Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1881-11-14
LETTER FROM NEW YORK.
Especial Correspondence ofthe Monitor1
NEW YORK, Nov, Z. 1881

Another cashier has been too smart
for his own good, and the collapse of
the Mechanics National Bank, of New
ark, was wholesale affair. OF course,
everybody was very much surprised that
a bank established over so years should
so go up, or that the eminently respecta-
BILE cashier should have stolen $780,
600; and nobody could understand
how he could do it or why he should do
it, being in safe receipt of an excellent
salary. How soft and simply we are, to
be sure! Why, the thing was simple
enough. He was devotee of the great
god Commission, and the idol went back
on him. He allowed, for considera-
ton of per cent, overdrafts to an ig-
norant, brutal mule Of an over-bearing
wild lrishman, who had by skill in his
trade risen to the head of business too
big for even wise man to manage on
small capital, but was no more than
thick-headed mechanic, who understood
but one thing, after all. The conse-
quence was the mechanic had practl-
cally unlimited credit, and, like Monte
Cristo, expected his drafts to be honor
ed at any moment, to any extent, in the
ridiculously reckless business he con-
Quoted, while, if Baldwin rebelled he
held the lash over him of exposing his
underhand acceptance of this bride of
per cent. The cashier, after the first
yielding to temptation, became the me-
chanic's bond slave. At the same time
if he had saved his commissions instead
Of squandering them in Wall street, as
no doubt he did lots of other money,
though he won't confess it now, he
might have got away with pot of
money and been awarded so much of re-
spect as knave sometimes gets. AS
he himself said, 'no one respects fool. ;"
In lamenting my frequent duty to
say few words in the role of an obltu-
ant, | wholly omitted one of the peers
of the realm of letters whom it would
be objectionable to neglect mention of.
refer to DIR. Holland, of the Century,
formerly Scribner's Magazine, which, by
the way, with its wider margins and ex-
ira matter, is improving with each issue.
A certain school of critics affected to
sheer at his work, but if his style or the
subjects of his pen were not like Charles
Levers, for instance, or saturated with
gall, like the smart essays of the .'Sat-
urday Reviler," and its imitation here
and abroad. they were popular and their
influence was good. The sales of all his
productions were phenomenally large,
and some seem destined to be favorites
for centuries to come. He was a good
man, and in the path of life he trod wa:
every whit as representative of the per-
sistence, gentleness and brains of purest
American manhood as the lamenteC
Garfield himself, for he sprang from
small beginnings, and was on the top Of
the ladder he had started to mount as
boy, when he was gathered to the folc
of the blessed elsewhere.
Once upon time New York was
, great shipbuilding centre, and the clip
pers from the East River were scattere,
in every part throughout the wide worl'
with dashing variety of American
, sailormen with glazed caps aboard them
The old style knock down and drag out
Delaying pin and handspike wleldin
and foul tongue-wagging mate seems t
have disappeared utterly as though b
q had never been, and so have the ships
and so, to great extent, have th
p builders. But some still remain, an
their devotion to the old mechanics
Bell" which, as result of some oil
p time stripe, was established to call thel
from labor to refreshments and yit
q versa, has been manifested in man
n more or less pathetic illusions in pro:
f and verse to their sonorous fetch. A
J. ter much trouble the relics of the adj
) men have succeeded in getting the Of
"a thing recast, and Its 5Oth anniversal
% has just been celebrated with gre
,e glory. RADIx.