ANOTHER NEW YEAR'S DAY.
It was the 1st of January, 1841.
If there be any hour in the life of man when he ought to commune with
his own heart, that proper interval of serious reflection is to be found
on New Year's Day.
Then, to the rightly constituted mind, the regrets for the past will
serve as finger-posts and guides to the hopes of the future.
The heathen mythology depicted Janus with two faces, looking different
ways:—so let the human heart, when on the first day of January, it
stands between two years, retrospect carefully over the one that has
gone, and combine all its solemn warnings for use and example in the new
one which has just commenced.
This also is the day that recalls, with additional impressiveness, the
memory of those dear relatives and friends whose mortal forms have been
swept away by the viewless and voiceless stream of Time.
Nor less do fond parents think, amidst tears and prayers, of their sons
who are absent in the far-off places of the earth,—fighting the battles
of their country on the burning plains of India, or steering their way
across the pathless solitudes of the ocean.
But, alas! little reck the wealthy and great for those whose arms defend
them, or whose enterprise procures them all the bounties of the earth.
An oligarchy has cramped the privileges and monopolised the rights of a
mighty nation.
Behold the effects of its infamous Poor-Laws;—contemplate the results of
the more atrocious Game-Laws;—mark the consequences of the Corn-Laws.
THE POOR-LAWS! Not even did the ingenuity of the Spanish or Italian
Inquisitions conceive a more effectual method of deliberate torture and
slow death, than the fearful system of mental-abasement and gradient
starvation invented by England's legislators. When the labourer can toil
for the rich no longer, away with him to the workhouse! When the old
man, who has contributed for half a century to the revenue of the
country, is overtaken by sudden adversity at an age which paralyses his
energies, away with him to the workhouse! When the poor widow, whose
sons have fallen in the ranks of battle or in defence of the wooden
walls of England, is deprived of her natural supporters, away with her
to the workhouse! The workhouse is a social dung-heap on which the
wealthy and great fling those members of the community whose services
they can no longer render available to their selfish purposes.
THE GAME-LAWS! Never was a more atrocious monopoly than that which
reserves the use of certain birds of the air or animals of the earth to
a small and exclusive class. The Almighty gave man "dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living
thing that moveth upon the earth;" and those who dare to monopolise any
of these, to the prejudice of their fellow-creatures, fly in the face of
the Lord of all! The Game-Laws have fabricated an offence which fills
our prisons—as if there were not already crimes enough to separate men
from their families and plunge them into loathsome dungeons. That
offence is one of human construction, and exists only in certain
countries: it is not a crime against God—nor is it deemed such in many
enlightened states. The selfish pleasures of a miserably small minority
demand the protection of a statute which is a fertilising source of
oppression, wretchedness, ruin, and demoralization. The Game-Laws are a
rack whereon the aristocracy loves to behold its victims writhing in
tortures, and where the sufferers are compelled to acknowledge as a
heinous crime a deed which has in reality no moral turpitude associated
with it.
THE CORN-LAWS! Were the Russian to boast of his freedom, Common Sense
would point to Siberia and to the knout, and laugh in his face. When the
Englishman vaunts the glory of his country's institutions, that same
Common Sense comes forward and throws the Corn-Laws in his teeth. What!
liberty in connexion with the vilest monopoly that ever mortal policy
conceived? Impossible! England manufactures articles which all the
civilised world requires; and other states yield corn in an abundance
that defies the possibility of home consumption. And yet an inhuman
selfishness has declared that England shall not exchange her
manufactures for that superfluous produce. No—the manufactures may decay
in the warehouses here, and the grain abroad may be thrown to the swine,
sooner than a miserable oligarchy will consent to abandon one single
principle of its shameless monopoly. The Corn-Laws are a broom which
sweeps all the grain on the threshing-floor into one corner for the use
of the rich, but which leaves the chaff scattered every where about for
the millions of poor to use as best they may.
The aristocracy of England regards the patience of the masses as a bow
whose powers of tension are unlimited: but the day must come, sooner or
later, when those who thus dare to trifle with this generous elasticity
will be struck down by the violence of the recoil.
Although our legislators—trembling at what they affect to sneer at under
the denomination of "the march of intellect"—obstinately refuse to
imitate enlightened France by instituting a system of national
education,—nevertheless, the millions of this country are now
instructing themselves!
Honour to the English mechanic—honour to the English operative: each
alike seeks to taste of the tree of learning, "whose root is bitter, but
whose fruits are sweet!"
Thank God, no despotism—no tyranny can arrest the progress of that
mighty intellectual movement which is now perceptible amongst the
industrious millions of these realms.
And how excellent are the principles of that self-instruction which now
tends to elevate the moral condition of the country. It is not confined
within the narrow limits which churchmen would impose: it embraces the
sciences—the arts—all subjects of practical utility,—its aim being to
model the mind on the solid basis of Common Sense.
To the millions thus enlightened, Religion will appear in all its
purity, and the objects of Government in all their simplicity. The holy
Christian worship will cease to be regarded as an apology for endowing a
Church with enormous revenues; and political administration must no
longer be considered as a means of rendering a small portion of the
community happy and prosperous to the utter prejudice of the vast
remainder.
There breathes not a finer specimen of the human race than a really
enlightened and liberal-minded Englishman. But if _he_ be deserving of
admiration and applause, who has received his knowledge from the lips of
a paid preceptor—how much more worthy of praise and respect is _the
self-instructed mechanic_!
But to resume our narrative.
It was the 1st of January, 1841.
The time-piece on the mantel in Mr. Greenwood's study had just struck
two in the afternoon.
That gentleman himself was pacing the apartment in an agitated manner.
His handsome dressing-gown of oriental pattern was not arranged, with
the usual contrived air of negligence, to display the beautiful
shirt-front, over which hung the gold chain of his Breguet-watch:—on the
contrary, it had evidently been hurried on without the least regard to
effect.
The writing-table was heaped with a confused pile of letters and
accounts—not thrown together for show, but lying in the actual disorder
in which they had been tossed aside after a minute investigation.
Though not absolutely slovenly in his present appearance, Mr. Greenwood
had certainly neglected his toilet on that day; and the state of his
room moreover proved that he was too much absorbed in serious affairs to
devote time to the minor considerations of neatness and the strict
propriety of order.
There was a cloud upon his brow; and his manner was restless and
unsettled.
"Curses—eternal curses upon that Lafleur!" he exclaimed aloud, as he
walked up and down with uneven steps. "To think that I should have lost
so much at one blow! Oh! it nearly drives me mad—mad! If it had only
been the twenty thousand pounds of which the black-hearted French
villain and his confederates plundered me, I might have snapped my
fingers at Fortune who thus vented her temporary spite upon me! But the
enormous amount I lost in addition, by failing to pour that sum of
English notes and gold into circulation in the French capital,—the
almost immediate fall in the rates of exchange, and the fluctuation of
the French funds,—Oh! _there_ it was that I was so seriously injured.
Fifty thousand pounds snatched from me as it were in a moment,—fifty
thousand pounds of hard money—my own money! And the thirty thousand
pounds that I had first sent over to Paris were so judiciously laid out!
My combinations were admirable: I should have been a clear gainer of
five-and-twenty thousand, had not that accursed robbery taken place! May
the villain Lafleur die in a charnel-house—may he perish the most
miserable of deaths!"
Mr. Greenwood ground his teeth with rage as he uttered these horrible
maledictions.
He did not, however, recall to mind that Lafleur was an honest man when
he entered his service;—he did not pause to reflect upon all the
intrigues, machinations, plots, duplicities, and villanies, in which he
had employed his late valet,—thus gradually initiating him in those
paths which could scarcely have led to any other result than the point
in which they had actually terminated—the robbery of the master by the
servant whom he had thus tutored.
"The villain!" continued Greenwood. "And I was so kind to him—constantly
increasing his wages and making him presents! Such confidence as I put
in him, too! Filippo, whom I did not trust to half the same extent—save
in my intrigues with women—is stanch and faithful to me!"
He paused and glanced towards the time-piece.
"Half-past two; and Tomlinson does not come! What _can_ detain him?
Surely that affair cannot have gone wrong also? If so——"
And Greenwood's countenance became as dark and lowering as the sky ere
the explosion of the storm.
In a few moments a double-knock at the door echoed through the house.
"Here's Tomlinson!" ejaculated Greenwood; and with sovereign command
over himself, he composed his features and assumed his wonted ease of
manner.
The stock-broker now entered the room.
"You are an hour behind your time, Tomlinson," said Greenwood, shaking
him by the hand.
"I could not come before," was the answer: "I was detained on your
business."
"What news?" asked Greenwood, scarcely able to conceal his profound
anxiety.
"Bad," replied Tomlinson. "You have sent sixteen thousand pounds to
look after the fifty you have already lost. Fortunately you are a rich
man, and can stand reverses of this kind. Besides, one who speculates
so enormously as you have done of late, must meet with occasional
losses. For my part, I should advise you to leave Spanish alone. It
seems that you are doomed to fail in your ventures in the foreign
securities:—first, your French scheme was totally ruined by the
villany of your servant; and now your Spanish one, so far from
enabling you to retrieve your losses, has increased them."
This long speech enabled Greenwood to recover from the shock which the
announcement of a new reverse had produced.
"My dear Tomlinson," he said, "I am resolved to follow up my
speculations in Spanish. The private information I received from an
intimate friend of the Spanish Ambassador is correct—I am convinced it
is; and I am sure that Queen Christina, by the advice of Espartero, will
appropriate a sum to pay the interest on the passives. The announcement
must be made in a few days. Of this I am certain. But all my resources
are locked up for the present:—in fact, I do not hesitate to tell _you_,
Tomlinson, that I have over-speculated of late. Still—remember—I _have_
plenty of means remaining; but they are not instantly available."
"What, then, do you propose to do?" inquired the stock-broker.
"You have raised yourself during the past year to a confidential
position in the City, Tomlinson," continued Greenwood: "and people no
longer remember your bankruptcy."
"But I do," observed the stock-broker bitterly.
"Oh! that is nothing," exclaimed Greenwood. "I was about to say that you
could probably borrow me fifteen or twenty thousand on my bond—say for
three months."
"I doubt it," returned Tomlinson. "You have no mercantile
establishment—you are known as a great speculator——"
"And as a great capitalist, I flatter myself," added Greenwood, playing
with his watch-chain in the easy complacent manner which had so
characterised him until lately.
"That you _were_ a capitalist, there can be no doubt," said Tomlinson,
in his usual quiet way; "but ill news fly fast—and your losses——"
"Are already known in the City, you mean?" exclaimed Greenwood, with
difficulty concealing his vexation. "I care not a fig for that,
Tomlinson. I have ample resources left; but, as I ere now observed, they
are not immediately available."
"I understand you. It is well known that you accommodate the members of
the aristocracy and heirs-expectant with loans; I presume that you have
a mass of their bills, bonds, and acknowledgments? Now if you were to
deposit them as collateral security, I know where I could obtain you an
equivalent loan in twelve hours."
"Indeed!" ejaculated Greenwood: then, after a moment's pause, he said,
"And you think there can be no difficulty in managing the business in
that way?"
"None," answered the stock-broker.
Again Greenwood appeared to reflect.
"And yet," he observed, "all these pecuniary accommodations of which you
spoke, are strictly confidential; and I dare not violate——"
"You know best, Greenwood," said Tomlinson, coolly. "At the same time, I
can assure you that my friend will not betray you. The whole thing lies
in a nut-shell: you deposit, say twenty thousand pounds' worth of
securities, for a loan of that amount, to be repaid in three months; you
redeem the documents by the day appointed, and none of your aristocratic
debtors will be one whit the wiser. The transaction could only become
known to them if you failed to refund the money, in which case the
holder of the documents would send them into the market."
"I comprehend," said Greenwood. "Well—I have no objection to the
arrangement. When will you ascertain whether your friend will advance
the money?"
"This afternoon," returned Tomlinson; "and should the reply be in the
affirmative—of which I have no doubt—I will make an appointment for four
to-morrow."
"Be it so," cried Greenwood. "You will, perhaps, send me word between
five and six this evening."
"I will not fail," said the stock-broker.
"Any thing new in the City?"
"Nothing particular."
"And your late cashier—what has become of him?" inquired Greenwood.
"He is still living in an obscure street in Bethnal-Green," was the
answer. "The poor old man never stirs abroad; and his health is failing
fast."
"Ah! it will be a good thing when he is gone altogether," said
Greenwood. "If he had had to do with me, I should have shipped him to
New Zealand or Van Diemen's Land long ago."
Tomlinson turned away in disgust, and took his leave.
Greenwood never moved from his seat until he heard the front door close
behind the stock-broker.
Then he started from his chair, and all his apparent composure vanished.
"Sixteen thousand pounds more gone!" he exclaimed, in a hoarse, hollow
tone, while he clenched his fists with rage. "Loss upon loss! All this
is enough to ruin any man! And I—who have been even far more unfortunate
of late than I chose to admit to Tomlinson! Nothing short of one bold
and successful hit can now retrieve my tottering fortunes. Securities
for twenty thousand pounds, indeed! Ha! ha! I have not bills nor bonds
in my possession to the amount of three thousand!"—and he laughed
wildly. "But I _will_ have them, though—aye, and such ones as shall
fully serve my purposes."
Then he paced the room in a singularly agitated manner.
"Yes—one more bold stroke, and I shall retrieve myself," he continued.
"My good star cannot have altogether deserted me. No—no! These
vicissitudes are only temporary. Accursed Lafleur! To think that he
should have served me thus! Instead of proceeding to Paris—with the
means of following up those schemes which I had combined so well, and in
which I had already risked so much—but with such absolute certainties of
immense gain,—instead of pursuing my career of success,—to be
plundered—robbed at the last moment—and compelled to return to London to
raise fresh funds! Then, when in four days I was prepared with the
necessary sum once more—with another twenty thousand pounds—to receive
letters which convinced me that the delay was fatal, and that all was
lost! Yes—Fortune did indeed persecute me then! But I will be even with
her yet. My information concerning the Spanish debt is accurate; and on
that ground I can build a fortune far more colossal than the one I have
lost. Shall I hesitate, then, in obtaining this money through
Tomlinson's agency? No—no!"
Having thus buoyed himself up with those hopes which invariably urge on
the gambler—whether at the actual gaming-table or in the public funds
(for there is little difference in a moral light between the two modes
of speculation),—to put down fresh stakes on the chance aimed at,
Greenwood recovered his wonted calmness.
He busied himself in arranging his papers, and restoring neatness to his
writing-table.
Thus passed the time until six o'clock, when Filippo entered the room
with a letter.
It was from Tomlinson.
Greenwood tore it open: the contents were favourable. The stock-broker's
friend had agreed to advance any sum up to twenty-five thousand pounds
on the terms proposed, and had promised to observe the strictest secrecy
in the transaction.
"The rest now depends upon myself!" ejaculated Greenwood. "Fortune has
not altogether deserted me."