game of money-making.

But varied as were the motives for speculation, the principal ones were
breadstuffs and absolute necessities of life; and while the minor
speculators--the amateurs--purchased for _quick_ profits--the
professional vultures bought for _great_ ones and could afford to wait.

The first class reached into every rank of society; the second were
principally Yankee residents--caught in Richmond by the war, or
remaining for the sole purpose of making it pay--and a smaller class of
the lowest Polish Jews. Ishmaels both, owning no kinship and no
country, their sole hope was gain--gain at the cost of reputation and
credit themselves--gain even at the cost of torture and starvation to
the whole South beside. These it was who could afford to buy in bulk;
then aid the rise they knew must come inexorably, by hoarding up great
quantities of flour, bacon, beef and salt.

It mattered not for themselves who suffered--who starved. It mattered
not if the noble fellows at the front lived on a scant handful of
cornmeal per day--if starving men died before the works they were too
weak to mount--if ghastly objects in hospital and trench literally
perished, while their storehouses burst with food--waiting for a rise!

It is too ugly a picture to dwell upon. Suffice it that the human
hyenas of speculation did prey upon the dying South; that they locked
up her salt while the men in the trenches perished for it; that thrice
they stored the flour the people felt was theirs, in such quantities
and for so long, that before their maw for gain was glutted, serious
riots of the starving called for the strong hand to interfere. And to
the credit of Government and southern soldier, be it said--even in that
dark hour, with craving stomach and sickening soul--"Johnny Reb" obeyed
his orders and guarded the den of the hyena--from his own hungering
children, perhaps!

No weak words of mine may paint the baseness and infamy of the vultures
of the market. Only a Dore, with a picture like his Frozen Hell, or
Ugolino--might give it faint ideal.

And with the feeling how valueless was the money, came another
epidemic--not so widespread, perhaps, as the speculation fever; but
equally fatal to those who caught it--the rage for gambling!

Impulsive by nature, living in an atmosphere of constant and increasing
artificial excitement, feeling that the money worth little to-day,
perhaps, would be worth nothing to-morrow--the men of the South ga