14 tempted to say, that the old chivalric and sentimental barbarism were better. In the absence of a feudal aristocracy of birth and blood, we were inaugurating that worst of all social castes—an aristocracy of riches. Craft, shrewdness, subtlety, artifice, cunning—anything, everything mighty in money-getting, were grounds of claim for our patents of nobility. The men successful in heaping treasures, let them be whatsoever else they might—dexterous cheats, unscrupulous defaulters, adroit stock-gamblers, robbers of public revenues—though uncultured in intellect, unchristian in morals, uncouth in manners—were nevertheless fast becoming the principalities and powers of our social hierarchy. Esquire Money-Love, Colonel Many-Acres, the Reverend Dr. Make-Gain, the Honorable Mr. GreatPurse—these were the men taking precedence of the great nobles of character at the court-end of the Republic. Gold was becoming our supreme national god. Gold controlled our franchises, elected our rulers, shaped our politics, and colored our religion. For gold our juries rendered verdicts, our rulers reversed sentences, our statesmen endorsed measures, our physicians turned charlatans, and the very ministers of our sanctuaries left God's sheep in the wilderness, to wander vagrant and mountebank through the land, lecturing on —moonshine. Virtue was a thing quoted in prices-current ; conscience and character rose and fell with the stockmarket. "The creed of the multitude was, life is
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