Part 16
One consequence of the prosperous appearance that the South Sea scheme bore, till within a short period before its failure, was a variety of equally promising and delusive projects. These were denominated _bubbles_. Alarmed at the destructive issue of the master-bubble, government issued the following manifesto: “The lords justices in council, taking into consideration the many inconveniences arising to the public, from several projects set on foot for raising of joint-stocks for various purposes; and that a great many of his majesty’s subjects have been drawn in to part with their money, on pretence of assurances that their petitions, for patents and charters to enable them to carry on the same, would be granted: to prevent such impositions, their excellencies ordered the said several petitions, together with such reports from the Board of Trade, and from his majesty’s attorney and solicitor general, as had been obtained thereon, to be laid before them; and, after mature consideration thereof, were pleased, by advice of his majesty’s privy-council, to order that the said petitions be dismissed.” The applications thus rejected prayed patents for various fisheries, for building ships to let or freight, for raising hemp, flax, and madder, for making of sail-cloth, for fire-assurances, for salt-works, for the making of snuff in Virginia, &c.
In defiance of this salutary order, the herd of projectors, with an audacity that passed on the credulous for well-grounded confidence, continued their nefarious traffic. Proclamations from the king, and even acts of parliament, were utterly disregarded; and companies which had been established by charter increased the evil, by imitating the South Sea company’s fatal management, and taking in subscriptions. This occasioned the lords justices to issue another order, wherein they declared that, having been attended by Mr. attorney-general, they gave him express orders to bring writs of scire facias against the charters or patents of the York-building’s company, Lustring company, English copper, Welsh copper, and lead, and also against other charters or patents which had been, or should be made use of, or acted under, contrary to the intent or meaning of an act passed the last session of parliament, &c.
They likewise instructed the attorney-general to prosecute, with the utmost severity, all persons opening books for public subscriptions; or receiving money upon such subscriptions; or making or accepting transfers of, or shares upon, such subscriptions; of which they gave public notice in the Gazette, as “a farther caution to prevent the drawing of unwary persons, for the future, into practices contrary to law.” This effectually frustrated the plans of plunder, exercised or contemplated at that period. How necessary so vigorous a resistance was must be obvious from this fact, that innumerable bubbles perished in embryo; besides an incredible number which could be named that were actually set in motion, and to support which the sums intended to be raised amounted to about 300,000,000_l._ The lowest advance of the shares in any of these speculations was above cent. per cent., most of them above 400_l._ per cent.; and some were raised to twenty times the price of the subscription. Taking these circumstances into account, the scandalous projects would have required seven hundred millions sterling, if such a sum could have been realized in the shape of capital. To such a height of madness had the public mind been excited, that even shares were eagerly coveted, and bargained for, in shameless schemes which were not worth the paper whereon their proposals were printed, at treble the price they nominally bore. From a list of only a part of those that the air of ’Change-alley teemed with, the names of a few are here set forth:
_Projects_
For supplying London with cattle. For supplying London with hay. For breeding and feeding cattle. For making pasteboards. For improving the paper manufacture. For dealing in lace, hollands, &c. For a grand dispensary. For a royal fishery. For a fish pool. For making glass-bottles. For encouraging the breed of horses. For discovering gold mines. For an assurance against thieves. For trading in hair. For loan offices. For dealing in hops. For making of china ware. For furnishing funerals. For a coral fishery. For a flying machine. For insuring of horses. For making of looking-glasses. For feeding of hogs. For buying and selling estates. For purchasing and letting lands. For supplying London with provisions. For curing the gout and stone. For making oil of poppies. For bleaching coarse sugar. For making of stockings. For an air-pump for the brain. For insurance against divorces. For making butter from beech-trees. For paving London streets. For extracting silver from lead. For making of radish oil. For a perpetual motion. For japanning of shoes. For making deal boards of sawdust. For a scheme to teach the casting of nativities.
JOINT STOCK COMPANIES OF 1825.
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._
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Stalkless moss. _Phascum muticum._
~January 25.~
Holiday at the Public Office; except the Excise, Stamps, and Customs.
CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. _Sts. Juventinus and Maximinus_, A. D. 363. _St. Projectus_, A. D. 674. _St. Poppo_, A. D. 1048. _St. Apollo_, A. D. 393. _St. Publius_, A. D. 369.
_The Conversion of St. Paul._
This is a festival in the calendar of the church of England, as well as in that of the Romish church.
~St. Paul’s Day.~
On this day prognostications of the months were drawn for the whole year. If fair and clear, there was to be plenty; if cloudy or misty, much cattle would die; if rain or snow fell then it presaged a dearth; and if windy, there would be wars:
If Saint Paul’s Day be fair and clear. It does betide a happy year; But if it chance to snow or rain, Then will be dear all kinds of grain; If clouds or mists do dark the skie, Great store of birds and beasts shall die; And if the winds do fly aloft, Then wars shall vex the kingdome oft.
_Willsford’s Nature’s Secrets._
These prognostications are Englished from an ancient calendar: they have likewise been translated by Gay, who enjoins,
Let no such vulgar tales debase thy mind, Nor Paul nor Swithin rule the clouds and wind.
The latter lines are allusive to the popular superstitions, regarding these days, which were before remarked by bishop Hall, who observes of a person under such influences, that “St. Paule’s day, and St. Swithine’s, with the twelve, are his oracles, which he dares believe against the almanacke.” It will be recollected that “the twelve” are twelve days of Christmastide, mentioned on a preceding day as believed by the ignorant to denote the weather throughout the year.
Concerning this day, Bourne says. “How it came to have this particular knack of foretelling the good or ill fortune of the following year is no easy matter to find out. The monks, who were undoubtedly the first who made this wonderful observation, have taken care it should be handed down to posterity; but why, or for what reason, they have taken care to conceal. St. Paul did indeed labour more abundantly than all the apostles; but never that I heard in the science of astrology: and why this day should therefore be a standing almanac to the world, rather than the day of any other saint, will be pretty hard to find out.” In an ancient Romish calendar, much used by Brand, the vigil of St. Paul is called “Dies Ægyptiacus;” and he confesses his ignorance of any reason for calling it “an Egyptian-day.” Mr. Fosbroke explains, from a passage in Ducange, that it was so called because there were two unlucky days in every month, and St. Paul’s vigil was one of the two in January.
Dr. Forster notes, that the festival of the conversion of St. Paul has always been reckoned ominous of the future weather of the year, in various countries remote from each other.
According to Schenkius, cited by Brand, it was a custom in many parts of Germany, to drag the images of St. Paul and St. Urban to the river, if there was foul weather on their festival.
APOSTLE-SPOONS.
St. Paul’s day being the first festival of an apostle in the year, it is an opportunity for alluding to the old, ancient, English custom, with sponsors, or visitors at christenings, of presenting spoons, called apostle-spoons, because the figures of the twelve apostles were chased, or carved on the tops of the handles. Brand cites several authors to testify of the practice. Persons who could afford it gave the set of twelve; others a smaller number, and a poor person offered the gift of one, with the figure of the saint after whom the child was named, or to whom the child was dedicated, or who was the patron saint of the good-natured donor.
Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair, has a character, saying, “And all this for the hope of a couple of apostle-spoons, and a cup to eat caudle in.” In the Chaste Maid of Cheapside, by Middleton, “_Gossip_” inquires, “What has he given her? What is it, Gossip?” Whereto the answer of another “_Gossip_” is, “A faire high-standing cup, and two great ’postle-spoons--one of them gilt,” Beaumont and Fletcher, likewise, in the Noble Gentleman, say:
“I’ll be a Gossip. Bewford, I have an odd apostle-spoon.”
The rarity and antiquity of apostle-spoons render them of considerable value as curiosities. A complete set of twelve is represented in the sketch on the opposite page, from a set of the spoons themselves on the writer’s table. The apostles on this set of spoons are somewhat worn, and the stems and bowls have been altered by the silversmith in conformity with the prevailing fashion of the present day; to the eye of the antiquary, therefore, they are not so interesting as they were before they underwent this partial modernization: yet in this state they are objects of regard. Their size in the print is exactly that of the spoons themselves, except that the stems are necessarily fore-shortened in the engraving to get them within the page. The stem of each spoon measures exactly three inches and a half in length from the foot of the apostle to the commencement of the bowl; the length of each bowl is two inches and nine-sixteenths of an inch; and the height of each apostle is one inch and one-sixteenth: the entire length of each spoon is seven inches and one-eighth of an inch. They are of silver; the lightest, which is St. Peter, weighs 1 oz. 5 dwts. 9 gr.; the heaviest is St. Bartholomew, and weighs 1 oz. 9 dwts. 4 gr.; their collective weight is 16 oz. 14 dwts. 16 gr. The hat, or flat covering, on the head of each figure, is usual to apostles-spoons, and was probably affixed to save the features from effacement. In a really fine state they are very rare.
It seems from “the Gossips,” a poem by Shipman, in 1666, that the usage of giving apostle-spoons at christenings, was at that time on the decline:
“Formerly, when they us’d to troul, Gilt bowls of sack, they gave the bowl; Two _spoons_ at least; an _use ill kept_; ’Tis well if now our own be left.”
An anecdote is related of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, which bears upon the usage: Shakspeare was godfather to one of Jonson’s children, and, after the christening, being in deep study, Jonson cheeringly asked him, why he was so melancholy? “Ben,” said he, “I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolved it at last.” “I prithee, what?” said Ben, “I’ faith, Ben,” answered Shakspeare, “I’ll give him a dozen good _latten spoons_, and thou shalt translate them.” The word _latten_, intended as a play upon _latin_, is the name for thin iron tinned, of which spoons, and similar small articles of household use, are sometimes made. Without being aware of the origin, it is still a custom with many persons, to present spoons at christenings, or on visiting the “lady in the straw;” though they are not now adorned with imagery.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Winter hellebore. _Helleborus hyemalis._
~January 26.~
_St. Polycarp._ _St. Paula._ _St. Conan._
THE SEASON.
On winter comes--the cruel north Pours his furious whirlwind forth Before him--and we breathe the breath Of famish’d bears, that howl to death: Onward he comes from rocks that blanch O’er solid streams that never flow, His tears all ice, his locks all snow, Just crept from some huge avalanche.
_Incog._
BEARS AND BEES.
M. M. M. a traveller in Russia, communicates, through the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1785, a remarkable method of cultivating bees, and preserving them from their housebreakers, the bears. The Russians of Borodskoe, on the banks of the river Ufa, deposit the hives within excavations that they form in the hardest, strongest, and loftiest trees of the forest, at about five-and-twenty or thirty feet high from the ground, and even higher, if the height of the trunk allows it. They hollow out the holes lengthways, with small narrow hatchets, and with chisels and gouges complete their work. The longitudinal aperture of the hive is stopped by a cover of two or more pieces exactly fitted to it, and pierced with small holes, to give ingress and egress to the bees. No means can be devised more ingenious or more convenient for climbing the highest and the smoothest trees than those practised by this people, for the construction and visitation of these hives. For this purpose they use nothing but a very sharp axe, a leathern strap, or a common rope. The man places himself against the trunk of the tree, and passes the cord round his body and round the tree, just leaving it sufficient play for casting it higher and higher, by jerks, towards the elevation he desires to attain, and there to place his body, bent as in a swing, his feet resting against the tree, and preserving the free use of his hands. This done, he takes his axe, and at about the height of his body makes the first notch or step in the tree; then he takes his rope, the two ends whereof he takes care to have tied very fast, and throws it towards the top of the trunk. Placed thus in his rope by the middle of his body, and resting his feet against the tree, he ascends by two steps, and easily enables himself to put one of his feet in the notch. He now makes a new step, and continues to mount in this manner till he has reached the intended height. He performs all this with incredible speed and agility. Being mounted to the place where he is to make the hive, he cuts more convenient steps, and, by the help of the rope, which his body keeps in distension, he performs his necessary work with the above-mentioned tools, which are stuck in his girdle. He also carefully cuts away all boughs and protuberances beneath the hive, to render access as difficult as possible to the bears, which abound in vast numbers throughout the forests, and in spite of all imaginable precautions, do considerable damage to the hives. On this account the natives put in practice every kind of means, not only for defending themselves from these voracious animals, but for their destruction. The method most in use consists in sticking into the trunk of the tree old blades of knives, standing upwards, scythes, and pieces of pointed iron, disposed circularly round it, when the tree is straight, or at the place of bending, when the trunk is crooked. The bear has commonly dexterity enough to avoid these points in climbing up the tree; but when he descends, as he always does, backwards, he gets on these sharp hooks, and receives such deep wounds, that he usually dies. Old bears frequently take the precaution to bend down these blades with their fore-paws as they mount, and thereby render all this offensive armour useless.
Another destructive apparatus has some similitude to the catapulta of the ancients. It is fixed in such a manner that, at the instant the bear prepares to climb the tree, he pulls a string that lets go the machine, whose elasticity strikes a dart into the animal’s breast. A further mode is to suspend a platform by long ropes to the farthest extremity of a branch of the tree. The platform is disposed horizontally before the hive, and there tied fast to the trunk of the tree with a cord made of bark. The bear, who finds the seat very convenient for proceeding to the opening of the hive, begins by tearing the cord of bark which holds the platform to the trunk, and hinders him from executing his purpose. Upon this the platform immediately quits the tree, and swings in the air with the animal seated upon it. If, on the first shock, the bear is not tumbled out, he must either take a very dangerous leap, or remain patiently in his suspended seat. If he take the leap, either involuntarily, or by his own good will, he falls on sharp points, placed all about the bottom of the tree; if he resolve to remain where he is, he is shot by arrows or musket balls.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
White butterbur. _Tressilago alba._
~January 27.~
_St. John Chrysostom._ _St. Julian of Mans._ _St. Marius._
THE SEASON
It is observed in Dr. Forster’s “Perennial Calendar,” that “Buds and embryo blossoms in their silky, downy coats, often finely varnished to protect them from the wet and cold, are the principal botanical subjects for observation in January, and their structure is particularly worthy of notice; to the practical gardener an attention to their appearance is indispensable, as by them alone can he prune with safety. Buds are always formed in the spring preceding that in which they open, and are of two kinds, leaf buds and flower buds, distinguished by a difference of shape and figure, easily discernible by the observing eye; the fruit buds being thicker, rounder, and shorter, than the others--hence the gardener can judge of the probable quantity of blossom that will appear:”--
_Lines on Buds, by Cowper._
When all this uniform uncoloured scene Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load, And flush into variety again. From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, Is Nature’s progress, when she lectures man In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes The grand transition, that there lives and works A soul in all things, and that soul is God. He sets the bright procession on its way, And marshals all the order of the year; He marks the bounds which winter may not pass, And blunts his pointed fury; in its case, Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ, Uninjured, with inimitable art; And ere one flowery season fades and dies, Designs the blooming wonders of the next.
“Buds possess a power analogous to that of seeds, and have been called the viviparous offspring of vegetables, inasmuch as they admit of a removal from their original connection, and, its action being suspended for an indefinite time, can be renewed at pleasure.”
_On Icicles, by Cowper._