“The Three Bummers”

01Sep07

“Careful now,
We are dealing here with an illusion”
—Ambrose Bierce

On Saturday, September 17, 1859 Joshua Abraham Norton walked into the San Francisco Bulletin’s office. He handed the editor a document. This screed proclaimed that he, Joshua Norton, was henceforth Emperor of the United States.

Emperor Norton, in concert with Bummer and Lazarus—his beloved and loyal imperial curs, are oft referred to as “The Three Bummers.” While this moniker seems to reference the trio’s sum worth, inclination and trade, the true tale behind the Three Bummers regrettably mirrors recent headlines in both local and national news.

Picture two cherished, if mangy flea bitten mongrels, together with their mad imperial master, frolicking about the city, not a care in the world between them; sharing free saloon buffet meals, free-ticketed to each gala theatrical opening, front row center, and, in general having their happy-go-lucky run of the city.

This account of the Three Bummers, popularly depicted in 1860s caricatures drawn by Edward Jump, and later fleshed out by the writer Theodor Kirchhoff, is one of San Francisco’s most endearing legends. It’s a sweet, wonderful and heartwarming story.

But it’s a pack of lies.

That’s right: the tale of the Three Bummers is entirely fabricated, a confection – pure unadulterated fantasy. However, the actual historic truth behind the Three Bummers teaches a far more timely and vital lesson than any saccharine romance possibly could.

First, a little background. Joshua Abraham Norton, as many of you know, is far and away the most celebrated in an unending bounty of eccentrics our Bay Area is both exalted and damned for. Born and raised in England, a reputedly sane Joshua Norton sailed into Gold Rush San Francisco from South Africa. He toted a substantial grubstake along with him. The would-be commodity baron proceeded to lose his every last penny in a vain attempt to corner the city’s rice market. Norton left town for a time, and upon returning, the now screw-loose speculator proclaimed himself “Norton I, Emperor of North America and, (two years later) Protector of Mexico.”

Over the next two decades Emperor Norton was widely quoted, mock-lauded and occasionally upbraided for his imperial proclamations and his flamboyant public persona. Mark Twain even patterned a character in Huckleberry Finn on the Emperor.

Emperor Norton’s purported pooches were of questionable parentage. In his book Bummer & Lazarus, Malcolm E. Barker describes Bummer as a “Newfoundland, with protruding teeth, a permanent grin, and a clumsy walk.” The Daily Evening Bulletin on Saturday, October 3, 1863 wrote “Lazarus was supposed to be a cross between a cur and a hound, with a dash of the terrier… In color he was of a yellowish black—and proudest of the black.” The two dogs achieved local renown, while the Civil War raged back east, for their unusually close bond with one another, and because they killed lots of rats.

They, like Norton I, garnered reams of newspaper attention, but the facts are the facts: Bummer and Lazarus didn’t give one guttural growl about Joshua Norton.

As for the Emperor – it’s clear any suggestion that he associated with rat eating mongrels was grounds for violent retort. In fact, according to February 14, 1863’s edition of the Alta California, Norton, passing a store window displaying the Edward Jump lithograph depicting the Three Bummers dining together, became so incensed by it he, “let fly his walking stick at the window pane and smashed—his stick.”

Despite fuzzy-wuzzy legend, both Bummer and Lazarus lived the cruel existence of homeless strays. While accorded high-minded accolades in the press and by city government, they each survived for wont of shelter, food, care and protection. Each died horribly painful, neglected deaths.

Lazarus was born a stray. He never learned to behave around humans. In October of 1863 Lazarus bit a child. In response, the child’s father fed Lazarus meat saturated in rat bane. Lazarus suffered an excruciating poisoned death.

Bummer’s was a prolonged, wretched demise. According to the September 14, 1865 edition of the Daily Alta California, a mean drunkard “kicked poor old ‘Bummer’ down a stairway… His body is now swollen to twice its usual size, and the poor fellow appears at death’s door.” Bummer managed to hang to life for three agonizing, neglected months before he, too, succumbed, two years after his friend, Lazarus.

You’d think we’d have learned how to treat animals since then. Yet even today we’re constantly faced with grisly accounts of human cruelty perpetrated upon animals. The list seems endless: Dog fighting rings, canines trained to attack and kill humans, race track and circus abuses, animal clubbings, shootings, hangings, beatings and electrocutions. Now we read of three Mill Valley house dogs poisoned while out with their walker. To these headline grabbing atrocities add the far more common everyday abuses, namely pet neglect, abandonment, and irresponsible owners refusing to spay and neuter their pets.

And right here at home we follow the ongoing tribulations of a little black kitten named Adam, deliberately set afire and nearly burned to death. This shocker has reawakened public outrage at human cruelty to animals. Adam’s suffered surgery after agonizing surgery. Yet somehow he’s mustered the courage to surmount constant pain, to grasp for and to embrace life. We’re cheered by Adam’s grit and fortitude, wishing him only the best. Yet out there—often hidden from sight, vast multitudes of Adams and Bummers and Lazarus’s live miserable lives, castaways and the offspring of castaways, denizens of the streets and hidden in the urban wilds, suffering hunger, the elements, and ever mounting injuries and disease—before they finally lie down in peace.

While the Emperor Norton and the two celebrated mutts never comprised a triumvirate, I’ll submit that the Three REAL LIFE Bummers are actually we humans who: Abuse, ignore or abandon our animals; don’t spay or neuter our pets; and those of us who adopt pets we don’t, won’t or can’t care for, protect and give the love they so richly deserve.

On Sunday, November 5, 1865 the Daily Alta published its Elegy On Bummer:

“He, who was faithful to the end,
The noble Bummer sleeps;
Gone hence to join his better friend,
Where doggy never weeps.”

Filed under: Ambrose Bierce, Bay Time Detective, Emperor Norton, Mark Twain, Rohnert Park, San Francisco, San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area History, San Francisco Phax & Phikshun, San Francisco history, Santa Rosa, animal abuse, animals, bankruptcy, eccentrics, gold rush, homelessness, legend, madness, mystery, myth, news, poverty   |  Leave a Comment