Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1876-11-11
THE PATH OF VIRTUE.
The Sad Story Of n Young Mans CrIzs--
The Roud to Vice.

The Sad Story of n Young Mans Crime---
The Roud to Vice.
There is nothing sadder in the litera-
ture of romance than is the story of the
defalcation in the National Park bank.
1t is melancholy tragedy in real life,
surpassing, in its sorrowful details, any
thing that the novelists can invent-a
tragedy, truly, although the sufferers
by Ellis' sin are still alive; more truly
tragedy, indeed, because the blow which
he has struck at the persons nearest to
him is of kind that does not kill the
body.
For eighteen years this man has Ia
bored to build up a reputation which
was worth infinitely more to him and to
the family that he had called about him
than life itself. He had been diigent
and faithful in his business. He had
grown up with the bank in which he
worked, and had become a part of its
working machinery. He had passed
through all the lower grades of Office
trusted of the banks officers. The mil
lions in its vaults were in his sole keep
ing. The president and the cashier
alone were above him in rank, and they
trusted him implicitly. In the natural
course of events he would have succeed
ed them in Office. His slowly earned
reputation for fidelity had been abuud-
antly tested, and it was solid and Sc
cure capital for him. He had been sup
10 his elbows in money for years." and
the time had long ago gone by when
there was room for doubt as to his strict
integrity. He was rich; richer thar any
amount of money could make him, be
cause his wealth was of kind thst 10
thief could steal and no adverse fortune
could take away from him. His salary,
too, was ample, and he had all the
means of comfortable and even of mod
erately luxurious living.
The lust Of gold seized him, and for q
sum which to such man ought to have
seemed paltry, he sold all this. He
threw away his capital, throttled his
honorable reputation, destroyed the re-
suits of patient lifetime's work, aban
doned the prosperous and happy future
which he had 80 laboriously secured
aud in one minute changed himself from
an honorable man, whose success in life
was already accomplished, into THE
hiding from the officers of the law,
All this is terrible, but this is only
the smaller and less tragic part of the
story. This man had for his own some.
thing more than wealth, something bet
ter than success. In his Brooklyn home
there were q wife and five children, ant
the wrong done to them was more terri
BILE than any words of ours can hint
There is bright boy there, twelveyea
OF age, this mans firstborn son, and W,
read in the newspapers that when tina
boy saw the story OF his fathers guilt il
the journals he sunk under the blow
and wept. Who shall picture the agon,
which brought those tears2 Who shal
tell, who shall even imagine the crush
ing, blighting effect of this mans Grim
upon the life and soul of that boy
The child has been reared to hold il
highest respect those principles o
fidelity to trust and integrity of charac
ter which had made his father trustee
and honored officer of great metropoli
tan bank. His pride in such father a
his was believed to be must have beel
the highest joy of his life, and hi
young ambition must have been to fol
low in his fathers footsteps, to win fo
himself like reputation, perhaps t.
follow his father in the very institution i
which the fathers honors had been wor
. The light is all gone outof that youn
&; life now. The bright boy, with higl
, impulses and with the stimulus of
fathers conspicuously honorable caree
as motive to earnest effort, has in
single hour become the son of thiei
G His little brothers and sisters are unde
a the same terrible cloud which ove1
: shadows him and which nothing ca
ever remove. The picture is too horri
BILE to contemplate, and yet it thrust
itself upon the gaze of every father wit
depressing, but let us hope with whole
l some effect. That poor boy, weepin
9 over a grief that even time cannot al
q suage, is much more truly and muc
. more terribly the victim of his father
sin than he would have been if he ha
. fallen dead under a blew from b
fathers hand. The thought of him
: his grief is nightmare from whic
q there is no escaping; and Ellis rewar
a for oil this tragic work was paltr
= sum of money which he may ea4il
waste in single year.-NetO York Ev
. ming Post.