UNHAPPY EVENT IN THE LIFE OF NICODEMUS HANDY--CONSTERNATION
OF QUODLIBET--DISASTERS AMONG THE DIRECTORS--EXPLOSION
OF THE BANK--CONVERSATION BETWEEN THEODORE FOG AND MR.
GRANT--FOG'S VIEWS OF THE QUESTION OF DISTRESS--COMPLIMENT
TO JESSE FERRET.
I know not which way to turn. Auribus teneo lupum. I can scarcely
compose myself to write. Such an event! Many things have happened in
this world to excite wonder, many grief, many indignation, many wailing,
lamentation, and moans; but we have had an incident in the Borough which
overmasters all these emotions by the height and the depth, the length
and the breadth, the stupendous magnitude of the amazement which it has
spread through all minds.
The investigation of the affairs of the bank, under the direction of Mr.
Hardbottle, lasted more than a fortnight. They were not yet brought to a
close, when---- Let the following paragraph from an extra Whole Hog,
issued on the spur of the moment, tell the rest. I have no nerve for
such a disclosure.
"ASTOUNDING WHIG DEFALCATION.
"Our Borough has just been thrown into a state of stupefaction by
an event which completely eclipses every other act of crime and
villainy with which the annals of Whiggery abound. Nicodemus Handy,
the Whig Cashier of that extortionate, swindling Whig rag-factory,
the Patriotic Copperplate Bank of Quodlibet, left this Borough
yesterday morning in the People's Line, which runs through Thorough
Blue. As this journey was undertaken with the pretense of
business, it attracted no attention until this morning, when the
indefatigable Democratic President of that institution, Mr. Anthony
Hardbottle, who was recently elected for the purpose of a thorough
investigation into its concerns, (suspicions having been
long indulged of its rottenness; and, in fact, our worthy
representative, the Hon. Middleton Flam, an unterrified and
incorruptible New Light, having retired from the head of the
institution on account of the disgusting irregularities which fell
within his view,) laid a statement before the Board which showed
that the Cashier had secreted upwards of $160,000, the greater part
of which funds there is reason to believe he has made away with in
the course of the last three months. Measures were taken to pursue
the offender, and as far as possible to secure the bank
by attachments upon his property, which is supposed to be
considerable. For the present, we forbear all comment, except so
far as to remark, that we look upon this atrocious fraud but as the
natural fruit of that system of Whig measures which has cumbered
the land with mushroom banks, filthy rags, and swarms of scrub
aristocrats in the shape of presidents, cashiers, directors, and
clerks. We may speedily expect to hear of many more Whigs following
the example of our absquatulating Cashier."
The sensation produced in the Borough by this intelligence is not to be
described. The flight of Mr. Handy was the only topic of conversation
for a week. An officer followed him to Thorough Blue, whence, it was
rumored, the fugitive had shaped his course for Texas: other reports
assigned Canada as his place of refuge--all was uncertainty. Legal
measures were taken to secure his property. This consisted of his
elegant mansion on Copperplate Ridge, sundry rows of warehouses, and
other buildings in Quodlibet, a large number of which had been left for
two years past in an unfinished state. Upon investigation it was
ascertained that the whole of this estate had been converted into money;
our worthy representative, the Hon. Middleton Flam, having an absolute
conveyance for Handy House, its furniture, and appurtenances, and
certain political friends, connected with the custom-house in New York,
rank Whigs, having mortgages on all the rest of the property. The
consequence was, the bank was able to secure nothing.
One of our first proceedings, after the flight of the Cashier, was to
call together the New-Light Club, where resolutions were passed
denouncing his fraud as the necessary consequence of his Whig
principles, censuring the bank, in the strongest terms, as a swindling
Whig concern, and avowing an unalterable devotion to the Independent
Treasury, as the only sound, genuine, New-Light Democratic experiment
which it was proper for the government to make, in the present condition
of affairs--unless the President should change his mind and find out
something still more Democratic; in which event the New-Light Club
pledged itself to give that other measure their cordial and patriotic
support.
In the course of a fortnight, the inhabitants of the Borough were
surprised to read from a New York paper, in the list of passengers who
sailed for Liverpool by the packet of the first of October, among the
names of sundry fashionables, those also of Mrs. and Miss Handy; and we
were, not long afterward, relieved from all doubt as to the Cashier's
destination, by seeing it publicly announced that he had gone to Havre,
from which point, as soon as he could be joined by his interesting and
distressed family, he designed making the tour of Europe.
From the period of the elopement of Mr. Handy, we had a series of
convulsions. The first incident of importance that followed it, was the
failure of the whole Board of Directors; each of whom, according to his
own showing, had lost so much money by the absconding Cashier as to be
totally unable to pay up his liabilities to the bank. The next disaster
was the explosion of the bank itself. The abduction of so large an
amount of its funds, as well as its unfortunate list of bad debts from
the Directors, rendered this inevitable. Then came riots among the
holders of its paper, who besieged the door for several days, and even
threatened to pull down the building. Never was a community in a more
unhappy commotion than ours at this eventful epoch.
Mr. Grant visited the Borough frequently during the prevalence of these
disorders. One day he met Theodore Fog, who seemed to be rather
pleasurably excited by the events which occupied and engrossed the
public attention--for Theodore, as he was in the habit of remarking, had
nothing to lose by these domestic convulsions, and everything to gain.
The election was at hand, and he was again the True-Grit candidate; but
on this occasion there was no opposition from his own party, and the
chance of electing a Whig was deemed hopeless. That side made no
nomination; and Fog, therefore, with his two colleagues of the last
year, was in a fair way to walk over the course without a contest. The
interests of the election, consequently, were altogether absorbed in the
other incidents of the day. Still, Theodore was not inattentive to the
voters, and was, as usual, loquacious and voluble.
"A pretty considerable upheaving of the elements of social life, Mr.
Grant," said he, upon encountering the old gentleman on Ferret's steps
at the front door of The Hero.
"I think so," replied Mr. Grant; "you have brought your pigs at last to
a fine market."
"_Our_ pigs!" exclaimed Fog, with an excellent representation of
surprise:--"well, that beats M'Gonegal, and he beat the devil. The whole
litter comes from a Whig mother: it is the spawn of that aristocracy,
against which the intelligence, the honor, and the virtue of the nation
have been waging war ever since the Reign of Terror;--but, sir, it is
down; the intelligence and firmness of the people have triumphed at
last."
"You allude, I suppose, to your Democratic bank here," said Mr. Grant.
"No doubt," replied Fog, "the Whigs will attempt to shuffle the bank
off _their_ shoulders and buckle it on the Democrats. But that won't do,
sir; that's too stale a trick to deceive the people. The Whigs, sir, are
men of property; the Democrats are poor, sir. Banks are not made by poor
men, Mr. Grant; there's the logic of the case."
"And this Patriotic Copperplate Bank of Quodlibet was not set on foot by
Nicodemus Handy and Theodore Fog?" returned Mr. Grant.
"By Nicodemus Handy," replied Fog, "not by me. Sir, Nicodemus was always
a Whig; and, what's more, attempted to beguile me into his scheme. He
took advantage of my unsuspecting temper--endeavored to lull into
security my artless, confiding nature; essayed, sir, but in vain, to
seduce me from my allegiance to the Democratic faith, by tempting offers
of the presidency of the bank--but, sir, my virtue was too stern for his
treacherous arts. I saw the gilded bait and spurned it. It was--I say it
myself--a rare example of successful resistance to the fascinations of
the tempter. Many a Democrat has fallen into the snare of the Whigs
under less allurement. I pride myself on this evidence of self-command.
I have reason to be proud of it."
"You have a short memory," said Mr. Grant.
"Why as to that, old friend," replied Fog with a good-natured laugh, at
the same time laying his hand on Mr. Grant's shoulder, "you can't call
_that_ a fault. Every politician has a short memory--he'd be no
politician without it. Mine's no shorter than the rest. Sir, let me tell
you, the great secret of the success of the immutable, New-Light,
Quodlibetarian Democracy, is in the shortness of the memory. Still, I
would like to know what you mean by the remark."
"I mean to say," replied Mr. Grant, "that when you and Nicodemus Handy
were endeavoring to persuade me to take an interest in your bank, you
didn't think it so undemocratic as you seem to do to-day."
"It is impossible for me to remember what I said on the occasion to
which you allude, sir," returned Fog; "but my principles have always
been the same. I could not have gone against them, sir; morally
impossible."
"And I told you that your bank was a humbug," continued Mr. Grant.
"Ay, ay," rejoined Fog; "that's the old song. You Whigs are monstrous
good at prophesying after the result is known."
"You admit, I suppose," said Mr. Grant, "that this Bank of Quodlibet has
exploded?"
"Burst, sir, into a thousand tatters," replied Fog.
"You admit that there is a large amount of paper money afloat?"
"A genuine Whig crop," answered Fog: "enough to make a stack as large as
the largest in your barnyard."
"You admit the derangement of values all over the country?"
"Yes, and of the people too, if you make it a point."
"The failures of traders and of banks?"
"Yes."
"This is reasonable, Mr. Fog. Now, you shall judge whether the Whigs
prophesy _before_ or _after_ the result," said Mr. Grant, as he thrust
his hand into his skirt pocket and drew forth a pamphlet. "I expected to
meet you to-day, and I have brought you a document for your especial
perusal. It is the speech of a Whig member of Congress, made in 1834,
upon the Removal of the Deposits;--you will find the leaf turned down at
page 32; and, as you are a good reader, I wish you would favor this
company by reading it aloud, where you see it scored in the margin."
"Not I," replied Theodore; "that's four years ago. The statute of
limitation bars that."
"He's afeard to read it," said Abel Brawn to some five or six persons,
who had collected around the steps during this conversation. "Mr.
Grant's mighty particular with his documents, and ain't to be shook off
in an argument."
"The., you ain't afeard, old fellow?" said Flan Sucker. "Walk into him,
The. Read it."
"Give me the book," said Fog, "and let's see what it is. Speech by
Horace Binney--eh? Who's he? I think I have heard the name. Well, for
the sake of obliging a friend, I'll read.--_Conticuere omnes_--which
means listen." Fog then read as follows:--
"It is here that we find a pregnant source of the present agony--it is
in the clearly avowed design to bring a second time upon this land the
curse of an unregulated, uncontrolled State-Bank paper currency. We are
again to see the drama which already, in the course of the present
century, has passed before us, and closed in ruin. If the project shall
be successful----"
"What project?" inquired Fog.
"The destruction of the Bank of the United States, and the refusal to
create another in its place," answered Mr. Grant.
Theodore read on--
"If the project shall be successful, we are again to see these
paper missiles shooting in every direction through the country--a
derangement of all values,--a depreciated circulation--a suspension
of specie payments;--then a further extension of the same
detestable paper--a still greater depreciation--with failures of
traders and failures of banks in its train--to arrive at last at
the same point from which we departed in 1817."
"A rank forgery," said Theodore Fog, "printed for the occasion."
"That won't do," replied Mr. Grant; "I have been the owner of this
pamphlet ever since 1834 myself."
"Then Binney is a Dimmycrat," said Sim Travers, "and you are trying to
pass him off on us for a Whig. Sound Dimmycratic doctrine and true
prophecy."
"Huzza for Binney!" shouted Flan Sucker, "a tip-top Dimmycrat, whoever
he is!--I never heard of him before."
"Yes," said Mr. Grant, "one ounce of his Democracy is worth a ton weight
of the best you will find in the Globe. But read on, a little further
below, where you see it scored."
"I have an innate and mortal aversion to reading," returned Fog.
"It must be gone through," said Flan Sucker,--"because them sentiments
is the rale Dimmocracy, and we want to hear them. So, go it,
The!--Yip--listen boys, to the doctrine."
"Well," said Fog, "if you will have it--as the pillory said to the
thief, 'lend me your ears.'"
"I thank the Secretary," he began with a discreet voice, reading
where Mr. Grant appointed for him, "for the disclosure of this
plan. I trust in God it will be defeated: that the Bank of the
United States, while it is in existence, may be sustained and
strengthened by the public opinion, and interests of the people, to
defeat it: that the sound and sober State banks of the Union may
resist it--for it is their cause: that the poor men and laborers in
the land may resist it--for it is a scheme to get from every one of
them a dollar's worth of labor for fifty cents, and to make fraud
the currency of the country as much as paper. Sir, the Bank of the
United States, in any other relation than to the currency and
property of the country, is as little to me as to any man under
heaven; but after the prime and vigor of life are passed, and the
power of accumulation is gone, to see the children stripped, by the
monstrous imposture of a paper currency, of all that the father's
industry had provided for them--this, sir, may well excuse the
warmth that denounces this plan, as the precursor of universal
dismay and ruin."
"I'll read no more," said Fog, giving back the book, with a theatrical
flourish of his arm, to Mr. Grant; "it is nothing more than stealing our
principles from us, and then bringing them up to break our heads."
"It is good Whig prophecy, four years before its fulfillment," said Mr.
Grant, "and which has come true to the letter. It shows you that we set
our faces against your increase of banks in the very beginning; gave you
warning of what was to come; painted the very evils of this day so
plainly before your eyes that nothing but willful blindness prevented
you from seeing them; and now, when it has all fallen out as it was
foretold, you attempt to make us responsible to the people for your
measures."
"Sir," said Fog, rather evading the argument, as it is an admirable part
of the New-Light system to do when it pinches, "the New-Light Democracy
changes its measures, but never its principles. We go, sir, for the will
of the people--that's the principle which lies at the bottom of all our
actions. If the people are for new measures, we frankly come out with
them. Now, sir, the people are _against_ the banks--they are _for_ the
Independent Treasury: of course, then, you know where to find _us_. You
can't get round us--there we are."
"I'll not dispute that point with you," replied Mr. Grant; "you have
been changing from bad to worse ever since you have had the control of
affairs. I only wanted to remind you that the present distress of the
country is the work of your own hands, and that you have brought it
about with your eyes open."
Saying these words Mr. Grant walked off toward the stable, where he
mounted his horse and rode out of the Borough.
As soon as the old gentleman was gone, Theodore Fog remarked that he
had not had as dry a talk for some years, and proposed to the company a
general visit to the bar.
"They talk of _distress_," said he. "Mr. Grant has gone off with his
head full of that notion of distress; it's a famous Whig argument, that.
But what distress is there? Drinking's as cheap; eating's as cheap as
ever; so is lying. Eating, drinking, and lying, are the three principal
occupations of man. Lying _down_, I mean, metaphorically for sleeping.
Where's the distress, then? Mere panic--false alarm--a Whig invention!
The country is better off than it ever was before. Not for men who trade
upon credit, I allow--not for merchants and shippers in general--not for
your fellows that go about for jobs--not for farmers--not for regular
laborers--not for mechanics, with families on their hands, and
perhaps not for single ones neither;--but first-rate for lawyers,
bar-keepers, and brokers, for marshals and sheriffs--capital for
constables--nonpareil for postmasters, contractors, express-riders, and
office-holders; and glorious for fellows that are fond of talking and
have nothing to do:--these are the very gristle of the New-Light
Democracy, and make a genteel majority at the elections."
"Mr. Fog," said Jesse Ferret, "I am so well pleased at your reading for
Mr. Grant this morning, that I'm determined to give you a treat;--help
yourself and your friends. Gentlemen, walk up."
"Glad you liked it, old buck," replied Fog. "Bless your heart, I'm
used to such things. A political man must always be ready for rubbers;
never would get a gloss if it wasn't for brushing. That Binney's a smart
fellow; but every word of that speech was whispered into his ear by
Benton; I know the fact personally. He and Benton sit up every night of
their lives together in Washington, playing old sledge and drinking
cocktail: that accounts for Binney's Democracy. Gentlemen, our friend
Ferret's treat--we'll drink his health--a worthy, persuadable, amenable
man--so here's to him. Wait for the word--Jesse Ferret, a gentleman and
a scholar, an antiquarian and a tavern-keeper--long life to him!"