Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1876-11-04
The Memory of the Wicked.

Stokes comes out from duress with no trace of
the lion about him. The four years that have
elapsed since his crime, have fully illustrated the
force and the meaning of the Scripture phrase,
"the memory of the wicked shall rot" The
names that were prominent before the community
when this man went under the cloud have faded.
Four years ago, in January last, the writer en-
tered the Grand Central Hotel to meet friends at
dinner. Just as the party were entering the din
ing hall pistol shot was heard in a remote CORR
DOR and young man in stylish dress ran hastily
through the group and down stairs. In an instant
it was Known what had happened, the tragic finale
to the most remarkable social drama that this cen
fury has seen in New York. What have the thin
society plays of DAILY and others TO offer that COM
pues with the actual story of Jim Fisk. A few
minutes later saw Fisk in the closing act of his
life, wounded and dying. lie lay on the pillow
with his eyes closed, and only opened them to
look down upon his breast and ask, "Where is the
stone p the great diamond one of the head lights
of Jim Fisk's career. 1t had been taken to the
hotel for keeping, and, as it proved, for the
protection of the landlords claim, that the
exceeding rottenness of the seeming prosperity of
this prohigate had come to be shown. How tue
news ran out into Jim Fisk circles. Among the
first visitors to the bedside was heavy respecta-
ble-looking man, who was full of sympathy How
changed since, into the flying fugitive just now
coming home on the Franklin. Fisks lawyers
were there David Dudley Field and others, who
had steadily prostituted law to help prosperous
scoundrelism few hours of doubt, and Jim
Fisk was sent away to moulder and be forgotten
in Vermont ehurchyard. How speedily be
faded out of New York. His wealth proved
like the witches leaves, that turned from gold
back to only leaves. HIS Haunting companion in
shameless living found rubbish only in her grasp.
Stokes went to felon's cell The sweeping Ne
mess overlook Tweed and his companions and
dashed them with scorpions How shor-lived was
all the glory of the display of this remarkable
junts of scoundrels. Who is there to-day among
the most careless, the most eager for lavish living,
the most bent on the pleasureable vices of this
world, who does not shrink and start back in ter
ror from the chasm that swallowed this troop
Their memory has rotted. Sober. honest, plod-
ding men, who looked so small in the snowy splcn-
dor Of this regime Of corruption, who of them TO
day does not rejoice that they were not in this
maelstrom of villany and vice What helps and
| encouragement to honest, sober and virtuous liv-
ing do these lessons afford. The gliding is gone
from each Of these lives that shone so brightly in
the brief sunlight Of their sham prosperity. We
wish that we could forget and in forgetting, find
the rebuke that is still delayed in the history of the
fact, that New York leading lawyers alone made
possible this brief shining scoundrelism-that but
for David Dudley Field, and such as he, these
shames had never been.-BrookyH Argus.