The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1881-03-05
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.

0eIen6o OF tne nag. Drink may have had
something to do with his downfall, but I
am not going to moralize on that; suffice
it to know that he was down, and the
time my story opens he had not tasted
food for two days. His companion,
lean, emaciated, ragged, vagabond, was
once successful merchant, but bad luck
and false friends had done for him what
whisky and bad luck had done for his
companion, and the two sat down in
that desolate freezing room, looking in
to each others eyes and starving. For
a long time neither spoke, but each di-
yined the others thoughts, for the time
had come when something must be DONE
Presently the soldier spoke and said,
"Jim, can stand this no longer. I'll
have something to cat if l steal it! It
is now near midnight. Th .re's a gro
Gerry store on the corner of the block
above where we can get something; let
us go and get it," Maddened with drink,
misfortune and hunger, tie two went
out into the freezing streets, and, keep
ing well in the shadow Of the houses to
avoid any yagrant policeman who might
chance to wander around, they final
ly reached the house they sought. Ev-
erything was still as death; the time was
propitious, SO they quickly removed a
pane Of glass, and, having effected an
entrance to the store, helped themselves
to whatever they needed and quickly
beat retreat back to their den. A bot
tie Of whisky was among the plunder,
and, after gorging themselves with plen-
ty to eat, they emptied the bottle of
whisky, and laying down on their pallet
of straw i'll the corner slept the sleep of
| the just. But before they awoke in the
morning a detective haF traced them to
their lair. There was no denying the
robbery, for the plunder was all around
them SO they were tried, convicted and
sent to States prison, one for ten, and
the other for fifteen years, and the uni
| versal verdict Of the public was, "served
'em right" just thirty days prior to
this, two men, who were reported to be
worth over hundred millions between
them, met in splendid house on the
Fifth Avenue to see if some job could
not be put up by which they could
still add something to their already
enormous fortunes. In the city in which
they both lived was gigantic corpora
tion which bad almost a complete mo-
! nopoly of the business it pursued. Among
all the various kinds of business. this
was looked upon as the most respectable
and stable, and its princely dividends of
eight per cent. per annum made the
purses of the fortunate stockholders wax
| fat, for its stock was worth many mil
lions. On q bright November morning
a bolt struck this great corporation like
lightning from cloudless sky; for only
the night before these two men concocted
| a scheme by which one of them was to
| appear to sell out, and the other was to
make a raid to wreck the whole concern
! Stories of financial ruin were to be cir
| culated, intimate friends were to be used
as tools and the bait to spread the stories
Of the disaster, the stock was to be
borne down one-half, and then, when the
| wretched holders were induced to sell
at the lowest figure, these two worthless
were to buy i'll the great body of it, and
then the stock was to rise higher than it
had ever been before. The first thing to
do was to throw their most intimate
friends off their gaurd, and the next was
to commence their work of ruin and de-
struction. No pirates ON the high seas
ever concocted more thieyish or william
GUS scheme. The raid began in Novem-
ber; from 1O6 the stock tumbled to 100
to 95-to 9O-a5-s0-77, and then came
a pause. The work had been accomp-
lished much sooner than they expected,
and by the last of December hundreds
and hundreds were ruined Many mer-
chants, who in an evil hour had been
tempted to go into Wall street and invest
in the stock, suddenly found themselves
| without penny. An old army officer,
| whose little fortune had been stolen from
him by these two millionares, blew out
his brains. A widow and her daughter
were driven to suicide. A man who had
labored a long and honest life to accumu-
late few dollars, had invested it in the
stock Of this company, and when the
buccaneers had raided it to the lowest
point he was sold out, and they car led
him to q lnnatic asylum. Death, disas-
ter, ruin, suicide and tears followed the
train of these two men. The whole bus
mess of the country was disturbed
many sunk never to rise again; hun
dreds, aye thousands will struggle on
through pennry and sorrow for years,
till finally the grave shall cover all their
woes, and the two men who caused all
this are feted and honored and caresseI
and only short time since a church
committee waited on one of them to tell
him that the prayers of the church went
nightly up to the Throne of Grace invok-
ing blessings on his head, because he had
donated to its funds $500 of the money
he had picked from the pockets of con
filling friends. The two thieves who
stole millions and who ruined thousands
are among the most honored in the land.
Moral: when YOU steal go for big stake.
Parties, balls, marriages, fetes, sup
pers, dinners, breakfasts, and all sorts of
iunketings are now the order of the day.
New York must now delight the heart of
All Ensfishman. as far as style is con
cer.ed. You might imagine yourself in