And these remind one of other years very peculiarly, and suggest many thoughts on human weakness and perversity. I am vexed not a little as I look over them, and call to mind the class of men who mingled in the iniquities of which I am about to speak, that I cannot write out these men's names for the public eye. But some of them have "reformed," have gone into legitimate business, and have families dear to them, and who were ever quite unconscious of the modes by which their husbands and fathers obtained money here in this seething sea of iniquity of New York,--this worse than modern Babylon,--whom it would be cruel now to wound. And I call to memory now one of these operators in petty villany, who is dead--a noble fellow in the general way, a son of a distinguished father, well bred, and related by blood to some of the first, and really finest people in New York. Ah! what would a certain philanthropist say--a man who leads noble charities, devotes his now declining years to the practical duties of a Sunday school teacher, and whose voice has been, within a few years past, heard in the national Congress, as that of one of the few there whom the corruptions of politics have not stained; a man of large wealth, with which he makes far less display than many a man of the expensive habits of these latter days with but a tenth or fiftieth of the former's income, and a man of marked intelligence, too, as well as of high morals,--what would he say, were it disclosed to him that his relatives, his nephews, the sons of his not unnoted sisters, were participants in these crimes,--cool-blooded, mean, devilish,--and continued, and carried on, under the guise of "business," and indeed as a business for years? But if this simply, were told him, he could not understand the half, for he would not know the half. I shall spare the participants in those criminal schemes the mention of their names here, though I conceive that I should have done no more than my duty had I, at the time in question, given them publicity through the press. But even in the last ten years the public sentiment has largely changed, not only in New York, but throughout the country, perhaps, in regard to the true standard of morals, or the recognition of any standard at all, may be; and those who are acquainted with the modes of conducting business in Wall Street,--(the real centre of practical government for the nation),--and therefore know what iniquities transpire there in the way of "legitimate business," so called, could hardly be surprised at anything I might disclose of the past. It is a sad reflection that the greed of gain governs everything else in these days in this Union; and that the manner of obtaining a fortune is, in most people's opinion, of no account, however vile, in comparison with the matter of possessing it. Money is a veil which will cover every crime, and nobody knows this fact more surely than the detective. It is a fact, that to save