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DEMORALIZATION BRED BY LAW. The failure of the Real Estate Company of Philadelphia on the 28th of August, coming 30 soon after that of the Milwaukee Av. enue Savings Bank of Chicago, the failure of the Walsh banks of the same city, and of the Enterprise National Bank of Allegheny, Pyennsylvania, and the exposure of the unparalleled rascalities of the insurance companies of New York, produces a sense of insecurity bordering on panic. All these failures and betrayals of trust by men of high standing in the financial and religious ranks of society indicate wide-spread demoralization. No man with money on deposit in bank can feel safe. It is not, of course, generally believed that all, or even the greater number of bankers, are dishonest; but since many have been exposed as thieves and worse, and since all those who have been exposed were men of supposedly high character, people begin to suspect everybody connected with the business. They begin to fear that our banking system, State and National, is a spare instead of a citadel. The Allegheny concern and the Walsh concerns were all National banks, supposed to be under the careful guardianship of the Comptroller of the Currency But their failure shows that Federal Supervision of banking is largely a failure; that Federal inspectors of banking are about as lax as those of Federal meat inspectors who su pervised the packing houses of Chicago, whose inspection was "fonetik" enough, but by no meaus energetic enough. The President is directly responsible to the people for the rascalities and inefficiency of his bank inspectors and his meat inspec tors; and if he would attend to his official duties instead of "handling Congress," and preaching about large families and square deals, and issuing proclamations about spelling, those who eat meat and deposit their money in banks would fare better.
