"
"In a few weeks," said another statesman, "Cochrane will be at
Constantinople, and burn the port and its vessels. Having thus
disarmed invasion, he will land in the Morea and clear it of
the Turks."
Greece borrowed in two loans 2,800,000 pounds at 5 per cent. Russia
(droll juxtaposition!) drew up the rear. She borrowed three millions
and a half, but upon far more favorable terms than, with all our
romance, we accorded to "Graeculus esuriens." The Greek stock ruled *
from 56 1/2 to 59.
* A corruption from the French verb "rouler."
Into these loans, and the multitudinous mines and miscellaneous
enterprises, gas, railroad, canal, steam, dock, provision, insurance,
milk, water, building, washing, money-lending, fishing, lottery,
annuities, herring-curing, poppy-oil, cattle, weaving, bog draining,
street-cleaning, house-roofing, old clothes exporting, steel-making,
starch, silk-worm, etc., etc., etc., companies, all classes of the
community threw themselves, either for investment or temporary
speculation, on the fluctuations of the share-market. One venture was
ennobled by a prince of the blood figuring as a director; another was
sanctified by an archbishop; hundreds were solidified by the best
mercantile names in the cities of London, Liverpool, and Manchester.
Princes, dukes, duchesses, stags, footmen, poets, philosophers,
divines, lawyers, physicians, maids, wives, widows, tore into the
market, and choked the Exchange up so tight that the brokers could not
get in nor out, and a bare passage had to be cleared by force and
fines through a mass of velvet, fustian, plush, silk, rags, lace, and
broadcloth, that jostled and squeezed each other in the struggle for
gain.
Pages:
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224