AN ARCTIC VISION

[June 20, 1867]

WHERE the short-legged Esquimaux Waddle in the ice and snow,

And the playful Polar bear Nips the hunter unaware; Where by day they track the ermine, And by night another vermin, — Segment of the frigid zone, Where the temperature alone Warms on St. Elias' cone; Polar dock, where Nature slips From the ways her icy ships; Land of fox and deer and sable, Shore end of our western cable, Let the news that flying goes Thrill through all your Arctic floes, And reverberate the boast From the cliffs off Beechey's coast, Till the tidings, circling round Every bay of Norton Sound, Throw the vocal tide-wave back To the isles of Kodiac. Let the stately Polar bears Waltz around the pole in pairs, And the walrus, in his glee, Bare his tusk of ivory; While the bold sea-unicorn Calmly takes an extra horn; All ye Polar skies, reveal your Very rarest of parhelia; Trip it, all ye merry dancers, In the airiest of "Lancers"; Slide, ye solemn glaciers, slide, One inch farther to the tide, Nor in rash precipitation Upset Tyndall's calculation.

Know you not what fate awaits you, Or to whom the future mates you?

All

ye icebergs make salaam,

You belong to Uncle Sam!

On the spot where Eugene Sue

Led his wretched Wandering Jew,
Stands a form whose features strike
Russ and Esquimaux alike.
He it is whom Skalds of old
In their Runic rhymes foretold;
Lean of flank and lank of jaw,
See the real Northern Thor!
See the awful Yankee leering
Just across the Straits of Behring;

On the drifted snow, too plain, Sinks his fresh tobacco stain, Just beside the deep indenTation of his Number 10.

Leaning on his icy hammer
Stands the hero of this drama,
And above the wild-duck's clamor,
In his own peculiar grammar,
With its linguistic disguises,
Lo, the Arctic prologue rises:
"Wall, I reckon 'tain't so bad,
Seein' ez 't was all they had;
True, the Springs are rather late
And early Falls predominate;
But the ice crop 's pretty sure,
And the air is kind o' pure;
"Tain't so very mean a trade,
When the land is all surveyed.

There's a right smart chance for fur-chase
All along this recent purchase,
And, unless the stories fail,
Every fish from cod to whale;

Rocks, too; mebbe quartz; let's see,
"T would be strange if there should be,
Seems I've heerd such stories told;
Eh!-why, bless us, yes, it's gold!"

Of yon ice mountain hurled Down this unfinished world.

567

JOAQUIN MILLER.

Friday, September 24, 1869, witnessed one of the greatest panics ever known in the United States, when Jay Gould and a few associates managed to drive the price of gold up to 1624.

ISRAEL FREYER'S BID FOR GOLD

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1869

ZOUNDS! how the price went flashing through
Wall Street, William, Broad Street, New!
All the specie in all the land

Held in one Ring by a giant hand
For millions more it was ready to pay,
And throttle the Street on hangman's-day.
Up from the Gold Pit's nether hell,
While the innocent fountain rose and fell,
Loud and higher the bidding rose,
And the bulls, triumphant, faced their foes..
It seemed as if Satan himself were in it:
Lifting it
one per cent a minute -
Through the bellowing broker, there amid,
Who made the terrible, final bid!

High over all, and ever higher,

Was heard the voice of Israel Freyer, A doleful knell in the storm-swept mart, "Five millions more! and for any part I'll give One Hundred and Sixty!" Israel Freyer - the Government Jew Good as the best-soaked through and through

With credit gained in the year he sold
Our Treasury's precious hoard of gold;
Now through his thankless mouth rings

out

The leaguers' last and cruellest shout!
Pity the shorts? Not they, indeed,
While a single rival's left to bleed!
Down come dealers in silks and hides,
Crowding the Gold Room's rounded sides,
Jostling, trampling each other's feet,
Uttering groans in the outer street;
Watching, with upturned faces pale,
The scurrying index mark its tale;

Hearing the bid of Israel Freyer, — That ominous voice, would it never tire? "Five millions more! - for any part (If it breaks your firm, if it cracks your

One Hundred and Sixty! Can't be true!
What will the bears-at-forty do?
How will the merchants pay their dues?
How will the country stand the news?
What 'll the banks but listen! hold!
In screwing upward the price of gold
To that dangerous, last, particular peg,
They have killed their Goose with the Golden
Egg!

Just there the metal came pouring out,
All ways at once, like a water-spout,
Or a rushing, gushing, yellow flood,
That drenched the bulls wherever they stood!
Small need to open the Washington main,
Their coffer-dams were burst with the strain!
It came by runners, it came by wire,
To answer the bid of Israel Freyer,
It poured in millions from every side,
And almost strangled him as he cried, -

"I'll give One Hundred and Sixty!"

Like Vulcan after Jupiter's kick,
Or the aphoristical Rocket's stick,
Down, down, down, the premium fell,
Faster than this rude rhyme can tell!
'Thirty per cent the index slid,

Yet Freyer still kept making his bid, -
"One Hundred and Sixty for any part!"

The sudden ruin had crazed his heart, Shattered his senses, cracked his brain, And left him crying again and again, Still making his bid at the market's top (Like the Dutchman's leg that never could stop),

"One Hundred and Sixty-Five Millions more!"

Till they dragged him, howling, off the floor.

The very last words that seller and buyer Heard from the mouth of Israel FreyerA cry to remember long as they liveWere, "I'll take Five Millions more! I'll giveI'll give One Hundred and Sixty!"

Suppose (to avoid the appearance of evil)
There's such a thing as a Personal Devil,
It would seem that his Highness here got hold,
For once, of a bellowing Bull in Gold!
Whether bull or bear, it would n't much matter
Should Israel Freyer keep up his clatter
On earth or under it (as, they say,
He is doomed) till the general Judgment Day,
When the Clerk, as he cites him to answer for 't,
Shall bid him keep silence in that Court!
But it matters most, as it seems to me,
That my countrymen, great and strong and free,

So marvel at fellows who seem to win,
That if even a Clown can only begin
By stealing a railroad, and use its purse
For cornering stocks and gold, or - worse
For buying a Judge and Legislature,
And sinking still lower poor human nature,
The gaping public, whatever befall,
Will swallow him, tandem, harlots, and all!
While our rich men drivel and stand amazed
At the dust and pother his gang have raised,
And make us remember a nursery tale
Of the four-and-twenty who feared one snail.

What's bred in the bone will breed, you know;
Clowns and their trainers, high and low,
Will cut such capers, long as they dare,
While honest Poverty says its prayer.
But tell me what prayer or fast can save
Some hoary candidate for the grave,
The market's wrinkled Giant Despair,
Muttering, brooding, scheming there, -
Founding a college or building a church
Lest Heaven should leave him in the lurch!
Better come out in the rival way,
Issue your scrip in open day,

And pour your wealth in the grimy fist
Of some gross-mouthed, gambling pugilist;
Leave toil and poverty where they lie,
Pass thinkers, workers, artists, by,
Your pot-house fag from his counters bring
And make him into a Railway King!
Between such Gentiles and such Jews
Little enough one finds to choose:
Either the other will buy and use,
Eat the meat and throw him the bone,
And leave him to stand the brunt alone.

Let the tempest come, that's gathering near, And give us a better atmosphere!

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

On October 8 and 9, 1871, Chicago, which had grown to be the greatest city in the West, was almost entirely destroyed by fire. An area of three and a half square miles was burned over; two hundred people were killed and a hundred thousand rendered homeless.

CHICAGO

[October 8-10, 1871]

MEN said at vespers: "All is well!"
In one wild night the city fell;
Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain
Before the fiery hurricane.