The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1882-02-16
make HASTE SLOWLY"


learn, it seems, even by the hard lessons OF
experience. One of these is that the risks
which promise great returns are just as apt
to entail disastrous losses. Though untold
sorrow for untold years has followed like
shadow upon the heels of speculation, wise
and foolish, business men and dreamers
with an infatuatiOn unaccountable but I'M
comfortable, have rushed into the traasac-
tons upon Change, and thought they saw,
beyond the possibility of disappointment,
through the short vista ahead, the rosy
light of fortune and power. And then, be-
fore the strongest imagined that the storm
was coming, in opposition to seemingly the
most rational calculations, the crash
has invariably come, and desolation as
complete as ever lay in the track
of the West Indian hurricane has spread
over thousand homes. People forget
that there are men who control stocks, cot
ton, trade, Just as absolutely as other men
manage government, and that Us those in
power are forever seeking ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
at the expense Of the masses and by
encroachments upon the constitution, so
do the Kings of the Exchange gather unto
themselves riches and fame by playing
upon and betraying the cupidity Of their
victims. What care they for the suicide of
the man who has ventured and lost his all?
lie is to them but one of the unknown
atoms that go to make up humanity. Or
what think they of the want that glidcs
into n once happy home like spectre,
when the collapse has come,
and crouches upon the hearth-stone
The late fail in futures in this country, and
the great panic which has been racking
France. ought to teach ever-to-be-forgotten
lessons to those who would violate or trans
ccnd the divine command, sin the sweat OF
thy face shalt thou eat thy bread" Our
dispatches yesterday morning from Louis
vile, and how truly, perhaps might the
same be said of hundreds of other towns
not mentioned, tell tale that ought to ex-
cite burst of pity for the poor, misguided
victims of cupidity from one to the other
end of the country. 1t is said that mer-
chants, clerks, shop-boys chamb er-maids
in fact every one who could raise So
rushed to the bucket.shops and in
vested in cotton, but day before yes
terday their margins were all gone and
with them their hopes and air-castles. A
writer in the Paris Figaro speaking Of
Lyons, one of the wealthiest and most beau
tiiul cities in Europe, the second in France
declares that a heavy cloud of sorrow like Il
pallhangs over the city. AS yet they dare
not uncover the ruins--the total failures,
the positions ofthe most honorable men are
so fearlully compromised. From the day
laborer to the millionaire, or rather cx-
millionaire, everybody has lost. Not one
has the first sou toward Il settlement.
Thirty-siX millions of francs are owing to
the brokers alone, but this loss does
not begin to cover individual losses
of each member on change all
OF whom have speculated largely. When
we reflect that this means rags, cold star
walton to hundreds of women and thOus-
ands of children, and suicide and dishonor
to once prominent and happy men we can
begin to see the extent Of the evil. Can in
temperance or war do worse? While the
over-zealous are agitating themselves about
the evils of incompetence and the Choir
rors of war, the former of which are slow
in their operation, open and easily reached,
and the latter of which are of inircqucnt
occurrence and the result of an overmaster-
ing necessity, it would be well to take steps
to check this secret and deadly poison of
speculation which is spreading itself
through all the arteries of trade and society
and reaping harvest of ruin second
only to the black plague. Men must be
taught that the only legitimate wealth, the
only wealth that stays to bless and comfort
old age, is that wrung from legitimate toll
that which represents labor the only true
criterion of value, and not such as is thrown
up temporarily upon the bourse OF
the exchange by the artificial manipu.
lations OF the sharks of the financial waters
not such as is garnered from the black
boards of the bucket-shops, but that which
comes from the natural wear and tear %
brain and muscle. Until men have learned
these things, great catastrophes, such
as we have just witnessed, may be
anticipated, and in the interest o
humanity we trust that our people
will learn "to make haste slowly