[D2] "Opening of the Second Seal," Spirit of the Times, Jan. 28, 1842

Opening of the Second Seal—The Girard Bank Yesterday—The Excitement, the Mob, the Threats, the Popular Tumult, &c. &c.

The excitement which yesterday continued to exist in the public mind in relation to the Girard Bank, was mirrored in the elements.  The day was clear and intensely cold.  The wind whistled along the streets, raising the dust, sending awning covers, sign posts and signs adrift, and on all sides you heard it remarked that it was rather extraordinary that the day fixed for the interment of the deceased bank should be one of the very coldest of the present winter.

At an early hour a dense crowd gathered in Third street, in front of the bank; the steps and space before the doorway were soon filled up, and the mass extended from Chestnut street on the north, to the Exchange on the south.  The crowd was scattered in groups, composed of all classes of our fellow citizens, from the sturdy laborer and intelligent mechanic, up to the classic cloaked lawyer, and the bang-up covered merchant.

SCENES FROM TEN UNTIL ELEVEN O'CLOCK A.M.

We arrived on the ground before 10 o'clock.  It was a singular scene.  Every eye was centered on the building with its Corinthian pillars, and the beautiful embellishments at the top, consisting of an eagle, with a number of scrolls in his neighborhood, seemed to call forth a new and peculiar admiration.

We ascended the steps of the institution, and edging our way through the crowd, we discovered the door of the bank closed, and shut as fast as the gates of heaven are reported to be to the access of certain bank directors.

The space immediately in front of the spacious door, was blocked up by some dozen big, stout lusty fellows, one of them with a face as red as the ancient Bardolph, while the others were marked by a peculiar expression of countenance.

"Who are these individuals?" we asked.

"Why," replied a stout, broad shouldered mechanic, dressed in a white round jacket, and with his hands in his pocket, "Why them's the police—some are extemporary ones—and some is old—not offenders—but old hands at the business.  Don't you see the maces a-sticking out of their coat pockets?"

"And there," cried another mechanic—" And there is Levin H. Smith.  Vot a remarkably healthy visage he's got—hey?  And that gentlemanly looking man in the snuff colored bangup—that's Mayor Scott; he's the very man for such a time as this—"

"How so?" cried a tall, strapping fellow, in a white bangup, with a sort of don't-meddle-with-me expression to his countenance—"How so?  Mayor Scott is a good enough sort of man, but does it comport with his dignity to be keeping guard over a parcel of thieves and robbers?"

"Better be a-guardin' the thieves and robbers at Moyamensing."

"Hell, there; that ain't fair.  The comparison is unjust to the thieves and convicts.  They have been driven to do wrong from want.  These fellers have been robbin' and plunderin' the people, and rioting in all sorts of high livin' all the while—"

"Why, friends," quietly observed a sober looking Quaker, "I do indeed believe, and it is my impression, that there isn't any money in the Bank—"

"So they said when the United States Bank failed"—cried the stout little fellow in the red jacket—"So they said when that concern busted up; and yet there's a considerable lot of people who are drawin' big, fat salaries, out o' that same institution to this day.  What does that mean?"

"What does it mean?" cried a hundred voices.

"Where's Col. Lee?" asked a tall person, dressed in a much worn blue bangup—"Where's Colonel Lee?"

"Where's his promise of the Bank openin' at nine this mornin'?" cried another individual. 

"Where is he?" shouted the crowd.

We approached Mayor Scott at the same moment that our friend, Wm. D. Kelley, "the Tribune of the people," came edging through the crowd from an opposite side.

"For my part, Mr. Kelley, I am as deep a sufferer by this explosion as any one.  I have no feeling—no commiseration for these people within the Bank.  Yet what is the use of our fellow citizens venting their indignation against the senseless walls?"

"True, Mr. Mayor—I think you take correct ground in this matter.  Still, when one looks around upon this excited crowd, and takes into consideration the cause they have for their excitement, we must confess that things look rather squally."

"It needs but a spark—" cried a voice in the crowd—"it needs but a spark to blow this gunpowder magazine to the d—l."

Another group arrested our attention.  Quite a throng were gathered around a stout, hearty looking man dressed in a coarse blue bang-up, with an enormous foot-rule projecting from his pocket.

"What are you goin' to do with that thunderin' rule?"

"Why heerin' that there was a bank dead about these parts, I come to measure the coffin.  The funeral I believe starts at twelve.  Don't it?"

"Look there at that old man leanin' against that pillar—I wonder if he ain't the crazy old feller that the Spirit o' th' Times mentions this mornin'?"

"That was all blarney!"

"Was it? I tell you my dear feller, I seen the old individual in the banking room yesterday."

"Who's got the Spirit of the Times?  Where can one get the paper?"

"I was up to the office just now.  They've sold out three hours ago.  The boys are sellin' them for a fip-a-piece."

"Well, if the folks had minded that paper three months ago, I tell you they wouldn't suffer so much now."

"Hello!  Look at that big Irishman pushing through the crowd.  I wonder what he's after."—

"What's the manin' ov all this?" exclaimed the Irishman pushing into the lot of constables-"Is the bank closed? hey?  Here's a $10 ov the d—d rotten money which I got last night.  Praps the gentleman in the snuff colored coat can tell me where I'll get change for it?"

"I'm very sorry, my friend, but I can't tell you where to get change for your money."

"Money? money?  Is it money ye are after callin' the rag?  It's a nice pickle I'm in.  My children at home without food to eat or fire to warm 'em."

"Be J—s Mr. Mayor, but I've a great notion to take one of these watch-boxes home wid me, and split it up for fire wood, and leave the $10 wd your Honor—Mr. Mayor?"

SCENES BETWEEN 11 AND 12 O'CLOCK.

"The officers are stealin' specie out of the back way," cried a voice in the crowd, and directly there was a rush made for the alley in the rear of the bank.

The alley was presently crowded and jammed by an immense collection of people, hurrying from all quarters.  A pile of logs at the south west corner of the yard in the rear of the bank, was presently covered by a portion of the mass, and a posse of extempore police officers were observed walking up and down the garden walks.

"Some of the individuals belonging to the bank—(the speaker was among the crowd on the wood pile)—were seen going out of the yard not five minutes since, with their pockets crammed with specie."

"That looks like no specie in the bank, don't it?"

"They say that Lewis, the cashier, has just now sent for Alderman Mitchell, with the intention of making an assignment."

"Hello! git down there," cried a police officer in the yard, approaching the wall, "git down there-you really ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

"Ha!  ha!  ha!  I wonder how much it costs the corporation to color that police officer's nose!"

"It would be a very interesting calculation, indeed, to count up the cost.  I say, Mr. Policeman, what's the use of watching outside of the bank, when the thieves are all inside?"

The excitement in the alley continued for nearly an hour.

The Mayor and his posse were on the ground, and an outbreak was momentarily expected.

From twelve until three o'clock, the crowd still continued to hold their ground, and spectacles of heart rending distress were momentarily exhibited.  Various rumors continued to be current concerning the fate of the other banks, and the general opinion seemed to be, that they would all follow the fate of the Girard Bank.

"I wish," cried a mechanic to the crowd in front of the institution to a group who stood round us, "I wish all the other banks would follow suit!"

"Cause why?"

"It would save the expense of separate funerals."

A respectable looking man, dressed in a fashionable bangup, was standing on the steps, with his face drawn out to a length that would have created great suspicion of his having to pay the barber double price the next time he was shaved.

"I wish to heaven," he observed, turning to a friend who stood near, "I wish to heaven I knew what to do with these Girard notes which I have in my pocket.  Can nobody tell me what to do with them?"

"I can tell you," exclaimed a bluff, rough voice, proceeding, in fact, from a stout six-footer, who was also standing on the steps—"I can tell you what to do with these notes."

"What can I do with them?" asked the other eagerly.

 "Invest 'em in crow bars."

Here a person was observed pushing his way through the crowd, and presently he affixed a large paper to the door of the Bank.  The crowd gathered round the door, and read the following paper:—

NOTICE.

The Notes of this Bank will be redeemed on Friday and Saturday mornings, at the counter of the U. S. Bank.

"Well, I'm blow'd if that ain't rich!"

"Rich—Excellent—Beautiful—Ha!  ha!  ha!"

"At the counter of the U. S. Bank—that's too good-ha!  ha!  ha!"

"I'll go and stick it on our board"—exclaimed the clerk of the Chronicle—"I'll go immediately—I will."

As he departed, a hand was thrust forward, and the paper was torn into fragments.

"It's a hoax, gentlemen, a deplorable hoax-"

"Wonder who that is that tore down the paper."

"Why that's Mr. Kenney, the Mayor's Clerk."

"Look here, Bill—I wonder whether this report's true, about a certain Cashier buying chairs at $100 a-piece?"

"True as gospel.  I've got a wonder too, Jake.-Where does this 'ere Cashier live?"

"Oh, my friends, my friends," exclaimed a member of the society of Friends.  "You certainly don't want to mob the Cashier?  It would be doing very wrong.  It would indeed.  What though he did buy chairs for $100 a piece?  It was all done out of his private fortune—and then you have the law by which you can remedy your wrong."

"Oh, yes—we have the law, so has Nick Biddle!"

The Quaker walked away.

During the hours of three, four, five and six o'clock, the crowd thinned away, yet still there was an extensive assemblage remaining in front of the Bank.  A great number of farmers arrived from the country with their pockets full of the notes of the broken Bank.

We select the following from among the innumerable instances of distress that met our eyes at every turn.

A tall, raw-boned countryman, dressed in linsey-woolsey, was standing amid the circle of listeners that gathered round him, while he displayed in one hand a roll of notes bearing the words "Girard Bank" in very legible characters upon their faces.

"Dis ish a purty piece of bisness—here am I—I come to town to buy dings for my family,—dings for de winter, and I findsz dat dis money is jist as good as nothing."

"How did you get so much of it?  Why did you keep the worthless trash on hand?"

"Well, I sold all my crops,—my wheat flour and my rye flour, as well as my corn:—It was last fall when I sold it—and I puts it all in Gee-rard bank notes—why?  Because a nice, big-bellied old gentleman in de bank told me it was te very best—and I heard every body say-'O! de notes is goot—nothing can be better—"

"Why if you had looked in the "Times" you would have been taught better."

"De Times!  O, I remember.  One day last fall I was settin' in de market, and I was readin' dis paper, when a sleek looking old feller, who was buyin' a turkey of me told me not to read the Times.  It lies—says he—like anoter Judas Iskariot—it does—it's a damndt low radical—tat was te word—radical paper.  Well, I didn't so much keer for dis feller, but every body says dat de Gee-rard paper was goot—and so I puts all my money in its notes—and here I am without a cent in Got's world—and wid nothin' to take home to my folks.  It's too hard for a poor man-four hundred dollars gone at a slap!  A tear quivered in the eye of the sunburnt countryman as he spoke, and sickened and disgusted at the trickery and fraud of those concerned in the bank, we turned away from the scene.

The excitement prevailing upon the subject of this explosion in our city yesterday, brought fearfully to mind the premonitory scenes that are wont to herald works of destruction and blood.  It is a matter of sincere satisfaction to us, as it must be to all well disposed citizens, that the bank excitement has resulted in nothing like riot, outbreak or popular violence.  This is the third day of the excitement.  Where will it end?