The old merchants of New York City / by Walter Barrett.

OF.N'EW YORK CITY.

819

of their individual character by the painful acknowledge
ment of inferiority to others who are more prominent!
Are all these merchants white slaves to P. Perrit, R.
B. Minturn, A. A. Low, and William II. Aspiinwall?
Cannot a great and godlike work of charity be u1ndertaken, without they nod consent? Each one is engrossed day and night in the care of overgrown fortunes.
They eat of the best of the land. They sleep on couches of down. All the wine countries of the earth contribute the costliest and the best for their palates. Are
they likely to know of the sufferings of the modest,
shrinking ex-merchant, who is penniless? Men so reduced would die of starvation, rather than go to the more
prosperous merchants for direct relief. They would receive gladly from a peculiar institution, such as the Merchants' Asylum. Tlle gentlemen named never ihad any
idea, probably, that a merchant can be poor. They feel
that they cannot be, and they regard such a fallen brother as rather more of a criminal than an honest man; or, at
least, they think it his fault if he is poor. It is young
merchants that must lead, if this glorious charity is ever
to succeed, or ever to be started.
On the 12th instant still another appeared:
MERCHANTS' ASYLUM. - Editors Journal of Con.merce: I notice D.'s response of 8th inst., and will willingly became " one of a hundred or more nircliants t)
raise a capital of half a million of dollars,' if so much
be needed, for the object proposed. I mean " to include
old worn out clerks," and would not exclude old broken
down professional men. - M. A. New York, January
10th 1863. [The above is from a substantial citizen.---
EDS, ]
Now there is a commencement. Who knows but cut