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A Bad Failure

A Bad Failure image
Parent Issue
Day
7
Month
September
Year
1877
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

[From the Chicago Times.] The particulars of the failure of the State Savings Institution, and the history of its criminal mismanagement during tho last few years, tlie unfortunate depositors read in the morning papers. The yillainous record was read early and often, and many a hard-working man and patiënt, thrifty woman read the shameless story with a chili at the heart and with the blanched cheek and scalding tears of keen misery. The best phase that hope could put on the matter was but a sorry comfort, or rather but a slight palliation of their distress. Figuring the whole thing up and putting the best face ori the miserable business, it could be presumed that with time and care 25 or 30 per cent. of the deposits might be paid. In short, the bitter moral of this immoral bank mismanagement might be contíñiied thus: "Three millions owing to 16,000 depositors, and nary a cent to pay." The alarm was around the town, and many a one -vrho had passed a sleepless nig-ht was on hani at the bank as early as 8 o'clock yesterday morning. A commnnity of misfortune united them, and discussion of the bank's affairs soon become general. The sidewalk around the bank -was sooii almost impassable for the throng, and in the roadway and npon the opposite sidewalk crowds gatheredand stayed anxiously awaiting developments. They were hoping against hope; trusting that after all things would not turn out so badly as represented in the papers. It was plain to see from the trouble in their faces that most of them feared the loss of all they had in the world. The trial, trouble, and self-denial whieh that all had cost them was easily read in the feverish anxiety whrch prevailed. While the morning wns yet early men walked about in a gort of dumb despair, fearfu to conflrm their worst fears. They dreaded to know the truth, the prospeci looked so black. The apprehension oj meeting dire necessity face to face this coming -winter chilled many a brave heart and broke many a stout spirit. Not to be able to make the payment on the homestead, to provide the usual comforts for the wife and children, to be robbed of the safeguard against idleness or sickness, and the nest-egg for the business capital or declining age; these thoughts made men change color and bite their lips and women weep and tremble - for there were women there. Women who had come from thrifty, prudent homes; wives and mothers who had sought to know the full extent of the disaster that had placed in jeopardy and perhaps entirely swept away the store which had been earned and gamered with so much toil and self-saorilice. The business man was there, the small tradesman, and the prudent matron who had put by something for the "rainy day" that might overtake husband and children, the careful clerk and the hornyhanded mechanic, the ill-paid. struggling working-girl, the common laborer, and the honest, hard-workins: help, serant, and toiling scrub-woman. Youth was there impatient ainl vituperative; and oíd age, looking very white and weak and wan, as though brokenhearted that ill-fortune could have played them so scurvy a triok ia the helpless winter-time of their days. There were some there, too, whose presenoe touched the liearts of the most selfish and callous in the noisy, fretful, and disputative throng. They were women, and some of them had youngsters with them, the lfttle ones ï'ar too young in the world's pleasures or griefs to be able to appreciate the full extent of the trouble that had fallen upon them. But the misery in the faces of the women to whom they clung was pitiful to witnees and went to many a man's heart with the sharpness of aknife. They wore au arinor that won the sympathy and moved the hearts of all within the selflsh, anxious crowd. It was the armor of a black dress. It was the widow and the fatherless begging at the door of the bankrupt speculator fortheir own, begging under circunistanees as hard as the polished granite of the empty bank for the pittance which was to stand between them and hunger and co ld and despair. Toward 10 o'clock, when the crowd had grown large, it became too painfully apparent that the heaviest portion of the cruel and wicked blow would be cast upon the shoulders of the aged and the unfortunate. The crowd increased, and swelled to Bandolph street, and when it was found that it was actually the terrible truth that not a single nickel was forthcoming the intensity of feeling, the passion, despair and all the general features of the scène became dreadf ui. Men and women were fairly trembling with excitement, and spoke to each other in tones husky with emotion. The quiet agony of some of them whohad for years put by, little by little, for some cherished and indeed sacred object, such as a home for aged parents, provisión for the helpless and the sick, or toward spme fondly anticipated plan of life, was perfectly heart-sickening to witness. It is simply impossible to attempt to outline the circumstances of many of the most touching and necessitous cases. The hardships have fallen upon all with an almost equal force, and the scoundrelism that has deliberately wrought such wide-spread ruin among the dependent and inoffensive poor will not receive its due punishment until is meted out to it the terrors of that heil beyond the grave of whish John Calvin used to attempt such a horrible description. One poor woman who has passed the last few years of her life in the toilsome pursuit of scrubbing in one of the public departments told a pitiful story of what she had gladly suffered tb at her only boy might receive a thorough professional education. The mother's tears ran down her face like raiu, and many a man's fingers worked convulsively as he overheard the story. A very old lady, quite 70 or more, tottered with the weight of her woe as she told how she and the old man, some half a dozen years older than herself, and bed-ridden for years, had lost the little store upon which they subsisted, and part of which was to be devoted to their burial when their last of earth carne iipon them. A broken-hearted Germán girl mourned the loss of no less than $000 worth of hardly-earned savings, part of which was to bring the old iolks over to a happier home this side of the water. Men were there who said but little except in curses, and who were thinking of the little ones at home when, with a mischievous light in their eyes, they said that they would like the opportunity of breaking "that fellow Spencer's d d neck. " " Yes," said a respectable and elderly man, "this thing has got far enougü aow, We BbaJl have to Btretoh a few of these fellows, I'm afraid. The sight o! one of these d - d tinkering, gambling monopolista dangling from a lanip-po1 wxll be a wholesome lesson to others thai they will bé compelled to deal honestly with the people's money." "Curso them," said another, " they're not satisfied with making a decent interest by passing our money through their dirty, pawnbroking fingers, but they must play heil with it in wild-cat stocks, in rea] estáte, and bankrupt railroad bonds." " Buying real estáte for a rise, you know," said another speaker. " A rise ? Yes, I'd like to be one to give that man Spencer a rise. I'd rise him. I'd rise him higher than the level. of any real estáte in Cook county, you bet." And so it went on. The officers of the bank would have been edified and somewhat surprised into the bargain could they have seen the sort of men that gave utterance to gentiments like these. They were not men rough in manner or extravagant in speech, but were of a respectable and good class of citizens. It would not have been very healthy for the president or cashier to have been extremely anxious to test the grim earnestness of eitlier their opinions or their threats. The Turks Underestimated. üpon the Turkish side, it is to be taken into account that tlieir numbers have been underestimated irom the very first. They have in the field a forcé which is nearly, if not quite, as large as the Bussian, and the whole Turkish population is in arms. It ia virtually a lvey en masse of the most desperate and reckless fighters in the world. The same mistake has been made with reference to their officers. It is now known that the Turkish army is led substantially by foreign officers. The fat, indolent and incompetent Abdul Kerim has been shelved and his place supplied by Mehemet Ali, a Prussian by birth, who has been educated in the best modern military schools. Thero is very probable evidence to show that Osman Pasha is no less a person than Marshal Bazaine, the disgraced French hero of Metz. Valentine Baker, the sociallydisgraced English officer, holds an important command under Suleiman Pasha, and Kaouf Pasha, commanding in Koumelia, is stated to be an Austrian. The General second in commánd to Mukhtar Pasha in Armenia, and who won the battles of Zewin and Delibaba, is a Hungarian, and Hobart Pasha, the Turkish Admiral, is an English officer. Freneh, English, Germán, Austrían and Hungarian engineers and subordínate officers are plentifully scattered through the army. It is now also known that the Turks are better armed than the Bussians, having Martini-Henry repeating-rifles and Krupp cannon, and thus f ar have conducted their campaign upon the plan of fighting behmd intrenchments, while the Bussians have followed their old tactics of massing heavy columns in the open field - with what result has been shown by defeat af ter defeat both in Europe and Asia. So f ar as the irregulars are ooncerned, the Cossacks and Bashi-Bazouks appear to be evenly matched, while, as between the regular armies, the question of superiority is yet to be proved by a pitched battle. Thai battle may decide the present campaign, but it cannot decide the war. li the other powers do not inserfere, the victory must evidently rest with Bussia. It is impossible that a nation of 80,000,000 can be overeóme by one of 18,000,000.- Chicago Tribune. No More Drowning. Interesting and auccesaful experimenta have been made at Havre witii a dress designed by M. Selingue for saving life at sea. The trials took place in one of the large docks of the town. One of the harbor pilota and a boatman wearing ordinary clothes and heavy sea boots, put on the life-saving dress and plunged into the basin. It was found that they floated in the water without making the slightest movement. ïhe men next swam for some time about the doek. When they emerged from the wf.ter they were examined by the commission, who satisfled themselves that the men still wore their heavy clothing and boots. The inventor next proceeded to cut the suit all over, in order to show that a person wearing the life-aaving clothes would still float, even though they should be torn by coming in contact with floating wreckage, rocks. etc. Altogether, thirty-two euts and rents were made in the dress, leaving the body of the wearer in many places exposed to view. One of the men tlien divested himself of his clothing, and, plunging into the water, feigned to be drowning. His companion, still wearing the cut and mutilated dress, entered the basiü and easily brought the other to the shore. So well satisfled were the commission with the result of these experimenta that they at once gave the inventor an order for thirty of tbe life-saving suits, for the use of the crews of the two life-boats stationed at Havre. The dress consiste of a paletot and trousers, forming a single garment, and is rendered insubmergible by bemg divided into twentyeight compartmenta, each of which contains a float, composed of twenty small cylindrical floats. The system may be applied to any clothing. A Pet Dog Shot in lts Mistress' Arms. A suit was commenced before Justice Semler, of Brooklyn, yesterday, by Miss Alice Begg, against George Huntington, to recover $5,000 damages. The action ia brought under the following circumstancea : The partiea are neighbors, Mias Begg residing at the corner of Lewis avenue and Witherapoon atreet, and Mr. Huntington at No. 787 Willoughby avenue. The gentleman, it seems, founi one of hia favorite chickens dead in hia yard, and, believing Miss Begg's dog was the cause, went to her residence, armed with a revolver, and demanded the animal's life. Miss Begs, to save her pet, grasped it in her arms, and Huntington, not to, be defeated, shot the dog while its mistress held it. Miss Begg not only had Huntington arrested for shooting her pet, but also for trespassing. The father of the defendant is also brought into the case on the ground of attempted aasault and battery on Miss Begg because of his son's arrest. It is alleged that he was prevented from committing violence only by the presence of an officer. The nervous system of the lady ia aaid to have been very much shocked by the shot which ended the dog'a life. - New York Herald. Nbakly 3,000,000 of sheep were destroyed by diseaae or the depredations of doga and wolvea auring the last year, representing a money value of nearly $8,000,000. The loas is greatest proportionately in North Carolina, Florida and Louiaiana, and ranges from 17 per oent. in the former State, to 3.7 in Nebraska, the average being about 8.

Article

Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus