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O friend, so live that men shall say of thee, "How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

TO DANNEMORA FOR TEN YEARS.

NEW YORK has three State prisons.

One is at Sing Sing,

one is at Auburn, and the other is at Dannemora in the far north, where the climate is severe and the work if wholesome is hard.

For a "gentleman" no one of these three is a very agreeable place. But it is sometimes the case that a man whose surroundings and associations are with gentlemen is found ⚫ to be a villain, and is sent to meditate on the vicissitudes of life for a term of years in the walls of a State-prison. One of this sort is now in mind.

He is the father of a lovely family, his wife weeps tears of anguish and shame, and his mother at the age of eighty is going into her grave with sorrow because of her ruined son. That is a picture of sin and misery to rend a heart of stone. And now I will tell you the story, and you will see the moral of it. He was in business in one of the many cities of this State, and having gained the confidence of the community, was freely trusted with the funds of others. These he used for his own purposes, and when they called for their own, he had them not. He then added forgery to his stealings, and when his crimes were discovered he fled, was brought back, confessed his guilt, and was sentenced to Dannemora for ten years. There he is now, and it is to be hoped that no injudicious clemency or sentimental pity will avail to cheat justice and restore a bad man to society before his time.

When he was before the court for sentence he was permitted to say what he wished in extenuation of his offence, and these are some of the remarkable words by which he hoped to deceive others; he certainly did not delude himself. He knew their hollow mockery.

"I am going to prison to make to the State such reparation as is called for by its laws, which I have so grievously broken and set at naught; and yet, after all, broken and set at naught with no intention in my heart of injuring in person or purse one soul who had confided in me. The very fear of being thought dishonest may have the effect some. times to make a man seem to be, to be if you please, dishonest. I dare stand before you and say, and call God to witness the absolute truth of the saying, that all my trouble and distress and the trouble and distress that through me has come to others may be attributed to a tender heart, a willingness to bear others' burdens, a disposition to believe in the honesty and honor of mankind, a bearing and forbearing with debtors to me, and not to one harbored dishonest thought or intent of my own heart or head."

All this twaddle proceeds on the false assumption that a man is not a rogue when he uses the money of another without his consent, provided he intends to replace it. This is the miserable sham and delusion by which young and old rascals in various departments, in banks and treasuries all over the country, away in the South and the far West, in rural offices in New England and New York, everywhere in Europe and America, in Roman Catholic trusteeships and Protestant church societies, all alike, everywhere, men who enjoy the confidence of the public and of themselves, persuade their own consciences to be quiet while they become robbers. Here is a widow now asking alms. She had just enough money in the hands of a friend to live on the interest which he paid her every quarter with commendable punctuality. When the explosion came, and he was blown up, it was discovered that he wanted money to go on with his speculations, converted the bonds of the widow into cash, with a mental resolution to replace them with his gains. Now, this trustee in Dannemora told the court, and called God to witness, that "he never had a dishonest thought or intent of his heart or head." Which is itself a flagrant and monstrous mistake! What constitutes stealing? Is it not taking the property of another without his consent? The in

tention to replace it does not modify the wickedness by the shadow of a shade. It was his intention to take-that was the sin and shame: the intention to replace is another intention, certainly a good one, but it in no degree heals the first intention, which was a black and dastardly crime. If this could be driven into the mind of the young man, and of every man who has the handling or holding of money, perhaps we might save him from the fatal crime which involves him, and all who look to him for support, in untold misery and ruin.

Mr. Purdy was an honest elder in the church of White Plains. He was treasurer also, and had the care of all collections made in the congregation. He kept the identical money, paper and coin from gold to copper, and to each object he paid over the very self-same money that he received. He was laughed at for his extreme particularity, but he adhered to his trust and was faithful in few things as a good steward. His way may be putting too fine a point upon it, but it is better than carelessness, which is always the next door to criminality.

When a man has received money in trust, or is acting in any way for another, as an agent, or factor, cashier, or clerk, or manager, and resolves to take some of that money, or to borrow on some of those securities, in that moment he is a thief in heart, and when the deed is done he is ripe and rotten. He has cheated his conscience by the weak illusion of future restitution. But if that work of righteousness were ever done it would not blot out his transgression, or put him right in the sight of God. He stole his neighbor's goods. He was a thief. The world has invented the term defaulter to soften the ignominy of that strong Anglo-Saxon word thief, but there is no use in trying to dilute or disguise or cover up the intense meanness and wickedness of the man who takes advantage of his neighbor's confidence in him to do him a wrong. To say as this "gentleman" did, that he

had no dishonest intention, is simply to use words as dishonestly as he used the money of his friends. To say that he forged his neighbor's name to a note without any dis

honest intent is a mockery of language, and proves that the man is so deeply dyed in guilt and shame that he calls God to witness his innocence while he is dipping his hands into his neighbor's purse.

Sin does not seem to

Revelations in this city have recently been made of a state of corruption in places of business and official trust that may well alarm the honest citizen. And it is hardly possible to read a daily newspaper without learning that nearly the same state of things prevails, the land and world over. The conscience of men is in a state of sleep. be that odious and awful thing it is. The beauty of virtue is not attractive to the ordinary eye. Perhaps the voice of the prophet is not so loud and clear in warning the people as it was in other days. But it is true that crimes against property, breaches of trust, defalcations and frauds, are multiplied enormously, and public opinion does not visit the sinner when unmasked, with the righteous retribution his sin deserves. Why, this "gentleman" continued the speech from which I have quoted by saying that he expects to return to his former place, and that "the people will respect and trust him as of old." Let him try to win and deserve their respect, and gain their confidence if he can. But let him never try to deceive them with his namby-pambyisms about good intentions and honesty of purpose. He might just as virtuously become a burglar or a highway robber to get money to feed the poor or build a church as to pledge securities not his own for the sake of making more money so as to replace the securities and pocket a handsome balance.

The love of money blinds the eyes of the soul. Daniel Lord, one of the great lawyers of the last generation in this city, told me that greed often destroys the moral faculty by which right is distinguished from wrong, and men supposed to be good are thus left to become dishonest, and land in prison before an asylum. It sometimes seems to me that financial vice is beyond remedy; that men have all gone out of the way; there is none that doeth good; no, not one: but I will not believe it; the right men are in the majority; they rule society; they hold the billions of the world's money

and render honest account thereof; while a few of the “gentlemen" now and then, who steal and intend to pay back their stealings, get ten years in Dannemora, where I wish they all were.

INFLUENCE WITH RICH WIDOWS.

AMONG the seventy private letters found on my desk on a recent return from the country were many of the same sort with the one from which is made the following extract:

66

We are struggling hard, and I am very sure that if Mrs. knew our circumstances she would send us the help we need. We know that you have much influence with good people in New York, and we write to you begging that you will use that influence in our behalf. It is only one of the crumbs that fall from the rich people's tables that we ask for. We have prayed for divine direction, and have no one but you to whom we can look."

This letter has the same idea running through it, that pervades the minds of thousands of Christ's dear people in all parts of the land. And so wide-spread is the thought, and so often and freely is it expressed, that I am sometimes tempted to think I am mistaken in supposing it to be a delusion and a snare. The idea seems to be that every needy object has a claim on the purse of every one who has a purse, and that it is my duty to be the medium of getting into it. I have near me letters in which allusion is made to five several and distinct ladies who have large wealth at their command, as their husbands have gone to their inheritance among the saints in light, where the riches are eternal and their wants none at all. But the widows being left in charge of earthly treasures, it is claimed that they must be willing to build a school-house at the Horsetown cross-roads in Kentucky, or the Millerton Bar in Iowa, it being only necessary that I should use my influence with the widows to get them to draw a check for the money.

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