An alarming forgery of Mendicity Society's tickets has been discovered in
Red Lion Square, and has caused much conversation at the doors of most of
the gin palaces. Our readers are probably aware what these tickets are,
though, being a particular class of security, there is not a great deal
publicly done in them. They are issued to certain subscribers, who pay a
guinea per year towards housing a Secretary and some other officers in a
moderate-sized house, in the kitchen of which certain soup is prepared,
which is partaken of by a number of persons called the Board, who are said
to taste it and see that it is good; and if there is any left, which may
occasionally happen, the poor are allowed to finish it. This valuable
privilege is secured by tickets; and these tickets are found to be forged
to a very large amount--some say indeed to the amount of 14,000 basins. It
is not usual to pay off these soup tickets, but a sort of interest can be
had upon them by standing just over the railings of the house in Red Lion
Square, when the Secretary's dinner is being cooked or served up, and a
certain amount of savoury steam is then put into circulation. The house
has been besieged all day with "innocent holders," who, on giving their
tickets in, cannot get them back again. The genuine tickets are known by
the stamp, which is a soup plate _rampant_, and a spoon _argent_,--the
latter being the emblem of the subscribers.
A great deal is said of a new company, whose object is to take advantage
of a well-known fact in chemistry. It is known that diamonds can be
resolved into charcoal, as well as that charcoal can be ultimately reduced
to air; and a company is to be founded with the view of simply _reversing
the process_. Instead of getting air from diamonds, their object will be
to get diamonds from air; and in fact the chief promoters of it have
generally drawn from that source the greater part of their capital. The
whole sum for shares need not be paid up at once; but the Directors will
be satisfied in the first instance with 10 per cent. on the whole sum to
be raised from the adventurers. It is intended to declare a dividend at
the earliest possible period, which will be directly the first diamond has
been made by the new process.
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