Page:The humbugs of the world - An account of humbugs, delusions, impositions, quackeries, deceits and deceivers generally, in all ages (IA humbugsworld00barnrich).djvu/224

 300 for each share of £100, or three hundred per cent, to begin with. Double the amount was subscribed in a few days; that is, John Bull subscribed thirty million dollars for ten millions of stock, where only five millions were to be had. In a few days more, these subscribers were selling at double what they paid. April 21st. a ten per cent. dividend was voted for midsummer. In a day or two, another five million subscription was opened at four hundred per cent. to begin with. The whole, and half as much more, was taken in a few hours. In the end of May, South Sea stock was worth five hundred to one. On the 28th, it was five hundred and fifty. In four days more, for some reason or other, it jumped up to eight hundred and ninety. The speculating Blunt kept all this time blowing and blowing at his bubble. All summer, he and his friends blew and blew; and all summer the bubble swelled and floated, and shone; and high and low, men and women, lords and ladies, clergymen, princesses and duchesses, merchants, gamblers, tradesmen, dressmakers, footmen, bought and sold. In the beginning of August, South Sea stock stood at one thousand per cent! It was really worth about twenty-five per cent. The crowding in Exchange Alley, the Wall Street of the day, was tremendous. So noisy, and unmanageable and excited was this mob of greedy fools, that the very same stock was sometimes selling ten per cent. higher at one end of the Alley than at the other.

The growth of this monstrous, noxious bubble hatched out a multitude of young cockatrices. Not only was the stock of the India Company, the Bank of England,