his tour of the cities. He had taken some books along,
whether to perplex or make clear his brains, he hardly knew. He pored
over pages of Adam Smith, he turned to Ruskin for comfort, he picked up
Brassey's figures and experience, and Stuart Mill's strong, kindly
reasoning, and digested them in his own slow, practical, much-befogged
way, trying to solve the problems.

It was a great and wonderful world. Little Yerbury had hardly any true
idea what a mite she was, when one looked at the immense labor-fields of
the West and apparently endless resources. Yet there was the same
depression out here. Shops and mills closed, for sale, and to let; some
running on three-quarter time, with half the number of workmen, others
going on at ruinous competition; anxious, moody-eyed men walking the
streets, or grouped on corners, their coats and hats shabby, their
beards untrimmed, old boots and shoes with the heels tramped over at one
side, or a bit of stocking showing through the leather. "No man hath
hired us," said their despondent faces plainer than any words. Young men
and boys offering to do any kind of work for any kind of pay, sleeping
in station-houses; relief-stores, church charities and soup-houses,
homes for the friendless, and all such places, filled to overflowing,
and new hordes crowding in every day.

Yet there seemed to be no lack of money. It lay in banks, it went
begging for good security. Where was there any good security? Every inch
of ground, every building, stocks and furniture, were covered by
mortgages. Stock companies trembled in the balance, and went down like
card-houses. Everybody wanted to sell every thing, but there were no
buyers. Everybody wanted to work, but there was nothing to do. Everybody
was in a chronic state of grumbling; there was no profit to be made in
farming, in manufacturing, in any thing. There had been too much
over-production, for which every one blamed his neighbor. The great
warehouses were full of grain, the mills loaded up with iron, the
factories full of cloth and flannels and cottons; and yet people were
going hungry and in rags. It was puzzling and painful. We had bought too
much abroad, and sent the money out of the country, the balance of trade
would make it all right again; there had been over-production, and now
there must be a vigorous repression; there had been too much
speculation in real estate; there had been too great an accumulation of
capital in the business centres;