Life — May 29, 1884 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

-LIFE: [From Fliegende Blietter.] ot I R. MacVEAGH is not a great man, but he possesses to a delightful extent that tact and good taste for which so many of our politicians are justly famous. In his recent effusion concerning Presi- dent Arthur, he delivers himself in this wise : “*At the threshold I ought to warn you that while nobody envies Mr. Arthur the great prize, as far beyond his expectations as his deserts, which he drew in the lottery of assassination, yet nobody has forgotten the pregnant fact that Guiteau was the original Arthur man, that he killed President Garfield expressly to make Mr. Arthur President, and that he did make him Presi- dent by that act for nearly four years,”” What could be more subtle or delicate ? A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE. Wall Street News. HE janitor of the ’Steenth National Bank reports that on going his rounds before closing for the night on Friday last he entered the President’s private cell, and found . that that gentleman had managed to loosen his bonds—we refer to the iron bonds by which the President was chained to his desk—and had made his escape through the barred window to the floor below, and thence to the street. Fearing lest a general defalcation had been perpetrated, the janitor, an old and respected veteran of the panic of ’84, promptly suspended the Bank and rang the fire | alarm. Upon the arrival of the engines a pair of four- | ply hose were stationed at the front door of the Bank, with a good reserve force of water to nip any antici- | pated run in the bud. These precautions were well taken, for the news of the President’s escape had spread like wild-fire, and in less than an hour the street in front of the building was thronged with anx- ious depositors. At the sight of the engines and hose, confidence was in a measure restored, and some of the reserve water force having been brought into requisi- tion, the depositors become much cooler _A band of Italian emigrants, who were disposed to be riotous, were fired upon by the militia in charge of the hose ; and some of them, being hit by the water, were utterly annihilated. The rest fled. This is good for the Bank, as the funds of the dead depositors, by a rule of the Bank, are turned over to the sinking fund. In the meantime the Directors, who by a recent act of Congress were confined to padded rooms on the top floor of a seventeen-story flat near by, and from whence there are no staircases nor fire-escapes, were | brought down by means of scaling ladders, and | double lines of policemen having been placed along the route from the flat to the bank, were marched into the counting room. A speedy examina- tion of the bank’s assets was had, and as only $10,- 000,000 in specie was missing, together with $14,000,- ooo of Governments, no uneasiness was apprehended and a committee of one was appointed to go down to the U. S. Fire-Proof Extra Heavy Bank President In- telligence Office and get a new self-registering Presi- dent. Unfortunately the demand for this brand has been so great that there were none to be had, but the company loaned a temporary capitalist, the whole of whose body was encased in a burglar-proof safe ex- cepting his head, which came up through the top. He will be kept until the company can furnish a more sat- isfactory occupant for the position. LATER. The President of the ’Steenth National Bank was apprehended this morning in Wall street and was im- comicbooks.com