Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/312

 and was pacing up and down the small alcove, gesticulating to his audience,—the one-armed General.

"Very good generalities," grumbled the latter; "but for all your theories, I don't propose to give my daughter to the first black-eyed penniless Creole who fancies her, to illustrate them."

"And why not, sir? Ah! I smell your money bags behind all that. It hurts you to think that your money may be spent, wasted even, or lost in the South. Now, look at the stupidity of the situation. Here is the North, so rich that money is a drug in the market. You can't invest it to bring you more than four per cent; and rather than risk it at that, your rich men literally sit down on their money-bags, instead of letting the money go out to earn more. Here is the South, the undeveloped country, the richest land in the world, where the earth's crust yields its harvest with less pain to man than in any other quarter of the globe, where the earth's bowels are lined with ores and gems and precious minerals,—all this treasure is waiting to enrich the whole land; and yet it remains locked in the earth, waiting till the key, capital, shall be fitted to the lock. It 's positively insane! And what 's the consequence? New York, that den of robber-barons, keeps the bulk of the wealth of the country as a species of giant playthings for