News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-03-29
SUNDAYS SERMON.
ONE OF REV. DIR. TALM.AG E'S
STERLING DISCOU RISES.
Subject: The Age OF swindle.


The two most skillful architects in all the
| world are the bee and the spider The one
| puts up a sugar mandatory and the other
| builds slaughter house for flies. On a
| bright summer morning, when the sun comes
/ out and shines upon the spiders web, be-
/ decked with dew, the gOSsamer structure
| seems bright enough for a suspension bridge
/ for supernatural beings to cross on. But
alas for the poor fly, which, in the latter
part OF that very day, ventures on it, and is
I caught and dungeOned and DESTROYED. The
IJ 'as ~ uLUrMeI LEaJ 1t was a free bridge,
| and would cost nothing, but at the other end
/ OF the brI ige the toll paid was its own life
Ihe next day there comes a strong wind, and
away goes the web, and the marauding
spider and the victimized fly. So delicate
are the silken threads of the SPIDERS web
that many thousands of tnem are put to-
gether before they become visible TO the
| human eye, and it takes 1900, 900 of them to
make thread as large as the human hair.
Most cruel as wei as most ingenious is the
spider. A prisoner in the Bastile, France,
had one so trained that at the sound of q
violin it every day came for its meal of flies
JOB, The author of my text, and the leading
scientist OF MS day, had no doubt watched
| the vOraciOus process of this one insect with
| another, and saw spider and fly swept down
| with the same broom, or scattered by the
same wind. Alas, that the world has so many
designing spiders and viCtimiZed flies.
There has not teen a time when the utter
II
| ing the financial interests of others in charge
has been more evident than IN these last few
years.
The unroofng of banks and disappearance
OF administrators with the funds of large
| estates, and the disorder amid pustofice
accounts and deficits amid United States
| officials, have made a pestilence Of crime
| that solemniZes every thoughtful man and
| woman, and leads every philanthropist and
! Christian to ask: What shall be done to stay
| h.ay Niorrt, i. i
| typhoon, a siroccO. / sometimes ask myself
if it would not be better for men making
! wills to bequeath the property .rectly to
the executors and officers of the court, and
appoint the widows and orphans a commit
tee to see that the former got all that did not
| belong to them. The SIMPLE fact is that
there are a large number of men sailing
yachts and driving fat horses, and mem
bers of expensive club houses and controlling
country seats who are not worth a dollar
If they return to others their just rights
Under some sudden reverse they fail,
and with afflicted air seem to retire from
the world, and seem almost ready for
monaStlc life, when in two or three years
they blossom out again, having compromised
with their creditors, that's pad them moth
ing but regrets, and the only difference be-
tween the second chapter of prosperity and
the first is that their pictures are Murillos in
stead of kensetts, and their horses go a mile
in twenty seconds less than their predeces-
sors, and instead of one country seat they
have three. | have watched and have no.
ticed that nine out Of ten of those who fail
in what is called high life, have more means
after than before the failure, and in many of
the cases failure is only a strategem to es-
cape the payment of honest debts and put the
world off the track while they practice a
large swindle. There is something woefully
wrong in the fact that these things are pos
sible.
First of all, charge the blame on careless,
Tr,flY hal \
| in charge great financial institutions. II
! oug hit not to be possible for a pres dent or
! Stitution to swindIe it year after year with
| ont detect ON. viii undertake to say that
| three wears without detection, either the
directors are partners in the infamy and
pOcketed part of the theft or they are guilty
of culpable neglect of duty, for which GoI
will hold them as responsible as he holds the
acknowledged defrauders. What right have
prominent business men to allow their names
to be published as directors IN financial
institution so that unSOphisticated people
are thereby Induced to deposit their money
in or buy the scrip thereof, when they, the
published directors, are doing nothing for
the safety of the institution. 1t is case of de-
ception most reprehenSlbla. Many people with
a surplus of money, not needed for immediate
use, although it may be little further on
indispensable, are without friends competent
to advise them, and they are guided solely by
the character OF the men whose mes are
associated with the institution. When the
crash came, and with the overthrow OF the
banks went the small earnings and limited
fortunes OF widows and orphans, and the
hopelessly aged, the directors stood with
idiotic stare, and to the inquiry OF the
fTenZied depositOrs and stockholders VINO mad
lost their all. and to the ARA gnment of an
indignant public had nothing to say except:
@ We thought it was all right. We did not
know there was anything wrong go
ing on 1t was their duty to know
They stood in poslt on which de-
luded the people with the idea that
they were carefully observant. Calling
themselves directors, they did not direct.
Tney had opportunity of auditing accounts
and inspecting the books. No time 20 do so I
Then they had no business to accept the posi-
ton 1t seems to be the pride of some mOneyed
men to be directors in great many instltu-
tions and all they know is whether or not
they get their dividends regularly. and their
names are used as decoy ducks to bring others
near enough to bemade game of. What, first
of all, is needed is that five thousand bank di-
rectOrS and insurance company directors re-
sign or attend to their business as directors
The business world will be full of fraud just
as ong fraud is 50 easy. When you arrest
the pres dent and secretary of a bank for an
embezzlement carried on for many years,
have plenty of sheriHS out the same day to
arrest all the directors. They are guilty
either of neglect or completely.
We must especially deplOre the misfortune
OF banks i'll various parts of this country in
that they damage the banking institution,
which is the great convenience of the CEN
turies, and indispensable to commerce and
the advance of nations With one hand it
besses the lender, and with the other it
bleSses the borrower. The bank was born of
the worlds neceSS ties, and is venerable with
the marks of thOus lnds of years
We also deplOre abuse of trust funds, be-
cause they fly in the face of that divine good
ness which seems determined to bless this
land, We are having the eighth year of un-
eXampled national harvest The wheat
gamblers get hold of the wheat, and the corn
gamblers get hold of the corn. The full tide
of Gods mer y toward this land is put back
by those great dykes of dishonest resistance
When God provides enough food and clothing
TO feed and apparel this whole nation like
Princes, the scramble OF dishonest men to get
more than their share, and get it at all
hazards, Keeps everything shaking with un-
certainty aul everybody asking: What
nextf" Every week makes new revela
tions. How many more bank Presi-
dents and bank cashiers have been specu-
lating with other peoples money, and
how many more bank directors are in
imbecile silence letting the perfdy go on, the
great and patient God only knowsl My
opinion IS that we have got near the bottom,
The wind has been prickei from the great
bubble of American speculation. The men
who thought that the Judgment day was at
least 5, ,OOJ years off, found it in 1888 1897 and
1886; and this nation has been taught that
men must keep ther hands out OF other peo-
pies pockets. Great businesses built on bOr-
rowed capital have been obliterated, and men
who had nothing have lost all they had.
believe we are started on a higher career of
than this land has ever seen, il,
and it, and if.
There is one word that has deluded more
people into bankruptcy and State prison ami
per,itiOn than any other wor1 in COM
merclal liie and that is the word bor-
row; that one word is responsible for
all the defacatious, and embezzle-
ments, and financial consternations of the
last twenty years When executors conclude
to speculate with the funds Of an estate com
nitted to their charge, they do not purloin,
1hev say they only borrow; when a banker
makes an Overdraught upon his institution,
he does not commit theft, he only borrOws.
w hen the o tcer of a company, by flaming al
Vertlsement in some religious papers AMI gilt
certificates of stocks gets multitude OF
country people to put their small earnings
into an enterprise for carrying on some uu-
developed nothing, he does not fraudulently
take their money, he only borrows When a
young man with easy acces'tO his employers
money drawer, or the confidential clerk bv
elosn prOpinqu ty to the account books takes
\ few dollars for n Wall street excursion he
expects to put it back; he will pat it all
back; he will put it all back very soon. He
only bOrrowS. What is needed is some man
of gigantic limbs to take his place at the
curhstOne in front of Trinity Church, and
when that word borrow comes bounding
along, kick it clean through to Wall street
ferry boat. and if, striking on that, it bounds
clear over till it strikes BROOKLYN heights or
BROOKLYN hill, it will be. well for the City Of
Churches.