Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1877-03-13
NO. g..
MisfelIamepMs.
DISGRlCEFUL FAILURES.

We are asked TO "say something" about
the perfectly scandalous business failures
that are every week reported as having
taken place in various parts of the country
We should be very glad, not only to say
for the benefit of our indignant reader,
whose feelings seem to have been deeply
stirred upon the subject, the something"
which he has asked, but a good deal more,
if we had much hope of doing any really
good work in the premises, for he is only
one of a very large class who are dis
turbed by the perusal of these weekly
stories of the most dscreditable and de-
moralizing bankruptcies.
Failures are sometimes inevitable, aud
are not infrequently of character to
leave no stain and inflict no disgrace upon
the harassed and unfortunate merchant
whose business have. through no real fault
of his own, all miscarried, and finally left
him but stranded wreck upon the shores
OF trade. For such disappointed. disheart-
ened and down-fallen men, we have MOTH
ing but the profoundest sympathy. To-
ward them every man of the slightest feel
ing would extend helping hand, and
| upon them we would hope to be the last to
heap one word of reproach, or one SEN
| tence of censure condemnation.
But to the miserably dishonest. tricky
bankrupt Of the period. who ends career
| of lavish and outrageous personal extrava.
gance-a personal extravaganza partci-
pated in and advertised by every member
of his household-by an evidently long in-
tended, hedged for and planned for ten
cents on dollar or mo assets" failure,
we can, of course, have no other feeling
than the profoundest contempt; and we
take it that every respectable man shares
our sentiments and welcomes this our at
tempt to put them upon public record.
There is not day that passes that does
not bring to notice some outrage upon de-
| cency, fully and most strikingly empha-
sizing the sentiments we are utterine.
But there are phrases of this matter which
| are, perhaps, not fully understood by all.
Many are accustomed to look lightly and
carelessly upon these frequently recurring
| fraudulent failures, because they see no
| actual personal distress and want and suf-
fering growing out of them. John Jones
fails and pays three cents upon the dollar,
and yet John Jones' family retains the
fashionable and expensive pew in the
brown stone church, rides to it with the
pair OF grays that they drove last year,
and the wife and daughters swing their
long skirts up the broad aisle as proudly
and gracefully as if they were paid for. in-
stead of having been cheated out of con-
tiding dry goods retailers.
Thomas Smith fails, and though long
years ago he started as journeyman me-
chanic, living in back street. his wife
taking in vests to make, he now, after
ending. as a gigantic bankrupt, compro-
mic g., ~
dollar, retains his swell-front house at the
West End, keeps his extravagant sons at
college, and is in all respects as far as pos
sble from any idea of starting where he
began, though SO much worse off in all
points when viewed from any honest
standpoint, than when earning wages as
day laborer. But there is suffering
somewhere. There is an under dog in
this fight There is somewhere at the
end Of the long row of tumbling bricks, a
last brick which touches earth, which falls
to the ground.
We were called, not long ago, to visit
n family which was actually in freezing
and starving condition. The man of the
house was locksmith and bell-hanger,
who had had no work for a long time yet
he showed us package of bills for work
if paid he said, would have carried him
over the dull season. With those bills in
our hands we had no hard task to trace
back the sufferings of the famishing chill
dren t) Il er source. This family was
starving because far back gigantic
swndlng real estate operator had made
stupendous failure of the character we
have been pescribing and denouncing and
with direct results to himself and family
such as we have painted.
Far away in the numbering regions of
Maine settlement of choppers are star
ing grim want in the face at the opening
OF what promises to be hard winter. They
are in suffering because they have not
been paid for their last winters work.
The trouble is at the head of their line.
They have not been paid because Shingles
u Co., the great lumber firm of an inte-
rior city made that most disastrous and
disgraceiul failure last spring. All re-
member their case. 1t was the talk Of the
town for twenty hours, and some
good, honest souls thought something
ought to be done about it. Shingles 4
Co., after borrowing" ali the money they
could OF the savings and national banks
and sweeping in all the lumber from
whole districts in the State of Maine,
which lumber they shipped to all quarters
OF the globe, and sold for cash at less than
cost at home, suddenly collapsed. And
so we might go on, if lime and space al
lowed, with endless illustrations. We
speak whereof we know.
Last month an honest, hard-working
New Hampshire farmer hanged himself in
his barn. Cause, financial troubles. He
conld not raise money enough TO pay his
taxes, and the interest upon the mortgage
upon his farm, because the middlemen
who had bought his farm produce had
not paid him and the middlemen had not
paid because the great city commission
house, to whom the produce had been
consigned, had made one of these wretch
ed failures of the period.
Last week a young and delicate girl,
alter seeing the pleasant home of her
childhood ruthlessly broken up, turned
her steps to the city and sought TO avoid
actual beggary by the tolls Of the city
shop, for which she was but poorly fitted.
A gigantic real estate speeulator of the
yx.ha