Part 7

For about ten years the Mohawks, or Mohocks, kept London in a state of alarm, though they seldom ventured into the City, where the watch was more efficient, but confined themselves chiefly to the neighbourhood of Clare Market, Covent Garden, and the Strand. The _Spectator_ says of them: 'Some of them are celebrated for dexterity in tipping the lion upon them, which is performed by squeezing the nose flat to the face and boring out the eyes with their fingers. Others are called the dancing-masters, and teach their scholars to cut capers by running swords through their legs.... A third sort are the Nimblers, who set women on their heads and commit ... barbarities on them.' Their conduct in the end became so alarming that a reward of L100 was offered by royal proclamation for the apprehension of any one of them. Curious stories were current at various times as to the origin of this society. In the 'Memoirs' of the Marquis of Torcy, Secretary of State to Louis XIV., and a famous diplomatist (born 1665, died 1746), the Duke of Marlborough is said to have suggested to Prince Eugene 'to employ a band of ruffians ... to stroll about the streets by night ... and to insult people by passing along, increasing their licentiousness gradually, so as to commit greater and greater disorders ... that when the inhabitants of London and Westminster were accustomed to the insults of these rioters, it would not be difficult to assassinate those of whom they might wish to be freed, and to cast the whole blame on the band of ruffians.' This project the Prince is reported to have rejected. Swift, in his 'History of the Four Last Years of Queen Anne,' attributes the scheme to the Prince himself on his visit to this country, through his hatred of Treasurer Harley. He proposed that 'the Treasurer should be taken off ... that this might easily be done and pass for an effect of chance, if it were preceded by encouraging some proper people to commit small riots in the night. And in several parts of the town a crew of ruffians were accordingly employed about that time, who probably exceeded their commission ... and acted inhuman outrages on many persons, whom they cut and mangled in the face and arms and other parts of their bodies.... This account ... was confirmed beyond all contradiction by several intercepted letters and papers.' It is just possible that popular panic exaggerated the doings of the Mohawks. Perhaps they did not exceed in savagery the drunken frolics then customary at night-time.

The Hell Fire Club was an institution of a character similar to that of the Mohawks. It was abolished by an order of the Privy Council in 1721, 'against certain scandalous clubs,' but it must have been revived in the country, for John Wilkes, about 1750, was a notorious member of a club with the above name at Medmenham Abbey, Bucks.

The Calves' Head Club for a time had its headquarters at The Cock, an inn long since demolished, in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall. It was one of the many inns at which Pepys was 'mighty merry.' The club is said to have been originated by Milton and other partisans of the Commonwealth; and the author of the 'Secret History of the Calves' Head Club'--probably Ned Ward--gives an account of the melodramatic and diabolical ceremonies observed at their banquets. An axe was hung up in their club-room as a sacred symbol--the destroyer of the tyrant. But the eating and drinking, for which, as Addison says, clubs were instituted, were not neglected by the members. At the banquet held in 1710 there was spent on bread, beer, and ale the sum of L2 10s.; on fifty calves' heads, L5 5s.; on bacon, L1 10s.; on six chickens and two capons, L1; on three joints of veal, 18s.; on butter and flour, 15s.; on oranges, lemons, vinegar, and spices, L1; on oysters and sausages, 15s.; on the use of pewter and linen, L1; and on various other items additional sums, bringing the total up to L18 6s. No wine, it will be noticed, is included in the above bill, but there is no doubt a considerable amount for this item should be added to it.

Early in the last century street clubs became common in various parts of London, that is to say, clubs in which the inhabitants of one or two streets met every night to discuss the affairs of the neighbourhood. Out of these, we suppose, arose the Mug House Club, in Long Acre, which soon found imitators in other parts of London. The members--gentlemen, lawyers, and tradesmen--met in a large room. A gentleman nearly ninety years of age was their president. A harp played at the lower end of the room, and now and then a member rose and treated the company to a song. Nothing was drunk but ale, and every gentleman had his own mug, which he chalked on the table as it was brought in.

In 1770 some young gentlemen, on returning from the grand tour it was then customary to make after leaving college--a tour which was supposed to lick the young cubs into shape and refine their manners, of course an illusion, since, whilst abroad, they associated chiefly with the scum of English society then swarming on the Continent--some of these young gentlemen, on their return, established in St. James's Street the Savoir Vivre Club, where they held periodical dinners, of which macaroni was a standing dish. This club was the nursery of the Macaronis, a phalanx of mild Hyde Park beaux, who were distinguished for nothing but the ridiculous dress they assumed. An unfinished copy of verses found among Sheridan's papers, and which Thomas Moore considered as the foundation of certain lines in the 'School for Scandal,' delineates the Macaronis in a few masterly strokes:

'Then I mount on my palfrey as gay as a lark, And, followed by John, take the dust in Hyde Park. In the way I am met by some smart Macaroni, Who rides by my side on a little bay pony; ... as taper and slim as the ponies they ride, Their legs are as slim, and their shoulders no wider,' etc.

The Savoir Vivre Club did not outlive the reign of the Macaronis, which lasted about five years, and the club ended its days--the chairmen and linkmen never having understood its foreign appellation--as a public-house bearing the name and sign of The Savoy Weavers. There were, in the last century especially, no end of Small clubs, whose objects in most cases were trivial and ridiculous. Short notice is all they deserve.

The Humdrum Club was composed of gentlemen of peaceable dispositions, who were satisfied to meet at a tavern, smoke their pipes, and say nothing till midnight. The Twopenny Club was formed by a number of artisans and mechanics, who met every night, each depositing on his entering the club-room his twopence. If a member swore, his neighbours might kick him on the shins. If a member's wife came to fetch him, she was to speak to him outside the door. In the reign of Charles II. was established the Duellists' Club, to which no one was admitted who had not killed his man. The chronicler of the club naively says: 'This club, consisting only of men of honour, did not continue long, most of the members being put to the sword or hanged.'

The Everlasting Club, founded in the first decade of the last century, was so called because its hundred members divided the twenty-four hours of day and night among themselves in such a manner that the club was always sitting, no person presuming to rise till he was relieved by his appointed successor, so that a member of the club not on duty himself could always find company, and have his whet or draught, as the rules say, at any time.

The tradespeople and workmen of the past seem to have had a passion for clubs; but there is this to be said in their favour, theirs were only drinking clubs. Our modern patrons of low-class clubs establish them for the worse pursuits of gambling and betting.

*IX.*

*CURIOUS STORIES OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE.*

In the _Weekly Journal_ of January 2, 1719-20, can be read: 'It was the observation of a witty knight many years ago, that the English people were something like a flight of birds at a barn-door. Shoot among them and kill ever so many, the rest shall return to the same place in a very little time, without any remembrance of the evil that had befallen their fellows.' The pigeons at Monte Carlo, whom the cruel-minded idiots who fire at them have missed, instead of flying at once and for ever from the murderous spot, perch on the cage in which their fellows are kept, and are easily caught again, to be eventually killed. 'Thus the English,' the _Weekly Journal_ concludes, 'though they have had examples enough in these latter times of people ruined by engaging in projects, yet they still fall in with the next that appears.' And thus the Stock Exchange flourishes. That desolation-spreading upastree was planted in the mephitic morass of the national debt. It is considered deserving of blame in an individual to get into debt, yet sometimes his doing so is unavoidable--his means are insufficient for his wants. But a nation has no excuse for taking credit and getting into debt. There is wealth enough in the country to pay cash for all it requires; and if it borrows money merely to subsidize foreign tyrants to enchain their own subjects, it commits a criminal act. But nearly the whole of our national debt has such an origin, and its poisonous produce is the Stock Exchange. The word 'stock-jobber' was first heard in 1688, when a crowd of companies sprang into existence, and it was then that the Stock Exchange was first established as an independent institution at Jonathan's Coffee-house, in Change Alley, in or about 1698. Before then the brokers had carried on their business in the Royal Exchange. London at that time abounded--at what time does it not?--with new projects and schemes, many of them delusory, consequently the legitimate transactions of the Royal Exchange were inconveniently interfered with by the presence of so many jobbers and brokers--that pernicious spawn of the public funds, as Noortbouck calls them--and they were ordered to leave the Exchange. They just crossed the road and went to Jonathan's, 'and though a public nuisance, they serve the purposes of ministers too well, in propagating a spirit of gaming in Government securities, to be exterminated, as a wholesome policy would dictate.' There, at Jonathan's, 'you will see a fellow in shabby clothes,' as we read in the 'Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London,' 'selling L10,000 or L12,000 in stock, though perhaps he may not be worth at the same time 10s., and with as much zeal as if he were a director, which they call selling a bear-skin.' Thus this latter expression seems very old. The business of stock-jobbing increased, in spite of some feeble repressive attempts on the part of Government in 1720, the House of Commons passing a vote 'that nothing can tend more to the establishment of public credit than preventing the infamous practice of stock-jobbing'; and also passing at the same time an Act enabling persons who had been sufferers thereby to obtain an easy and speedy redress.[#] In spite of this the brokers contrived to thrive to such an extent that they found it necessary to take a more commodious room in Threadneedle Street, to which admission was obtained on payment of sixpence. The Bank Rotunda was at one period the place where bargains in stocks were made; but there the brokers were as great a nuisance as they had been at the Royal Exchange, and were turned out. It was then they took the room in Threadneedle Street, and in the year 1799 they raised L12,150 in 1,263 shares of L50 each, and purchased a site in Capel Court, comprising Mendoza's boxing-room and debating forum and buildings contiguous, on which the present Stock Exchange was erected, and opened in 1801. Capel Court was so called from the London residence of Sir William Capel, Lord Mayor of London in 1504. Within the last decade the building has been considerably enlarged and beautified.

[#] An Act passed in 1734 forbade time bargains under a penalty of L500 on brokers and their clients, and of L100 for contracting for the sale of stock of which the person was not possessed. Both these statutes were repealed circa 1860.

Stockbrokers are supposed to lead very harassed and restless lives--yes, if they speculate on their own account and with their own money, a folly which no experienced broker ever thinks of committing. He speculates for other people, and with their money, and, well, if before the official hour of opening--viz., eleven o'clock--a chance presents itself of a deal with a customer's stock on the broker's account, by which a little benefit accrues to the latter, the customer knows nothing about it, and what you are ignorant of does not hurt. The broker is, in this respect, very much like the lawyer. Neither the broker nor the lawyer can be expected to share their clients' anxieties concerning investments or disputed interests, and they don't. When either of them leaves his office for his suburban villa or Brighton breezes, he leaves all thoughts of business behind him in the office, considering that the freedom from care he enjoys at home is honestly earned, and no doubt it is--in his estimation.

Until within the first quarter of this century a singular custom concerning the admission of Jews to the Stock Exchange was in existence. The number of Jew brokers was limited to twelve, and these could secure the privilege only by a liberal gratuity to the Lord Mayor for the time being. 'During the Mayoralty of Wilkes, one of the Jew brokers was taken seriously ill, and Wilkes is said to have speculated pretty openly on the advantage he would derive from filling up the vacancy. The son of the broker, meeting the Lord Mayor, reproached Wilkes with wishing his father's death. 'My dear fellow,' replied Wilkes, with the sarcastic humour peculiar to him, 'you are in error, for I would rather have all the Jew brokers dead than your father.'

The funds are much affected by political events; that goes without saying. Their rise or fall may be very rapid. It was exceptionally so in the early period of the French revolutionary war. In March, 1792, the Three per Cents, were at 96, in 1797 they were as low as 48, the lowest they ever fell to. The possession of prior or exclusive intelligence enables persons to speculate with great success. A broker who casually became acquainted with the failure of Lord Macartney's negotiation with the French Directory, made L16,000 while breakfasting at Batson's Coffee-house, Cornhill, and had he not been timid, might have gained half a million, so great was the fluctuation, owing to the news being entirely unexpected.

But the magnates of the money market did not rely on casual intelligence. They left no stone unturned to obtain reliable information in advance even of Government. Thus Sir Henry Furnese, a bank director, paid for constant despatches from Holland, Flanders, France and Germany. He made an enormous haul by his early intelligence of the surrender of Namur in 1695. King William gave him a diamond ring as a reward for early information; yet he was not above fabricating false news, and he had his tricks for influencing the funds. If he wished to buy, his brokers looked gloomy, and, the alarm spread, they concluded their bargains. Marlborough had an annuity of L6,000 from Medina, the Jew, for permission to attend his campaigns. During the troubles of 1745, when the rebels advanced towards London, stocks fell terribly. Sampson Gideon, a famous Jew broker, managed to have the first news of the Pretender's retreat. He hastened to Jonathan's, bought all the stock in the market, spending all his cash, and pledging his name for more. This stroke of business made him a millionaire.

During the last years of the French wars a difference of 8 per cent., and even 10 per cent., would occur within an hour, and thus great fortunes might be won or lost within that short time. It was also a period of gigantic frauds, but of these later on.

Of all the sons of Maier Amschel Rothschild, Nathan, born in 1777, was undoubtedly the most prominent. Inheriting his father's spirit, he left his home at the early age of twenty-two, and in 1798 opened a small shop as a banker and money-lender at Manchester. He had left Frankfurt, where his father's house had just been knocked into ruins by the bombardment of Marshal Kleber, with only a thousand florins in his pocket. But the cotton interest was just then beginning to develop itself, and Nathan took such clever advantage of the opportunities this offered him, that at the end of five years he came from Manchester to London with a fortune of L200,000, where he became the son-in-law of Levi Barnett Cohen, one of the Jewish City magnates. The report of his Manchester successes had preceded him to the Capital, and he immediately engaged largely in Stock Exchange speculations. Whilst houses of the oldest standing were tottering or falling, owing to the State loan of 1810 having turned out a failure, and the fortunes of the Peninsular War seemed most doubtful, some drafts of Wellington to a considerable amount came over here, and there was no money in the Exchequer to meet them. Nathan Rothschild, satisfied as to England's final victory, purchased the bills at a large discount, and finally found the means of redeeming them at par. It was a splendid speculation, which resulted in his entering into closer intercourse with the Ministry, and he was chiefly employed in transmitting the subsidies which England furnished--most foolishly indeed--to the Continental Powers. The circumstance that Nathan was supplied by his brothers at Frankfurt and elsewhere with the earliest and most reliable intelligence, and his trustworthy connections and arrangements in London, enabled him to turn such knowledge to immediate and profitable account. But there being then neither railways nor telegraphs, news was slow in coming. Nathan trained carrier pigeons, and organized a staff of agents, whose duty it was to follow the march of the armies, and daily and hourly to send reports in cipher, tied under the wings of the pigeons. His agents, by means of fast-sailing boats, taking the shortest routes, indicated by Nathan himself--the mail-boats between Folkestone and Boulogne of the present day follow one of these routes--carried large sums between the coasts of Germany, France, and England. And when events on the Continent were coming to a crisis, Nathan on more than one occasion hurried over to the Continent to watch the course of affairs. It is said that Nathan Rothschild, on June 18, 1815, was on the field of Waterloo,[#] and watched the battle till he saw the French troops in full retreat, when he immediately rode back to Brussels, whence a carriage took him to Ostend. The sea was stormy; in vain Nathan offered 500 francs, 600 francs, 800 francs, to carry him across; at last a poor fisherman risked his life for 2,000 francs, and his frail barque, which carried Caesar and his fortunes, landed Nathan in the evening at Dover. When he appeared on June 20, leaning against his usual pillar in the Stock Exchange, everything and everybody looked gloomy. He whispered to a few of his most intimate friends that the allied army had been defeated. The dismal news spread like wildfire, and there was a tremendous fall in the funds. Nathan's known agents sold with the rest, but his unknown agents bought every scrap of paper that was to be had. It was not till the afternoon of June 21 that the news of the victory of Waterloo became known. Nathan was the first to inform his friends of the happy event, a quarter of an hour before the news was given to the public. The funds rose faster than they had fallen, and Nathan still leant against his pillar in the southern corner of the Stock Exchange, but richer by about a million sterling. From that day the career of Nathan was one of ever-increasing prosperity; his firm became the agents of all European Governments; he made bargains with the Czar of Russia and with South American Republics, with the Pope and the Sultan. About the morality of the Waterloo episode the less said the better, but peers and princes of the blood, bishops and archbishops, partook of his sumptuous banquets, whilst he calculated to a penny on what a clerk could live!

[#] To an article I wrote twenty-five years ago on this topic I find appended the following note: 'We give the following on the authority of Martin, but must add that a private friend, who formerly filled an office of trust in the firm of Rothschild Brothers, declares the whole to be a fiction.' But who this friend was we cannot now remember.

Another financier, who almost rivalled Rothschild as a speculator, was Abraham Goldsmid, who was ruined by a conspiracy. He, in conjunction with a banking establishment, had taken a large Government loan. The conspirators managed to cause the omnium stock to fall to 18 discount. The result was Goldsmid's failure and eventually his suicide, whilst the conspirators made a profit of about L2,000,000.

Among other notable stockbrokers we must not omit Francis Bailey, F.S.A., President of the Royal Astronomical Society, who retired from the Stock Exchange in 1825. In 1851 he repeated at his house in Tavistock Place, Russell Square, the Cavendish experiment of weighing the earth, and calculating its bulk and figure, and at the same time verifying the standard measure of the British nation, and rectifying pendulum experiments. In the garden of the house a small observatory was erected for those purposes, and is, we believe, still standing.

We alluded a little while ago to some gigantic frauds in Stock Exchange operations. One of the most extraordinary and elaborate of such frauds was that carried out by De Berenger and Cochrane-Johnstone in 1814. Napoleon's military operations against the allies had greatly depressed the funds. On February 21, 1814, about one o'clock a.m., a violent knocking was heard at the door of the Ship Inn, then the chief hotel at Dover. When the door was opened, a person in a richly-embroidered scarlet uniform announced himself as an aide-de-camp of Lord Cathcart (who was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington in 1815), and as the bearer of important news. The allies had gained a great victory, and entered Paris; Napoleon had been captured and killed by Cossacks, who had cut his body into a thousand pieces. Immediate peace was now certain. The stranger ordered a post-chaise, and departed for London, but before leaving, he sent a note containing the news to the Port Admiral, who received it about four a.m.; but the morning being foggy, the telegraph could not be worked. The sham aide-de-camp--really De Berenger, an adventurer, afterwards a livery stable-keeper--dashed along the road, throwing napoleons to the post-boys whenever he changed horses. At Bexley Heath it was clear to him that the telegraph could not have worked, so he moderated his pace, spreading at the same time the news of Napoleon's defeat and death. At Lambeth he entered a hackney-coach, telling the post-boys to spread the news, which reached the Stock Exchange about ten o'clock, in consequence of which the funds rose, but fell again when it was found that the Lord Mayor had had no intelligence. But about twelve o'clock three persons, two of whom were dressed as French officers, drove in a post-chaise over London Bridge; their horses were bedecked with laurels. The officers scattered papers among the crowd, announcing the death of Napoleon and the fall of Paris. They then paraded through Cheapside and Fleet Street, passed over Blackfriars Bridge, and drove rapidly to the Marshgate, Lambeth, got out, changed their cocked hats for round ones, and disappeared as mysteriously as their confederate, De Berenger, had done a few hours earlier.