Now, what may the result of such a system be? Why, this. If the stock of all these railroads be increased in the same proportion that some of them have already been increased, it may be raised to a thousand billions of dollars, and the people, instead of being compelled to pay three hundred and fifty millions dollars to provide an eight per cent. dividend on their cost, will have to submit to the extortion of eight hundred million dollars annually to satisfy the demands of these legal despots for an eight per cent. dividend upon stock, a large part of which represent absolutely nothing but the people’s stolen money. A person who would double the size of another’s note simply because the profits of his business would permit the payment of twelve per cent. interest, so that instead of paying twelve per cent. upon one hundred dollars, which would be an illegal charge, it would be six per cent. upon two hundred dollars, would be deemed and adjudged guilty of forgery. But these railroad magnates sit in their palatial offices and raise their notes at pleasure, and they are considered public benefactors. It is a crime for a single person to steal a dollar, but a corporation may steal a million dollars, and be canonized as saints. Oh, the stupid blindness of this people! Swindled every day before their very eyes, and yet they don’t seem to know that there is anything wrong, simply because no _law_ has been violated. In their eyes everything that is lawful is right, and this has become the curse of the nation. But the opposite—that everything which is right is lawful—don’t follow as a part of their philosophy. No matter what a person does if it is not actionable under the law; he is an honest man and a good church member. But Heaven defend us from being truthful, natural beings, unless the law says we may—since that is to be an infamous scoundrel. A Vanderbilt may sit in his office and manipulate stocks, or make dividends, by which, in a few years, he amasses fifty millions dollars from the industries of the country, and he is one of the remarkable men of the age. But if a poor, half-starved child were to take a loaf of bread from his cupboard, to prevent starvation, she would be sent first to the Tombs, and thence to Blackwell’s Island.