[The following tale appeared in “Blackwood’s Magazine” for October,
1845. It was intended by the writer as a sketch of some of the more
striking features of the railway mania (then in full progress throughout
Great Britain), as exhibited in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Although bearing
the appearance of a burlesque, it was in truth an accurate delineation
(as will be acknowledged by many a gentleman who had the misfortune to
be “out in the Forty-five”); and subsequent disclosures have shown that
it was in no way exaggerated.
Although the “Glenmutchkin line” was purely imaginary, and was not
intended by the writer to apply to any particular scheme then before the
public, it was identified in Scotland with more than one reckless and
impracticable project; and even the characters introduced were supposed
to be typical of personages who had attained some notoriety in the
throng of speculation. Any such resemblances must be considered as
fortuitous; for the writer cannot charge himself with the discourtesy of
individual satire or allusion.]
I was confoundedly hard up. My patrimony, never of the largest, had been
for the last year on the decrease,--a herald would have emblazoned
it, “ARGENT, a money-bag improper, in detriment,”--and though the
attenuating process was not excessively rapid, it was, nevertheless,
proceeding at a steady ratio. As for the ordinary means and appliances
by which men contrive to recruit their exhausted exchequers, I knew
none of them. Work I abhorred with a detestation worthy of a scion of
nobility; and, I believe, you could just as soon have persuaded the
lineal representative of the Howards or Percys to exhibit himself in
the character of a mountebank, as have got me to trust my person on the
pinnacle of a three-legged stool. The rule of three is all very well
for base mechanical souls; but I flatter myself I have an intellect too
large to be limited to a ledger. “Augustus,” said my poor mother to me,
while stroking my hyacinthine tresses, one fine morning, in the very
dawn and budding-time of my existence--“Augustus, my dear boy, whatever
you do, never forget that you are a gentleman.” The maternal maxim sank
deeply into my heart, and I never for a moment have forgotten it.
Notwithstanding this aristocratic resolution, the great practical
question, “How am I to live?” began to thrust itself unpleasantly before
me. I am one of that unfortunate class who have neither uncles nor
aunts. For me, no yellow liverless individual, with characteristic
bamboo and pigtail,--emblems of half a million,--returned to his native
shores from Ceylon or remote Penang. For me, no venerable spinster
hoarded in the Trongate, permitting herself few luxuries during a
long protracted life, save a lass and a lanthorn, a parrot, and the
invariable baudrons of antiquity. No such luck was mine. Had all Glasgow
perished by some vast epidemic, I should not have found myself one
farthing the richer. There would have been no golden balsam for me in
the accumulated woes of Tradestown, Shettleston, and Camlachie. The
time has been when--according to Washington Irving and other veracious
historians--a young man had no sooner got into difficulties than a
guardian angel appeared to him in a dream, with the information that at
such and such a bridge, or under such and such a tree, he might find,
at a slight expenditure of labour, a gallipot secured with bladder,
and filled with glittering tomans; or, in the extremity of despair, the
youth had only to append himself to a cord, and straightway the other
end thereof, forsaking its staple in the roof, would disclose amid the
fractured ceiling the glories of a profitable pose. These blessed days
have long since gone by--at any rate, no such luck was mine. My guardian
angel was either wofully ignorant of metallurgy, or the stores had been
surreptitiously ransacked; and as to the other expedient, I frankly
confess I should have liked some better security for its result than the
precedent of the “Heir of Lynn.”
It is a great consolation, amid all the evils of life, to know that,
however bad your circumstances may be, there is always somebody else
in nearly the same predicament. My chosen friend and ally, Bob
M’Corkindale, was equally hard up with myself, and, if possible, more
averse to exertion. Bob was essentially a speculative man--that is, in
a philosophical sense. He had once got hold of a stray volume of Adam
Smith, and muddled his brains for a whole week over the intricacies
of the “Wealth of Nations.” The result was a crude farrago of notions
regarding the true nature of money, the soundness of currency, and
relative value of capital, with which he nightly favoured an admiring
audience at “The Crow”; for Bob was by no means--in the literal
acceptation of the word--a dry philosopher. On the contrary, he
perfectly appreciated the merits of each distinct distillery, and was
understood to be the compiler of a statistical work entitled “A Tour
through the Alcoholic Districts of Scotland.” It had very early occurred
to me, who knew as much of political economy as of the bagpipes, that a
gentleman so well versed in the art of accumulating national wealth
must have some remote ideas of applying his principles profitably on a
smaller scale. Accordingly I gave M’Corkindale an unlimited invitation
to my lodgings; and, like a good hearty fellow as he was, he
availed himself every evening of the license; for I had laid in a
fourteen-gallon cask of Oban whisky, and the quality of the malt was
undeniable.
These were the first glorious days of general speculation. Railroads
were emerging from the hands of the greater into the fingers of the
lesser capitalists. Two successful harvests had given a fearful stimulus
to the national energy; and it appeared perfectly certain that all the
populous towns would be united, and the rich agricultural districts
intersected, by the magical bands of iron. The columns of the newspapers
teemed every week with the parturition of novel schemes; and the shares
were no sooner announced than they were rapidly subscribed for. But what
is the use of my saying anything more about the history of last year?
Every one of us remembers it perfectly well. It was a capital year on
the whole, and put money into many a pocket. About that time, Bob and I
commenced operations. Our available capital, or negotiable bullion, in
the language of my friend, amounted to about three hundred pounds,
which we set aside as a joint fund for speculation. Bob, in a series of
learned discourses, had convinced me that it was not only folly, but a
positive sin, to leave this sum lying in the bank at a pitiful rate of
interest, and otherwise unemployed, while every one else in the kingdom
was having a pluck at the public pigeon. Somehow or other, we were
unlucky in our first attempts. Speculators are like wasps; for when they
have once got hold of a ripening and peach-like project, they keep it
rigidly for their own swarm, and repel the approach of interlopers.
Notwithstanding all our efforts, and very ingenious ones they were, we
never, in a single instance, succeeded in procuring an allocation of
original shares; and though we did now and then make a bit by purchase,
we more frequently bought at a premium, and parted with our scrip at a
discount. At the end of six months we were not twenty pounds richer than
before.
“This will never do,” said Bob, as he sat one evening in my rooms
compounding his second tumbler. “I thought we were living in an
enlightened age; but I find I was mistaken. That brutal spirit of
monopoly is still abroad and uncurbed. The principles of free trade are
utterly forgotten, or misunderstood. Else how comes it that David
Spreul received but yesterday an allocation of two hundred shares in the
Westermidden Junction, while your application and mine, for a thousand
each were overlooked? Is this a state of things to be tolerated? Why
should he, with his fifty thousand pounds, receive a slapping premium,
while our three hundred of available capital remains unrepresented? The
fact is monstrous, and demands the immediate and serious interference of
the legislature.”
“It is a burning shame,” said I, fully alive to the manifold advantages
of a premium.
“I’ll tell you what, Dunshunner,” rejoined M’Corkindale, “it’s no use
going on in this way. We haven’t shown half pluck enough. These fellows
consider us as snobs because we don’t take the bull by the horns. Now’s
the time for a bold stroke. The public are quite ready to subscribe for
anything--and we’ll start a railway for ourselves.”
“Start a railway with three hundred pounds of capital!”
“Pshaw, man! you don’t know what you’re talking about--we’ve a great
deal more capital than that. Have not I told you, seventy times over,
that everything a man has--his coat, his hat, the tumblers he drinks
from, nay, his very corporeal existence--is absolute marketable capital?
What do you call that fourteen-gallon cask, I should like to know?”
“A compound of hoops and staves, containing about a quart and a half of
spirits--you have effectually accounted for the rest.”
“Then it has gone to the fund of profit and loss, that’s all. Never let
me hear you sport those old theories again. Capital is indestructible,
as I am ready to prove to you any day, in half an hour. But let us
sit down seriously to business. We are rich enough to pay for the
advertisements, and that is all we need care for in the meantime. The
public is sure to step in, and bear us out handsomely with the rest.”
“But where in the face of the habitable globe shall the railway be?
England is out of the question, and I hardly know a spot in the Lowlands
that is not occupied already.”
“What do you say to a Spanish scheme--the Alcantara Union? Hang me if
I know whether Alcantara is in Spain or Portugal; but nobody else does,
and the one is quite as good as the other. Or what would you think of
the Palermo Railway, with a branch to the sulphur-mines?--that would
be popular in the north--or the Pyrenees Direct? They would all go to a
premium.”
“I must confess I should prefer a line at home.”
“Well then, why not try the Highlands? There must be lots of traffic
there in the shape of sheep, grouse, and Cockney tourists, not to
mention salmon and other etceteras. Couldn’t we tip them a railway
somewhere in the west?”
“There’s Glenmutchkin, for instance--”
“Capital, my dear fellow! Glorious! By Jove, first-rate!” shouted Bob,
in an ecstasy of delight. “There’s a distillery there, you know, and a
fishing-village at the foot--at least, there used to be six years ago,
when I was living with the exciseman. There may be some bother about
the population, though. The last laird shipped every mother’s son of
the aboriginal Celts to America; but, after all, that’s not of much
consequence. I see the whole thing! Unrivalled scenery--stupendous
waterfalls--herds of black cattle--spot where Prince Charles Edward met
Macgrugar of Glengrugar and his clan! We could not possibly have lighted
on a more promising place. Hand us over that sheet of paper, like a good
fellow, and a pen. There is no time to be lost, and the sooner we get
out the prospectus the better.”
“But, Heaven bless you, Bob, there’s a great deal to be thought of
first. Who are we to get for a provisional committee?”
“That’s very true,” said Bob, musingly. “We _must_ treat them to some
respectable names, that is, good-sounding ones. I’m afraid there is
little chance of our producing a peer to begin with?”
“None whatever--unless we could invent one, and that’s hardly safe;
‘Burke’s Peerage’ has gone through too many editions. Couldn’t we try
the Dormants?”
“That would be rather dangerous in the teeth of the standing orders.
But what do you say to a baronet? There’s Sir Polloxfen Tremens. He got
himself served the other day to a Nova Scotia baronetcy, with just as
much title as you or I have; and he has sported the riband, and dined
out on the strength of it ever since. He’ll join us at once, for he has
not a sixpence to lose.”
“Down with him, then,” and we headed the provisional list with the
pseudo Orange tawny.
“Now,” said Bob, “it’s quite indispensable, as this is a Highland line,
that we should put forward a chief or two. That has always a great
effect upon the English, whose feudal notions are rather of the
mistiest, and principally derived from Waverley.”
“Why not write yourself down as the laird of M’Corkindale?” said I. “I
dare say you would not be negatived by a counter-claim.”
“That would hardly do,” replied Bob, “as I intend to be secretary. After
all, what’s the use of thinking about it? Here goes for an extempore
chief;” and the villain wrote down the name of Tavish M’Tavish of
Invertavish.
“I say, though,” said I, “we must have a real Highlander on the list. If
we go on this way, it will become a justiciary matter.”
“You’re devilish scrupulous, Gus,” said Bob, who, if left to himself,
would have stuck in the names of the heathen gods and goddesses, or
borrowed his directors from the Ossianic chronicles, rather than have
delayed the prospectus. “Where the mischief are we to find the men? I
can think of no others likely to go the whole hog; can you?”
“I don’t know a single Celt in Glasgow except old M’Closkie, the drunken
porter at the corner of Jamaica Street.”
“He’s the very man! I suppose, after the manner of his tribe, he will
do anything for a pint of whisky. But what shall we call him? Jamaica
Street, I fear, will hardly do for a designation.”
“Call him THE M’CLOSKIE. It will be sonorous in the ears of the Saxon!”
“Bravo!” and another chief was added to the roll of the clans.
“Now,” said Bob, “we must put you down. Recollect, all the management,
that is, the allocation, will be intrusted to you. Augustus--you haven’t
a middle name, I think?--well then, suppose we interpolate ‘Reginald’;
it has a smack of the crusades. Augustus Reginald Dunshunner, Esq.
of--where, in the name of Munchausen!”
“I’m sure I don’t know. I never had any land beyond the contents of a
flower-pot. Stay--I rather think I have a superiority somewhere about
Paisley.”
“Just the thing!” cried Bob. “It’s heritable property, and therefore
titular. What’s the denomination?”
“St. Mirrens.”
“Beautiful! Dunshunner of St. Mirrens, I give you joy! Had you
discovered that a little sooner--and I wonder you did not think of
it--we might both of us have had lots of allocations. These are not
the times to conceal hereditary distinctions. But now comes the serious
work. We must have one or two men of known wealth upon the list. The
chaff is nothing without a decoy-bird. Now, can’t you help me with a
name?”
“In that case,” said I, “the game is up, and the whole scheme exploded.
I would as soon undertake to evoke the ghost of Croesus.”
“Dunshunner,” said Bob, very seriously, “to be a man of information, you
are possessed of marvellous few resources. I am quite ashamed of you.
Now listen to me. I have thought deeply upon this subject, and am quite
convinced that, with some little trouble, we may secure the cooperation
of a most wealthy and influential body--one, too, that is generally
supposed to have stood aloof from all speculation of the kind, and whose
name would be a tower of strength in the moneyed quarters. I allude,”
continued Bob, reaching across for the kettle, “to the great dissenting
interest.”
“The what?” cried I, aghast.
“The great dissenting interest. You can’t have failed to observe the row
they have lately been making about Sunday travelling and education. Old
Sam Sawley, the coffin-maker, is their principal spokesman here; and
wherever he goes the rest will follow, like a flock of sheep bounding
after a patriarchal ram. I propose, therefore, to wait upon him
to-morrow, and request his cooperation in a scheme which is not only
to prove profitable, but to make head against the lax principles of
the present age. Leave me alone to tickle him. I consider his name, and
those of one or two others belonging to the same meeting-house,--fellows
with bank-stock and all sorts of tin,--as perfectly secure. These
dissenters smell a premium from an almost incredible distance. We can
fill up the rest of the committee with ciphers, and the whole thing is
done.”
“But the engineer--we must announce such an officer as a matter of
course.”
“I never thought of that,” said Bob. “Couldn’t we hire a fellow from one
of the steamboats?”
“I fear that might get us into trouble. You know there are such things
as gradients and sections to be prepared. But there’s Watty Solder, the
gas-fitter, who failed the other day. He’s a sort of civil engineer
by trade, and will jump at the proposal like a trout at the tail of a
May-fly.”
“Agreed. Now then, let’s fix the number of shares. This is our first
experiment, and I think we ought to be moderate. No sound political
economist is avaricious. Let us say twelve thousand, at twenty pounds
apiece.”
“So be it.”
“Well then, that’s arranged. I’ll see Sawley and the rest to-morrow,
settle with Solder, and then write out the prospectus. You look in upon
me in the evening, and we’ll revise it together. Now, by your leave,
let’s have a Welsh rabbit and another tumbler to drink success and
prosperity to the Glenmutchkin Railway.”
I confess that, when I rose on the morrow, with a slight headache and
a tongue indifferently parched, I recalled to memory, not without
perturbation of conscience and some internal qualms, the conversation of
the previous evening. I felt relieved, however, after two spoonfuls of
carbonate of soda, and a glance at the newspaper, wherein I perceived
the announcement of no less than four other schemes equally preposterous
with our own. But, after all, what right had I to assume that the
Glenmutchkin project would prove an ultimate failure? I had not a
scrap of statistical information that might entitle me to form such an
opinion. At any rate, Parliament, by substituting the Board of Trade as
an initiating body of inquiry, had created a responsible tribunal, and
freed us from the chance of obloquy. I saw before me a vision of six
months’ steady gambling, at manifest advantage, in the shares, before
a report could possibly be pronounced, or our proceedings be in any way
overhauled. Of course, I attended that evening punctually at my friend
M’Corkindale’s. Bob was in high feather; for Sawley no sooner heard of
the principles upon which the railway was to be conducted, and his own
nomination as a director, than he gave in his adhesion, and promised his
unflinching support to the uttermost. The prospectus ran as follows:
“DIRECT GLENMUTCHKIN RAILWAY,”