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��ABOUT STEALING.
��ing of his jewels. The builder skillfully- laid a stone that could be easily removed by himself. Just before the building was completed, the old man died. Before death, he called his two sons to him and imparted the secret as a legacy. Pres- ently the king found his jewels depart- ing. He set a trap, and one night, as the sons were busy removing valuables, the younger son was caught. Not daunted, the older son, at the request of the younger, cut off the younger son's head, so that discovery should be impossible. The mother learned the terrible fact, and ordered her remaining son to get the body, under penalty of her informing the king if he did not. The son now put his wits to work, and loading an ass with wine, sojourned in the vicinity of the building of a night and succeeded in filling the guardsmen with wine, and while they were drunk he entered and removed and saved the body of his broth- er. This trick appeared so clever that the king offered his daughter in marriage to the man who did it if he would come forward. The son did so, and obtained the daughter, full pardon and an honor- able position. This is only one of sever- al instances where kings have richly re- warded skillful robbers ; one, indeed, afterwards himself became king at the decease of his master.
If we mistake not, very little improve- ment has been made on the practice of the oriental kings ; at least, we do not half punish our big thieves. But mod- ern stealing is as different from ancient as the locomotion of the present day is from that of fifty years since, when wooden axletrees and linch-pins were as common as pod augers, flint-lock mus- kets and spinning wheels. This is the modus operandi: We start the big scheme of a Pacific railroad. We vote to loan a company of men many millions of mon- ey ana give them land enough for a small kingdom, and then take a mort- gage on the road as fast as it is built, for our security. These are first mortgage bonds. The company then claim they cannot build the railroad without many more millions, asserting that there are Rocky Mountains where it is simply prairie and desert, and hence we loan
��them more millions. For this we take second mortgage bonds. After a while we start what is known as the Credit Mobilier and swindle the government out of the whole money, and then try to swindle it out of the interest. Worst of all, some of our apparently devout Con- gressmen perjure themselves, after being accused of participating in the crime. This is only one case. Look at that prince of stockbrokers, Jim Fisk, Jr. But there is one thing to Fisk, Jr.'s credit. All know how England robbed and abused us during the war (not as a government but as a people), how they furnished the enemy with supplies, ran the blockade and fitted out men of war to prey upon our commerce. Well, Jim Fisk, Jr., turned out to be one instru- ment of retributive justice on our fat and sleek cousin across the u muckle deep." To understand the situation we must re- alize that all the brokers and gold gam- blers in New York almost invariably know what is transpiring in the country, and particularly in Washington. They know to a dollar what bills the govern- ment has to pay and when they mature, and they make this knowledge pay them. Fisk, Jr., knew that in all human and military probability, as early as March, 1865, the war must close soon. The At- lantic cable was paralyzed and would not work. Here was a chance for a thieving genius. What did James Fisk, Jr., do? Simply place a swift-going steamer in the harbor of St. Johns, New- foundland, with orders to keep steam up night and day. On this steamer, or at the telegraph office, he put his agent, with orders to steam immediately to Liverpool when he, Fisk, Jr., tele- graphed him. The agent did so. Ar- rived at Liverpool, he took cars for Lon- don and in two or three days he sold two or three million dollars' worth of Con- federate bonds — then worth about four cents a pound for old rags or paper stock. Even if it be sinful, there is pleas- ure in contemplating that swindle. Jim Fisk, Jr., certainly was to modern finance — alias speculation and robbery — what Shakespeare was to Elizabethan literature. He had genius. Once upon a time there was a "'Down
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