A family which with great industry, and by doing without a servant for forty years, had saved enough to retire from business, placed the principal portion with the West Middlesex, in time to be informed that the directors had absconded. A governess who had been left a small property, and bought a deferred annuity with the proceeds, died of a low fever soon after the bubble burst. Half-pay captains, clergymen, servants, tradesmen, all came with their spare cash to get 6-1/4 per cent. and secure their capital. From remote districts where their prospectuses had been circulated, money came pouring in. Any one who chooses to refer to the current literature of that time, will perceive that these fellows availed themselves of every vehicle to make their claims public. The daily and weekly papers, the monthly and quarterly journals, all bear testimony to their zeal in the shape of shameless advertisements, and the walls of provincial towns absolutely blazed with their attractive terms. The money thus obtained was liberally spent. The promoters kept carriage-horses and saddle-horses; servants in gorgeous liveries waited on them; they fared, like Dives, sumptuously every day. One of the directors lived in the house in Baker Street, and being of a convivial character, astonished that quiet street with gay parties, lighted rooms, musical _soirées_, and expensive dinners. His wine was rare and _recherché_, his cook was sufficiently good for his guests, and he found himself surrounded by the first people of this lively locality. But there were very dark rumours afloat, which should have made men hesitate before they gave this fellow their countenance. By 1839, there was a general feeling that there was something wrong; Mr. Barber Beaumont wrote a letter to the “Times” about it; and had it not been for the wonderful boldness of the adventurers, they must have broken up long before. It was known that they had thrown a difficulty in the way of paying some annuities in the country; and that, without any justice, they had refused to discharge a fire insurance which had become due. Still what is every one’s business is nobody’s business, and they had hedged themselves with such a conventional respectability, they looked so grave, they talked so properly, and they gave such good dinners, that it was long before they were compelled to yield. So great was their _prestige_, that though one of their victims came fierce and furious, and bearded them in their own house, and before the very faces of their friends--though he told the party assembled that he was swindled, and their hosts were the swindlers,--it produced no effect, and he was absolutely obliged to leave the place for fear of personal violence. In addition to the dinners which they gave their friends, they had small pleasant parties of their own, with toasts sardonically applicable to themselves, the first standing sentiment being in mocking, reckless contempt,--