Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1868-02-01
English Morals Formidable IL
diCtInent.


From the London Spectator.
There cannot be doubt that the mas
ter vice Of the middle class, we had al
most writtcnt their master PASSIONS they
ing. We doubt if a race ever existed
among whom pecuniary dishonesty was
so general or so deeply affected the struc-
ture of society. We consider ourselves
a virtuous people, the salt Of the earth,
and it is not too much to say that this
moment the basis of half our laws, the
cause of half or more than half our ad-
ministrative weakness, the root OF three
fourths of our commercial difficulties, is
the well-founded belief tfat middle class
Englishman, if lie gets anything like a
chance, will thieye; will cxpend his brain,
his time, and his energies in able efforts
to steal money which is not his.
What is the dry rot which is destroy,
ing English administration, its directness,
its simplicity, and its force, but the GER
tainty OF the nation that every official, if
left to himself and unmatched, will steal !?
Our departments are hampered and
shacklcd with checks till they can hardly
work, till individual power, and, there
fore, individual genius, are suppressed;
and the object of all the checks is not to
prevent insutiiciency, that in England is
not crime, though elsewhere it is among
the greatest-or to obviate the chance of
oppression, but to prevent direct fraud,
assaults of the vulgarcst kind upon the
national till. We cannot get navy, be-
canse it is understood that in great estab-
lishments like d0ckyards everybody not
specially selected for honesty will thieve
Our army arrangements break down in
ccssantly, because contractors, sub-con-
tractors, and purveyors generally are sup
posed to be steeTed to the lips in fraud.
There is not a contract given in Gov
eminent office in which some one has not
secured "perquisite, /" or an advantage"
or Il ''protit,'' Of " hich he would not, for
the world, have his employers formerly
conscious; which has not, in fact, givcn
some one, usually a gentleman, the OF
porlunity Of thieving. Cur whole sys-
ten ofproyijiing for State needs by "open
TENDER" the stupidest Of all conceivable
systcms-tor its theory is that Jones is
kobinson's equal as manufacturer,
which Jones is not, is openly based on
the assumption, an assumption perfectly
true, that without open tender the de-
partmcnt Will sell the contract will, i'll
fact, steal a large sum out Of the national
treasury. Our municipal difficulty is job
berry, that is, theft-the practice every
municipality is certain, unless watched,
to indulge in, of robbiug the citizens to
enrich its own members or fayord indi-
viduals. Even Parliament, even the Cab
net, the flower, or supposed flower, of
Parliamentary lie, is net beyond the
same suspicion. We dare not let the
chief of departments act for themselves in
a most important function, that of ma
kirg the great contracts, choosing, in fact,
the agents they think ablest, because we
are certain that they viii thieve, not in
deed for themselves, but for their party.
They will give Jones 91,0OO,OOO to do
what Robinson would DO for e750;OO0,
because Jones votes for them, that is,
they will misappropriate e25o,o0O Of the
money for which they are trustees. Look
at our railway SYSTEM. 1t is the great
est and most important business ever de-
viscd by 4 nation, and Is breaking down.
under habitual theft. Directors, anima
ted by the hope of 'high quotations for
shares"-that is, of robbing BUYERS, by
selling plated goods for silver, are declar-
ing III all directions fictitious dividends
shareholders, animated by the same thirst
forplunder, are winking atdlrectors' acts;
contractors are sending in fcticious ten
ders at absurd prices; lawyers selling the
companies, their own clients, to the ver
min who eat their capital up; traffic
managers making preferential, that is,
fraudulent bargains for carriage; every
petty official taking brides to grant priv
ileges his employers have not sold. Look
at our commerce, shattered, at this mo-
ment, by every variety of elaborate and
carefully devised plunder: By companies
whose prospectuses are drawn up with
the intention of robbing the ignorant; by
banks which make over shareholders
money to directors by manufacturers
who will sell shoddy for cloth by trades
men who cannot be trusted to avoid ac-
tual stealing of pennies from women and
children, actual theft of coppers out of
blind mans tray by false weights and
measures. Is there trade left in which
half the tradesmen do not live by petty
imposition, that is, theft, by selling goods
as bargains which are really dear, by
enormous adulterations--by, in fact, di-
rect robberies of one kind OF another? Ag-
ricliltnre is the most honest; and ask a
really God-tearing dealer of Mark Lane
what he thinks of the morals of his trade,