collection of Democrats by Alexander Ming, Jr. He forgot all about the
object of the meeting, and being a strong Bentonian, launched out into the
currency question, attributing all the evils of the Republic, past,
present, and to come, to the issue of bank-notes; and advising his hearers
to refuse to take the trash altogether, and receive nothing but specie.
This was the more comical, as not one out of ten of the poor wretches he
addressed had the chance to refuse either. Half starving, they would have
been glad to receive anything in the shape of money that would help them
through the hard winter. Yet when Mr. Ming offered a resolution, proposing
a memorial to the Legislature, requiring a law to be passed, forbidding
any bank to issue a note under the denomination of a hundred dollars, the
deluded people, who had been listening with gaping mouths, rent the air
with acclamations. It was a curious exhibition of the wisdom of the
sovereign people--this verdict of a ragged mob on the currency question.
They were so delighted with this lucid exposition of the cause of the
scarcity of flour, that they seized the orator bodily, and elevating him
on their shoulders, bore him across the street to Tammany Hall, where
something beside specie was received from behind the bar to reward their
devotion.

There was, however, some excuse for him. He had been several times
candidate for city register, and hence was more anxious to secure votes
than flour--be a popular demagogue rather than a public benefactor.

But there were other speakers who kept more directly to the point. They
launched at once into a bitter tirade against landlords for their high
rents, and against monopolists for holding on to flour at the expense of
the poor and suffering. Knowing the character of the audience before them,
and their bitter hatred of the rich that had grown with their growth, and
strengthened with their strength in the old country, it was not difficult