THE TACTICS OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE. 157 



order that Ashtree at a glance might see how unfounded were his 

 suspicions ; nevertheless, in spite of this generalship, in spite of the 

 time allowed them to study their field of battle, the directors were 

 badly posted; to speak tactically, they had both flanks en Vair, and, 

 had Ashtree directed his columns of attack with any thing like 

 tactical skill, they ought to have been culbutes. He had only to have 

 compared the numbers of the shares upon the table with those entered 

 in the books in the names of the directors, to have at once seen 

 through the deceit ; or, what was even simpler, to have asked the 

 secretary if they had really taken up their shares, when he would 

 have received an answer in the negative. But a blunt, honest sailor, 

 like Ashtree, was no match for such knaves, who, moreover, ma- 

 noeuvred with admirable steadiness and precision ; his fire was loose 

 and ill-directed, his movements slow and ill combined he made but 

 a mere reconnaissance instead of a direct attack : to drop metaphor, 

 he delivered a long rigmarole speech, which he perorated (by way 

 of exhorting the directors to faithfully discharge their duties) with 

 that magnificent figure of quarter-deck oratory, " a long pull, a 

 strong pull, and a pull together ;" a hint, by the bye, his auditory 

 were not slow in taking, for not long after this grandiloquent pero- 

 ration they made their celebrated grab at the 500 unappropriated 

 shares recorded in the December number of the Monthly Magazine. 

 The barrister, we feel it will be almost needless to tell our readers, 

 after this glorious specimen of his colleagues, resigned his seat in the 

 direction in absolute disgust. 



Captain Ashtree is now himself a director. If he be a vain man, 

 we envy him not his feelings of wounded vanity, when in the books 

 of the company he reads the proofs of the manner in which he was 

 cajoled ; much less do we envy him that sickening feeling of shame 

 that feeling of bitter reproach, that will be engendered in his honour- 

 able mind on discovering that he has incautiously linked himself in 

 such a speculation. The copies of the entries alluded to, the number 

 of the shares sold, even to the broker's note of sale of the same all 

 have been submitted to us, and placed in the hands of an eminent 

 practitioner at the bar, who, at the approaching annual meeting of 

 the company, when the directors will be called upon to render an 

 account of their administration, will make such an expose to the 

 shareholders present as must induce them to indict the parties for 

 conspiracy ; when, if we have any knowledge of a British jury, we 

 confidently predict that the mining speculations of such a crew will 

 for the future be confined to the plains of Australia. In estimating 

 the value of a share in any of these speculations, the uninitiated would 

 naturally make the productiveness of the mine itself the basis of his 

 calculation. Most woefully, however, would he find himself mis- 

 taken, for, paradoxical as it may appear, in nine instances out of ten 

 favourable intelligence from the mine sends down the prices of its 

 shares. To form even an approximate calculation we hold to be im- 

 possible. The first rule of mathematical analysis, is that we can dis- 

 cover what is unknown but through the means of what is known ; 

 but in the present instance what is known is not sufficient to discover 

 what is sought for and the reason is obvious, because in all cases in 



