even if they had bribed themselves loose by "habeas corpus," "quashing the indictment," "jury cannot agree," "new trial,"

or PARDON.

During an evening session of the Roman Senate, Cicero informed it of the names of the persons present, and of all that was said and done, at a secret and treasonable meeting, then being held at Catiline's house, by him and his co-conspirators. Spies can telegraph too.

Washington accepted an invitation to dine with a wealthy and distinguished Whig, at his splendid mansion near to the American camp.

While the joyful greetings upon his arrival were being tendered in the portico, the sharp eye of the host fell upon a troop of English dragoons, passing round a turn in the road, at full speed towards the house, and with great trepidation looked at his watch, and uttered an exclamation of surprise, and tremulously faltered the words, "five minutes too soon;" upon which Washington placed his hand gently upon his shoulder, and complacently replied, "You need not be alarmed, sir; it is I, and not you, they are after."

At that instant, the troop surrounded the house, Washington leaped to his saddle, and the American dragoons, in English disguise, dashed to the American camp with their prize.

Five minutes afterwards, the British troop came; but they fell into an ambuscade, with a general officer at their head, and were very soon arraigned with their detestable spy, before the marque of the continental commander.

There is no difficulty in obtaining all this information. The world is full of gossips, tattlers, and bores; persons who rejoice in gathering up, and scattering scandal, hearing themselves talk, and being listened to.

You need not pump them; a marvel or a wonder is all the encouragement they require; and even those of the sinister dupes, who are acute and wary, and secretly engaged in tricks and schemes upon their own account, are conscious of their moral inferiority, suspicious of detection, anxious to hold the favorable opinion, and obtain the views and knowledge, of respectable persons, and are, therefore, ever anxious to court their society and countenance. They are covertly after your secrets, to use you; so that, from the trembling fools always in your paths, and from the complacency of the very men you wish to pump and use, with the same caution and management by you, wherewith they

delude, beguile, and swindle the world, you may secretly detect and forestall their plots, turn their capital to your own account, foil their schemes, and retaliate upon their frauds, without their knowing how it was done. When the financial crash of 1839 and '40 occurred, the best of the monopolies by embezzlements and frauds were minus more than one-half their capital, and got their stock reduced to meet this disaster; and all the rest were totally insolvent.

After the explosion of the United States Bank, there was found, crumpled up amongst the rubbish in a closet, as has been already stated, a sheet of common letter-paper, on which was entered in pencil mark the initials of some of the officers and their favorites, to whom more than $20,000,000 had been loaned, on hypothecation, by a committee of this board to sundry persons on their notes with collaterals of West Feliciana, Vicksburg, and other moonshine scrip; and the sequel showed that more than the whole capital, $35,000,000, by these and similar causes had been swept away.

It is doubtful if the debts of this bank will be paid, and it is now admitted that the stockholders will never get a dollar. Just in proportion to the magnitude of the objects of venal plunder, are the duplicity and art employed to attain them.

For years before the eruption referred to occurred, the pomp and power of this institution so mysteriously pervaded the public mind, that acts of disgusting adulation were lavished upon its officers, those opposed to it were persecuted, and expressions of doubt as to the integrity of its governors or the solvency of the bank would have exposed the publisher to the perils of being mobbed or lynched.

Even after the exposure of the truth, such were the morbid sympathy and sordid influences employed, that the publication of the evidence given upon the efforts made to bring them to justice, was wholly suppressed, and they all escaped through the rotten meshes of the law. Such is the marvelous and superficial delusion and the mysterious and successful accomplishments of fashionable and ostentatious rogues.

Mix not with them, except to find them out; to expose and prosecute them is waste of time, and dangerous.

Use them, to know and guard against their frauds, but put nothing in their power, for it will be embezzled or stolen.

The utility of all banks, insurance and savings companies is doubtful. The ostensible idea is that they accommodate the

poor with the use of the money of the rich, lighten the burden of individual losses by flood and fire out of the small contributions of the many, and providently keep and invest the earnings of the ignorant and helpless.

Nothing can be so plausible as these benevolent plans for equalizing the condition of man, and nothing so replete with deception, or so liable to be perverted to the purposes of duplicity and fraud.

The poor are generally deluded into extravagance by relying on moneyed facilities, instead of their own safe and patient savings.

Insuring is like faro; the fact is that the profits will exceed the loss, or the dealer and the banker would not sit down to their table.

Mutual insurance, without capital, rests upon the same speculation, or it would not be begun, and money savings shops presuppose the impudent sophism of the ignorance and stupidity of the depositors, which is as false on one side as it is cowardly and servile on the other, for there never was a human being who had industry to make a dollar that had not sagacity to save it as well as a corporation, who, however honest, out of its interests and profits will take good care to pay its rent and salaries.

So that the real advantages are not only doubtful, but so it is that they are always used for fraud and swindling; and all honest men, unless they are indubitably certain that they are under the management of those who are pure and discreet, should utterly refuse to touch their stock, and by every act of discountenance, discredit and repudiate them.

If respectable men will properly use and exert their influence, by frowning down these insolent and audacious usurpers of public opinion, they can themselves obtain and hold dominion over the popular will.

By these pious frauds, these private and lawful preparations for self-defence, these deadly weapons carefully concealed, with the eyes wide awake, but not too wide open, you may glide past these artful rogues, using them yourself, and not being used by them.

As I walked by myself, I talked to myself,

And myself it said unto me,

Beware of thyself, take care of thyself,
For nobody cares for thee.

any

CHAPTER XIX.

GOVERNMENTS.

Sources of despotic governments-Nobility-The multitude-AmbitionMontesquieu-Office - Free governments - The poor and rich — The sword-Cost of twenty years' war in Europe-Of people to govern themselves-Liberty-Congress-Rome-Tribunes-Veto power — Revolution-People of the United States-Vigilance-Danger-Union-—Fraternity-Apathy of the people - Excitement Inconsistency-Query, if monopolies in free governments do not defraud the people as much as privileged orders do in arbitrary governments-Can any form of government guard against private and public abuses ?-Veto power-Occasion for vigilance-Extracts, &c.

FAMILIARITY with guilt benumbs the conscience and encourages the heart to persevere in wickedness, but it can furnish no excuse or palliation for it; on the contrary, it requires the constant perpetration of other crimes to justify, conceal, and maintain the first sin.

One crime necessarily provokes, excites, and requires another, until the mind is wholly engrossed in shifts and subterfuges for the practice of fraud and violence.

The first unlawful grant of land, and creation of privilege by title or franchise, for the exclusive advantage of the few, at the expense of the rest of the people, was an act of unauthorized violence; and its continuance, under the penalties of insurrection and treason for resistance, is an aggravation, as it is an hourly repetition of the original fraud.

No people ever consented to these usurpations upon their rights no more than they have consented to be slaves.

They will no sooner surrender a part of their rights, than they will voluntarily agree to part with them all.

Whenever this invasion has been perpetrated, it has been accomplished by the despotic power of the sword, and the people have been compelled to submit to it.

Whether this arbitrary force covers a part or the whole, the principle is the same. The military chieftain and the ruthless demagogue, who would rob the people of their rights, by or