cipated such schemes as the Crédit Mobilier, and the selling of imaginary silver mines to sanguine English investors; but none of these ventures have equalled the original. Then a Scotchman could sell a French regent a league of Louisiana swamp for three thousand livres, while now we have "puts" and "calls" on railroad stocks that are just as swampy. Ah, but we cannot do such magnificent swindling in Wall Street! The good American is as "cute" as the evil one, and both are "cuter" than the William Laws. He spoilt all by dying poor, while our modern speculator dies rich, even after he is ruined! Poor Law, if he had only known how to go into bankruptcy, or to settle his estate on his wife!
But there were solid business-men in those last centuries as well as speculators. In New York and Boston, at the close of the Revolution, there were merchants of ability and energy, stanch, steady heads of houses, without a particle of folly or romance about them. Such men might live over their shops, or might have ships trading in the Levant. Men who were the direct progenitors of some of our best modern houses got a respectable and honest living out of coffee and sugar, or in butter and eggs, and were esteemed for their principles. Such men got influence, and went about making their country's history. Theirs was an absolutely unique position. While lawyers played the leading characters on the stage, there were times when a business-man was asked for, and a John Jay stepped forward. The lawyer and soldier gave his country his brain; but the business-man added to that gift the product of his brain,—his money. He had calculation and prudence about him; and, though the pet of Fortune, he never presumed on her favors. Strangely, the troubled times in which his lot was cast well served his sagacity. His tact developed into genius, and his gains were only measured by his credits. He knew no "bulls," and he never felt the mercy of "bears." Bon chien chasse de race; and, like the speculator, the old-fashioned merchant has his heirs in our time. When that American history is written, it will tell of these steady-going merchants of to-day, who are masters of many situations, and who are even wiser and stronger than their honored fathers. We want such men more now than we ever did before. In the twenty-five years since 1859, how many such men have there been! They do not fritter away time and talents in speculation. Their habits are of steady application. Their ways are respected. The self-styled capitalist is shy of entertaining proposals which are already prejudiced in the opinion of steady-going business-men. That which they accept is launched handsomely. If real business-men push a railway scheme, the public has no fear of what the Law and Ward element may do. The undertakings of the solid element are measured by its ambition and energy, rather than its resources; and it is not strange to see a million of capital follow in the road a single dollar has cut.
But in the same history we shall have to read of a class that is not of speculators or of solid men. There is a middle class,—the class of honorable men who have speculated, and have hung on the slippery edge of the abyss of dishonor until they have failed. These men have tried to keep a footing by means desperate and discreditable, in hopes to avert the evil day. Not daring to show the world that they want to retrench, they have become slowly
