Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/104

78 found him living upon it, on an eminence commanding a beautiful view of the surrounding country, in a one-story log house of the most primitive description, divided into three rooms. He was sitting in front of it, with his visitors, on rude chairs; smoking a “corn-cob” and looking altogether like a true pioneer. He received me very cordially, and introduced me to the rest of the company, and I spent several hours listening to their varied talk. They were all supplied with a good stock of funny stories, which they dispensed with great liberality. Altogether, I gathered ample material for some descriptive letters, and bitter, therefore, was my disappointment when I found, on my return to St. Paul, a letter from the editor of the Tribune, declining to authorize me to write any more, thus leaving me once more without employment. While thinking over my situation, the idea came to me that I had better return to New York and offer my services to the Tribune, or any other paper there that might be willing to accept them, as a regular correspondent from the seat of the Sepoy Mutiny in India, which at that time absorbed the anxious attention of the whole world.

I arrived in New York about the middle of September, and immediately entered upon the pursuit of my objects. As no one of the great dailies had, up to that time, published special correspondence from the seat of the Mutiny, I felt very confident of success, and visions of prospective honors and profits cheered me on; but I had not taken one important factor into consideration. The country was fast plunging into the severe financial crisis of 1857. The suspension of the Ohio Life and Trust Company, which ushered in that era of long and general distress, had already occurred and was being daily followed by failures of banks and commercial houses in the city. General distrust prevailed, and trade of every sort had come almost to a standstill. The newspaper business, like every other, was being seriously affected, and publishers and editors necessarily were bent upon reducing rather than enlarging their