Further information to be given in a month."
The books were opened at nine o'clock in the morning. Before night
a thousand shares were taken, and two thousand pounds paid in. So
successful was the day's work, that that night the projector of the
enterprise went out of the business, and forever vanished from the
public. But it was not a perfect loss. The subscribers had their
ornamented certificates of stock to comfort them. Hunt's Merchant's
Magazine, speaking of those times, says "that from morning until
evening 'Change Alley was filled to overflowing with one dense mass of
living beings composed of the most incongruous materials, and, in
all things save the mad pursuit in which they were employed, the very
opposite in habits and conditions."
What was the end of this chapter of English enterprise? Suddenly
the ruin came. Down went the whole nation--members of Parliament,
tradesmen, physicians, clergymen, lawyers, royal ladies, and poor
needle-women--in one stupendous calamity. The whole earth, and all the
ages, heard that bubble burst.
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