THE TACTICS OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE. 159 



over the matter, by saying that he was near-sighted ; but the infir- 

 mity of vision was at the time, by the great body of the shareholders, 

 held to be rather moral than physical. For once, however, we think 

 the majority were in the wrong ; for although we rank the honesty 

 of this Highland cateran, to speak algebraically, as a quantity less 

 than nothing, still his native sagacity must have taught him that in 

 this instance, to use a trite French proverb, 



" Le jeu ne valait pas la chandelle." 



But our pen is weary of tracing these deviations ; our spirit sickens 

 at the thought of the immense advantages, in a national point of 

 view, which are neutralized by the baneful operation of this system 

 of villany ; but this is not all, the more bitter reflection is that the 

 golden impunity which attends its results is also fast undermining 

 that high-toned feeling of honour and integrity, which had upreared 

 on so lofty an eminence the mercantile character of Britons. It shall 

 be our unceasing occupation to endeavour to remedy the evil which 

 is fast spreading poison through the veins of our commercial body. 

 Already have the board of brokers in the United States come to the 

 resolution of excluding from their lists such companies, &c. as are 

 merely formed for purposes of stockjobbing speculation. Let the 

 committee of the Stock Exchange imitate this laudable example, and 

 this crying evil will be extinguished ; it is a duty they owe not less 

 to themselves than to the directors of such companies whose actions 

 are above suspicion, and who may be exposed to painful misconstruc- 

 tion by the public, ever more ready to generalize than to discri- 

 minate. 



But in our next, among others, we shall particularly select, as our 

 objective points of operation, the Rio Doce Company, formed for the 

 purpose of rendering navigable that river, which rising in the Sierra 

 de Mantiquerra, in the province of Minas Giracs, disembogues itself 

 into the sea, about 300 miles to the northward of Rio de Janeiro. Of 

 all the schemes of which the public have hitherto been made the 

 dupes, this decidedly is the most chimerical. We grant that on a 

 mere glance at the map, the apparent importance of this river, as a 

 line of communication, must strike the most superficial observer ; but 

 having ourselves been on the spot, we are enabled, ex-cathedra, to 

 pronounce that there exist the most insurmountable obstacles, moral 

 and physical, to the execution of the enterprise. Yes, even now in 

 our mind's eye do we behold the noble stream rolling majestically 

 over its golden bed towards the ocean. Beautiful Doce ! with rap- 

 ture still does memory dwell on the stern majesty of thy virgin forests, 

 their exuberance of animal life, and the glorious concert of the 

 feathered tribe, which at the scorching hour of noon would be hushed 

 to the siesta of repose by the deep metallic note of the Araponga. Oh ! 

 glorious is the spectacle of our mother earth, fresh as when she 

 sprang from the womb of young creation ! Well, too, do we remem- 

 ber, how beneath the shade of a lofty lacaranda, we feasted with a 

 Botocudo chief. Even now the exquisite flavour of the jugged 

 monkeys, the fricassees of lizards and land-crabs, and the glorious 

 olla of camutangas, maracanas, and perroquets, still lingers on the 



