Now no gold mine can be worked to a profit by a company.
_Primo:_ Gold is not found in veins like other metals. It is an
abundant metal made scarce to man by distribution over a wide surface.
The very phrase gold mine is delusive. _Secundo:_ Gold is a metal
that cannot be worked to a profit by a company for this reason:
workmen will hunt it for others so long as the daily wages average
higher than the amount of metal they find per diem; but, that Rubicon
once passed, away they run to find gold for themselves in some spot
with similar signs; if they stay, it is to murder your overseers and
seize your mine. Gold digging is essentially an individual
speculation. These shares sell at 700 pounds apiece; a dozen of them
are not worth one Dutch tulip-root. Ah! here is a company of another
class, in which you have been invited to be director; they would have
given you shares and made you liable." Mr. Richard consulted his
note-book. "This company, which 'commands the wealth of both
Indies'--in perspective--dissolved yesterday afternoon for want of
eight guineas. They had rented offices at eight guineas a week, and
could not pay the first week. 'Turn out or pay,' said the landlord, a
brute absorbed in the present, and with no faith in the glorious
future. They offered him 1,500 pounds worth of shares instead of his
paltry eight guineas cash. On this he swept his premises of them. What
a godsend you would have been to these Jeremy Diddlers, you and the
ten thousand they would have bled you of.
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