Updraft

“ We unstrapped our knapsacks, and sat down upon the grass, and basked in the sun a while. Then we essayed to cross the stepping-stones with the knapsacks in our hands; but, finding this something of an undertaking, we pitched them gently on the opposite bank.
But that bank was sloping, covered with short smooth grass, and treacherous, so that both those knapsacks rolled back, and plunged into the water and sank, sending up a succession of air-bubbles.
I am a truthful historian (between these two covers, at any rate) , and write nothing but the truth ”

“ To my grief and annoyance Jones also was honest, and Jones would consider it his duty to let the directors know of my overdraft. If once they knew, I was lost, for an overdraft effected privately from the safe by the manager is, I do not deny it, decidedly irregular. Unless I could add five thousand dollars to my ten thousand before the end of the month I should have to bolt! ”

“ Once they were cold cheerless places. A suspicion of an overdraft always swept through them. Now I love to go to the bank and see the beautiful blonde and brown and auburn heads bent over the ledgers. If I could be quite certain that they were not looking up the details of my account I should be perfectly happy.
Somebody told me that I could buy War Loan at 51⁄4 per cent. by borrowing money from my bank at five per cent. This seemed to be the kind of investment I had been looking for. I found that if I took a million on those terms I should draw a net income of £2,500 a year. ”

“ Classification of Drafts.—There are several kinds of drafts, which may be either sight or time instruments. A draft drawn “at sight” is a request on the drawee to pay at sight, i.e., immediately upon presentation to him. The use of the sight draft in making collections is quite common. A delinquent customer is drawn on at sight and collection is attempted through the bank. The method is oftentimes effective because refusal to pay may reflect on the drawee’s credit with his own bank. Usually no formal book entry is made of such drafts [Pg 180] until paid. ”

“ In this country a peon cannot leave the land he belongs on while he is in debt to his master; and as they earn only about twelve and one-half cents a day they are always in debt. A son is responsible also for his father’s debts, so they are practically slaves, with no chance of ever freeing themselves. It is a terrible system.”
“Your plants do not seem to have suffered much from the wind, sir,” said Kit ”

“ To seek in every ship of ours
A bounty for itself.
“Would we dispute the seizure,
Our loss can be discuss’d
And righted but in England’s courts, [20]
And by a judge whom it supports;—
And that, they say, is just.
“No fleet of mine [21] shall carry
A stamp, though all I lose.
I choose, ere it, to save my soul!”
The whole land heard, and soon the whole
Had sworn no stamps to use.
New York had lived by commerce.
Her merchants vow’d, they all, [22]
Ere stamps they bought, would sail no boats,
And sell no goods, and pass no notes—
They would not live in thrall. ”

“ There's a mortgage of twelve thousand on that place now; you pay your ten, and 6 per cent, on the rest—that's something a little more than sixty dollars a month—and then you clear off your loan, or not, as suits you! I don't have to tell you that that's good business. How much of the holdings of Pearsall and Pearsall are clear of mortgages! We carry 'em on every inch of our land, right to the hilt too. If you're getting the equivalent of 8 or 9 per cent, on your money, you should worry about the man that carries the loan. ”

“ It may have been a coincidence that she called so soon after the board meeting, but Tubs thought otherwise. He was by nature suspicious.
He listened gravely to all she had to say.
"I'm sorry," he said, when she had finished, "but I see no immediate prospect of a dividend. If you need the money badly, I will let you have an overdraft on my own responsibility." ”

“ Captain Gildrock took the mortgage on his farm, and lent him money to pay his interest and the more pressing of his other debts. His daughters pay their board, and the eight dollars a week from this source is a godsend to him.
Mrs. Millweed does not say much about the new order of things, but she cannot help seeing and appreciating the improvement in their circumstances; for the farmer is certain that he shall be able to pay all his debts in time, and own his farm free and clear. ”

“ The simplest way of explaining the operation of raising a draft or check is as follows:
Two men are necessary for success at any given point, and hence they are not so liable to detection as if a number of confederates were engaged. It is the business of one of these men to enter a bank, and purchase a draft on New York City, for a certain amount of money, usually about fifteen hundred dollars, and a short time after this another draft would be procured from the same bank for a small amount, seldom over ten dollars. ”

“ We have advice of your draft for one thousand dollars. To protect your credit, we shall pay it; but we beg you will draw no more, till you forward bills of lading.
'You are now overdrawn some five thousand dollars, which, by the maturing of your drafts, has become a cash advance. The death of our senior, Mr. Randall, and the consequent withdrawal of his capital, has left us with an extended business and limited means. Money, also, is very tight, and we therefore earnestly beg you to put us in funds at the earliest possible moment.' ”

“ Before I could frame any answer—and, indeed, I know not what answer I could have made—there was a great noise and trampling upon deck, and a man came down to tell us that the vessel was about to weigh anchor, and that the boatswain was wanted to attend to the service of the ship. Whereupon he left me, in the company of bitterer thoughts than a man can have more than once in his life.
I pass over the dreary time spent by me in that dismal confinement during our voyage. Old Muzzy visited me pretty often, and once Rupert himself came down and made offers towards a reconcilement. ”

“ Variations upon the rate of agio, of 2 or 3 per cent. perhaps more, are frequent and familiar. The demands of trade, for coin or credit, are so fluctuating, that such variations are unavoidable; but were there an overcharge of bank credit, which no power could diminish, that overcharge would quickly be perceived; because the fluctuations of the agio would entirely cease; as the balance of a scale, nearly in equilibrio, ceases from a total overcharge on one side. ”

“ In other words, what I want to impress upon you is that if the draft is the economic title to goods, which are moving from the producer to the consumer, the liability of a bank upon an acceptance is reduced to a minimum. Acceptances of drafts growing out of sales and shipments of goods will never be a source of dangerous expansion, because they will liquidate, or pay themselves out, as the goods will be wanted to eat, to wear, to use, or to go into other manufactures, almost immediately. ”

“ Dredging in 150 fathoms is very hard work, if it has to be carried on by manual labor; but by the use of the donkey-engine to supply power, [2] and of the contrivances known as "accumulators," to diminish the risk of snapping the dredge-rope by the rolling and pitching of the vessel, the dredge has been worked deeper and deeper, until at last, on the 22d of July, 1869, H. M. S. Porcupine being in the Bay of Biscay, Captain Calver, her commander, performed the unprecedented feat of dredging in 2,435 fathoms, or 14,610 feet, a depth nearly equal to the height of Mont Blanc. ”

“ The master of the tug, having no authority to decide, as between a barge and her cargo, what part shall be sacrificed for the safety of the rest, and thereby to subject what is saved to contribute in general average for what is lost, can surely have no greater authority, by abandoning all the barges with their cargoes, to subject the tug to a general average contribution. ”

“ I felt the strong arm of D'ri clasping me tightly. I heard the thump and roll and rattle of the logs heaping above us; I felt the water washing over me; but I could see nothing. I knew the raft had doubled; it would fall and grind our bones: but I made no effort to save myself. ”

“ If you have a wealthy friend who is willing to sign a promissory note with you, or to guarantee your banker against loss up to a certain sum, an overdraft can soon be arranged; but such a request puts friendship to the severest test, and it may be extremely difficult to find your friend at home should he as much as suspect the reason of your visit. ”

“ When we step down from the liner into the tramp there is a woeful collapse. Of course only the very best type of tramp and the largest will carry a third mate at all, and he has no position worth talking about. From what I have said in the foregoing pages about the life of a second mate on board a tramp some idea will be gathered of what sort of a post a third mate would hold in such a ship, where one is carried. ”

“ If we did not put our money out we might close the bank to-morrow. That much of the money cannot be got in at a minute’s notice is a thing we cannot avoid.”
The perspiration stood on Rodd’s forehead, but he persisted. “If it were all on bills, sir, I would not say a word. But there is a lot on overdraft.”
“Well secured.”
“While things are up. But if things went down, sir? There’s Wolley’s account. I suspect that the last bills we discounted for him were accommodation. Indeed, I am sure of it. And his overdraft is heavy.”
“We hold the lease of his mill.” ”

“ And if the whole herd or flock be entirely changed, the heads which have renewed it are engaged in the same manner as the old stock. Thus, when the bounds of a piece of ground that is mortgaged happen to be enlarged by that which the course of a river may add to it, the mortgage extends to that which has augmented the ground. ”

“ The rafts in the meantime to keep the middle of the stream. The man to be put ashore, and not to swim ashore, as the first thing could be more quickly done than the second. The raft conveying him, to get back into mid-stream, and to hold on along with the other, as well as it could, until signalled by the man. In case of danger, the man to shift for himself until it should be safe to take him aboard again, I volunteered to be the man.
We knew that the voices and oars must come up slowly against the stream; and our seamen knew, by the set of the stream, under which bank they would come. ”

“ This woman must have been a mirror of neatness when compared with her dirty neighbours.
One night I was roused up from my bed for the loan of a pair of "steelyards." For what purpose think you, gentle reader? To weigh a new-born infant. The process was performed by tying the poor squalling thing up in a small shawl, and suspending it to one of the hooks. The child was a fine boy, and weighed ten pounds, greatly to the delight of the Yankee father.
One of the drollest instances of borrowing I have ever heard of was told me by a friend. ”

“ Vieve cried, throwing her arms about her brother’s neck and nearly choking him. “You? Just for writing out those paper things on a ship? That’s twelve hundred dollars a year! why, Mr. Wright don’t get more than a thousand, I’m sure, and the parsonage; but then you’ll have a sort of parsonage too—at least the ship to live in.”
“Ah! but Mr. Wright don’t travel about with cardinals!” Kit laughed. “That makes all the difference in the world. What do you think of it, mother? It is an important matter, and you are the one to decide it.” ”

“ But the young folks were sceptical, especially the girls that had been away to school. The boy that had been kept at home because he couldn't be spared from helping his father manage the farm was more like him, but they contrived to stir the boy up--with the hot end of the boom, too. So when a fellow came along one day and offered old Dryfoos a cool hundred thousand for his farm, it was all up with Dryfoos. ”

“ You do the striking, and I’ll do the working. The fellows who work don’t generally need to strike. Besides, I like to do it.”
That evening Captain Griffith called Kit into his stateroom when his work in the pantry was done.
“I want you to make me out a complete list of everything that has been landed so far,” he said, “so that the agent ashore can receipt for the goods. I suppose you see by this time something of what a supercargo’s work is on board ship.”
“Yes, sir,” Kit answered; “he has to see that the whole cargo is taken out and landed, and receipted for by the agent.” ”

“ When the recession has reached the point i, or, in other words, when the gradient of the stream below the fall crosses the junction of the beds of unequal hardness, as it ultimately must, effective undermining ceases, and the end of the fall is at hand. ”

“ After two or three hours passed in dreadful suspense, though it appeared as if the whole night must have elapsed, the ship became more steady, and the sea broke over her less violently. “We must get a raft made,” exclaimed Cousin Silas. The men seemed to look instinctively to him for orders, and willingly obeyed him. All hands set to work, some to collect the spars which had not been washed overboard, others to cut away the bulwarks and to get off the hatches—indeed, to bring together everything that would serve to form a raft. ”

“ Seventy-two men and four females sought refuge on a raft which the seamen, when they found the ship sinking, had hastily constructed, but one by one they were swept away—every wave as it washed over the raft claiming one or more victims as its prey; and at eight o’clock on the following morning, one human being alone was left out of the seventy-six persons who, only twelve or fifteen hours before had hoped to save their lives on this temporary structure. ”