A bank which, owing to its high-sounding title, had attracted the
savings of the people, fell into the hands of a clique of scoundrels and
was compelled to suddenly suspend, the President flying to a distant
land to escape the penalties of his crimes. When thirteen thousand
depositors were thus confronted with total or partial ruin, there was
but one man in a great city whom they would trust to enter the
desecrated temple of their hopes and set to rights the treasure yet
unstolen. This man came
LIKE CINCINNATUS FROM HIS FARM--
like a father to his children--and from the hearts of plundered widows
and orphans there breathed relief in every sigh. In peaceful times this
great man was seldom heard of; rogues could be elected over him to
places of usual trust; but, in a crisis, his whole biography seemed
embossed upon the people's hearts, rising forth like muscles in an
agony.
Again a city--itself an exhalation, rising like Milton's hall of
Pandemonium--perished in a night. Where, in one week, there had been
one hundred "leading candidates" for Mayor, in the next week there was
none so rash as to offer himself.
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