Troubles came thick and fast in the fall of 1826. Several adventurers openly tried to defraud Owen, and an era of suspicion began. A man named Taylor joined the community, at Owen’s invitation, to take charge of the industries, but after getting possession of a tract of land he started a distillery, greatly to the founder’s annoyance. Brown describes with great particularity the unhappy condition that prevailed during the fall and winter of 1826. He complains that Owen was living in luxury at the tavern, while the laborers in the large boarding-houses fared badly. Although there were several professional gardeners in the community, there was a lack of vegetables, and the necessities were doled out sparingly. Brown believed that the founder was trying to retrieve his fortunes, and he speaks of him as “willing to shift into the character of a retailer and tavern keeper.” The _Gazette_ was, in Brown’s belief, the personal organ of Owen, whom he calls “the lord proprietor of the press”; but this may be merely the wail of the rejected, for Brown admits that his own contributions were repeatedly scorned, so that to gain publicity he was obliged to post them on the gateway of the educational society, taking them in at night for safety. He says that in spite of the balls and promenade concerts the people remained strangers, and he deplores the amount of time and candles wasted in these frivolities. As to the educational features of the place, Brown expresses his opinion that there was no other place in the United States where a like number of children in the same compass “were of so harsh, insolent, rash, boisterous, and barbarous dispositions.” Brown deals drastically with the auditing department of the community. He intimates that when a debit balance appeared against a member on the books, credit was immediately stopped at the store. He gives the instance of a gardener named Gilbert, who was suddenly served with his discharge in December, when his family were ill, because he was performing no labor and had fallen in arrears. Gilbert asked for an investigation, which was held, and the court found in his favor.