in the dilemma in which I
found myself. To stop, would be to do so with some three or four
hundred persons paid in advance, for portions of a year. I was dunned,
daily, by my printer, for money, and in order to meet the notes which
had already fallen due, I had been compelled to borrow temporarily from
my friends. Unable to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion, in
despair, I summoned creditors and friends around me, and laid before
them a full statement of my condition. There were some long faces at
that meeting; but no one felt as I did. I shall never forget the
suffering and mortification of that day, were I to live a thousand
years.

The unanimous determination of the meeting was that I must stop,
collect in the money due, and divide it pro rata among my creditors. I
did so; announcing, at the same time, the heavy embarrassment under
which I had been brought, and earnestly soliciting those who owed the
paper, to settle their accounts immediately. To the few who had paid
the fraction of a year in advance, I stated how much I had lost, and
appealed to their magnanimity for a remission of the obligation I
remained under to furnish the paper for the time yet due to them. It
was but the matter of a few cents, or a dollar at most to them, I said,
but it was hundreds of dollars to me.

Well, and what was the sequel to all this? Why, to sum up what remains
to be told, in a few words; only two hundred dollars out of the sixteen
hundred were collected, and from those who had paid small trifles in
advance, I received dozens of letters, couched in the most offensive
terms. Some charged me with being a swindler, and said, if I didn't
immediately send the money overpaid, or some other paper in the place
of mine, they would publish me to the world. Others said they would be
in the city at a certain time and require me to refund; while many,
residing on the spot, took out their money's worth, by telling me to my
face what they thought of my conduct. One man issued a warrant against
me for thirty-five cents, the sum overpaid by him.

So much for my experience in starting a newspaper. A year and a half
before, I had a clerkship which brought me in seven hundred dollars a
year; was easy in mind, respected by all my friends, looked upon as an
honest man by every one who knew me, and out of debt. I started a
newspaper in a moment of blind infatuation, and now I owed above three
thousand dollars, my good name was gone, and I was dispi