That is a pitiful story, isn't it? Virtue assaulted almost in its very temple, and given a black eye by sheer force of cruel, overwhelming circumstances. Yet a true story, and the prototype in its general features of a host of similar episodes occurring in the different cities of this land of the free and the home of the brave. Each case, of course, has its peculiar atmosphere. Not every leading villain has the sensitive and combative conscience of Thomas Barnstable; nor every general manager the bold, frank style of Mr. Dowling. There is every phase of soul-struggle and method from unblushing, business-like bargain and sale to sphinx-like and purposely unenlightened and ostrich-like submission. In the piteous language of a defender of Thomas Barnstable (not Josephine), what can one do but submit? If one meets a highwayman on the road, is one to be turned back if a purse will secure a passage? Surely not if the journey be of moment. Then is a corporate body (a corporation has no soul) to be starved to death by delay and hostile legislation if peace and plenty are to be had for an attorney's fee? If so, only the rascals would thrive and honest corporations would bite the dust. And so it happened that Mr. Dowling before election cast his moral influence in favor of the big four, and a little bird flew from headquarters with a secret message, couched in sufficiently vague language, to the effect that the management would be pleased if the employees of the People's Heat and Power Company were to mark crosses on their Australian ballots against the names of Peter Lynch, Jeremiah Dolan, Hon. William H. Bird, and the Hon. John P. Driscoll.