accursed.

It is astonishing how some men, who are kind in their families, useful
in the church, charitable to the poor, are utterly transformed of the
devil as soon as they enter the Stock Exchange. A respectable member
of one of the churches of the city went into a broker's office and
said: "Get me one hundred shares of Reading, and carry it; I will
leave a margin of five hundred dollars." Instead of going up,
according to anticipation, the stock fell. Every few days the operator
called to ask the broker what success. The stock still declined. The
operator was so terribly excited that the broker asked him what was
the matter. He replied: "To tell you the truth, I borrowed that five
hundred dollars that I lost, and, in anticipation of what I was sure I
was going to get by the operation, I made a very large subscription to
the Missionary Society."

The nation has become so accustomed to frauds that no astonishment is
excited thereby. The public conscience has for many years been utterly
debauched by what were called fancy stocks, morus multicaulis, Western
city enterprises, and New England developments.

If a man find on his farm something as large as the head of a pin,
that, in a strong sunlight, sparkles a little, a gold company is
formed; books are opened; working capital declared; a select number
go in on the "ground floor;" and the estates of widows and orphans
are swept into the vortex. Very little discredit is connected with any
such transaction, if it is only on a large scale. We cannot bear small
and insignificant dishonesties, but take off our hats and bow almost
to the ground in the presence of the man who has made one hundred
thousand dollars by one swindle. A woman was arrested in the streets