I read this ex-parte judgment with mingled surprise and indignation. Scanning it with more scrutiny, a second and third time, I was forced into a train of philosophical reflections. After all, the Mercantile Agency had stated but the truth, that is, mainly. It was the inferences drawn from the facts, which were so damaging. Yet the inferences were natural. One could not accuse the 'Mercantile Agency' of any malicious intent. Yes, the inferences were natural, but mind you, reader, they were FALSE. And I had been suffering for a twelve-month from what was really a cruel and a slanderous statement. The fifteen thousand dollars, raised by mortgage on my wife's house, was absolutely given to me for capital. No evidence of indebtedness was taken, no recognition of it on our books, otherwise than as cash belonging to and put in by me. The debt of five thousand dollars to my friend was, as I have before stated, actually placed, by a positive understanding, as an ordinary indebtedness. The statement that I had made some bad debts was true, but it did not add, what was more essential, that the senior partner, myself, was a strictly business man, and had gone through his first year in a new line, with little loss, supporting his family meanwhile, and gaining a thorough insight into affairs. Again, poor Rollins came in for a sharp hit, in the way of driving a fast team. Now, Rollins was really economical. He lived with, and supported his mother and some younger brothers, and his habits were unexceptionable. It so happened that a wealthy cousin of Rollins, who did drive a pair of good horses, went out of town for nearly all the month of August, and told R. he might exercise his team while he was gone, if he liked. Rollins had informed me of this, and I believe he enjoyed his drives for about three weeks, and resigned his 'turn-out,' without regret, on his cousin's return. Here, again, the Mercantile Agency had stated a fact, and, with it, a false inference. However, now that I saw where the difficulty existed, it was easy to remedy it. I called at the office of the 'Agency,' with two influential business friends—'undoubted' names—and went into an entire explanation. It was satisfactory. The statement as to my capital, 'Nearly all borrowed,' was erased, or rather, a new statement was prepared and entered on the books, quite clear and to the purpose. Poor Rollin's inexpensive drives were no longer marked against him. In short, our firm stood 'right' on the books, and we were thus well advertised. We had no longer any difficulty about our 'paper;' indeed, we now enjoyed all the facilities to which a good credit entitled us.
And here permit me to digress a little, in order to say a word about 'mercantile agencies' generally. The system has been greatly elaborated since 1844. Complete method has been introduced through all its branches, and a most unique and surprising skill is displayed in the information obtained, and in the general characterizations. The enemies of the system complain that it produces an espionage worse a thousand-fold than that under a European despotism; that no circumstance of private or domestic life is safe from the prying, eager curiosity of these keen investigators, who are paid well for gleaning. In short, that the whole affair is a shame and a scandal to a free country. On the other side, it is retorted, that no honest man fears to have the veil drawn aside which may conceal his minutest acts. That such a man courts investigation, and claims to be judged by it; and that those only are opposed to the plan who suffer from having the truth told of them. Now, my view of the question is not based on either of these hypotheses. It seems to me that the mischief lies in another direction. The agency undertakes to give information by which subscribers can form reliable judgments of a merchant's responsibility, and so forth. This is very desirable, and if the agencies accomplish this they certainly render a service to the commercial community. But the truth is, we do not form an opinion of an individual so much from certain absolute facts we hear of him as from his general reputation. Every man, every firm, every incorporated company, does, in some way and by some sure process, after a time acquire a general reputation—good, bad or indifferent—for which one would be puzzled to state any reason or cause whatever, but which is true in ninety-nine cases of a hundred. So well settled is this, that our courts, when a person's character is under investigation, will not permit, in the first instance, questions to be asked except as to general reputation. The 'agencies,' with the best intent, doubtless, busy themselves with picking up circumstances. A merchant rushes in and reads the record; he thus goes to an ex-parte tribunal, where reputation is manufactured out of one set of facts, instead of into the world, where currents of opinion flow free, and where truth and error have a fair field for contest. If any one doubts this, let him look at the 'record' of four merchants out of five who fail, and he will find that these merchants took especial pains to keep that record fair. My opinion frankly is, that these agencies have their growth in our great desire to save ourselves the trouble of forming an opinion, so that we readily welcome one manufactured for us. It is very convenient to be told off-hand what really nobody can ever know; whether a merchant is 'good' or not: and I believe our agencies would come badly off to-day in a series of libel-suits, one-half of which should be commenced by their patrons for too favorable statements, whereby those patrons lost their money; and the other half by the subjects of mercantile criticism, whereby such subjects lost their credit. I refer to what is got together and reported about our city merchants. As to the reports recorded in the city of the standing of people through all the towns and villages of the United States, I reject them as generally the preparation of one man, (in each place,) who is biased one way or the other, so that he returns an opinion either much too severe or much too favorable, and by which the merchant here is quite sure to be misled.
To return: I had no further reason to complain of the 'Agency.' They told the truth about me, and drew no disagreeable inferences. Indeed, after a while they began to exaggerate my position, for on the day I failed my record stood as follows: 'First-rate house. Credit A 1. Thoroughly up in their business. Large capital: said to be at least a quarter of a million. Reported to have cleared over fifty thousand dollars the last season in produce. Very cautious operators.' Not to anticipate. The year 1844 was for us the commencement of a new season of prosperity. With great assiduity and great watchfulness the firm retrieved the losses of the previous year, strengthened its credit, changed some important details in the mode of conducting its business, and gradually settled on a prudent and safe basis of operations. From that time we took position among the 'leading merchants.' ...
The years 1845 and 1846 passed very happily: yes, very happily, because prosperously and without drawback of any kind. To become once more a man among men. To encounter an acquaintance, and meet his scrutinizing look with an air of conscious strength and stability. To feel that you are no longer exposed to the humiliating sympathy of 'friends,' or the silent triumph of enemies. To be assured that you form again a part and portion of the activity which supports and moves the world; that you are of consequence in it, and recognized accordingly, recognized by old companions with whom you used to engage in various affairs; many of whom sincerely regretted what befell you, and honestly rejoice in your reäppearance in the business arena; who shake hands with you with a smile, and a look as much as to say: 'I knew you would come out all right. Glad to see you here.' To pass from the dreary stupor of inactivity to fresh, hopeful, energetic action; to plan and form combinations; to feel yourself gradually and surely gaining ground; to enjoy the healthful happiness of an ascending scale; to get on, to prosper, to again grow rich, and find every thing around you cheerful; to witness 'troops of friends' returning to range once more under your banner, with many apologies for absence, and so forth—apologies which you receive amiably, (as if you had never felt bitterness of heart, and gangrene, and hatred on their account;) which you not only receive amiably but excuse, making due allowance for human infirmities. (You forgive, and your misfortunes are forgiven, but see to it that you repeat not the offence, lest a worse evil overtake you.) To pass through all this, rising meanwhile till, like the man of Uz, your possessions greatly exceed their former proportions. Well! life is worth something at that. How agreeable to have money; how pleasant not to be forced to calculate! How charming for us, the favored few, few by comparison, to express a wish for what we desire, and lo! it is supplied; to plan out new pleasures, and enter into their enjoyment; to find all things practicable, all things yielding; to encounter smiles and approbation every where; to find every avenue smoothed for our approach, every path made pleasant. Why not? Why should not these things be desirable and acceptable, and very enjoyable?...
So in the midst of business successes and social delights, was ushered in the notable season of 1847. Some perhaps who read these pages have cause to remember that memorable year. To such the index, '1847,' will not be viewed without emotion. Nay, to those who date from it the beginning of, to them, a period of misery and misfortune, of blight and calamity, of stagnation of soul and withering up of energy—leaving them walking nonentities, collapsed and dwindling gradually away, instead of living, enterprising beings, to such did the figures '1847' appear spectral; and when seen printed here, will cause a shock like that produced by some fancied apparition from the dead.... Thus, as I said, with much joyousness and merry-making, amid Christmas festivities and gayeties and frolics came in the crisis-year. And I will proceed to explain how I happened to be paying two dollars a week for desk-room in the basement No. — Wall-street.
CHAPTER SECOND.
On the first day of January, 1847, the financial condition of these United States was 'most satisfactory.' So said leading bank presidents and directors in the coteries to which they severally were attached; so observed the prominent members of the Stock Exchange, conversing daily between the 'boards;' so echoed the principal merchants. Eminent bankers talked soothingly over their sherry of the 'remarkable prosperity of the country.' With the second bottle they demonstrated how we were now beyond the reach of panic. The resources of our land were so great, so various, so extraordinary, and its extent almost illimitable. Such room for development, for the employment of capital which could never fail in returning its legitimate increase. No, thank Heaven! we were at last on a sound basis, and none but the most reckless need fail in any lawful enterprise.
Russell, too, was of the same opinion.
There was not even a speck in the commercial horizon giving token of the storm which was so soon to burst. Only it began to be ascertained that the failure of the harvest in Great Britain (which had been for some time known) was even more deplorable than at first reported; and, with the blight of the potato in Ireland, there was threatened for that unfortunate isle the visitation of the Angel of Death in the shape of Famine! But to most people this served as an additional argument that our prosperity was founded on a rock. We should find, at high prices and gold for payment, a market for all our surplus breadstuffs. Some, unappalled by the terrible calamity which threatened a friendly nation, chuckled over the news brought by each successive steamer of the great rise in the prices of food; while with all there was an ill-concealed satisfaction at the existing condition of things. But there were others who shook their heads, and said such condition was unnatural; that affairs could not go on ruinously for any length of time in England without reäcting forcibly here, so intimate were the relations between us; beside, they said, an unfortunate state of affairs in one country is never beneficial to another country with which it has a close business connection. These individuals were set down as croakers; people who were behind the age; men with antiquated stage-coach ideas. The great majority of moneyed men declared that the country was in a most prosperous state, and accordingly it was generally so accepted.
To come, however, to my own affairs. The position of the firm of Charles E. Parkinson and Company, on that same first of January, was essentially and absolutely a sound one. The year after I commenced business anew, my mother died. The five thousand dollars I received from her proved, as was anticipated, to be about what I was entitled to from the estate, and thus that was settled. I had within a twelve-month repaid my friend the five thousand dollars borrowed from him. It was indeed so much in reduction of our capital, and the money to us was worth much more than seven per cent; but something whispered to me, 'Pay it!' and I did so. Strange to say, many years later this circumstance proved to be the final turning-point in my earthly career. Since we began, our capital had increased from the sum of twenty-eight thousand dollars, as the reader will recollect, to one hundred and thirty-eight thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars in stocks and assets, after deducting all probable bad debts and what the firm owed. In other words, that was our 'balance-sheet.' This was certainly doing well; at the same time we had acquired the reputation of having made still greater gains, so true is it that 'to him who hath shall be given.'