The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-08-29

widow the gold interest on her bonds ir
paper dollars, | pitied the milling owner
and absorbed her indignant tears with ariG
sympathy. Sometimes when sovereign States
took advantage of my lying promise to chea
! their honest creditors, I have felt the accu
INFLATED disgrace which comes from an act ir
which million men participate. 1 have
been compelled to simulate dead man:
good dollars in the hands of his thievipe
executor and hold Gny peace. l have re.
deemed debts of honor with the dishonest
option of the law. / have robbed all helpless
people who are held to losing contracts.
But in all my wanderiugs my greatest griei
has been to know that the heaviest weight OF
loss which my fictitious character entails
must come at last to be borne by laboring
men and women. Other men who are rather
exchangers of commodities than producers
manage shrewdly to levy their Immediate
tribute on the shifting values of the things
| in which they deal. Bur the man who has
nothing but his labor to exchange, and is a
consumer almost Or quite to the extent of his
earnings, has commodity to sell the price
of which he cannot control.
The exigencies of hunger and nakedness
stand upon one side OF him and the exigen-
cies of his fello x-men upon the other. If wise
government and stable laws have enabled
other men to profit by the skill and industry
of labor, it will be in demand and will be re-
Quilted. If unwise laws and unthrifty govern
ment have rendered enterprise unsafe and
business unproductive labor must pay the
penalty or suffer.
Let me illustrate. In my wanderings have
frequently returned to the hands of my maker
in payment of taxes | was one of many mill
lions, which, in spasm of virtue, were de-
voted by law to destruction. But so terrible
is the faulty of wickedness that was again
thrust into circulation. Chance directed me
to the pockets of statesman. He received
me with placidity, having taken the precau-
ton to double his salary, thereby recon-
pensing himself in quantity for the bad
quality of his pay.
He was minded at leisure time to build
himself brick structure for his horses and
to give an oversight to the mixing of the NOR
tar, the rearing of the walls and all the Gu
rious detail of the work. He was man of
brains and buttoned close to his capacious
paunch in the sultry heat of June our COM
munication was of the closest. was thrust
forth and withdrawn with every breath he
drew, and to some degree with his lntellec-
tual sperm.
He agreed with the mason not to lay his
bricks at the initiation rate of wages which
endure until prices are advanced to CORE
spond with cheapened currency, but for the
great task of contraction and redemption.
The statesman was, if anything. more quick
to see his own advantage than the country's,
though to look after the country's advantage
was what he was paid for. He hired his
mason for two dollars per day, and paid him
one dollar and fifty cents, or two paper dol
lars worth seventy-fve cents apiece.
When the last brick was laid and I was
placed in the honest mason's hand, he ex-
changed me for Sunday shirt The shirt
dealer handed me to a seamstress. This
poor creature owned o tread mill OF her own
a sewing machine. She got seven cents
making shirts. Surely it was cursed inven-
ton which enabled any man to take
the price of three shirts out Of every
fourteen this woman made at seven
cents apiece. Yet out of every dollar she
earned so much went to increase I" the aggre-
gate wealth of the country" When, with
the poor creature parted with me,
as if I were her last friend instead of her arch
enemy, I wished that had been burned at
Chicago or sunk in the salt seas, never to re-
new the acquaintance OF buyer or seller.
Ny course is now nearly run. l am ragged
and dirty. The promise that "the United
States will pay p" is a legend of my youth no
longer traceaple upon my face except by the
eye of faith. Some good [ have done l
have had my share in those nesided ex-
changes which heaven is to repay fourfold.
l leave the question, whether my actual or
nominal value will be quadrupled to the
l was the first dollar a jour
neyman blacksmith earned after he had
learned his trade, and handed to his waiting
sweetheart
I have been the "bottom dol ar of many
a jolly dog. have spread sudden sunshine |
IN young eyes, and brought grateful tears to |
older Ones l have been bread to the hungry |
and tracts to the heather. Beggars and |
beauties have acknowledged my service.
nave flown from the hospital to the home,
distributing undetected pestilence l have
'ped from wicked haunts and hands, carrying
messages Of unintended happiness
I write this autobiography now, which I
lave long had in contemplation, because
consider my financial career as ended. have
ome into the possession of an owner who is
90 wise to be deceived by a government
and puts my true and original value
lpon me. He will never offer me in exchange
or anything. He found me in the street
where a careless clerk had swept me, and
judged l would make capital lining for his
est. He doesn't know that he might soon
ct silver for me. He doesn't care, my
obin.- Harrisburg Patriot.