es, were here repeated on a greater scale and in more
aggravated form. To most, the loss of wealth was loss of ancestry,
repute, respectability, decency, recognition of their fellows--all.
Small wonder that their withers were fearfully wrung, and their wails
piteous. Enterprise and prosperity were frozen as in a sea of
everlasting ice, and guardians of trusts, like Ugolino, plunged their
robber fangs into the scalps and entrails of the property confided to
them.

A public journal has recently published a detailed list, showing that
there has been plundered by fiduciaries since 1873 the amazing amount of
thirty millions of money; and the work goes on. Scarce a newspaper is
printed in whose columns may not be found some fresh instance of breach
of trust. As poisoning in the time of Brinvilliers, stealing is
epidemic, and the watch-dogs of the flocks are transformed into wolves.

Since the tocsin sounded we have gone from bad to worse. During the past
summer (1877) laborers, striking for increased wages or to resist
diminution thereof, seized and held for many days the railway lines
between East and West, stopping all traffic. Aided by mobs, they took
possession of great towns and destroyed vast property. At Pittsburgh,
in Pennsylvania, State troops attempting to restore order were attacked
and driven off. Police and State authorities in most cases proved
impotent, and the arm of Federal power was invoked to stay the evil.

Thousands of the people are without employment, which they seek in vain;
and from our cities issue heartrending appeals in behalf of the
suffering poor. From the Atlantic as far to the west as the young State
of Nebraska, there has fallen upon the land a calamity like that
afflicting Germany after the Thirty Years' War. Hordes of idle, vicious
tramps penetrate rural districts in all directions, rendering property
and even life unsafe; and no remedy for this new disease has been
discovered. Let us remember that these things are occurring in a country
of millions upon millions of acres of vacant lands, to be had almost for
the asking, and where, even in the parts first colonized, density of
population bears but a small relation to that of western Europe. Yet we
daily assure ourselves and the world that we have the best government
under the canopy of heaven, and the happiest land, hope and refuge of
humanity.

Purified by fire and sword, the South has escaped many of these evils;
but her enemies have s