Unfortunately, dishonesty in banks is not confined to cashiers. Many a bank director amasses large sums by means which are quite as disgraceful as embezzlements, although they are not so harshly punished. Mr. Moneybags, for instance, is a director in several large banking institutions. He is also in all probability a very heavy speculator in the stocks of railroads in which he has inside information. As director of bank No. 1 he sees that a certain man has pledged a block of the stock of a certain corporation as collateral security for a heavy loan. As director in bank No. 2 he perhaps learns that the same man is borrowing largely from that institution and on another block of the same stock. It is clear that the speculator in question is very heavily loaded--probably carrying more of that stock than is prudent. Anything which would seriously depreciate the market value of that stock would probably force him to throw overboard a considerable portion of his holdings. The director of easy conscience quietly puts out a line of shorts in the stock in question at the ruling high prices. At the next directors’ meeting of bank No. 1 he tells his fellow-directors that he hears rumors affecting Mr. Speculator’s credit, that he is overloaded with the stock of the road in question, and suggests to the president that it would be prudent to invite Mr. Speculator to return the money he had borrowed and take away his stocks. Possibly he causes similar action to be taken by the other bank of which he is a director. Mr. Speculator, so unexpectedly called upon to return very large sums of money, is embarrassed. He is obliged to go into the market and sell a large amount of the stock in question. The price falls sharply in consequence and the director covers his shorts at a handsome profit. It is doubtless true that a majority of bank directors are above this sort of thing; but there are bank directors, and not a few of them either, who contrive to turn their official positions to their personal profit. [Illustration: MACHINERY HALL.] CHAPTER XX. OUR CITIES. A great city is a great sore--a sore which never can be cured. The greater the city, the greater the sore. It necessarily follows that New York, being the greatest city in the Union, is the vilest sore on our body politic. If any one doubts it, let him live in New York awhile and keep his eyes and ears open. The trouble about great cities is not that they have any impetus or influence especially their own, but that every one, from the vilest all the way up to the best, is compelled by circumstances of city life to often conduct his own daily walk and conversation on lines which are not entirely natural, and which never can be made so.