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PANDEMONIUM ; OR THE TACTICS OF THE STOCK 

 EXCHANGE. 



facilis descensus averni.' 



THERE is no feature in the history of the present age which we 

 venture to predict will more powerfully arrest the philosophic gaze of 

 posterity, than the rapid rise, and the extraordinary influence on 

 human affair s, acquired by our Stock Exchange.* We challenge the 

 annals of the world to produce a phenomenon equal to this political 

 novum organum. Woe to the northern despot, whose ambitious de- 

 signs receive not its approbatory fiat ! A mere decision of a com- 

 mittee of this financial inquisition will produce more effect in regard 

 to a loan or any other monetary transaction, than the decrees of all 

 the sovereigns in Europe put together. Truly we may now exclaim 

 with Burke, that the days of chivalry are past, when monarchs make 

 the telegraphs of their dominions subservient to the base purposes of 

 stock-jobbing, and when the fate of nations are no longer decided by 

 the astute combinations of the diplomatist, or the daring stratagy of 

 the soldier, but by the sordid calculations of the Jewish financier. 



Oh ! for the magic wand of an Asmodeus, to draw aside the curtain 

 that veils from public observation this corporation of hell, this sink 

 of national honour and of publicf happiness oh ! for Juvenal's pen 

 of fire to paint the moral turpitude of the wretches who gloat upon 

 the fruits of this system of delusion and fraud. Yet vain would be 

 the effort, powerless the voice of admonition, when opposed to the 

 glittering temptations of that fatal demon which pollutes every grade 

 of society which is found on the steps of the throne, in the chancel- 

 lerie of the minister of state, the tribunal of the magistrate, the 

 academic chair of the professor, the barrack-room of the soldier, the 

 printing-office of the journalist, the counting-house of the merchant, 

 the glittering saloon of the duchess, and the luxuriant boudoir of the 



* The influence exercised within the space of the last twenty years by this 

 community, through their colossal monetary transactions, is indeed extraordi- 

 nary, while its operations are guided by no other principle than that of gain : 

 thus it revolutionized South America, overthrew the Constitutional systems in 

 Italy and Spain in 1 823, re-established it in Portugal in 1834, and may be said 

 to hold at this moment in their hands the destinies of Spain. 



-\- " Le mal," says the Constitutionelle of the 26th of July, in alluding to the 

 stock-jobbing phrenzy at present prevailing in Paris; "est plus serieux qu'on 

 ne pense. En presence de ces fortunes scandaleuses et de ces mines soudaines 

 qui sont un egale sujet d'epouvante pour la societe, mal n'est content de sa po- 

 sition. Les commis sont quittes pour se bruler la cervelle quand ils ont joue 

 aux depens de leurs maures et trop souvent a leur example. Les travailleurs 

 renoncent aux travail pour chercher leur fortune dans le jeu. Les femmes aban- 

 donent les soins du menage pour courir apres les courtiers marrons. Nous 

 savons des proprietaires qui ont vendu leurs propriety pour en jouer le mont- 

 ant ; et nous voyons apres plus d'un siede et de deux banqueroutes recom- 

 mencer les folie du system de law. Le Cafe Tortoni n'a plus rien a envier a la 

 rue Quincampoix." 



