Various

“ Now, however, without waiting till Mr Godding should think himself at leisure to receive me, I entered the room. I easily guessed that the hot and irascible-looking little man with the bald head was Mr George Bowden; while the quiet, young-looking gentleman, sitting in true legal attitude with his elbows leaning on the arms of his chair, and the tips of his fingers lightly pressed together, was the solicitor, Mr Godding. ”

“ The mulatto rushed back eagerly and hastily into his own study; he flung open the cupboard doors, and looked with a sinking heart into the vacant spaces. It was too true, all too true! Miss Euphemia had destroyed in a moment of annoyance the entire result of his years of European collection and his five months’ botanical work since he had arrived in Trinidad.
The poor young man sat down distracted in his easy-chair, and flinging himself back on the padded cushions, ruefully surveyed the bare and empty shelves of his rifled cupboards. ”

“ Three or four months rolled rapidly away, and the Hawthorns began to feel themselves settling down quietly to their new, strange, and anomalous position in the island of Trinidad. In spite of her father’s prohibition, Nora often came around to visit them; and though Mr Dupuy fought hard against her continuing ‘that undesirable acquaintance,’ he soon found that Nora, too, had a will of her own, and that she was not to be restrained from anything on which she had once set her mind, by such very simple and easy means as mere prohibition. ”

“ As matters now stand, the man who steals a few shillings is summarily dealt with, and rarely escapes the punishment due to his crime. But the Company promoter or Financial Agent who deliberately plans to ruin hundreds, and who, so soon as the harvest of one bogus Company is reaped, hastens to sow the seed of another, is allowed to go on with impunity, obtaining by falsehood and misrepresentation infinitely more than many others can by the legitimate use of capital ”

“ The gentlemen who help with their names the floating of such enterprises form a distinct class of themselves, and are termed ‘guinea-pigs,’ most probably from the fact of each ordinary director receiving a guinea for each meeting he attends. In order to be considered of any value as Director of a Company, a guinea-pig ought to have a handle to his name. A Lord, a Baronet, or even a Knight is looked upon as unexceptionable, and may almost command his own price; for it is not to be supposed that a director is to work for nothing. ”

“ The liquidation of a Joint-stock Company can no more go on when there are no more funds, than a human body can live when the breath has left it. The business must then sink into oblivion, and for the present at least the Fiji islanders will have to do without their tramway. ”

“ We have already admitted that there are Companies and Companies—that there are some undertakings offered to the public which are perfectly honest and legitimate; whilst others are got up for the express purpose of swindling the many, and of putting money into the pockets of the few. If, then, supervision were enforced, and no Company allowed to be advertised until it had undergone investigation by competent persons, would it not be all the better for such concerns as are certified to be sound? ”

“ Every day, in almost every paper we take up, we see the most plausible and seductive advertisements, persuading all sorts and conditions of men to apply for shares in this or that Joint-stock Company, with assurances—in which truth is at least economised—of a sure and certain fortune to be made in a few weeks. ”

“ And what of the numerous individuals who have been reduced to poverty, who have been, owing to their credulity, forced into the Bankruptcy Court, and condemned for the rest of their days to a miserable struggle for existence? It is very certain that neither Monte Carlo, nor Homburg when its gambling-tables were in existence, ever did, or ever will, work one-tenth part of the moral and social evil that what may be called commercial swindlers have in England during the last twenty years. And the evil is still on the increase. ”

“ He was, of course, made a bankrupt, and four-fifths of his pension was awarded to his creditors. To live on two hundred pounds a year is by no means an easy task to one who has never known the want of money; he dragged on a miserable existence for a couple of years, and then died from what might almost be called a broken heart.
The sketch here given is a true one, and may serve to show how it is that many men who dabble in amateur finance disappear from their usual haunts and come to irretrievable grief. Englishmen, no matter to what class they belong, must, as a rule, have something to do. ”

“ Finance without funds has had its day, and for the general public, that day has been allowed to continue too long. The anomaly of protecting people from the wiles of the gaming-tables, and yet leaving them to be the victims of plausible schemers, who entice them to a very much more dangerous (because a more hidden) ruin, is too palpably wrong for any honest person to defend; and it behoves the authorities to put a stop to what has become one of the greatest social evils of the day. ”

“ The prospectus distinctly affirms that a tramway in the Fiji islands is sure to be remunerative, and what true-born Briton would dispute a statement which a peer of the realm, a baronet, an M.P., and sundry military officers of high rank tacitly confirm by lending their names to it? There are 150,000 shares in the Company, of which not more than 10,000 have been applied for. But this is better than nothing. Even if a few thousand pounds are received from the would-be shareholders, the promoter is not to be pitied. ”

“ How is it, then, that men waste their time and money in proposing what common-sense, to say nothing of business experience, must tell them can only end in disappointment? In the answer to the question is contained the whole history of Joint-stock Company ‘promoting’ as at present practised. ”

“ That some of these enterprises are bonâ fide, and may give those who join them a fair return for their money, is no doubt true; but these are decidedly the exception to the rule. The real working of the vast majority of these proposed Companies is known to but a comparative few outside the circle in which financial schemes, often of great magnitude, are worked without funds.
There exists in the city of London a somewhat numerous class of men, who were formerly called ‘Promoters of Companies,’ but who have of late years assumed the more sounding title of Financial Agents. ”

“ Promoters of Companies and others whose business it is to finance without funds, have a friendly way of helping each other when pecuniary difficulties arise. Whether they want money to push on some new scheme, or whether only a much milder sum is required for daily expenses, they rarely refuse to put their names to stamped paper for each other. ”

“ A peer who has a seat in the Upper House will probably not allow his name to appear on a prospectus under three hundred to four hundred pounds a year, besides some fifty or a hundred fully paid-up shares. And he is worth the money. The Financial Agents are well aware that when a peer of the realm is secured and heads the list of directors, the most difficult part of their task is accomplished. What remains will follow as a matter of course. ”

“ Gerald thought I should insist on leaving the envelope at the hospital, and trusting to chance and the authorities there for its restoration to the owner; May, being of the true blood of Eve, was of opinion that I ought to open the packet, and, by study of the contents, find out what I should do; while, for my own part, I inclined to what is termed ‘masterly inactivity.’
The truth is that I have an exaggerated, almost superstitious idea of the sanctity of sealing-wax. No one, in these days of gummed envelopes, seals a letter without a special intention of keeping its contents secret ”

“ Another curious fact regarding Joint-stock Company speculation is that what may be called the fashion, which changes, so to speak, as often as that of a lady’s bonnet, and which does not admit of more than one kind of enterprise being popular at the same time. Thus, during all last year and a great portion of 1884, little found favour with the share-taking public save Companies for the extension of the electric light. ”

“ The advisability of ‘letting sleeping dogs lie’ is very seldom questioned; in France the recommendation simply takes the form, ‘Do not wake a sleeping cat.’ In England at least, it is said that ‘Birds of a feather flock together;’ or, to put it less poetically, ‘Those who resemble, assemble.’ Naturally, ‘A thief is set to catch a thief;’ or, in other words, ‘A good cat to a good rat;’ ‘A thief and a half to a thief.’ Evidently one thief is not always sufficient; more are required at times. ”

“ One thing seems very certain; and the more any impartial person looks into the subject, the more convinced he must be that some supervision ought to be exercised with reference to all Joint-stock Company prospectuses which are published, and which increase in number every day. It is very true that fools are, like the poor, always with us ”

“ The mulatto smiled a smile of genuine pleasure. ‘It’s easily remedied, Miss Dupuy,’ he answered quickly. ‘If you really mean it, I shall dedicate my very next composition to you. You’re extremely kind to take such a friendly interest in my poor music.’
‘I hope I’m not overdoing it,’ Nora thought to herself. ‘But the poor fellow really has so much to put up with, that one can’t help behaving a little kindly to him, when one happens to get the opportunity.’
When Dr Whitaker rose to leave, he shook hands with Nora very warmly, and said as he did so: ‘Good-bye, Miss Dupuy. ”

“ In the proverb, ‘One man may lead a horse to the water, but a hundred can’t make him drink,’ our neighbours have not inappropriately selected an ‘ass’ as the illustrative animal. ‘When you’re in Rome, you must do as Rome does,’ every Englishman will tell you; though few perhaps could say why Rome was chosen as an example; and whether it is more necessary, when in Rome, to follow the general lead, than in anywhere else, is to us a matter of doubt. ”

“ It seems a great pity that the art of producing pictures in far more permanent pigments, that of drawing in pastels or coloured chalks, should have been almost lost sight of, or at least relegated to the itinerant artist who decorates our pavements with impossible landscapes. ”

“ With a matter of three to four thousand pounds, he can satisfy all claims, even to paying directors’ fees for the few times they have sat at the Board. The whole affair is then allowed to die a natural death; unless, indeed, as sometimes happens, some disappointed creditor petitions the Court that the Company shall be wound up. By some mysterious means, the promoter or his nominee is named liquidator; a solicitor, who, as a matter of course, does not get the berth for nothing, takes the matter in hand ”

“ The discovery of petroleum wells on the west coast of the Red Sea is both interesting and full of promise for a country such as Egypt, whose finances have for so long been in a deplorable condition. The yield of oil is at present but insignificant when compared with the enormous quantities which gush forth at Baku, and with the amount tapped from the American wells. ”

“ In France, a Society has been formed for the revival of pastel-work, and its influence has been felt in London, where an excellent Exhibition of Coloured Chalk Drawings has lately been opened. We may hope that these efforts will lead to a revival of a lost art, which has other advantages besides permanence to recommend it. ”

“ If it were possible to obtain a reliable return of those who have been beggared by these swindles during the{261} last ten or fifteen years, there would soon be a public outcry in favour of this supervision of proposed Companies; and a very great evil, the greatest financial evil of the present day, would be quickly and surely remedied.
That the whole system must ere long undergo revision, and that it must be sooner or later put under proper control, is what no one who has had opportunity of witnessing the working behind the curtains can doubt. ”

“ Is it possible that in two consecutive years, 1883-84—both of which were noted as being exceptionally dull as regards commercial enterprise—such an enormous sum as upwards of four hundred and twenty millions could have found any legitimate source of employment by means of new Joint-stock Companies? ”

“ And what about the unfortunates who were rash enough to apply for shares in the Company? Well, they must, like the rest of the world, be content to suffer for their own acts. No one persuaded them to apply for shares; they have lost their money ”

“ Promoters and Financial Agents have had a good time of it for the last twenty years, and it will be only fair if they are now obliged to retire on their laurels; and their calling, so far as dishonesty be concerned, become a thing of the past. ”

“ That a man—or rather his clothes—should be ‘stitched with gold’ is about on a par with ‘rolling in money.’ It does not require a very powerful imagination to trace the likeness supposed to exist between a person placing his arms ‘akimbo’ and making or imitating a two-handled vase. ”

“ As it is true of individuals, that every one looks at things from his or her point of view, so it is more or less true of all nations; and it follows that, from the two nations here spoken of having different ideas on many subjects, and different ways of looking at things, it is not always possible to ‘transplant’ one idea satisfactorily into another tongue. ”

“ For a short time—for a few months—they are content to do nothing; but after they have renewed old friendships, and revisited the scenes of their early life, and settled down to what must be a comparatively monotonous life, they find there is something wanting, and that employment or occupation is almost necessary to their very existence. ”