nterprise
and speculation will cease, and all hilarity be stricken out of the
social circle. There is no warrant for such an absurd anticipation. I
suppose that when society is reconstructed, where there is now, in the
course of a year, one fortune made, there will be a hundred fortunes
made. Every one knows that the commercial world thrives in proportion
as there is confidence between man and man; and the extirpation of all
double-dealing and fraud from society will increase this confidence,
and hence greater prosperity. The heavy commercial disasters that have
smitten this land were the work of godless speculators and infamous
stock-gamblers. It is crime that is the mightiest foe to business;
but when the right shall hurl back into ruin the plots of bad men,
and purify the commercial code, and thunder down fraudulent
establishments, and put into the hands of honest men the keys of
commercial prosperity, blessed will be the bargain-makers of the city.

That will be a prosperous time, for taxes will be a mere nothing.
Every style of business is taxed now to the utmost. City taxes, county
taxes, State taxes, United States taxes, license taxes, manufacturing
taxes, stamp taxes,--taxes! taxes! taxes! Our citizens must make a
small fortune every year to meet these exactions. What hand fastens
to all of our great industries this tremendous load? Crime! We have
to pay the board of every man and woman who, by intemperance, is
cast into the alms-house. We have to support the orphans of those who
plunge themselves into their graves by beastly indulgences. We support
from our pockets the large machinery of municipal government, which is
vast just in proportion as the criminal proclivities of the city
are great. What makes necessary hospitals, houses of refuge,
police-stations, and alms-houses, the Tombs, Sing Sing, and
Moyamensing?

In that good time coming there shall be no exhaustive taxation; no
orphans homeless, for parents will be able to leave their children
a competency; no prisons, for crime will have given place to virtue.
Then the vast swindles which now, from time to time, disgrace our
cities, will be unheard of. No voting of public money that, on its way
to some city improvement, falls into the pockets of those who voted
it. No courts of Oyer and Terminer, at vast expense to the people. No
empanelling of juries to inquire into theft, arson, murder, slander,
and black-mail. In that day of redemption there will be bet