The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-11-30
The Woman,s Bank.

manager would endorse the remark of noble
lord in Parliament to Sir Robert Peel, 'sthat
pedestal is not convenient basis for opera
tons." Much of the literature to which the
subject has given rise is painfully suggest i've.
rejecting, as it does, upon the spirit and INTEL
ligence OF community. That many right
minded, intelligent women had deposited with
faith in its claim to a charitable fund, which
some eccentric founder had chosen to dispense
in this fashion, to worthy class, is not to be
doubted. The fact that it had gained foot
ing in Boston for more than three years, wear
ing the air of a legitimate business, and meet
ing all its claims, was an assuring one. A
fraud could not gain such confidence from
people so respectable and generally we'll in
formed, it was thought. 1t was such God
send, too, to worthy, struggling class! That
women in very comfortable circumstances
were taking advantage of this fund unques-
toned did suggest rather loose method of
business to some whose interest in the subiec.
was awakened. But the one glaring aspect of
the matter since "the crisis is the stand
which SO many women have taken very
feeble intellect could scarcely get puzzled over
the arithmetical problem. That one could de-
pOsit $500, receive it again, and continue to
gather from the generous banker tie eggs of
this prolific goose, after surrendering the bird
herself to the depositor, would indeed be very
marvellous financial operation, but we may
possibly conceive an easy faith, fed by the
wish to have it so. But no one can believe
many of the depositors were of this class. They
did believe Mrs. Howe was the worthy almoner
of a fabulous sum-how fabulous it must have
been they did not stop to calculate. After suf-
ticent evidence was in to dispose of that claim,
there seemed to remain but one explanation,
unless we believe that Mrs. Howe had encoun-
tered the youth sent by Queen Christina from
her laboratory at Rome over the mountains,
where he had come. to find the herb necessary
to make his gold, and never returned to enrich
his patron. Was it possible that after two
centuries of search and travel he had triumph
antly reached the Brookne street mansion
and laid at the feet of Mrs. Howe the magic
plant SO cruelty withheld from the ''royal dab
bier in occult sciences
That the investments of new depostors were
retained in the form of interest to the old, and
that the day of reckoning which always comes
soon or late in finance, as in morals, revealed a
company of defrauded, destitute women, was
not pleasant side to the picture. 1t could be
anything but consolng to the recipients of
1850 year that they had drawn upon COM
pany of equally creduleus and worthy women
who had deposited their last cent to keep them
atioat almost luxuriously. But the strongest
feature is the spirit in which women have re-
sponded to the efforts of an honest press +, ex-
pose fraud, of which they were the victims.
What avais all the angry, sarcastic returt
upon men WHO have mismanaged and defraud-
ed? Because bank presidents have stolen
funds and bought ranches and house lots with
them, is it less The duty of conservers of public
morals to guard women against the sharpers of
their own sex? One would have supposed
few weeks ago that the investigation had
arisen from a race OF women haters, bundled
together ito mouse" the affairs which women
had resolved to show that they incapa-
BILE, credulous and imbecile race Was it more
important to the good women of Boston that a
fraudulent bank, protesting to be working in
their interest, should continue, than that all
pretences that endanger the moral life of the
community should be attacked and exposed?
w IS it none of the business of the press that
women were willing to take their chances
as one OF them expressed it, if through the aid
Of her audacious spirit web of wrong and
dissimulatlon was woven in which those of
feebler mould were caught, and the shame
and suffering that must ever come of permitted
wrong should follow? Can it possibly be true,
as one of these more fearless spirits declares,
''whether it be fraud a business or charity,
it has been productive of good and only of
good" is not this fallacious and Goddess doc
trine, unworthy one who has spoken so many
wise, strong words to women? Should an
earnest woman, who has much influence with
her sex, declare such doctrine as this? might
it not even be pleasanter, by way of variety, to
be cheated by smart woman and lose by one
OF our own sex, it lose we must? Have we
standing in church and society, with little
more than the average intellect or avarice, can
hoodwink a whole body of directors, whose
solemn and sworn duty it is to see to the mat
ter, and see them staring stupidity at an empty
treasury?' Is it simply question whether it
is more beautiful or comforting to be cheated
by man or woman? Because men have
originated and engineered dishonest enter
prises, shall women cherish those of their own
sex and resent their exposure as an attack on
woman's aims and methods? Surely, such rea-
soning may well convince men "that the aver
age masculine intellect has failed to compre-
bend woman, in even her shallowest faith and
fancy, as one signing herself 'Depositor" ex-
presses it in one OF the Boston papers. Women
who feel aggrieved at this attack upon an insti-
tuition that has seemed TO them SO benign and
helpfal, may call the newspapers "old gran
MES" if they will, or berate the clear-headed
men who insist upon calling fraud a fraud,
whether perpetrated by mon or women but it
does seem as though some wise, GRANDMOTHER
ly care was needed by the present generation
of women, even though it must come from the
press. Let them not forget that Nature her.
self sets dreadful limits to the powers of dis
stimulation" and it is vain to strive or cry
against them. l.. G. H.
Portland.