isk. Mr. Fisk listened to her story, advanced her $250 on the spot,
procured her an engagement in a theatre at $75 a week, and interested the
captain of one of our finest sea-going vessels in the case so far as to
provide a free passage for the child to this country, the captain, in
order to please Mr. Fisk, taking great pains to discover the whereabouts
of the child and restore her to its mother. These are but incidental
illustrations of what Mr. Fisk was daily doing, and always doing with the
utmost privacy and with the greatest reluctance to allow it to become
known. He would rarely subscribe to any public charity, because he
disliked to make any pretence of liberality before the public."

In the fall of 1867, Fisk made the acquaintance of Mrs. Helen Josephine
Mansfield, an actress, who had just been divorced from her husband, Frank
Lawler. He became deeply enamored of her, and she became his mistress
and lived with him several years, her main object being, it would seem,
to obtain from him all the money he was willing to expend upon her. Fisk
subsequently introduced one of his friends, Edward S. Stokes, to Mrs.
Mansfield, and the woman was not long in transferring her affections from
her protector to Stokes. This aroused Fisk's jealousy, and led to
constant trouble between his mistress and himself. His quarrel with
Stokes was complicated by business disputes, which were carried into the
courts, where Fisk was all powerful. The matter went from bad to worse,
until at length Stokes and Mrs. Mansfield instituted a libel suit against
Fisk, which was commonly regarded in the city as simply an attempt on
their part to extort money from him. The suit dragged its slow way
through the court in which it was instituted, and every day diminished
the chances of the success of the plaintiffs.

For reasons which he has not yet made public, Stokes now resolved to take
matters into his own hands, and on the afternoon of the 6th of January,
1872, waylaid Fisk, as the latter was ascending the private stairway of
the Grand Central Hotel, and, firing upon him twice from his hiding
place, inflicted on him severe wounds from which he died the next day.
The assassination was most cowardly and brutal, and awakened a feeling of
horror and indignation on the part of all classes.

XLVII. TRINITY CHURCH.

On the west side of Broadway, facing Wall street, stands Trinity Church,
or, as it is commonly called, "Old Trinity," the