Dixon ever enjoyed that was not related to his singing. The Uncle Sam praised his editing and writing: "Go on martyr of virtue, go on and prosper! Go on getting out extras, and defending the sacredness of the marriage institution. Go on through malice, opposition, fiery trials, persecutions and assassinations—posterity will do thee justice. . . !"
Even with positive press, Dixon's troubles with the courts were not over. Around September 16, he allegedly assaulted Peter D. Formal, who was taking down bills that Dixon had posted. Dixon failed to appear for his October court date, and he skipped later dates on 1 and November 11. On November 19, he again was placed under arrest for obscenity as part of a citywide campaign by the district attorney to fight yellow journalism. On January 13, 1842, Dixon was indicted for the charges in absentia. A warrant was issued for his arrest on April 13. By this time, he had handed the Polyanthos to Louse Leah, and the charges were eventually dropped.
In late 1841, Dixon had gotten into another row with a colleague. William Joseph Snelling obtained a warrant against him, and Dixon countersued. Snelling wrote anonymously in the Flash:
We know him for a greedy, sordid, unscrupulous knave, of old; . . . We are aware that men are judged by the company they keep and that we shall be blamed for having had anything to do with Dixon. Be it so.—We deserve rebuke, we have suffered for our folly and, if that is not enough, we are content to sit down in sackcloth and ashes; the meet attire of fools who trust to a person so vile that the English language cannot express his unmitigated baseness.
In keeping with sexual morality at the time, Dixon and his colleagues sometimes checked bordellos for cleanliness, friendliness, and other factors. Snelling drew from this, linking Dixon to organized prostitution and alleging that he had connections to a madam named Julia Brown. Eventually, another editor named George B. Wooldridge joined with Dixon for a few issues of the True Flash, but they did not sell well. Rumors circulated at this time that Dixon was to be married, but sources disagreed over the identity of the fiancée; one said she was a Congressman's daughter, another that she was a madam. The Flash published a story that Julia Brown and a prostitute named Phoebe Doty had been seen fighting over the Melodist. If Dixon did marry, no record survives of it.
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