OF ATEW YORK CITY.                     403
 

CHAPPER  XLIV.

Thomas Robins who went to Vicksburg and became
the cashier of the Vicksburg Bank, fought eleven duels.
One was with the editor of the Vicksburg Sentinel.
I forget his name. A trench was dug, and both parties
descended into it by means of a ladder. Each man ■was
stripped naked, and both were armed with a six-shooter
and a bowie-knife. An account of that duel filled four
columns of the New York Herald at that time. Tom
Robins married a niece of President Taylor. Tom
Quick has a capital notice of the old gentleman Robins.
He speaks of Breeze Robins, " a Sjiort he loved In his
younger days." Tom says, writing of old John Rob¬
ins :

We would bet high he walks out of nights, and hunts
up poor families, and, after being sure of it, pays the
grocer's bills unknown to them. If he don't, ho ain't
like his nephew. Breeze Robins, a Sport whom we knew
in our younger days, when Fulton Engine Company
Twenty-one lay in Cedar street, with the bulliest set of
quick men that ever held a pipe, or had men enough to
stond by the butt, were it One, Fourteen, Fifteen,
P'wenty-seven, Thirty, Thirty-nine, Forty, Forty-two,
Forty-five, or any other crack machine with a fighting
crowd. Breeze was handsome, broad-hearted, and
always had lots of money and sweethearts.   I have seen