Page:Facts, failures and frauds- revelations, financial, mercantile, criminal.djvu/14

2 FACTS, FATLUEES, A>*D FEAUDS. swindler, who absorbs thousands that he may outshine the people who live and breathe around him, are so far in the same predicament that they cannot endure any delay to the gratification of this common passion. Apart from these, but still actuated by the same desire, is the reckless speculator, who would risk everything in the hope of a sudden gain, rather than toil safely and laboriously for a distant reward. The speculator may, of course, be a perfectly honourable man, who would instinctively shrink from any deed that would invoke the interference of the criminal law; but if fortune is adverse, he is on the high road to wrong-doing, and, moreover, there are many crimes not enumerated in the statute-book that are still heavy sins against the dictates of morality.

The bubble period of 1825-6—the oldest within the memory of the present generation—and the money crisis of 1836-7, appear rather as forerunners to the events that have more recently shaken the world, than to be new links in the series. It is with the railway mania of 1845 that the modern form of speculation may be said to begin, and the world has not yet recovered from the excitement caused by the spectacle of sudden fortunes made without trouble, and obscure individuals converted, as if by magic, into millionaires. Long will Mr. Hudson be remembered as an instance of the celerity with which a reputation could be won and lost at that eventful and remarkable epoch. In the early days of the mania, his name seemed to possess a talismanic value; the mere fact that it was associated with any scheme being alone sufficient to cause a demand for shares, and a consequent rapid advance in prices. When, on the other hand, the discovery was made that this idol of the money-market had been guilty of the grossest mismanagement, causing a false appearance of prosperity by the presentation of deceptive accounts, then every one was ready to assail the object he had so blindly worshipped. However, notwithstanding the great