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specimen of mere animal beauty. How well he drives. The ease and
carelessness with which he manages his splendid steeds, excites the
admiration of every one on the road. He is used to it. Five years ago
he was the driver of a public hack. He amassed a small sum of money, and
being naturally a sharp, shrewd man, went into Wall street, and joined
the "Curb-stone Brokers." His transactions were not always open to a
rigid scrutiny, but they were profitable to him. He invested in oil
stocks, and with his usual good luck made a fortune. Now he operates
through his broker. His transactions are heavy, his speculations bold
and daring, but he is usually successful. He lives in great splendor in
one of the finest mansions in the city, and his carriages and horses are
superb. His wife and daughters are completely carried away by their good
fortune, and look with disdain upon all who are not their equals or
superiors in wealth. They are vulgar and ill-bred, but they are wealthy,
and society worships them. There will come a change some day. The
husband and father will venture once too often in his speculations, and
his magnificent fortune will go with a crash, and the family will return
to their former state, or perhaps sink lower, for there are very few men
who have the moral courage to try to rise again after such a fall, and
this man is not one of them.

In watching the crowd on Broadway, one will frequently see, in some
shabbily dressed individual, who, with his hat drawn down close over his
eyes, is evidently shrinking from the possibility of being recognized,
the man who but a few weeks ago was one of the wealthiest in the city.
Then he was surrounded with splendor. Now he hardly knows where to get
bread for his family. Then he lived in an elegant mansion. Now one or
two rooms on the upper floor of some tenement house constitute his
habitation. He shrinks from meeting his old friends, well knowing that
not one of them will recognize him, except to insult him with a scornful
stare. Families are constantly disappearing from the social circles in
which they have shone for a greater or less time. They vanish almost in
an instant, and are never seen again. You may meet them at some
brilliant ball in the evening. Pass their residence the next day, and
you will see a bill announcing the early sale of the mansion and
furniture. The worldly effects of the family are all in the hands of the
creditors of the "hea