After this the work went on peacefully. Van Stingey & Co. made money,
and were now rich; the poor priest had every thing but the thanks of the
contractors for his pains, and he concluded, from his experience of
this and other railroads and public works in America, that, of all the
men living, the railroad and day laborer of this "free country" is the
most ill treated and oppressed. He has to work from dark to dark; he has
to take _store pay_ for his wages; and he has to obey the nod, look, and
arbitrary commands of the lowest, cruellest, and most brutal class of
men on earth. I ask any man, Is not this slavery? Van Stingey was now
rich--had horses, wagons, and a splendid mansion. He took another, and a
third contract, in which he was very successful. One day, however, he
was on his work, and a blast having failed to go off, Van ordered his
men to return to the dump. They refused. He stamped and swore, and then
and there discharged all the "darned paddies," who were not fools enough
to get killed. So himself and his nephew, who bossed for him, returned
to the "cut," where they were no sooner arrived than the blast went off,
and poor Van Stingey was blown into atoms.

Thus perished, at the height of his success and of his guilt, the
meanest and most worthless of the human race--the mocker and robber of
the poor, the persecutor and kidnapper of Paul O'Clery and his brethren,
the merciless swindler and defrauder of the laborer's wages, and,
finally, the hypocritical sensualist and drunkard. We boast of our
progress, and advertise, as proof of it, the number of railroads in
operation, their extent, and the rapidity of the motion over their iron
surface; but the trials, tears, labors, sufferings, and injustice which
our indifference or avarice has inflicted on those thousands of our
fellow-creatures whose hands have built them never occur to our minds or
cause us a single regret, while glorying in the advancement of our
"great country." "How can we help _that_?" answers Uncle Sam. "It is the