Consequently, the thirteen lateral canals ran the State of New York $1,387,499 in debt, while the Erie canal netted the State $1,073,126, which money, and more, was required to support the officials of these non-paying canals. Now, where did the money come from to pay these tax-eaters? Out of the products of the West shipped through the Erie canal, and consequently out of the pockets of western farmers. This is a case in point, illustrating the effects of State legislation-in imposing a tax on the commerce of other States. True, this is nothing new; it has always been done; but attention was not called to the fact until a glut of grain in the West brought the farmers face to face with pauperism. But are the citizens of the Empire State sinners above all their fellows, that such things come to pass? No; if the people of New York governed themselves, this condition of affairs could hardly exist. They are in reality governed by a few railroad magnates, stock jobbers, and ring thieves, in the City of New York, who do not scruple to buy up legislators and judges, far and near, and whose power is felt in nearly every western State. Is it strange that the people should rise in their might to put down such giant monopolies. Is it not strange, on the other hand, that in fighting some of the ramifications of this mighty evil they should have committed so few excesses?

HOW THE GREAT RAILROAD CORPORATIONS CORRUPT PUBLIC MORALS.

The great railroad corporations having their headquarters in New York City, have become truly fearful engines for the demoralization of the nation. For years, New Jersey struggled in the grasp of the Camden & Amboy Railroad, really one of the hydra heads of the Pennsylvania Central. Her

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people have recently been in a turmoil, occasioned by the attempt of that railway corporation to take virtual possession of the State. The result was the passage of a law, in the winter of 1872-3, through whose operations the people hope no longer to belong to the "State of Camden and Amboy;" this corporation insisting upon its "vested right” to levy toll on all commodities transported through the State by rail.

EXCELSIOR.

State Seal of New York.

Other States are almost as truly the property of these magnates, who rule New York and Pennsylvania, as the cars which carry the various products of the country, or the locomotives which haul them. The Erie railroad spent a million and a half of dollars in neutralizing the ballot in the State of New York, through the eminent services of such statesmen" as William M. Tweed, who is now receiving a portion of his just deserts at that compulsory resort of degenerate ruffians, Blackwell's Island.

But the Erie Railway having come to, grief in the battle for supremacy, its rival, the New York Central, now virtually owns the Empire State. The New York Central means

Vanderbilt, just as much as the Erie ever meant "Jim Fisk;" and Vanderbilt seems to have no sympathy with mankind in general, except the eternal itching for money. His ostentatious gifts to religious or benevolent institutions, are like the visits of angels, "few and far between," but they sufficiently demonstrate his practical wisdom in the science of advertising. Were it not for the influence exerted by the New York Central, the Erie Canal might be made to lighten the burdens of the West, by cheapening the transportation of her products.

VANDERBILT AS A PHLEBOTOMIST.

A single instance of extortion by the New York Central will suffice. A business man of Buffalo, in the habit of buying paper by the car load in New York City, has declared that he could ship the goods via the New York Central, from New York City to Chicago, and thence back by the lakes to Buffalo, at a less cost than he could ship it by the Central to Buffalo direct. He could save in time by shipping direct to Buffalo; he could save in money, via Chicago and back. But time is money, hence it came direct; so nicely does this great railroad autocrat calculate, as with the precision of the Spanish Inquisition, to just what point he dare bleed his victim and yet keep alive the spark of life.

One of the latest of the gigantic projects which this unscrupulous old man is engaged in, is to get control of the Western Union Telegraph Line, and thus to form another monopoly which shall increase his already vast power for evil. If the Clubs, Granges, and other organizations of the farmers really were responsible for the late panic, (as they were not, except for some influence in hastening it, per

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haps,) their power would not have been exercised a day too soon. If existing State Legislatures and the Forty-third Congress can not see their way clear to a retrenchment in governmental expenses, and to the casting out of corrupt officials, they will assuredly find themselves relegated to deserved obscurity, and their places will be supplied by men who realize the fact that there is something pertaining to the office of legislator besides looking sharp after "number one."

THE COMMUNISM OF CAPITAL.

The facility with which, here and there, an unscrupulous man piles up fortune after fortune upon the financial ruin of his fellows, seems inevitably to demoralize every business in a country. It is notorious that the stock operations of Wall Street are based largely upon fictitious values, and that the class of operators who control them are intensely selfish, guilty of the meanest subterfuges, often lacking education, successful by dint of cunning, and unscrupulous to the last degree. They lead astray those who have not inflexible honesty inherent in their natures. By arousing their cupidity and corrupting their morals, they work their ruin, and turn them into pliant tools of their devilish arts.

The daily peculations, defalcations, and outright thefts, that are making the business of the country more a game of chance than legitimate enterprise, nearly all have their beginning in this Gomorrah of vice-speculation in stock.

The clerk who, perhaps, may have saved up a thousand, becomes acquainted with one of the stool-pigeons of the sweat-cloth of the stock market; for this class, in common with other gamblers, use all the nefarious schemes of their brethren of the other more vulgar sweat-cloth of the ġambling-houses, to“ rope in " the unwary. The clerk, therefore,

thinks he will "put up a margin," or "pool-in" on a high market in hopes it will go higher. Stocks fall. He covers the loss, and so on, perhaps, until his money is all lost. His cupidity being now thoroughly aroused, the regret at losing his hard-earned dollars, tempts him to borrow from his employer's till to tide himself over the point whence he is assured stocks must rise. Alas! they do not rise, and the man, at last, finds himself in disgrace as a common thief. This is only one phase of the case, and one of the least dark and sorrowful at that. Many desolate homes of the country, if it could be known, would tell tales of lost innocence and happiness, perhaps, with the husband and father an exile and a fugitive from justice, and the family, once comfortable, suffering the pangs of poverty. The author of all this misery recks little. The money-king enjoys himself with his ill-gotten wealth; sits, with slippered feet, in a gorgeous home; sips his costly wines; and, feted and feting, fares sumptuously every day.

The government may punish the puny victim whom he has destroyed; but the great robber-the Mephistopheles of Wall Street-is shielded by the power of wealth.

THE GHOULS OF WALL STREET.

There is nothing to which this class of men may be more fittingly likened than Ghouls, which feed on the putrid carcasses of dead men; for these human vultures carry their victims to swift destruction, and their families to poverty and starvation. These stock gamblers subvert the established usages of trade; break down the barriers of legitimate buying and selling; abolish the coin values of the country; create fictitious values, bulling or bearing stocks at will, until the bub