374 



THE RAILWAY MANIA. 



CHAP. XVII. 



and caring nothing about their national uses, but hunger- 

 ing and thirsting after premiums, rushed eagerly into 

 the vortex. They applied for allotments, and subscribed 

 for shares in lines, of the engineering character or 

 probable traffic of which they knew nothing. Provided 

 they could but obtain allotments which they could sell 

 at a premium, and put the profit in many cases the 

 only capital they possessed 1 into their pocket, it was 

 nough for them. The mania was not confined to the 

 precincts of the Stock Exchange, but infected all ranks. 

 It embraced merchants and manufacturers, gentry and 

 shopkeepers, clerks in public offices, and loungers at the 

 clubs. Noble lords were pointed at as " stags ; " there 

 were even clergymen who were characterised as " bulls ;" 

 and amiable ladies who had the reputation of " bears," 

 in the share-markets. The few quiet men who remained 

 uninfluenced by the speculation of the time were, in not 

 a few cases, even reproached for doing injustice to their 

 families, in declining to help themselves from the stores 

 of wealth that were poured out on all sides. 



Folly and knavery were, for a time, completely in the 

 ascendant. The sharpers of society were let loose, and 

 jobbers and schemers became more and more plentiful. 

 They threw out railway schemes as lures to catch the 

 unwary. They fed the mania with a constant succession 

 of new projects. The railway papers became loaded 

 with their advertisements. The post-office was scarcely 

 able to distribute the multitude of prospectuses and 

 circulars which they issued. For a time their popu- 

 larity was immense. They rose like froth into the 

 upper heights of society, and the flunkey FitzPlushe, by 

 virtue of his supposed wealth, sat amongst peers and 

 was idolised. Then was the harvest-time of scheming 



1 The Marquis of Clanricarde brought 

 under the notice of the House of Lords, 

 in 1845, that one Charles Guernsey, 

 the son of a charwoman, and a clerk 

 in a broker's office, at 12s. a week, 



had his name down as a subscriber for 

 shares in the London and York line, 

 for 52,000?. Doubtless he had been 

 made useful for the purpose by the 

 brokers, his employers. 



