The large quantity of surplus capital and consequent low rate of
interest during the last, and in the present, year, induce its
possessors to embark their money in schemes for promoting general
utility. One of the advantages resulting from a state of peace is the
influx of wealth that pours forth upon the country for its improvement.
Yet it behoves the prudent, and those of small means, to be circumspect
in their outlays; to see with their own eyes, and not through the medium
of others. The premiums that shares in projects may bear in the market,
are not even a shadow of criterion whereon to found a judgment for
investment. This is well known to every discreet man who has an odd
hundred to put out; and he who cannot rely on his own discrimination for
a right selection from among the various schemes that are proffered to
his choice, will do well to act as if none of them existed, and place
his cash where the principal will at least be safe, and the interest,
though small, be certain. This month presents schemes for
Twenty Rail Road Companies,
Twenty-two Banking, Loan, Investment, and Assurance Companies,
Eleven Gas Companies,
Eight British and Irish Mine Companies,
Seventeen Foreign Mine Companies,
Nine Shipping and Dock Companies,
and
Twenty-seven Miscellaneous Companies,
Including
A London Brick Company,
A Patent Brick Company,
A London Marine Bath Company,
A Royal National Bath Company,
A Great Westminster Milk Company,
and
A Metropolitan Water Company.
An Alderney Dairy Company,
A Metropolitan Alderney Dairy Company,
A South London Milk Company,
An East London Milk Company,
A Metropolitan Milk Company.
A correspondent in the “London Magazine” declares, that “if we named the
several divisions of the year after the French revolutionary fashion, by
the phenomena observable in them, we should, from our experience of
January, 1825, call it _Bubblose_--it has been a month of most
flagitious and flourishing knavery.” He pleasantly assumes that Mr.
Jeremiah Hop-the-twig, attorney at law, benevolently conceives the idea
of directing “surplus capital” to the formation of “a joint stock
company for the outfit of air-balloons, the purchase of herds of swine,
and the other requisites for a flourishing lunar commerce; Capital One
Million, divided into 10,000 shares of 100_l._ each.” The method is then
related of opening an account with a respectable banking-house,
obtaining respectable directors, appointing his son-in-law the
respectable secretary, the son of a respected director the respectable
standing counsel, and the self-nomination of the respectable Mr.
Jeremiah H. and Co. as the respectable solicitors. Afterwards come the
means of raising the bubble, to the admiration of proper persons who pay
a deposit of 5_l._ per share; who, when the shares “look down,” try to
sell, but there are “no buyers,” the “quotations are nominal;” a second
instalment called for, the holders hesitate; “their shares are
forfeited;” the speculation is consequently declared frustrated; and
there being only £10,000 in the bankers’ hands to pay “Mr.
Hop-the-twig’s bill of 10,073_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ that respectable
solicitor is defrauded of the sum of 73_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ This is the
rise and fall of a respectable _bubble_.”
Undoubtedly, among these various schemes afloat, some will be productive
of great benefit to the country; but it is seriously to be considered
whether the estimation of some of them in a money view be not too high,
and forced to an undue price by the arts of jobbing:
Haste instantly and buy, cries one
Real Del Monte shares, for none
Will hold a richer profit;
Another cries--No mining plan
Like ours--the Anglo-Mexican
As for Del Monte, scoff it.
_This_ grasps my button, and declares
There’s nothing like Columbian shares,
The capital a million;--
_That_, cries La Plata’s sure to pay;
Or bids me buy without delay
Hibernian or Brazilian.
’Scaped from the torments of the mine
Rivals in Gas, an endless line,
Arrest me as I travel;
Each sure my suffrage to receive,
If I will only give him leave,
His project to unravel.
By Fire and Life insurers next
I’m intercepted, pester’d, vex’d,
Almost beyond endurance;
And though the schemes appear unsound,
Their advocates are seldom found
Deficient in assurance.
Last I am worried, shares to buy
In the Canadian company,
The Milk Association,
The Laundry-men who wash by steam,
Rail-ways, Pearl-fishing, or the scheme,
For Inland Navigation.
_New Monthly Mag._
* * * * *