New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-09-05
NEW ORLEANS REPUBLICAN, SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 5, 1875

been to have got to the bottom of!
| They 90 to communicate the news TO the
Merdle family. and then comes one of those
beautiful touches of the sympathy between
nature and humanity SO natural with Dick
ems and so inimitable by any one else:
Before parting, at Physicians door, they
ooth looked up at the sunny morning sky,
| into which the smokebt q few early fires
and the breath and voices of few early
stirrers were peacefully rising, and then
looked round upon the immense city, and
san, III all those hundreds and thousands
OF beggared people who were yet asleep,
| could only know, as they two spoke, the
ruin that impended over them, what a fear
full CRY against one miserable eoul would
so up TO heaven"
Was 1t SO in the gray San Francisco
morning, Did the con6ding thousands
who had intrusted their all II the care of
bankrupt sleep as calmly before the catas
trophe was known which begsared them
for ever! See how that news of the sai,ids
spread abroad:
The report that the great man was dead
got about with astonishing rapidty. At
first, he was dead of all the diseases that
ever were known, and of several bran-new
maladies invented with the speed of light
to meet the demand OF the occasion. He
had concealed a dropsy from infancy, he
had inherited largo estate of water on the
chest from his grandfather, he had had an
operation performed upon him every morn
ing OF his life for eighteen years, he had been
subject to the explosion of important veins
in his body after the manner of fireworks,
he had had something the matter with his
lungs, he had had something the matter
| with his heart, he had had something the
mott wit h
people who sat down to breakfast entirely
| unintormed on the whole subject, believed
before they hal done breakfast that they
privately and personally knew Physician to
have said to AIr. Merdle, You must expect
to 90 out, some day, like the snuff Of a
CANDLE" and that they knew Mr.. Meriie TO
have said to Physician, "a man can die but
once" By about eleven o'clock in the
forenoon. something the matter with the
brain. became the favorite; and by twelve
the something had been distinctly ascer-
tanned to be Pressure"
Pressure was so entirely satisfao tory to
the public mind and seemed TO make every
body 50 comic table, that it might have
lasted all day but for Bars having taken
the real est te of the case into court at half
pat nine. This led to its beginning ID be
currently whispered all over London by
about one. that Mr.. Merdle had killed him
self Pressure, However, so far from being
| overthr0wn by this discovery, became a
greater fayorite than ever. There was a
general noralizing upon Pressure in every
street. All the people who had tried TO
| make moaey and had not been able to do it.
said there gu were! You no sooner began 10
| devote yourself TO the pursuit of wealth than
you got Pressure The idle people improved
the occasion in similar manner. See, said
| they, what you brought yourself to by
work, work, work, You persisted in work
ing, You overdid it, Pressure came, and you
were done for This considera ton was very
potent in many quarters, but nowhere more
SO than among the young clerks and part
| ners who had never been in the slightest
danger of OVERRIDING it. These one and all
| declared, quite piously, that they hoped
| they wonld never forget the warning as
| long as they lived, and that their conduct
would be so regulated as to keen off Pres
| sure, and preserve them, a comfort TO their
| friends, for many years.
| But, ct about the time OF High Change.
| Pressure began 10 wane, and appalling
whispers to circulate, east. west, north and
south. At first they were faint, and went
| no further than doubt whether Mr.
Merdle's wealth would be found to be as
vast as had been supposed; whether there
| might not be temporary difficulty in real
| izing" it; whether there might not even be
| a temporary suspension Isay month or sol
| Oh the part of the wonderful Bank. As the
whispers became louder, which they did
from that time every minute, they became
mere threatening. Re had sprung from
nothing, by no natural growth or process
that any one could account for: he had been,
after all, low. ignorant fellow; he had
been q down,lookipg man, and no one had
ever been able TO catch his eve: he had
been taken up in quito an understandable
manner, he had never had any money of
his own, his ventures had been utterly reck-
less and his expenditure had been enor-
nous. Ia steady progression, as the day
de clined, the talk rose in sound and pur-
pose like a rising sea. He had left letter
at the Baths addressed to his physician, and
his physician had got the letter, and the let
ter would be produced at the inquest on the
morrow, and it would fall like thunder
bolt upon the multitude he had deluded.
Numbers of men in every profession and
trade would be blighted by his insolvency:
OLD people who had been in easy circuIu-
stances all their lives would have no place
of repentance for their trust in him but the
workhouse; legions of women and children
would have their whole future desolated by
the hand Of this mighty scoundrel. Every
partaker OF his magnificent feasts would be
seer. 70 have besn sharer in the plumber of
of riches who had helped to set him upon
his pedestal, would have done better to
worship the devil point blank. So the ak, |
dashed louder and higher by confirmation
on continuation. and by edition after edi-
tion of the evening papers, sTelled into |
such a roar when night came, as might |
have brought one to believe that q solitary |
watcher on the gallery above the dome OF |
st. Paufs would have perceived the night |
air TO be laden with a heavy muttering of |
the name of Merdie, coupled with every va |
riety of eXecration.
For tho late Mr.. Merdles complaint was |
simply Forgery and Robbery.