nd he presented to the
reader the almost fatal aspect of the offence. He dwelt upon the fact
that the case, so far from being isolated or exceptional, was without
peculiarities, was quite normal. He drew upon his accumulated facts for
the proof of this, and with a rapid array of defaulting treasurers,
cashiers, superintendents, and presidents, he imparted a sense of the
uniformity in their malfeasance which is so evident to the student. They
were all comfortably placed and in the way to prosperity if not fortune;
they were all tempted by the possession of means to immediate wealth;
they all yielded so far as to speculate with the money that did not
belong to them; they were all easily able to replace the first loans
they made themselves; they all borrowed again and then could not replace
the loans; they were all found out, and all were given a certain time to
make up their shortage. After that a certain diversity appeared: some
shot themselves, and some hanged themselves, others decided to stand
their trial; the vastly greater number ran away to Canada.

In this presentation of the subject, Maxwell had hardly to do more than
to copy the words of a certain character in his play: one of those
cynical personages, well-known to the drama, whose function is to
observe the course of the action, and to make good-humored sarcasms upon
the conduct and motives of the other characters. It was here that Ricker
employed his blue pencil the most freely, and struck out passages of
almost diabolical persiflage, and touched the colors of the black
pessimism with a few rays of hope. The final summing up, again, was
adapted from a drama that had been rejected by several purveyors of the
leg-burlesque as immoral. In a soliloquy intended to draw tears from the
listener, the hero of Maxwell's play, when he parted from his young wife
and children, before taking poison, made some apposite reflections on
his case, in which he regarded himself as the victim of conditions, and
in prophetic perspective beheld an interminable line of defaulters to
come, who should encounter the same temptations and commit the same
crimes under the same circumstances. Maxwell simply recast this
soliloquy in editorial terms; and maintained that not only was there
nothing exceptional in Northwick's case, but that it might be expected
to repeat itself indefinitely. On one hand, you had men educated to
business methods which permitted this form of dishonesty and condemne