Page:The humbugs of the world - An account of humbugs, delusions, impositions, quackeries, deceits and deceivers generally, in all ages (IA humbugsworld00barnrich).djvu/236

 that since he left his master’s house the price had risen from $1,600 (par value $100 remember) to $2,000. The servant sold, gave his master the proceeds at $1,600 a share, put the remaining $100,000 in his own pocket, and left France that evening. Law’s coachman became so rich that he left service, and set up his own coach; and when his master asked him to find a successor, he brought two candidates, and told Law to choose, and he would take the other himself. There were many absurd cases of vulgarians made rich. There were also many robberies and murders. That committed by the Count de Horn, one of the higher nobility and two accomplices, is a famous case. The Count, a dissipated rascal, poniarded a broker in a tavern for the money the broker carried with him. But he was taken, and, in spite of the utmost and most determined exertions of the nobility, the Regent had him broken on the wheel in public, like any other murderer.

The stock of the Company of the Indies, though it dashed up and down ten and twenty per cent. from day to day, was from the first immensely inflated. In August 1719, it sold at 610 per cent.; in a few weeks more it arose to 1,200 per cent. all winter it still went up until, in April 1720, it stood at 2,050 per cent. That is, one one-hundred dollar share would sell for two thousand and fifty dollars.

At this extreme point of inflation, the bubble stood a little, shining splendidly as bubbles do when they are nearest bursting, and then it received two or three quiet pricks. The Prince de Conti, enraged because Law