DEPLETION • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Depletion

... The average man of business now, as always before, seems to live only to be swindled by the same specious artifices that gulled his ancestors, and which will answer to pluck him again almost before the smart of his first depletion has ceased. Only by a thorough knowledge of this singular adaptation of the masses to the purposes of the birds of prey, can we intelligently account for the vast bevies of the latter which exist, and are outwardly ...

— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe