In a few days, the public places of the cities of T——­ and A——­ were posted up with large placards, and advertisements were inserted in all the daily papers, which read thus:—­

  WANTED.

  Three thousand men to work on the Northern Railroad at one dollar
  a day of twelve hours.  Men who wish to work extra time will
  receive extra wages.

  Wanted, also, six hundred horses to hire, at three dollars a day
  for every team, on the same work.

  P. LOFIN,
  VAN STINGEY,
  KITCHINS, & CO.

In a few days, not only did the three thousand men make their appearance, but twice that number were now located on the site of the proposed line.  But how were so many men to live?  There was some delay in proceeding with the works, and Van Stingey and Co., having represented themselves as very independent and wealthy contractors, said that, as they did not like to be hard on the men, they would give them free sites for their shanties, which the men could afterwards have without the necessity of having to pay so much a month for their use, as was the custom with other but less honorable contractors than Van Stingey, Purse, Lofin, & Co.

This bait took “capitally,” as Van used to say, and not only were two hundred shanties built, but the praise of the “ginerous contractors” was in every mouth; and “Hurrah for Lofin, Van Stingey, & Co.,” became a regular toast among the men, as they went to spend a shilling in the company’s grocery store.  The shanties were now up, and the horses, three hundred in number, all ready for work; but a week, and another, and a third passed on, and not a sod of ground was broke on the ten miles of our independent company’s contract.  Here was now a sad and alarming spectacle.  Thousands of men, women, and children, seduced into a wilderness by the specious promises of these vile knaves; and now, after having spent every penny they had earned for years, brought to the very verge of starvation.  Some were obliged to trade off and sell their clothes for food; others had to open small retail groceries to keep themselves and their neighbors from starving.  The more independent in circumstances were obliged to mortgage their horses and carts for provisions and fodder; and all had, as far as their means went, to patronize the new store opened by the contractors, who retailed provisions and groceries, to those who had any thing to lose, at a profit of one hundred and a quarter per cent. on their original cost.  For three months this was the state of things on the contract of our honorable company.  Works not yet commenced, men and horses half starving, occasional murmurs among the most knowing of the hands—­which murmurs were, however, soon allayed by the representations of the bosses and their countryman Mr. Lofin, who pledged his honor as a “gintlemon that the whault lied intirely with the directors, and the faurmuns, who refused to settle for the right