The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-12-12
TREASURES OF WICKEDNEsS
PROFIT NOTHING"
[Proverbs, chap.

There is an uncouth but significant old
proverb which says that "what is got over
the devils back is lost under his belly" 1t
is cousin german to that other trite MAXIM
that " honesty is the best policy" In the
economy OF L ivine justice relating to the
affairs of men, there certainly ought to be a
fatality attending ill-goten wealth, making 1t
perpetual plague to the posSessor, and 1t Is
30 in point of fact.
An Eastern sage, as wise as Solomon, has
said that the getting Of treasures by lying
tongue is q vanity tossed to and fro OF them
that seek death" Such treasures ought to
prove q living death-a canker gnawing the
soul and making life intolerable. Yet we see
men mas8ing treasures by all sorts of crooked
ways, more crooked and reprehensible than
"crookcd whisky" and they faunt the pro-
ducts Of fraud, and bribery and oppression
and treachery and 1" lying tongue In the
faces of honest men. They carry their heads
erect in the pride of shamelessness They
smile the smile Of iDsolence. They speak
the words of bravado. They seem to be
happy and at ease when among their adnia
tors, who, knowing their riches to be the
fruit of crime, are mean enough to pay them
seeming respect. Bat when they encounter
the scorn of the few who will not consent to
honor successful crime or triumphant knavery
arrayed in gorgeous attire, they feel their ig-
nobility, and hear mocking devil within
telling them that they bear upon their brazen
fronts the mark of Cain, which good men
shun.
The last ten years of the first century OF
this great Republic will form memorable
epoch in its history, on account of the insane
lust for wealth that has paused at no possible
means whereby fortunes could be made.
During this period the Genius of Fraud
seems to have established his empire here
over loyal and tractable subjects, developing
ways and means for the sudden acquisi-
ton of riches of which our supplemented
ancestors could never have dreamed.
The results of fraud-craft during this
period have not been less startling than the
discoveries in science or the wonderful inven-
tons in the mechanic arts. Individual
knaves operating on their own account,
knaves in combination plying their craft on
gigantic scale, select bodies of knaves leagued
together in "rings," knaves in Office cooper
ating with knaves in private life, have set at
nought all the mandates of the decalogue in
order to compass the treasures of wicked
ness" Not post of honor 30 high but it has
been prostituted to the foul Moloch of unhal-
lowed riches, whose affairs reek with the offer
80 ulo trrc Int
it has been sacrificed at the shrine of the
Golden Calf
AT time Of unwonted depression in all
legitimate business, and Of financial distress
throughout the land, petty officials have man.
aged to grow rich as if by magic; members
Congress in the short space of two years have
amassed large fortunes Governors of States
have gone into office little better than pau
pers, and on moderate salaries have not been
ashamed to go out at the end of four years
with their hundreds of thousands; and even
the President OF the United States does not
blush to have become millionaire whilst
occupying seat once honored by the
Father of his Country, who was too
proud and generous to receive pay from
his coun trymen for his public services, and
yet our Galena tanner thinks it is not asking
too much when he demands "third term"
in compensation for the sacrifices he has
made for his country; and thus we see over
the whole land, that while the people are poor
and miserably oppressed by taxation, their
public servants, the office-holders, from the
President down to the ignoble tax-collector are
rolling in their ili.gotten wealth. needless OF
the walls of the suffering millions whose
substance they devour.
As if official opportunities for the rapid &C
emulation, by hook or by crook, of the
treasures of wickedness were not sufficient,
the shorter cut Of defalcation is taken
process of wholesale larceny whereby a for
tune is made by a single swoop, instead of
by the slower but not less sure method Of
population in detail The detaulter may fee,
but is seldom pursued and punished, and the |
next thing we hear of him, under an assume |
name, is likely to be as one of the devoutest |
worshipers of Mammon, or as successful poll |
tician.
But after all, if you will trace the history |
OF the deNoteeS 10 fraud ana nithy lucre to |
the end, you will see verified the words of |
the sage that ''the getting of treasures by
lying tongue is a vanity tossed to aud fro of
them that seek DEATH
They may not, like Boss Tweed, the high |
priest in the temple of Mammon, be smitten |
by the hand of justice, when at the height |
of their pride and magnifcence, and like him
be forced to exchange their meretricious robes
of purple and fine linen for the more BETTING |
garb of the convict but yet the grim ''vauity"
will haunt their steps and the mention of the |
penitentiary will disturb their reveries and
send cold shudder through their bones.
The knights of crooked whisky" are to-day
quaking over their treasures of wickedness'
which they have cotton "by lying tongue"
~ - ,,,;l, rn-, 30 from, fapniaJ canu~ity