Misguided barristers who almost got away with it!

The two names that sit above the word “Crooked” on the label of Misguided Spirits brand vodka are simply “Howe and Hummel.” Though named after them, the two were never affiliated with this praised clear spirit made by those Misguided. They and their firm were gone and virtually banished from New York City’s legal realm by the early years of the 20th Century.

Howe and Hummel’s reputation as less than traditional barristers was chosen by the founders of Misguided Spirits as the name for what would become their top selling spirit brand. They were looking for a not so elegant name as a brand more closely aligned with their desire to serve the working class consumer in the bars and restaurants where a vodka cocktail would signal a little prosperity and quality as well, from their trusted bartenders.

Misguided Spirits already boasts of “Crooked Vodka’s” stellar beverage attributes “...crystal clear vodka is 6x distilled, smooth to the tongue with a slight sweetness and a hint of cracked pepper accompanied by a light and clean finish that compliments any cocktail.” While the Crooked spirit has earned positive approval and praise, the two historical namesakes boasted–yes, I said “boasted”– of a less than legally correct approach to the practices coming out of their infamous law offices at 89 Centre Street, near the heart of the criminal justice system of Gilded Age New York City.

“Howe and Hummel’s Crooked Vodka” carries with it the whackiest tale of the establishment of a law firm in the last years of the Nineteenth Century New York City. This posting is basically the “misguided tale” of William F. Howe and Abraham H. Hummel, often considered the greatest criminal lawyers of their day and quite possibly the greatest in American history.

Comparisons have been made to other criminal lawyers of their time and later. Between 1869, when it was organized, and 1907 when it was put out of business by District attorney William Travers Jerome, the firm of Howe & Hummel defended more than a thousand people who had been indicted for murder or manslaughter and the senior partner, William F. Howe himself appeared on behalf of more than six hundred fifty of them. While those statistics have been questioned because attorneys did not keep accurate records of their acquittals, and it is impossible now to audit their accuracy, it can still be said that Howe & Hummel did quite all right. The Police Gazette’s avid readership about the two was testament enough to their popularity and buzz at the time.

OPTICS OF THE PAIR

If looks could speak, Howe was loud, while Hummel was darker and more subdued As different in appearance and in legal styles as one could ever imagine

Author and biographer, Richard Rovere, found that he was constantly running across the names of the spectacular and unabashedly "crooked" turn of the century lawyers named William F. Howe and Abraham H. Hummel, partners in the much ballyhooed 89 Centre Street Law firm bearing their names.

The press was mesmerized by them. The Herald, the noted New York City Newspaper, seldom described Howe as a villain of the criminal bar, rather, he inferred and underscored that ‘such and such’ client’s chances had improved with the hiring of the team of Howe & Hummel.

They were as scandalous a pair as any of their clients.

Howe, was in the prime of his long career at the bar. Enormous of frame and girth, he adorned his court room suits in diamonds to show he was prosperous and often said that he loved the light they threw on his hands. So he would wear more diamonds on his fingers, on his watch chains and shirt studs. Dress was as important an adjunct of Howe's courtroom technique.

Howe was ponderous though forceful, mentally as well as physically.

Hummel was sleek and fussy and crafty.

Howe was big and flamboyant.

Hummel was small and owlish.

Hummel, 21years younger than Howe, seems to have been molded by the gods to play his partner’s stooge, or a sidekick-like sancho panza.

Hummel was five feet tall or a shade under, he had a huge head which was pear shaped bald and generally covered by a derby. Although he was runty rather than deformed he often left people with the impression that he was a hunchback.

Hummel had a black mustache more closely cropped than Howe’s.

Hummel always wore black ensembles probably to highlight his partner's gorgeous outfits.

Different costumes each designed for a different legal purpose.

THEY WERE NOT ALONE

Hummel was the most systematic of blackmailers. He did not sit idly by but had hired other lawyers to do his hunting and searching for his next targets, He was constantly beating the bushes. He assigned two of his employees, one being his nephew, to go out along Broadway and the Bowery in search of unexploited seductions. Two of his representatives became familiar as backstage scene shifters and wardrobe mistresses.

They would make the acquaintance of young actresses and chorus girls and explain to them how, by friendly co-operation with Howe and Hummel, last year's infatuations could be converted into next year's fur coats. When a girl searched her memory and recalled “a likely suspect", she was escorted downtown to Hummel who got the “details” and set them down in an affidavit. The targeted suspect was made aware of the affidavit; many affidavits, of course, were outright fakes. The targeted suspect was given the choice of breach-of-promise suit with wide publicity or a quick settlement. The convoluted carry-ing ons initiated by Hummel, were legend but he always got some sort of settlement — or was it just prurient back door “blackmail?”

Another respectable lawyer at the time acknowledged Hummel’s rough justice tactics, penalties that were questionable at best but the then the opposing lawyer noted “I never heard of Abe framing anyone, and never heard of a case where the girl did not get her half, but what Abe got out of the dealings was “pure blackmail.” That same opposing lawyer described Abraham Hummel’s style as “,an exceedingly low business.’

Oddly some of Hummel’s victims became his clients. Noted architect, Stanford White, only had to pay Hummel twice before he entered into a retainer agreement with Hummel to keep down his expenses! The retainer led to a long friendship with the questionable lawyer of his ilk, Abe Hummel.

FROM THE BEGINNING

Much has been written about Howe & Hummell but the irony of their notoriety was first noted when the pair were included in the early New York Hall of Fame, which was started by the National Police Gazette. Its members, numbering about two hundred, were not dead statesmen, inventors and authors, but living prize-fighters, billiard champions, actresses and popular adventurers, and of course, the two New York attorneys William F. Howe and Abraham H Hummel.

Over the years, the Hall of Fame touted the names of President William Henry Harrrison,

Queen Victoria, the actresses Lillian Russell, Lilly Langtry, and oddly those two New York attorneys. Most of the Hall of Fame lists included few surprises, but those two New York attorney partners in Howe & Hummel’s Law Offices at 89 Centre Street, New York City, were recognized as the greatest criminal lawyers of their day.

Howe & Hummel enjoyed a reputation as almost having a monopoly of the criminal business in New York of their day. They were the attorneys for the major brothel owners. When seventy-four madams were rounded up in 1884 during a purity drive, everyone of them named Howe & Hummel as counsel. Howe & Hummel also represented the Pool Sellers Association, the trade agency of the city’s policy-shop owners and bookmakers. Shall we just say Howe and Hummel were down there with the most questionable and feared of the time.

The two lawyers had in addition the business of every free-lance safecracker, forger, arsonist, confidence man, bucket-shop proprietor and panel thief whose business was worth having. Howe & Hummel were often referred to as the “mouthpiece” for organized crime in the city at that time and for more than thirty years. Most of those clients bought their liberty with their counsel fees.

The firm's practice in civil courts and courts of equity was almost as extensive as its criminal practice. Howe & Hummel were pre-eminent among divorce lawyers. They were at the forefront for the theatrical community, at the same time, they were described often as the classic shysters.

Howe & Hummel are still spoken of by cops and lawyers, police reporters and court attendants along Centre Street with the same suspect for the dead giants that other people show for Sarah Bernhardt or Christy Mathewson, two celebrities of that time.

AT A CROSSROADS

This has been written after weeks of detailed research. And this posting has just scratched a smattering of the mayhem and deceit that these two men played out in the court rooms, back streets and brothels of an era when the underbelly of New York was indeed a wild wild underground above ground.

I am right at a crossroads for my company, Misguided Spirits, and the bawdy legend of Howe & Hummel. Dear reader, this is but our first venture into that back story of a delectable classic vodka, 6x distilled for your enjoyment & sipping pleasure–and branded with the names of two of the most devious comic villains in legal and literary lore–Howe & Hummel.

We have just begun to take contemporary storytelling on truly a wild literary adventure.

This posting has been written as a tribute to the actress Lillian Russell, a long time friend and client of Howe & Hummel.

“Whenever Lillian Russell wanted a new husband, Howe & Hummel were the lawyers who freed her from the old one, they could find loop holes in the law large enough for convicted murderers to walk through standing straight up.”

Now, I continue my research with a drink; Dark humour with a Mezcal rinse and a zest of lime, and of course made by this adventure writer with chilled “Howe & Hummel CROOKED VODKA, 6x distilled!”

Cheers!

Written by Michael Howell

Read this also on the Misguided Spirits Substack: https://misguidedspirits.substack.com/

Cover photo from the Museum of the City of New York