Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 3. Samuel Warren

an estimate of his Lordship's powers; and whom his Lordship's condescending familiarity never for one moment caused to lose sight of the vast distance and difference between them. He appeared, moreover, to act between Titmouse and the earl with the scrupulous candor and fidelity of a high-minded person, consciously placed in a situation of peculiar delicacy and responsibility. At the least, he seemed exceedingly anxious to secure Lady Cecilia's interests; and varied—or appeared to vary—the arrangements, according to every suggestion of his Lordship. The earl was satisfied that Gammon was disposed to make Titmouse go much farther than of his own accord he would have felt disposed to go, towards meeting the earl's wishes in the matter of the settlements;—in fact, Gammon evinced, in the earl's opinion, great anxiety to place her Ladyship in that position to which her high pretensions so justly entitled her.

      But this was not the only mode by which he augmented and secured his influence over the weak old peer. Not only had Gammon, in the manner pointed out in a previous portion of this history, diminished the drain upon his Lordship's income, which had so long existed in the shape of interest upon money lent him on mortgage, (and which embarrassments, by the way, had all arisen from his foolish state and extravagance when Lord High Steward;) not only, I say, had Gammon done all this, but infinitely more;—he had enabled his Lordship, as it were, "to strike a blow in a new hemisphere," and at once evince his fitness for the conduct of important and complicated affairs of business, acquire an indefinite augmentation of fortune, and also great influence and popularity.

      England, about the time I am speaking of, was smitten with a sort of mercantile madness—which showed itself in the shape of a monstrous passion for Joint-stock Companies. John Bull all of a sudden took it into his head, that no commercial undertaking of the least importance could any longer be carried on by means of individual energy, capital, and enterprise. A glimmering of this great truth he discovered that he had had, from the first moment that a private partnership had been adopted; and it was only to follow out the principle—to convert a private into a public partnership, and call it a "Joint-stock Company." This bright idea of John's produced prompt and prodigious results—a hundred joint stock companies

"Rose like an exhalation,"

      in the metropolis alone, within one twelvemonth's time. But then came the question, upon what were these grand combined forces to operate? Undertakings of commensurate magnitude must be projected—and so it was. It really mattered not a straw how wild and ludicrously impracticable was a project—it had but to be started, and announced, to call forth moneyed people among all classes, all making haste to be rich—and ready to back the speculation, even to the last penny they had in the world; pouring out their capital with a recklessness, of which the lamentable results may prevent their recurrence. Any voluble visionary who was unluckily able to reach the ear of one or two persons in the city, could expand his crotchet into a "company" with as little effort as an idiot could blow out a soap-bubble. For instance: one wiseacre (who surely ought never to have been at large) conceived a plan for creating ARTIFICIAL RAIN at an hour's notice, over any extent of country short of a circle of three miles in diameter; a second, for conveying MILK to every house in the metropolis in the same way as water is at present conveyed—viz. by pipes, supplied by an immense reservoir of milk to be established at Islington, and into which a million of cows were to be milked night and morning; a third, for converting saw-dust into solid wood; and a fourth, for surrounding the metropolis with a wall twenty feet in thickness, and fifty in height. Within three days of each of these hopeful speculations being announced, there were as many completely organized joint-stock companies established to carry them into effect. Superb offices were engaged in the city; Patrons, Presidents, Vice-Presidents; Trustees, Chairmen, Directors; Secretaries, Actuaries, Architects, Auditors; Bankers, Standing Counsel, Engineers, Surveyors, and Solicitors, appointed: and the names of all these functionaries forthwith blazed in dazzling array at the head of a "Prospectus," which set forth the advantages of the undertaking with such seductive eloquence as no man could resist; and within a week's time there was not a share to be had in the market. Into affairs of this description, Mr. Gammon, who soon saw the profit to be made out of them, if skilfully worked, plunged with the energy and excitement of a gamester. He drew in Mr. Quirk after him; and, as they could together command the ears of several enterprising capitalists in the city, they soon had their hands full of business, and launched two or three very brilliant speculations. Mr. Gammon himself drew up their "Prospectuses," and in a style which must have tempted the very devil himself (had he seen them) into venturing half his capital in the undertaking!—One was a scheme for providing the metropolis with a constant supply of salt water by means of a canal cut from the vicinity of the Nore, and carried nearly all round London, so as to afford the citizens throughout the year the luxury of sea-bathing. Another was of a still more extraordinary and interesting description—for carrying into effect a discovery, by means of which, ships of all kinds and sizes could be furnished with the means, by one and the same process—and that remarkably simple, cheap, and convenient—of obtaining pure fresh water from the SEA, and converting the salt or brine thrown off in the operation, instanter into gunpowder! The reality of this amazing discovery was decisively ascertained by three of the greatest chemists in England; a patent was taken out, and a company formed for immediately working the patent. This undertaking was the first that Gammon brought under the notice of the Earl of Dreddlington, whom he so completely dazzled by his description, both of the signal service to be conferred upon the country, and the princely revenue to be derived from it to those early entering into the speculation, that his Lordship intimated rather an anxious wish to be connected with it.

      "Good gracious, sir!" said his Lordship, with an air of wonder—"to what a pitch is science advancing! When will human ingenuity end? Sir, I doubt not that one of these days everything will be found out!"