In my opinion a man has as much right to fail in business as he has to get sick and die.  In most cases it is more honourable to fail than to go on.  Every insolvent is not necessarily a scoundrel.  The greatest crime is to fail rich.  John Bonner & Co., as brokers, had loaned money on deposited collaterals, and then borrowed still larger sums on the same collaterals.  Their creditors were duped to the extent of from one to three millions of dollars.  It was the first crime of “rehypothecation.”  It was not a Wall Street theft; it was a new use for an almost unknown word in Noah Webster’s dictionary.  It was a new word in the rogue’s vocabulary.  It was one of the first attempts made, in my knowledge, to soften the aspect of crime by baptising it in that way.  Crime in this country will always be excused in proportion to how great it is.  But even in the face of Wall Street tricksters there were signs that the days were gone when the Jay Goulds and the Jim Fisks could hold the nation at their mercy.

The comedy of life is sometimes quite as instructive as a tragedy.  There was a flagrant disposition in America, in the late ’seventies, to display family affairs in the newspapers.  It became an epidemic of notoriety.  What a delicious literature it was!  The private affairs of the household printed by the million copies.  Chief among these novelettes of family life was the Hicks-Lord case.  The world was informed one morning in February, 1878, that a Mr. Lord, a millionaire, had united his fortune with a Mrs. Hicks.  The children of the former were offended at the second marriage of the latter, more especially so as the new reunion might change the direction of the property.  The father was accused of being insane by his children, and incapable of managing his own affairs.  The Courts were invoked.  One thing was made plain to all the world, though, that Mr. Lord at eighty knew more than his children did at thirty or forty.  The happy pair were compelled to remain in long seclusion because of murderous threats against them, the children having proposed a corpse instead of a bride.  The absorbing question of weeks, “Where is Mr. Lord?” was answered.  He was in the newspapers—­and the children? they were across the old man’s knee, where they belonged.  Mr. Lord was right.  Mrs. Hicks was right.  It was nobody’s business but their own.  Brooklyn and New York were exceeding busy-bodies in the late ’seventies.  It was a relief to turn one’s back upon them occasionally, in the pulpit, and search the furthest horizon of Europe.

Scarcely had Victor Emmanuel been entombed when on Feb. 7th a tired old man, eighty-four years of age, died in the Vatican, Pius IX., a kind and forgiving man.  His trust was not wholly in the crucifix, but something beyond the crucifix; and yet, how small a man is when measured by the length of his coffin!  Events in Europe marshalled themselves into a formula of new problems at the beginning of 1878.  The complete defeat of Turkey by the Russians left England and the United States—­allies in the great causes of civilisation and Christianity—­aghast.  It was the most intense political movement in Europe of my lifetime.  I was glad the Turkish Empire had perished, but I had no admiration then for Russia, once one of the world’s greatest oppressors.