some persimmons

[George Thompson]

        Ned Buntline (real name E. Z. Judson) edited a newspaper called "Ned Buntline's Own" -- it seems that almost no issues survive in libraries; no loss, probably, though I'd read them if they were around.  He seems to have been a good-for-nothing.  Kate Hastings kept a whore house.

        COWHIDED BY A WOMAN.  [Ned Buntline, whipped in the street by Kate Hastings, of No. 56 Leonard street; Kate:] "He called me a dirty s----p-t, and I will have the honor of being the first s----p-t to give him a cow-hiding.  He has the law to resort to, and he is perfectly at liberty to use it.  He knows his rights, and I know mine."
        New York Daily Globe, April 5, 1849, p. 2, col. 5;
        Cow-hiding an Editor.  ***  [As Kate Hastings] figured largely at the late Taylor Inauguration Ball in Washington, we are led to conclude that she must be some persimmons.
        NY D Globe, April 6, 1849, p. 2, cols. 4-5

I'm familiar with the expression "some pumpkins" -- from reading, I've never known anyone who used it -- but I've never encountered "some persimmons".

Buntline did invoke the law, and Kate was fined six cents.

(For those of you who may be planning a visit to NYC: I don't think she has the place on Leonard street any more.  You're on our own.)

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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