Chapter I: Part 1

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.’

‘Surely not, if the document does not affect his interest in any way,’ said May. ‘A man commits forgery only to benefit himself; and it is quite impossible that the contents of this packet, whatever they are, can have anything to do with Mr Langham.’

‘Improbable, child; not more than that; nothing is impossible.’

‘Then I went on with the book I was reading to her,’ said May, in repeating the conversation to me; ‘but I don’t think she listened. At least her eyes were twinkling all the time, though it was quite a serious book, and in the middle of one very grave passage she laughed aloud. I stopped in surprise, and then she asked me if I was sure that I had described the seal correctly. I assured her that I had given your description of it word for word, at which she laughed again, and said, “Poor George.” I wonder if she meant Mr George Bowden; but I don’t see what he had to do with the matter. Then she repeated her warning about breaking seals, and bade me be sure to convey it to you.’

‘It is very considerate of Mrs Bowden,’ I said in some bewilderment; ‘but I cannot imagine why she should be so much interested in the matter. Is she at all—queer?’

‘She is eccentric, certainly; but not in the least mad, if that is what you mean. She has heart-disease, I believe; but her mind is all right, indeed particularly acute.’

‘Why, it’s simple enough,’ interposed Gerald. ‘Mrs Bowden hasn’t an amusement in the world except teasing her relatives, and she gets tired of that sometimes. But now chance informs her of a curious accident; and the little possibility of mystery and romance about it excites her, just because her own life happens to be free from either. It’s as good as a novel to her at present; but if the _dénouement_ doesn’t come on quickly enough, she’ll lose interest in the matter, and soon forget all about it. She cares merely for the sensation.’

But Mrs Bowden’s interest in the unclaimed packet and in its unwilling possessor was curiously deep and persistent.

‘She asks far more questions about you than about Gerald,’ said May to me one fortunate half-hour when her brother had left me to be her escort to church. (Her employer managed very frequently to dispense with her attendance on Sundays, and thus made the day one of tenfold happiness to us.)

‘Then I hope you strain your conscience, and speak well of me in your replies?’

‘I say just what I think of you,’ she answered very demurely.

‘And that is——?’ I asked.

‘That you are Gerald’s friend.’

‘Is that all?’