cal
men of the world, with no nonsense, no fanaticism, no fol-de-rol of any
kind about them, but who profoundly believed the Burt theory that wives
and daughters were a more sacred kind of property than sheep pastures,
or even than the most satisfactory bond and mortgage.

They talked politics, these banking and insurance gentlemen, with vigor
and warmth. "What on earth does, this General Jackson mean, Sir? Is he
going to lay the axe at the very roots of our national prosperity? What
the deuce does a frontier soldier know about banking?"

They talked about Morgan who had been found in Lake Ontario; and the
younger clerks took their turn at it, and furiously denied among
themselves that Washington was a Mason. The younger clerks held every
Mason responsible for the reported murder. Then they turned pale lest
their neighbors were Masons, and might cause them to be found drowned
off the Battery. The older men shook their heads.

Murders--did you speak of murders, Mr. Van Boozenberg? Why, this is a
dreadful business in Salem! Old Mr. White murdered in his bed! The most
awful thing on record. Terrible stories are told, Sir, about respectable
people! It's getting to be dangerous to be rich. What are we coming to?
What can you expect, Sir, with Fanny Wright disseminating her infidel
sentiments, and the work-people buying _The Friend of Equal Human
Rights_? Equal human fiddle-sticks, Mr. Van Boozenberg!

To which remarks from the mouths of many Directors that eminent officer
nodded his head, and looked so wise that it was very remarkable so many
foolish transactions took place under his administration.

And in all the streets of the great city, in all the lofty workshops and
yards and factories, huge hammers smote and clashed, and men, naked to
the waist, reeking in dingy interiors, bent like gnomes at their tasks,
while saws creaked, wheels turned, planes and mallets, and chisels shoved
and cut and struck; and down in damp cellars sallow ghastly men and women
wove rag-carpets, and twisted baskets in the midst of litters of puny,
pale children, with bleared eyes, and sore heads, and dirty faces,
tumbling, playing, shouting, whimpering--scampering after the pigs that
came rooting and nosing in the liquid filth that simmered and stank to
heaven in the gutters at the top of the stairs; and the houses above the
heads of the ghastly men and women were swarming rookeries, hot and close
and bare, with window-panes broken, and hats