Jack. Why at least fifty thousand a piece, if nothing occurs till the excitement is over.
Bob. If nothing happens, aye, and there’s the rub, Jack. I’m afraid you’ll bleed some of the patients to death.
Jack. Never mind, Bob, if we see them fairly gasping, give them another dose, and take double fees before hand. We have good security for the past already. Good evening Bob.
Bob. Good evening to ye Jack. Long life to ye. And when ye die, may ye have an uncommon long funeral. And as Jack departed, he muttered, “and if them ye murther are mourners, by me sowl it will be long enough.”
A PROBLEM.
These things may be all slander, but still, there are some who believe that a bank, which in the course of twelve months, divides ten per cent. profit to its stockholders, and accumulates a nominal surplus of twenty per cent. more, could never have done it by loaning money at seven. And it certainly is a problem in arithmetic, which requires some new devise of figures to solve.
The interest of description, would be lost in sameness of character, should I attempt to describe all the ways in which the dependent borrowers are made the chief sufferers, to gratify an undue propensity of the lenders to accumulate.
A DEFAULTER.
And I will only add what is well known here, as a warning for the future to those whose avarice outruns their integrity, that these banks, like the repentant harlot, have long since “wept by the willows,” for their departure from their first love; and the only thing I know against their present government or officers is, that the president of one of them, in paying over about one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, was detected by General Jackson in being a defaulter of eleven cents, but as the general could not tell exactly where the default lay, he escaped all other punishment, but the natural one of being removed from his office, to make room for others; who, if they were in default at all, would make it sufficiently palpable to avoid the necessity of searching out these contemptible digits.