ebts out of
the future earnings of the roads. In the course of five years
$1,750,000,000 were invested in railroad projects. The same speculative
spirit pervaded mining and manufacturing companies, which also borrowed
money by issuing bonds. A great amount of these were sold abroad, after
which the home market was industriously worked through the newspapers,
which overflowed with glowing promises. Thousands of poor widows,
orphans, and the trustees of estates invested all their scanty savings
in these enterprises.

Then the failures began. The banking firm of Jay Cooke & Company,
Philadelphia, one of the greatest in the United States, suspended, and
the whole country was alarmed. Next came the panic, which reached its
height in a few months. This was followed by dull times, when factories
closed, and multitudes were thrown out of employment. Several years
passed before the country fully recovered from the panic of 1873.

NOTABLE DEATHS.

Many noted men died during those times. The bluff, aggressive, and
patriotic Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln's war secretary, passed away in
December, 1869, shortly after his appointment to the bench of the
supreme court by President Grant. General R.E. Lee, who had become
president of the Washington and Lee University, died at his home in
Lexington, Virginia, in 1870. Among others of prominence who died in the
same year were General George H. Thomas and Admiral Farragut. In 1872,
William H. Seward, Horace Greeley, Professor Morse, and General George
H. Meade breathed their last, and in the year following Chief Justice
Chase and Charles Sumner died. Millard Fillmore and Andrew Johnson, as
has been stated, died respectively in 1874 and 1875.

[Illustration: MONUMENT TO GENERAL LEE AT RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.]

The Democrats now gained a majority in the House of Representatives for
the first time since 1860. Among the members elected from the South were
several distinguished military leaders of the Southern Confederacy,
besides Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, who had been its
vice-president.

It was about this time that gold was discovered among the Black Hills,
which by treaty belonged to the Sioux Indians, since the section was
within their reservation. White men were warned to keep away, and steps
were taken by the military authorities to prevent them entering upon the
forbidden ground. But no risk or danger is sufficient to quench men's
thirst for gold, and thousands of the most desp