The Worthington advance., 1879-04-10

1"isaSaso tue seeming severity OF the
loss OF such depositors. Father Edward
coolo not say "No'' to any who asked for
aid. If the party soliciting . loan from him
pronered a mortgage, he would take it,; bat,
II one was not forthcoming, he would accept
mere note Of hand.
One man who borrowed $4,000 from him
s,mpiy gave IN return, Received of Father
EDWARD $4,000" signing his name to It
ana taat was quite satisfactory. It is af-
nrmed that not less than $5O,O were loan
ed ny MIN and are still outstanding, in Sums
OF from 700 to 500, for which he re-
celved nothing more than verbal
Acknowledgements and promises to pay. And
as Tor worthless notes, he has torn up hun
dreds OF them, convinced that nothing could
ever be collected on them, and hundreds
still remain upon which the assignee has
some vague hopes of getting back small
percentage. he was particularly weak in
helping his friends among business mem.
out OF their financial embarrassments, and
in that way has got rid of some very large
sums. .by the failure of one big dry goods
house; 1or instance, he lost $4,000, and bv
another bankruptcy $4,000, and these are
but samples OF numbers of his financial
transactions in that line. So he went mer-
pot floating among the brass ones, bound
to 60 to smash in the end. Meanwhile the
archbishop, not suspect,ng anything of
this. had continued all those years
drawing upon him for money to aid churches
and institutions of various sorts throughout
the diocese, and some tedious llwsuits were
costing him pretty heavily. One Patrick
Considine, in dying, left large farm on
Mount Adams to the archbishop, for denomi-
national uses. His natural heirs contested
the will, and the litigation thereupon lasted
many years, costing the archbishop $25,OOO
before it was finally settled.
When the hard times came and deposits
fell off, the demand upon Father Edwards
treasury were not correspondingly diminish
ed, and then he found it necessary to 60 out
end raise money by mortgaglng the real es.
tate to which he had clung so many years,
and by hypothecating the more or Tess worth
less paper which be had confdingly taken in
exchange for good money
Then false reports of other losses by the
failures of two local banking institutions
converted the alarm into a panic, and the
run upon him began. He did not last a
day, nor an hour, under it, in the sense in
which savings banks might be said to last,
for he ran out of cash at the first dash, and
stopped payment. But he hastened to get
some more money, and began paying again.
In an hour or two his strong box was empty.
Then he closed, went out and borrowed some
more money, opened again, paid it all out,
and closed. And that was the way he went
on from day to day, solvent and honoring
all obligations for about two hours every
forenoon, and bankrupt the rest Of the
twenty -four hours. OF course, the deposit
ors grew wild. The very uncertainty OF
whether they were going to be paid or not
maddened them. An excited multitude be-
sieged the house. Tho aged archbishop
noticed their presence and asked what vas
the matter. Father Edward told him there
was merely little temporary trouble about
money. The other priests in the house
thought there was only some temporary
trouble, and borrowed for Father Edward
from their personal friends several thousand
dollars. The next day Father Edward played
paying teller little longer than usual.
Then some wealthy Catholic laymen gave
several thousand dollars more; but still the
trouble grew daily. At length the end was
reached. There was nothing more to mort
gage; no moro money could be raised, and
the depositors kept coming in greater num-
bers and with larger claims every day. The
hideous fact of bankruptcy could no longer
be concealed from the archbishop. He
at once insisted upon the entire af-
fair being turned over to board
of trustees. Even then Father Ed
ward could not realize that he was in fix
from which he could not get out quite easily
if he had twenty or thirty thousand dollars,
and when the trustees talked of issuing
100000 of bonds to meet the deficit he pooh
poohed their estimate and after some elab-
crate fgurings and divingsinto his memory,
assured them confidently %that 1926, 600
would be more than ample to cover every
cent owed to depositors. When, few
weeks afterward, he was informed that they
then knew that the debt would exceed $3,-
100000 and possibly reach $4.OOO,OOO, he
was more astonished than anybody else could
possibly have been, and indeed seems never
since to have quite gotten over the stunning
effect of that discovery. The allegation has
been made that large amounts Of the deposi
tors money had been sent to Rome. That
however, is positively denied by the arch
bishop.