Where men in corruption so rapidly tending,
In morals and wealth in bankruptcy ending.

That forging and stealing and breaches of trust,
And ten thousand arts of the confidence game,
And follies uncounted of men "on a bust,"
Are follies and crimes of this age to our shame,
Till angels who witness the folly so wide
Extended from palace to farm-house and cot,
Might wonder if mortals life's objects forgot,
Or Merdle's position is man's common lot?



He Discourseth of What some Mortals Live for.


"What else do they live for in this world beside?"

What else but for Kittys or one of the same,
Do mothers their daughters at schools give the touch
That leaves them to live as a wife but in name
While position and fashion they frantically clutch.

What else do they live for, our girls so refined,
So forward, precocious, and gifted at ten
They are flirting and courting and things of the kind,
That never came under our grandmother's ken.

At fifteen so dressed up, and hooped up, I ween,