ll only be gentle and not interrupt us; if they
will give us a true death-grip on themselves, on all they possess, and
all they ever hope to possess, we will lend back to them a part of the
very money which we have sucked up from their wheat fields and
pastures, from their barns and potato patches, from their humble
stores and markets, from their mills and their mines, and we will thus
_expedite_ them on the way to serfdom. Meanwhile we will continue to
bankrupt their railways, to snatch their local stocks, to convert all
shares in all enterprises into bonds, and to put the bonds into our
safes to the end--that confidence may be restored and prosperity come
back like the flowers that bloom in the spring.

For the time being we, the Street, are able to toss "two hundred
thousand shares a day" on the horns of our bull, and to put the same
amount of securities under the custody of our bear. "This conclusion
takes it for granted that the profits should be equally divided among
the membership." Such are Mr. Clews's very words. By the bond of my
faith! there is nothing else so beautiful and magnificent as this
among the arts invented by mankind! As for the people, one of your own
kings, Messieurs of the Street, has very properly indicated your wish
and purpose with regard to _them_.

Mr. Clews tells us that the "Future" of Wall Street is a sealed book;
and yet we may allow that "there is such a thing as an accurate
prevision of events." Of this kind are eclipses, occultations, and
tides of the sea. If the capital of Wall Street has, since the
institution was founded, increased more than sixtyfold, as Mr. Clews
declares, then we may expect it, according to his philosophy, to
increase full sixty times sixty, until the world shall be swallowed
up. Then, when Threadneedle and Lombard Streets shall have lost their
sceptre; then, when Seneca's forecast of the time to come shall have
been fulfilled; then, when Macaulay's New Zealander shall have made
his sketch, not only of St. Paul's, but also of the bank of England;
then, when _all_ the wealth, and _all_ the power, and _all_ the
functions of civil society in the United States shall have been
transferred to Wall Street; then, when nothing shall remain to the
American people except their squalid huts and the sorrowful
reminiscences of a great republic; then, when Wall Street in very
truth shall have possessed itself of the earth and consumed
mankind,--I suppose that the benevolent