656 PANDEMONIUM, &C. 



few hundreds, is it into the pockets of the shareholders that you will 

 be after putting the dirty premium. As I am a gentleman, I move 

 that we take the shares to our own cheek, and let the shareholders 

 know nothing of the matter at all at all. 



Christopher O'Faquin. Question, question! 



Dr. O'Faquin's motion is put to the vote and carried. 



Dr. Cameh. I rise to pronounce the measure which has just been 

 carried an act of the most deliberate robbery; and from the nefarious 

 transactions of which this direction has been the scene, I am under 

 the necessity of resigning a situation I can no longer retain with 

 honour. (The curtain falls.) 



Let not my readers suppose that this is a mere fancy sketch. With 

 but a slight transmutation of the names of the actors, it contains all 

 the elements of an over-true tale. 



The company in question was established a few months since, for 

 the purpose of working some English mines. The shares, which were 

 at a discount, from the equivocal character of certain members of its 

 direction, was suddenly, by some skilful stock-jobbing manreuvre 

 such as fabricating false reports, and so forth suddenly got up to 8 per 

 cent, premium. At this time there were actually 500 unappropriated 

 shares lying at their bankers, which of course ought to have been 

 sold for the benefit of the concern. And, in fact, had the premium 

 realized by these shares been properly applied, they would not only 

 have paid off the debts of the company, but have actually paid a divi- 

 dend nearly equal to the sum originally paid, and this without work- 

 ing the mine an instance unparalleled in these speculations. But 

 this premium, amounting to some thousand pounds, was pocketed by 

 the directors ! 



On expressing my surprise to a gentleman, who had the misfor- 

 tune to have embarked some money in this concern, that the great 

 body of the shareholders did not take legal measures to make the 

 directors refund their ill-gotten spoil, and further to remove them 

 from an office they were so glaringly unworthy of filling, I received 

 the following answer : " You must know but little of the City, if you 

 think that the integrity of a great moral principle will be defended at 

 the expense of the pocket. Unfortunately for the honour of our 

 mercantile character, the reverse is but too often the case. Not a 

 single shareholder will move in this affair, from the conviction that 

 it would immediately produce a panic in the market, and send down 

 the shares to a discount; and this the directors know too, and thus 

 they will proceed in their course of iniquity with triumphant im- 

 punity." 



The apathetic indifference with which the public looks on, and 

 allows itself to be openly robbed by a few designing villains, is to be 

 deeply lamented ; but we earnestly hope that the legislature will 

 some day interfere to check this national demoralization before it 

 reaches a frightful climax ; for even now may be applied the reproach 

 of the Roman satirist to his degenerate countrymen: 



" O cives, cives ! querenda pecunia primum est 

 Virtus post nummos." 



