custom with other but less honorable contractors than Van Stingey,
Purse, Lofin, & Co.

This bait took "capitally," as Van used to say, and not only were two
hundred shanties built, but the praise of the "ginerous contractors" was
in every mouth; and "Hurrah for Lofin, Van Stingey, & Co.," became a
regular toast among the men, as they went to spend a shilling in the
company's grocery store. The shanties were now up, and the horses, three
hundred in number, all ready for work; but a week, and another, and a
third passed on, and not a sod of ground was broke on the ten miles of
our independent company's contract. Here was now a sad and alarming
spectacle. Thousands of men, women, and children, seduced into a
wilderness by the specious promises of these vile knaves; and now, after
having spent every penny they had earned for years, brought to the very
verge of starvation. Some were obliged to trade off and sell their
clothes for food; others had to open small retail groceries to keep
themselves and their neighbors from starving. The more independent in
circumstances were obliged to mortgage their horses and carts for
provisions and fodder; and all had, as far as their means went, to
patronize the new store opened by the contractors, who retailed
provisions and groceries, to those who had any thing to lose, at a
profit of one hundred and a quarter per cent. on their original cost.
For three months this was the state of things on the contract of our
_honorable_ company. Works not yet commenced, men and horses half
starving, occasional murmurs among the most knowing of the hands--which
murmurs were, however, soon allayed by the representations of the bosses
and their countryman Mr. Lofin, who pledged _his honor_ as a "gintlemon
that the whault lied intirely with the directors, and the _faurmuns_,
who refused to settle for the right uv way." The mystery was soon
cleared up by the appearance on the ground of Messrs. Van Stingey,