Horace B. Claflin, before he was twenty-one, had bought out his
father’s grocery business. Intoxicating liquors were at that
time considered an indispensable part of the grocery equipment;
but the young merchant, as soon as he came into possession,
emptied the wine-casks into the street. Later on he engaged in
the dry-goods business, a large portion of which was in the
slave-holding States; and when anti-slavery principles involved
a business loss to Northern merchants, Claflin announced himself
an uncompromising opponent of slavery. Such a stand and the
Civil War coming on cut off his resources and revenues, and he
was forced to suspend. He asked from his creditors an extension
of time on a basis of seventy per cent of his indebtedness;
but soon after resuming business Claflin paid off his extended
paper long before maturity, and also the thirty per cent which
had been unconditionally released, not only paying the entire
amount of his indebtedness but also paying interest on the
debt.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”
(1436)
=Honor in Failure=--See OBLIGATIONS, MEETING.