n, and of this amount a percentage much larger
than would be readily believed is pillaged on its way into the treasury or
in its disbursement. Then, as regards bad debts (so-called), most of them
fraudulently contracted or evaded, they are not, in general, the loss of
the immediate creditor, nor ought they to be; he is obliged to charge for
his goods a price which will cover these debts, and honest purchasers must
thus pay the dues of the insolvent purchaser. Nor is this a solitary
instance in which innocent persons are obliged to suffer for wrongs with
which they seem to have no necessary connection. There are very few
exceptions to the rule, under which, however, we have room but one more
example. It is a well known fact that many American railways have not only
cost very much more money than was ever laid out upon them, but are made,
by keeping the construction-account long and generously open, to represent
on the books of the respective corporations much larger sums than they
cost,--especially in cases where the enterprise is lucrative and the
dividends are limited by statute.

Now in some sections of our country a transaction of this kind--essentially
fraudulent, under however respectable auspices--is a disastrous check on
productive industry by the heavy freight-tariff which it imposes,--so heavy
sometimes as to keep bulky commodities, as wheat and corn, out of the
markets where, at a fair cost for transportation, they might find
remunerative sale. Thus the very means devised for opening the resources
of a region of country may be abused to their obstruction and hindrance.
In fine, dishonesty in all its forms has a diffusive power of injury, and,
on the mere ground of self-defence, demands the remonstrance and
antagonism of the entire community.

While in most departments of conduct there is a wide neutral *ground
between the right and the condemnably wrong*, there are matters of
business in which there seems to be no such intermediate territory, but in
which what is fair, honorable, and even necessary, is closely contiguous
to dishonesty. Thus, except in the simplest retail business, all modern
commerce is speculation, and the line between legitimate and dishonest
speculation is to some minds difficult of discernment. Yet the
discrimination may be made. A man has a right to all that he earns by
services to the community, and these earnings may in individual instances
reach an immense sum. We can easily understand