Emily H--. A Sad Story
by Andrew Forrester, Jr.
A few years ago I was instructed by an eminent solicitor, the partner in a large house at the West-end of London, to penetrate the mysteries of one of the most cruel frauds that ever came under the range of my professional observation; and the principal facts of this sad case are embodied in the following narrative.
Mr. H— was the senior partner in one of the largest cotton manufactories in the North of England. His mills in the town of W— gave employment to, I believe, nearly 3,000 persons, men, women, and children. He was reputed, and was, beyond all doubt, a millionaire. The fabrics woven by his looms were famed throughout Great Britain, and all over the world—a distinction yet, I am told, enjoyed by his partners and successors. He was a proud and vulgar man, who in his person and manners realized one of the descriptions of Mrs. Trollope. Popular rumor in the neighborhood of his residence and factory, charged him with all manner of meanness, petty and sensual vice. But let that pass. It is only important to say that several years before he died, he became a sleeping partner in the business he had created; and that vinous or spiritual indulgence sent him to his grave much earlier than in all human probability he would otherwise have gone there. When he expired, no one lamented his death. The operatives lost an employer, but as the steam engine only ceased its panting one day, and the looms and spindles only stopped during this brief period, after which all went on as before; and as nobody lost anything worth mentioning by the fact, and nobody cared anything about a selfish old man, he dropped into his grave without the honour of a monument, or the homage of a tear.
The old cotton manufacturer left behind him a widow, two… Read More