FINANCIAL WISDOM
The Bondavara Joint-Stock Company was about to issue its prospectus;
the speculation had been advertised largely, and now it only waited
the necessary capital of ten millions to start the railway which was
to put the finest coal-mines in the kingdom within the reach of the
markets of the great cities. The speculation did not, however, attract
the public. Who knows about the value of the mine? said one. Who
believes what the papers say? We all know that trick. The gudgeons
held off, and did not rise to the bait offered.
One day Felix Kaulmann brought one of the directors to see Ivan
Behrend, and while these two were in conversation he noticed, lying on
the table, a piece of coal from the Bondavara mine, upon which was
distinctly visible the outline of a plant about the size of a finger.
"Is this the impression of an antediluvian bird's claw?" he asked.
"No," returned Ivan; "it is a petrified plant."
"Ah, I am making a collection of petrifactions."
"Then take that to add to it," said Ivan, carelessly.
Felix carried away the piece of coal in his pocket.
Shortly before the prospectus was issued there appeared in one of the
best-known scientific journals an illustration and article descriptive
of the petrified _bird's foot_ which had been found in the Bondavara
mine. The article was signed "Doctor Felicius."
All the _savants_ were excited. "We must see this impression!" they
cried.
The discoverer had given to the creature, whose foot-mark had remained
unalterably impressed upon the tender (!) coal, the learned name of
_Protornithos lithanthracoides_.
"Ho, ho!" exclaimed the united bodies of geologists, physiologists,
professors, philosophers, artisans, and artesian-well borers, "that is
indeed a long word!"
One set of learned men declared the thing to be possible, another
denied its possibility.
And why was it not possible? Because at the period of coal-formations
neither birds nor any one of the mammalia could exist, or did exist,
in the bowels of the earth. There we find only traces of plants, of
mussels, of fish sometimes.
And why is it credible? Because in these days we make discoveries
every day. Humboldt declared that in the antediluvian world no apes
had ever lived, for the reason that the fossil of an ape had never
been found. Since then one fossil ape has been discovered in England,
in France three of the Ourang species.
By degrees the strife raged in every newspaper; it was taken up in
English, French, German, and American publications. At last it was
proposed that the matter should be referred to a commission of five
well-known professors, to whom the petrifaction should be submitted,
and who should decide the question in dispute. Doctor Felicius offered
one thousand ducats to the one who would prove that his bird's claw
was not a bird's claw.
The tribunal of the five learned judges examined the petrifaction
with microscopical attention, and after a long sitting brought in a
unanimous verdict that the impression was not made by the claw of a
Protornithos, but was that of a leaf belonging to the plant _Annularia
longefolia_; in fact, there could be no question of the bird species,
as the specimen of coal produced was not brown coal, but the _purest_
black, in which coal formation it was not possible for even a bird to
exist.
Doctor Felix Kaulmann quietly paid the thousand ducats, and thanked
the whole republic of professors for the service they had rendered to
the Bondavara coal; such an advertisement could not have been obtained
at an expense of forty thousand ducats. Let people say that the
Protornithos was a humbug--who cares? The reputation of the Bondavara
coal was firmly established on the best scientific grounds.
The period had now arrived when the undertaking should be floated at
the exchange. This, perhaps, is the greatest science on earth. The
stock-exchange has its good and its bad days. Sometimes it is full of
electricity, the sheep frolic in the meadow; at other times they hang
their heads and will not touch the beautiful grass. Sometimes they
come bleating to the shepherd to beg that he will shear them, for
their wool presses too heavily on them; another day they butt their
heads together and will not listen to their leader. Again, and no one
can tell why, when the bell-wether begins to run, all the rest of the
flock run after him; neither the shepherd nor his dog can stop them.
The science lies in knowing when there is good weather on the
stock-exchange. On a favorable day men are in such excellent
humor--there is so much gold in every pocket, everything goes
well--that even a company for the excavation and alienation of the
icebergs would find bidders. On a bad day the best and safest
speculation would get not a single offer.
It was on one of the good days that the Bondavara Coal Company made
its _début_ at the Vienna Stock-exchange. It caught on, and by the day
on which the subscriptions should be paid into the Bank of Kaulmann
came round it was necessary to have a military cordon drawn across the
street, to allow the stream of people to pass through in any sort of
order. The subscribers had, in fact, collected before the doors early
in the morning; those who were strong trusted to their own strength to
make way for themselves by elbow force. In the crush battered hats and
torn coats were matters of small consequence; verbal insults and
personal injuries, such as pushing and squeezing, were treated as
nothing. The windows of the bank which looked on the street were burst
open, and some excited individual called out:
"I subscribe ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million!"
When at last six o'clock struck, and the doors of the bank were
closed, a stentorian voice called from the balcony to the crowd below:
"The subscription is closed!"
What a disappointment for those who had not been able to get their
money in in time! They went away dejected men.
The Bondavara mine had indeed "caught on." Instead of ten millions,
eight hundred and twenty thousand millions had been subscribed. Did
the subscribers really possess all that money? Certainly not. Each one
deposited the tenth portion of the sum subscribed as a guarantee, and
this only on paper; actual money the company did not as yet touch.
Those who made part of the vast crowd, who tore the coats from one
another's backs, were not blessed with a superfluity of money, neither
had they the slightest interest in the production of coal, but to-day
it is fine weather on the exchange; the Bondavara Company's bonds
stand at par. Every one wanted to make this small profit; that done
they care no more for the bonds or the company.
It is, however, a fact that trees do not grow in heaven. Prince
Waldemar was at the head of the countermine, and he was one of the
cleverest, most astute men "on 'change."
To understand the business the reader should be himself a speculator.
It is carried on something after this fashion. Those who want to buy
in are oftentimes men of straw; they merely want shares to sell them
at once to the first bidder. As a natural consequence, this lowers the
value; there is a fall, sometimes a total collapse. If the investment
is a sound one it recovers vitality, and the shares go up again. There
is, however, a way to guard against this trick. Almost every company
has a syndicate, whose office is to ascertain whether the applicants
for shares are men of straw or not. Pending the inquiry, the time is
made use of to employ certain agents, to whom a free gift is made of,
say, five hundred shares. These men immediately set up a tremendous
uproar; they drive up the shares, they tear the certificates out of
one another's hands, screaming out the high rate at which they are
buying. But the general market sees no shares pass; the experienced
ones know that this is all a well-acted farce, and that any one who
has ready-money need only go to the fountain-head and buy as many
shares as he wants at par. On the other hand, the bears are waiting
their time to rush in and cause such a depreciation as will run down
the shares to almost nothing. When they have got them at this low
figure they may allow them to rise again.
The only one who loses in this cruel game is the small capitalist, who
has ventured, poor soul, on ice, and who has sacrificed his little all
at the shrine of the golden calf, taken his carefully hoarded store,
his hard-earned salary out of his drawer, and has cast it upon these
unprofitable waters, tempted by the tales of high interest, and the
like. All of a sudden the bears have rushed in, the mine has exploded,
his hopes are blown into air, vanished like a dream; his shares are so
much waste-paper. He goes home certainly a sadder if not a wiser man.
Well for him if he is not a beggar. This is how they manage matters on
the stock-exchange.