[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 121.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]
FINANCE WITHOUT FUNDS: OR, HOW TO FLOAT A COMPANY.
Amongst the many social and legal anomalies for which England has
long been celebrated throughout the civilised world, there are none
more extraordinary than the rules and customs which have reference to
all sorts of gambling and obtaining money by chance or by hazard. An
example of this was given a short time ago in a French paper, in which
a correspondent relates how he saw a constable take into custody three
or four men who were quietly laying wagers amongst themselves and
comparing notes on one of the great races. This happened a few yards
from the Strand, under the colonnade of the Lyceum Theatre. Half an
hour afterwards—so the writer states—he was passing the door of a large
house close by where the above capture had been made, and saw the same
constable keeping order amongst a number of cabs and vehicles waiting
for their owners, whilst on the steps and at the door were a number of
gentlemen talking and comparing notes. He asked the policeman what the
place was, and whether any public meeting was going on. Considering
what he had previously seen, he was more than a little surprised when
the guardian of the law informed him that ‘This is the Victoria Club,
the great betting club; and these gents are making up their books—the
Two Thousand stakes will be run to-morrow.’ The writer goes on to say,
that however excellent English law may be as a whole, it is evidently
not the same for all classes of men, and that the social morals of the
poor seem to be better looked after than those of the rich.
But if the anecdote here related astonished the foreigner, how
much more amazed would he be at the rules and regulations, written
and unwritten, of what may be called the art of making money by
speculation, or gambling. All, or most of us, would regard with
horror—supposing a similar thing were possible—the introduction of
such an establishment as that of Monte Carlo into England, and yet we
tolerate and even encourage that which creates far more wretchedness
and ruins many more families than even the gaming-tables. 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. There are comparatively few of us who have
the opportunities of knowing the enormous amount of harm done in this
country by these continued and continual temptations, or who can
estimate the misery that has been caused in our midst by them.
Twenty years ago, when the Overend and Gurney failure spread such ruin
amongst the upper and middle classes, this system, of trying to make
money without labour, received a shock which for a time crushed it. But
in the last decade, it has again sprung into existence, and has now
reached a point at which it cannot be allowed to remain, and when steps
must be taken, if not to suppress, at least to regulate and place under
proper control what threatens to become an evil of no small magnitude.
Let any one who doubts this, take the trouble, for even one or
two weeks, to note the number of Joint-stock Companies which are
advertised, the amount of capital they require, and above all, the
inducements of gain which they hold out to the unwary. Recently, in
one week, there were registered nine new Joint-stock Companies, of
which seven came forth in the columns of the daily and weekly papers,
offering to all who would join them the most magnificent return for
money invested. The aggregate capital of these Companies amounts to
no less than _two millions one hundred thousand pounds_, which a
confiding public is asked to subscribe, and this at a time when money
is exceptionally scarce, and when the general aspect of public affairs
both at home and abroad is very much the reverse of assuring. Nor need
it be thought that this number of enterprises was exceptionally large,
for, on the contrary, the average weekly advertisements of similar
concerns is much greater both as to actual number and capital. But
even of the former total, who is there who could deem it possible or
probable that such an amount would be subscribed even on the limited
liability system? 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. Let us
suppose that to one of these gentlemen there occurs the happy thought
of starting a ‘Fiji Islands Tramway Company.’ He loses no time in
putting his scheme into shape; and the following may be taken as a fair
example of how he carries out his intentions. His first work is to get
together a Board of Directors; and this, supposing he has had a fair
business experience, is not so difficult as might at first be supposed.
Together with the Financial Agent, another class of men has been
called into existence by the great extension of the Joint-stock
Company system. 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.
His value, like most other things, varies with the quality of the
article. 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.
The next step is to write, or to get some one to write—for the promoter
has generally a soul above literary composition—that portion of the
prospectus beginning: ‘The object for which this Company is formed,’
and so on. This is quickly accomplished. There are certain gentlemen
who describe themselves as connected with the press whose speciality
is to compose these prospectuses. The charge for such a document varies
from two to five guineas, and they are cheap even at the latter price.
There is perhaps no kind of writing which requires more care or skill
than this. In the case of the ‘Fiji Tramway Company,’ the writer must
make it appear that no undertaking so purely philanthropical, or so
sure to cause so much prosperity to Fiji, has ever been proposed either
by government or by private enterprise; while at the same time he
must, as it were, allow to escape from his pen the fact that a Tramway
Company in the Fiji islands is certain to be exceedingly lucrative to
all concerned. To repeat the old French joke, he must not lie in what
he writes, but he must economise the truth. The prospectus written, and
the officials, such as secretary, solicitors, bankers, &c., chosen,
an expensive step comes next—namely, very long advertisements in the
leading daily papers and elsewhere. But here also modern enterprise
comes to the help of the promoter, and sees him over the difficulty,
which to an outsider might seem almost insurmountable.
There are in London a number of advertising agents whose special
business it is to undertake jobs of this kind on credit, their
conditions being that they are to be paid out of the first moneys
received from applicants for shares. If the applications are not
sufficient, the promoter stands the loss; but it more frequently
happens that the advertising agent receives something like fifty per
cent. or more on what he has disbursed. It is in some respects risky,
but it generally pays; and when it does so, the advertising agent makes
an uncommonly good thing of it; and from one point of view, he deserves
to do so. Without his aid, the Company would have probably proved a
fiasco.
Once the prospectus is published, and applicants for shares commence to
send in their one pound apiece, the promoter begins to recoup himself.
Presently, the allotment of shares begins, and the simple-minded public
have to pay one pound on each share. 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. 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; and so long as there is any money left to divide, all those
concerned work together, and once more matters are made pleasant all
round.
And what happens when the money comes to an end? Why, what would you
have? 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.
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; and no doubt some of them
will be ruined. But what of that? If any one is to gain in a business
of this kind, some one must lose. And how about the prospectus which
induced them to part with their money? Many who have never been behind
the scenes in the Company promoting business will doubtless think this
sketch overdrawn. But let such persons inquire amongst those who know
the real meaning of Finance without Funds. Some who read this paper
will say there are in London Companies and Companies, and it may be
that many, even that the great majority of these are blameless as to
their representations and statements. It may be so; but what of the
others?
In the year 1884, there were registered in London no fewer than 1541
Companies, with a capital amongst them of £138,491,428, and even
this was a great falling-off from the number of previous years. In
1882, the registered capital of the Companies that had sprung up was
£250,000,000; and in 1883 it amounted to £167,000,000. Of these, who
shall say how many were _bonâ fide_, and how many were, in plain
English, mere financial swindles—swindles of a far more objectionable
kind, and infinitely more dangerous to the public at large, than many
offences which have been classed as such, and for which those who have
perpetrated them are now undergoing penal servitude?
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.
The figures quoted above speak for themselves, and require little or
no comment. 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? Were it possible to work out such a
problem, it would be a good thing if a far too confiding public could
be authentically informed how much of the four hundred millions was
subscribed for such Companies as the ‘Fiji Islands Tramway Company
(Limited).’ Still more instructive would it be to know how many
individuals who play at the game of amateur finance were ruined by the
means they expected should make their fortune.
In England, we have the greatest possible objection to state
interference in private affairs. As a rule, we are right. But are
there not exceptions to this as to every rule? Is it not part of a
government’s duty to protect the foolish and unwary from being made
the dupes of men who trade upon the credulity of others, and who bring
ruin to countless numbers? It is not the idle or depraved of society
who are the victims of these spurious concerns. Unlike those of the
gaming-tables, the Joint-stock Company swindles generally entrap and
ruin men who try to increase their income by legitimate means. The
following is a case which has come under the present writer’s personal
knowledge.
A gentleman who had served nearly thirty years in the Indian Civil
Service, came home with his well-earned income of one thousand a
year and a few thousands at his banker’s. His children were grown up
and well settled in life. He had no expensive habits; and beyond an
occasional game at whist, limited to sixpenny points, and perhaps
half-a-crown on the rubber, he never staked money in playing or
betting. He took chambers in the West End, was a member of the Oriental
and other clubs, and settled down apparently to pass a comfortable
uneventful life, until summoned to go over to the majority. For a
time all went quietly and well with him; but, like most Englishmen,
he found it hard to live without work, and time was very heavy on his
hands. While in this frame of mind, he, very unfortunately for him, as
it turned out, met an old Indian friend, a retired military officer,
who believed himself to be making a fortune in Joint-stock Companies.
As was to be expected, this old friend took him into the City and
introduced him to some so-called City men, individuals whose right to
such a title would certainly be repudiated by members of the Stock
Exchange, or by those engaged in any legitimate City business. By these
new acquaintances he was at once marked down as a new, and therefore a
very valuable addition to the numerous body of ‘guinea-pigs,’ who are
so useful to the fraternity. It was soon ascertained that, in addition
to a comfortable pension, he had by him a by no means despicable sum in
ready-money. Very few days after these introductions, he was asked by
a Financial Agent if he would accept a seat at the Board of a Company
that was about to be floated. The terms to be, two hundred pounds a
year paid him as a director, and fifty fully paid-up shares of ten
pounds each.
He agreed willingly enough; and a day or two later, his name appeared
in all the leading London papers in which the new Company was
advertised. From that day the Anglo-Indian may be said to have entered
on a new career. In six months he had become director in as many
Companies. He went daily to the City, where he remained till the tide
of busy men turned westward, and then went home with the comfortable
conviction that he had made money and gained valuable information
on financial matters. His clubs were now rarely honoured with his
presence; and when he did visit any old Indian friend, his conversation
was almost exclusively on the subject of this or that Company,
of how much Mr A. had made, or Mr B. had lost, by such and such
speculations, and of the good things in store for those who knew how to
work the financial oracles. In short, he became, as too many retired
Anglo-Indian Civil and Military servants do when they come home,
helplessly insane on a subject of which he knew little or nothing, of
which he had no experience, and in which he was the victim of designing
knaves, who made a tool of him.
Matters went on pleasantly enough for a time; but at last a very
decided change for the worse came. One by one the Companies of which
he was a director collapsed; and when they were wound up, our friend
found, to his dismay, that he had to book up the full value of the
shares for which he had never paid. This pretty nearly cleared away the
ready-money he had at his banker’s; but there was still worse behind.
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. ‘Help
me, and I’ll help thee,’ is held to be one of the standing articles of
their social creed. And when a fairly well-to-do ‘guinea-pig’ becomes
more or less intimate with these gentlemen, he is generally asked to
join one or more of them in raising money by means of bills. Sometimes
these useful substitutes for capital may be paid at maturity; but more
often they are not met, and are replaced by similar documents. There
are, however, occasions on which renewal of financial obligations is
no longer possible, and when those who draw, or those who accept, have
to book up without delay. Such was the lot of our friend whose short
financial career is here briefly described. His name being no longer
regarded as valuable, he was called on to find the funds for which he
had made himself answerable. For a very short time his pension for
three or four years was, so to speak, anticipated. He had given bills
which he had not the ready-money to meet, and had to resort to loan
offices, West End money-lenders, and other sources of raising money,
which, together with the premiums he had to pay insurance offices,
seeing that he could not get money without policies on his life, very
soon utterly ruined him. 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. Unlike any
other people, except their American cousins, they are sooner tired and
weary of idleness than of any amount of physical or mental labour. And
this is particularly the case with Anglo-Indians, who, after, perhaps,
a quarter of a century of hard work in the East, come home to enjoy
their hard-earned pensions. 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. The ways in which this want may be supplied are
various. To some, politics and literature fill up, or help to fill
up, the gap; racing and betting, hunting, shooting, and other sports
are followed by their respective votaries amongst those who have more
leisure than they know what to do with. But ‘going into the City’ has
the double fascination that it combines pleasure with occupation and
imaginary profit. Unfortunately, the unpleasant awakening too often
follows the pleasant dream.
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. This fancy seems to be for the present at least played out, and
for the year, gold mines appear to be popular.
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; and defrauding
their victims of what in many cases has cost a lifetime of long and
patient toil.
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;
but this ought not to deter the authorities from taking care of those
who cannot take care of themselves. 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? If it were
possible to obtain a reliable return of those who have been beggared by
these swindles during the 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. 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. 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.
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XXII.
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. ‘The girl’s a
Dupuy to the backbone,’ her cousin Tom said to her father more than
once, in evident admiration. ‘Though she does take up with a lot of
coloured trash—which, of course, is very unladylike—when once she sets
her heart upon a thing sir, she does it too, and no mistake about it
either.’
Dr Whitaker was another not infrequent visitor at the Hawthorns’
bungalow. He had picked up, as he desired, a gratuitous practice among
the poorer negroes; and though it often sorely tried his patience
and enthusiasm, he found in it at least some relief and respite from
the perpetual annoyance and degradation of his uncongenial home-life
with his father and Miss Euphemia. His botany, too, gave him another
anodyne—something to do to take his mind off the endless incongruity of
his settled position. He had decided within himself, almost from the
very first day of landing, to undertake a Flora of Trinidad—a new work
on all the flower-plants in the rich vegetation of that most luxuriant
among tropical islands; and in every minute of leisure time that he
could spare from the thankless care of his poor negro patients, he was
hard at work among the tangled woods and jungle undergrowth, or else
in his own little study at home, in his father’s house, collecting,
arranging, and comparing the materials for this his great work on the
exquisite flowers of his native country. The faithful violin afforded
him his third great resource and alleviation. Though Miss Euphemia and
her lively friends were scarcely of a sort to appreciate the young
doctor’s touching and delicate execution, he practised by himself
for an hour or two in his own rooms every evening; and as he did so,
he felt that the strings seemed ever to re-echo with one sweet and
oft-recurring name—the name of Nora. To be sure, he was a brown man,
but even brown men are more or less human. How could he ever dream of
falling in love with one of Miss Euphemia’s like-minded companions?
He met Nora from time to time in the Hawthorns’ drawing-room; there
was no other place under the circumstances of Trinidad where he was
at all likely ever to meet her. Nora was more frankly kind to him now
than formerly; she felt that to be cool or indifferent towards him
before Edward and Marian might seem remotely like an indirect slight
upon their own position. One afternoon he met her there accidentally,
and she asked him, with polite interest, how his work on the flowers of
Trinidad was getting on.
The young doctor cast down his eyes and answered timidly that he had
collected an immense number of specimens, and was arranging them slowly
in systematic order.
‘And your music, Dr Whitaker?’
The mulatto stammered for a moment. ‘Miss Dupuy,’ he said with a slight
hesitation, ‘I have—I have published the little piece—the Hurricane
Symphony, you know—that I showed you once on board the _Severn_. I have
published it in London. If you will allow me—I—I will present you, as I
promised, with a copy of the music.’
‘Thank you,’ Nora said. ‘How very good of you. Will you send it to me
to Orange Grove, or—will you leave it here some day with Mrs Hawthorn?’
The mulatto felt his face grow hot and burning as he answered with
as much carelessness as he could readily command: ‘I have a copy
here with me—it’s with my hat in the piazza. If you will permit me,
Mrs Hawthorn, I’ll just step out and fetch it. I brought it with me,
Miss Dupuy, thinking it just possible I might happen to meet you here
this morning.’ He didn’t add that he had brought it out with him day
after day for the last fortnight, in the vain hope of chancing to meet
her; and had carried it back again with a heavy heart night after
night, when he had failed to see her in that one solitary possible
meeting-place.
Nora took the piece that he handed her, fresh and white from the
press of a famous London firm of music-sellers, and glanced hastily
at the top of the title-page for the promised dedication. There was
none visible anywhere. The title-page ran simply: ‘Op. 14. Hurricane
Symphony. Souvenir des Indes. By W. Clarkson Whitaker.’
‘But, Dr Whitaker,’ Nora said, pouting a little in her pretty fashion,
‘this isn’t fair, you know. You promised to dedicate the piece to me. I
was quite looking forward to seeing my name in big letters, printed in
real type, on the top of the title-page!’
The mulatto doctor’s heart beat fast that moment with a very unwonted
and irregular pulsation. Then she really wished him to dedicate it to
her! Why on earth had he been so timorous as to strike out her name at
the last moment on the fair copy he had sent to London for publication?
‘I thought, Miss Dupuy,’ he answered slowly, ‘our positions were
so very different in Trinidad, that when I came here and felt how
things actually stood, I—I judged it better not to put your name in
conjunction with mine on the same title-page.’
‘Then you did quite wrong!’ Nora retorted warmly; ‘and I’m very angry
with you—I am really, I assure you. You ought to have kept your promise
when you gave it me. I wanted to see my own name in print, and on a
piece of music too. I expect, now, I’ve lost the chance of seeing
myself in black and white for ever and ever.’
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. I shan’t forget next time
that the dedication is to be fairly printed in good earnest.’
‘Mind you don’t, Dr Whitaker,’ Nora responded gaily. ‘Good-bye. I
suppose I shan’t see you again, as usual, for another week of Sundays!’
The mulatto smiled once more, a satisfied smile, as he answered
quickly: ‘O yes, Miss Dupuy. We shall meet on Monday next. Of course,
you’re going to the governor’s ball at Banana Garden!’
Nora started. ‘The governor’s ball!’ she repeated—‘the governor’s ball!
O yes, of course I’m going there, Dr Whitaker.—But are you invited?’
She said it thoughtlessly, on the spur of the moment, for it had never
occurred to her that the brown doctor would have an invitation also;
but the tone of surprise in which she spoke cut the poor young mulatto
to the very quick in that moment of triumph. He drew himself up proudly
as he answered in a hasty tone: ‘O yes; even I am invited to Banana
Garden, Miss Dupuy. The governor of the colony at least can recognise
no distinction of class or colour in his official capacity.’
Nora’s face flushed crimson. ‘I shall hope to see you there,’ she
answered quickly. ‘I’m glad you’re going.—Marian, dear, we shall be
quite a party. I only wish I was going with you, instead of being
trotted off in that odiously correct style by old Mrs Pereira.’
Dr Whitaker said no more, but raised his hat upon the piazza steps,
jumped upon his horse, and took his way along the dusty road that led
from the Hawthorns’ cottage to the residence of the Honourable Robert
Whitaker. As he reached the house, Miss Euphemia was laughing loudly
in the drawing-room with her bosom friend, Miss Seraphina M‘Culloch.
‘Wilberforce!’ Miss Euphemia cried, the moment her brother made his
appearance on the outer piazza, ‘jest you come straight in here, I
tellin’ you. Here’s Pheenie come around to hab a talk wit you. You is
too unsocial altogedder. You always want to go an’ bury yourself in
your own study. O my, O my! Young men dat come from England, dey hasn’t
got no conversation at all for to talk wit de ladies.’
Dr Whitaker was not in the humour just that moment to indulge in
pleasantries with Miss Seraphina M‘Culloch, a brown young lady of
buxom figure and remarkably free-and-easy conversation; so he sighed
impatiently as he answered with a hasty wave of his hand: ‘No,
Euphemia; I can’t come in and see your friend just this minute. I
must go into my own room to make up some medicines—some very urgent
medicines—wanted immediately—for some of my poor sick patients.’ Heaven
help his soul for that transparent little prevarication, for all the
medicine had been sent out in charge of a ragged negro boy more than
two hours ago; and it was Dr Whitaker’s own heart that was sick and ill
at ease, beyond the power of any medicine ever to remedy.
Miss Euphemia pouted her already sufficiently protruding lips. ‘Always
dem stoopid niggers,’ she answered contemptuously. ‘How on eart a man
like you, Wilberforce, dat has always been brought up respectable an’
proper, in a decent fam’ly, can bear to go an’ trow away his time in
attendin’ to a parcel of low nigger people, is more dan I can ever
understan’.—Can you, Seraphina?’
Miss Seraphina responded immediately, that, in her opinion, niggers was
a disgraceful set of dat low, disreputable people, dat how a man like
Dr Wilberforce Whitaker could so much demean hisself as ever to touch
dem, really surpassed her limited comprehension.
Dr Whitaker strode angrily away into his own room, muttering to himself
as he went, that one couldn’t blame the white people for looking down
upon the browns, when the browns themselves, in their foolish travesty
of white prejudice, looked down so much upon their brother blacks
beneath them. In a minute more, he reappeared with a face of puzzled
bewilderment at the drawing-room door, and cried to his sister angrily:
‘Euphemia, Euphemia! what have you done, I’d like to know, with all
those specimens I brought in this morning, and left, when I went out,
upon my study table?’
‘Wilberforce,’ Miss Euphemia answered with stately dignity, rising to
confront him, ‘I tink I can’t stand dis mess an’ rubbish dat you make
about de house a minute longer.—Pheenie! I tell you how dat man treat
de fam’ly. Every day, he goes out into de woods an’ he cuts bush—common
bush, all sort of weed an’ trash an’ rubbish; an’ he brings dem home,
an’ puts dem in de study, so dat de house don’t never tidy, however
much you try for to tidy him. Well, dis mornin’ I say to myself: “I
don’t goin’ to stand dis lumber-room in a respectable fam’ly any
longer.” So I take de bush dat Wilberforce bring in; I carry him out
to de kitchen altogedder; I open de stove, an’ I trow him in all in a
lump into de very middle of de kitchen fire. Ha, ha, ha! him burn an’
crackle all de same as if he was chock-full of blazin’ gunpowder!’
Dr Whitaker’s eyes flashed angrily as he cried in surprise: ‘What! all
my specimens, Euphemia! all my specimens! all the ferns and orchids and
curious club-mosses I brought in from Pimento Valley Scrubs early this
morning!’
Miss Euphemia tossed her head contemptuously in the air. ‘Yes,
Wilberforce,’ she answered with a placid smile; ‘every one of dem. I
burn de whole nasty lot of bush an’ trash togedder. An’ den, when I
finished, I burn de dry ones—de nasty dry tings you put in de cupboards
all around de study.’
Dr Whitaker started in horror. ‘My herbarium!’ he cried—‘my whole
herbarium! You don’t mean to say, Euphemia, you’ve actually gone and
wantonly destroyed my entire collection?’
‘Yes,’ Miss Euphemia responded cheerfully, nodding acquiescence several
times over; ‘I burn de whole lot of dem—paper an’ everyting. De
nasty tings, dey bring in de cockroach an’ de red ants into de study
cupboards.’
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. It was not so much the mere
loss of the pile of specimens—five months’ collection only, as well
as the European herbarium he had brought with him for purposes of
comparison—the one could be easily replaced in a second year; the other
could be bought again almost as good as ever from a London dealer—it
was the utter sense of loneliness and isolation, the feeling of being
so absolutely misunderstood, the entire want of any reasonable and
intelligent sympathy. He sat there idly for many minutes, staring with
blank resignation at the empty cases, and whistling to himself a low
plaintive tune, as he gazed and gazed at the bare walls in helpless
despondency. At last, his eye fell casually upon his beloved violin.
He rose up, slowly and mournfully, and took the precious instrument
with reverent care from its silk-lined case. Drawing his bow across
the familiar strings, he let the music come forth as it would; and
the particular music that happened to frame itself upon the trembling
catgut on the humour of the moment was his own luckless Hurricane
Symphony. For half an hour he sat there still, varying that well-known
theme with unstudied impromptus, and playing more for the sake of
forgetting everything earthly, than of producing any very particular
musical effect. By-and-by, when his hand had warmed to its work, and
he was beginning really to feel what it was he was playing, the door
opened suddenly, and a bland voice interrupted his solitude with an
easy flow of colloquial English.
‘Wilberforce, my dear son,’ the voice said in its most sonorous
accents, ‘dere is company come; you will excuse my interruptin’ you.
De ladies an’ gentlemen dat we expec’ to dinner has begun to arrive.
Dey is waitin’ to be introduced to de inheritor of de tree names most
intimately connected wit de great revolution which I have had de
pleasure an’ honour of bringin’ about for my enslaved bredderin’. De
ladies especially is most anxious to make your acquaintance. He, he,
he! de ladies is most anxious. An’, my dear son, whatever you do, don’t
go on playin’ any longer dat loogoobrious melancholy fiddle-toon. If
you _must_ play someting, play us someting lively—_Pretty little yaller
Gal_, or someting of dat sort!’
Dr Whitaker almost flung down his beloved violin in his shame and
disgrace at this untimely interruption. ‘Father,’ he said, as kindly
as he was able, ‘I am not well to-night—I am indisposed—I am suffering
somewhat—you must excuse me, please; I’m afraid I shan’t be able to
meet your friends at dinner this evening.’ And taking down his soft hat
from the peg in the piazza, he crushed it despairingly upon his aching
head, and stalked out, alone and sick at heart, into the dusty, dreary,
cactus-bordered lanes of that transformed and desolate Trinidad.
(_To be continued._)
FRENCH AND ENGLISH PROVERBS.
The object of the writer of this paper has been to collect and compare
a few of the most familiar English and French proverbs or sayings; and
to bring together a few of those sayings which exist as such in both
languages, expressing the same idea, or nearly so, in each. To begin
with a few similes.
We English seem to have selected the mouse as an emblem in our ‘As
dumb as a mouse;’ the French have preferred a glass, for they say, ‘As
dumb as a glass.’ We say, ‘As deaf as a post;’ the French, ‘As deaf
as a pot.’ ‘As dull as ditch-water,’ Gallicised becomes, ‘As sad as
a nightcap.’ ‘Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched,’ is
changed into, ‘Don’t sell the skin of a bear before having killed it.’
Instead of, ‘Biting off one’s nose to spite one’s face,’ a similarly
useless experiment is illustrated by ‘Spitting in the air that it may
fall on one’s nose.’ The self-evident impossibility in the words, ‘You
can’t get blood out of a stone,’ is represented by, ‘One could not
comb a thing that has no hair.’ (This last also ‘goes without saying,’
which, as literally translated from the French, now forms a proverb
in our own language.) 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. To
the Frenchman, the idea is sufficiently well expressed, however, by
impressing upon you the necessity of ‘howling with the wolves.’ ‘Easy
come, easy go,’ though terse and to the point, is in itself scarcely
so intelligible as the somewhat longer sentence, ‘That which comes
with the flood, returns with the ebb.’ That ‘a burnt child dreads the
fire’ is perfectly true, as every one will admit: our neighbours go
farther than this, and, in choosing a ‘scalded cat’ as the object of
consideration, speak of it as being in fear of ‘cold’ water even, thus
expressing the natural distrust of the cat, after having once been
scalded, as extending even to ‘cold’ water. ‘Money makes the mare to
go;’ and ‘For money, dogs dance.’
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. That ‘Practice makes perfect’ is equally true with ‘It is in
forging that one becomes a blacksmith.’ And speaking of an ‘ill wind
that blows nobody good,’ the fact that ‘to _some one_, misfortune is
good,’ is equally applicable, if the phrase were not un-English. The
cat seems to figure rather prominently in French proverbs. Instead of
buying a ‘pig in a poke,’ ‘a cat in a bag’ is often spoken of.
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. The ability to utilise whatever comes to hand, aptly put, ‘All
is fish that comes to his net,’ regarded from another point of view,
resolves itself into ‘Making arrows out of any wood.’
We are not aware—although, perhaps, some of our readers may be—of the
origin of the advice contained in ‘Tell that to the marines.’ It is
just possible, in times gone by, ‘the marines’ were a more credulous
body of men than the majority of people; but be that as it may, our
friends content themselves by saying, shortly, ‘to some others.’ The
idea in ‘Talk of a certain personage and he’s sure to appear,’ is
similarly embodied in the words, ‘As one speaks of the wolf, one sees
his tail.’ Perhaps to ‘shave an egg’ is almost as difficult a task as
to ‘skin a flint;’ and ‘to make with one stone two _coups_,’ about as
arduous as ‘to kill two birds with one stone.’ These illustrations
might be multiplied to a much greater extent, if necessary; but the
foregoing will suffice.
Of course, there are a number of English proverbs for which the French
have no _real_ equivalents, and _vice versâ_. By ‘equivalent’ is here
meant the same idea expressed in a similarly pithy, terse form, so as
to come under the head of proverbs in either language. 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.
Translators are often puzzled by such obstacles. Again, as also cannot
fail to happen, many proverbs are identical, or nearly so, in words in
both languages. The best use of proverbs is to illustrate, sum up, or
emphasise what has already been said, in a brief and concise manner; or
as a convenient form in which to give advice. Advice is sometimes, like
physic, very disagreeable to take, and being administered in the form
of a proverb-pill, is occasionally rendered less unpalatable.
THE WILL OF MRS ANNE BOWDEN.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. II.
I called at the hospital twice or thrice, to see if any inquiry
had been made for the mysterious and irritating parcel which I had
so unwittingly appropriated on the 24th of February. I looked in
the newspapers for advertisements of lost documents; I even myself
advertised my possession of a sealed envelope, of which I gave as
elaborate a description as so simple an object permitted. All in
vain! Nobody seemed to want the packet, and it remained an unclaimed
foundling on my hands.
We discussed the question of my duty in the matter in full conclave.
(It was about this time that ‘full conclave’ began to mean, as it has
now done for many years, the conference of Gerald, May, and myself.)
We could come to no decision. 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; and the use of the elaborately engraved stamp seems to me not
more of a safeguard against idle curiosity than an appeal to the honour
of any one for whose perusal the packet is not intended to leave it
inviolate. This was the argument I used to my dear fellow-judges; and,
strange to say, support of it came from a very unexpected quarter.
May was in the habit of narrating to Mrs Bowden the incidents of
Gerald’s life and mine. The harmless gossip seemed to give pleasure
to the poor old lady, whose personal intercourse was limited almost
wholly to what she held with greedy and self-seeking ‘connections’—‘not
relatives,’ as she frequently wrung their hearts by telling them; and
we had no reason for desiring secrecy. To her, then, was repeated the
story of the mysterious packet; she was much interested in it; and
May reported her advice to me next time we met at Gerald’s lodging.
(It was strange with what frequency these meetings occurred; but it
was stranger still, considering how often I visited Atherton, that I
should occasionally have missed his sister. Soon after this, I managed
to get apartments in the same house, so that I had as large a share of
May’s society when she came to Camden Town as her brother had.) It was
in these words, May said, that Mrs Bowden had given her adhesion to my
opinion: ‘Tell Mr Langham that it is never safe, from however good a
motive, to tamper with a sealed document. Whoever does so, is liable to
be accused of having forged the paper which he presents as authentic.’