Page:The humbugs of the world - An account of humbugs, delusions, impositions, quackeries, deceits and deceivers generally, in all ages (IA humbugsworld00barnrich).djvu/225

 and other sound concerns, much increased in price by sympathy with this fury of speculation, but a great number of utterly ridiculous schemes and barefaced swindles were advertised and successfully imposed on the public. Any piece of paper purporting to be stock could be sold for money. Not the least thought of investigating the solvency of advertisers seems to have occurred to anybody. Nor was any rank free from the poison. Almost a hundred projects were before the public at once, some of them incredibly brazen humbugs. There were schemes for a wheel for perpetual motion—capital, $5,000,000; for trading in hair (for wigs), in those days “a big thing;” for furnishing funerals to any part of Britain; for “improving the art of making soap;” for importing walnut-trees from Virginia—capital, $10,000,000; for insuring against losses by servants—capital $15,000,000; for making quicksilver malleable; “Puckle’s Machine Company,” for discharging cannon-balls and bullets, both round and square, and so on. One colossal genius in humbugging actually advertised in these words: “A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.” The capital he called for was $2,500,000, in shares of $500 each; deposit on subscribing, $10 per share. Each subscriber was promised $500 per share per annum, and full particulars were to be given in a month, when the rest of the subscription was to be paid. This great financier, having put forth his prospectus, opened his office in Cornhill next morning at nine o’clock. Crowds pressed upon him. At three, John Bull had paid this immense humbug