Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/97

Rh resigned to the life of swindlers. Their dinners, equipages, and other extravagance become parts of a system of imposture. They dare not do aught else than to try and maintain their position; and they strain every nerve for that purpose, until the morning comes when we read of their suspension, and in the crash the creditors are dismayed. It is a relief to a once honorable man to lose all, and make a clean breast of his folly. His only regret is that he may have cast his character after his fortune into the vortex of speculation. But if he hasn't done any act of overt criminality, he has come off better than he deserves, and can show that he has no moral liabilities. If the contrary is the case, the means did not justify it. From such means we shrink. If a well-known business-man goes openly into speculation, and is known as the promoter of a stock enterprise, we throw stones at him when he suspends. We cannot help it, and we do not want to help it. The public wants the business-men to do that which they advise the cobbler to do,—"stick to his last." If he fails to keep to that little law of conduct, he is supposed to be worthy of suspicion.

Imagine how it will tell in that coming American history, that a most wonderful event was an assignment! As the story of Law's bubble and its bursting has amused us, so will our children be interested in reading of the crashes, suspensions, and panics of the last half of the nineteenth century. We are too near them, and too much in them, to realize how tragic, grotesque, and melancholy they are. But, when it comes to the fall of a real rascal, we can realize that; for such a person is known where the quiet business-man is not. You knew this rascal, and everybody did. He was smooth, seductive, and fashionable. He took liberties with the public credulity. He had talent and enterprise, and made a big show. He had gold-letter prospectuses, elegant offices, a sumptuous reception-room, and magnificent house, horses, and plate. He was puffed by the press. He was a lion in society, and gave grand entertainments. He subscribed largely to charities, and to churches and schools. He had lots of money; because, for some unexplainable reason, the public took in his scheme, and invested liberally in the stock that he sold. Then came the re-action. Insolvency followed close on inflation. The bankrupt became defendant in a legion of transactions. He was alleged to be a fraud. His establishments were in the hands of a keeper. He was in the last throes, when presto! he came up smiling. He had made friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; he had it in his power to involve others: immediately he had all the help he wanted, and he slipped through the fetters he should have worn. He had money laid by for the emergency, his broken character at once stepped forward again, and, before the scandal of his failure was cold, he was once more in the full tide of business. That was your sharp American gentleman rascal.

The Old World has made marvellous progress in the ways of business, but we get the real drama of business in America. The story will be interesting reading, and no one will pass it by because it is dry as dust. Ours is a big field, big men, and big, bold ventures. The climate or the soil produces all kinds of daring and shrewdness. We have both the mushroom dealer, and the man of enormous wealth; men making splendid fortunes, and men continually failing and