It only remains for me to say, that that broker became an "altered man" in some respects. I did not like his countenance, and I did not believe his expressions of penitence fully. There was a dark, bad "streak" in his nature, I thought; but he has committed no more robberies, I suspect, unless they were done in his capacity of member of the Common Council, to which body he was afterwards elected, having left Wall Street, and entered upon other than the broker's business, and turned a ward politician. But let not other thieves, therefore, nourish hope from the example of his good (or bad) fortune.
$1,250,000, OR THE PRIVATE MARK.
MONEY-GETTING AS RELATED TO CRIME—A VERY STRANGE HISTORY—THE MOST WONDROUS PURSUIT OF A MAN BY HIS ENEMY WHICH EVER (PROBABLY) WAS KNOWN IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD—JAMES WILLIAM HUBERT ROGERS AND "NED" HAGUE, TWO ENGLISHMEN—"DAMON AND PYTHIAS" IN EARLY LIFE—A CHANGE COMES—A DEPARTED AND CONSIDERATE UNCLE DESCRIBED, ONCE A PROTEGE OF THE EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA—OLIVER CROMWELL HAGUE, A RICH INDIA MERCHANT—A MARVELOUS SEARCH FOR A LOST MAN—A MAN FOUND AND IDENTIFIED BY NUMEROUS FRIENDS AS THE ONE IN QUESTION—PLOTTING AND COUNTER-PLOTTING—A SHREWD VERMONT "LAWYER" MAKES A THOUSAND POUNDS STERLING—THE INDEFATIGABLE ROGERS COMES TO AMERICA IN HIS SEARCH—LOST IN THE VASTNESS OF THE COUNTRY—WE MEET, AND DEPART FOR ST. LOUIS—TROUBLES, AND AN ENLIGHTENING DREAM—A WICKED LAWYER—THE RIGHT TO REPENT—A SPIRITED COLLOQUY WITH THE LAWYER—AN ENEMY FOUND AND SET TO WORK—THE GRASPING LAWYER OUTWITTED—THE LOST FOUND IN A TERRIBLE CONDITION—A LITTLE PRIVATE FUN OVER THE LAWYER'S DISCOMFITURE—A SHARP EXAMINATION AND CROSS-EXAMINATION—LAWYER OUTWITTED, AND LOSES FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS—MR. ROGERS DEPARTS WITH THE "LOST ONE," BOUND FOR ENGLAND—THE SUDDEN DROWNING OF THE LATTER AT SEA—THE CHERISHED VICTORY OF YEARS VANISHES—OUT, WITH A LAUGH.
The "battle of life" has so many phases, and my own experiences have run in so many channels, and my knowledge of human curiosity is so extensive, and my desire in these papers to gratify the same so great, that I am at a loss, as I turn over my diaries and notes of other histories of the past years to-day, what to select from my notes next; for, whatever disposition my publishers may make of this in the arrangement of these chapters, this is really one of the very last of them all in the order of writing, and one of the very last in point of fact, which I shall ever enlarge from my notes into current narrative. But my notes are so full, that my friends, after I am gone, should they desire to put before the world a supplement of these experiences, will have but little trouble—that, simply, of telling the tales in their own style. But it strikes me that the reader must feel, as he reads, something of the interest I felt as an actor, in part, in the scenes which it narrates.
Of the "battle of life," then, no phase can well be of so much interest to the great majority as that of money-getting. This absorbs everything, and is, in fact, the great source of nine tenths, at least, of all human crimes. But "money-getting," as well as wealth itself, has its "different sides,"—its positive and comparative, I might almost say, negative characteristics. Wealth, in one locality, would be comparative poverty in another; that is, the amount of money which constitutes a man "wealthy" in a far off country town, would be sneered at as a very trifle in this great metropolis, New York; would hardly be enough to support the possessor for a year among the moderate livers of the city, with their luxury and indulgences, which cost so much more than those of the country.
I said that money-getting is comparative also. It is, in this sense. The envious wrestler for the smiles of the "Money God" has not only his positive work to do, but often feels it as much his duty to defeat others as to win himself; as the driver of the winning horse at the races often succeeds only by defeating his competitor's horse—"breaking him up," for example, by some more or less honorable mode—any mode which the rules of the race do not absolutely forbid. So in this case I am about to recite—the most wonderful hunt, perhaps, and the most exciting and long-continued, and replete with ludicrous, solemn, dangerous, as well as joyful incidents, which ever characterized any cause, and was carried on literally around the globe, inspired and sustained by the desire of a man, a rich man, not to profit by it himself, but to defeat his enemy and keep him poor, that he might not become a competitor with him, as a man of wealth, for the smiles, adulations, and sycophancies of the peasant, and small farming and mercantile population of a little town in England.
The name of this strange man was James William Hubert Rogers, which he always wrote out in full, with true English pride, even when subscribing the shortest letter, as well as a five thousand pound promissory note. He reminded me in this of sundry gentlemen I have met, of our sister city, Boston, who, proud of the "Athens of America," take greatest pains in entering their full names—though frequently the initial of the first, and the middle name, if any, in full, in the dandaical style—in hotel registers. "J. Adams Bromfield," "H. Gray Otis Ticknor," with BOSTON "displayed" (as the printers would say) over as much space as possible, as if it would surely reflect credit on the person himself.