ting
population of a city laugh with him. It must be owned, too, that he had
a little real insight into the nature of things around him--a little
Scotch sense, as well as an inexhaustible fund of French vivacity.
Alluding, once, to the 'hard money' cry by which the lying politicians
of the day carried elections, he exploded that nonsense in two lines:
'If a man gets the wearable or the eatable he wants, what cares he if he
has gold or paper money?' He devoted two sentences to the Old School and
New School Presbyterian controversy: 'Great trouble among the
Presbyterians just now. The question is whether or not a man can do any
thing toward saving his own soul.' He had also an article upon the
Methodists, in which he said that the two religions nearest akin were
the Methodist and the Roman Catholic. We should add to these trifling
specimens the fact that he uniformly maintained, from 1835 to the crash
of 1837, that the prosperity of the country was unreal, and would end in
disaster."

These things served the end for which they were intended. They brought
"The Herald" conspicuously before the public. While engaged in them,
the proprietor was anxiously planning the means of making his paper a
great _newspaper_. He worked sixteen or seventeen hours each day. He
rose before five o'clock in the morning, and gave three hours to writing
his editorials and the witty paragraphs to which allusion has been made.
At eight o'clock he went to his cellar, or "office," and was at his post
there during the morning, selling his papers, receiving advertisements,
and often writing them for those who were not able to prepare them,
doing such other work as was necessary, and finishing his editorial
labors. At one o'clock he went into Wall Street, gathering up financial
news and interesting items of the street. He returned to his office at
four o'clock, and remained there until six, when the business of the day
was over. In the evening he went to the theater, a ball, concert, or
some public gathering, to pick up fresh items for his paper.

All this while, however, he was losing money. He had a heavy load to
carry, and though he bore it unflinchingly and determinedly, the
enterprise seemed doomed to failure for lack of funds. At this juncture,
he resolved to make the financial news of the day a special feature of
"The Herald." The monetary affairs of the country were in great
confusion--a confusion which was but the prelude to the crash of 1837