A long course of evil doing had led to this enactment. From the commencement of the eighteenth century, Jews, and Christians worse than Jews; usurers, and bankers worse than usurers; had habitually sold life annuities: before this, it was less common, being reserved almost entirely for usurers and goldsmiths. It was a branch of business of which, little as the seller might know, the annuitant knew nothing. But if such men as Snow the banker, Samson Gideon the founder of the house of Eardley[15], Fordyce the insolvent banker, and Colebrooke the bankrupt East India director, undertook to grant payments, it may easily be guessed, that they were either unmercifully fleeced, or got nothing at all, when the great millionnaire was in the Gazette. Nor was the practice confined to these men; Exchange Alley was pre-eminent in buying or in selling annuities, in undertaking to pay, or in willingness to receive any amount of money. They were as ready to assure the life of, or to promise an annuity to a country clergyman, as they were to trade in the fall of a prime minister, or to traffic in the blood of an admiral. They took the hoard of the servant with as much coolness as they coined false intelligence; and when a reverse of fortune made them penniless, it involved hundreds of innocent persons with them. The frauds which now attend the loans of money to the spendthrift, are nothing compared to the gigantic scale with which, under the name of annuities, they were then carried on. If a man granted one on a fine estate for a consideration, that consideration was rarely paid in money. The unhappy borrower was obliged to take whatever he could get. Thus the stock-jobber made his prey receive consols at a price much above that of the market. The merchant gave him a bill of lading for some indifferent kind of merchandise. The banker handed him long-dated bills, and sometimes was a bankrupt before they were due. The large tradesmen--many of whom then, as now, surreptitiously carried on the trade of money lending--got rid of goods which were otherwise unsaleable. One piece of plate did yeoman’s service to its owner; into whatever transaction of the kind he entered, it was always introduced. It was valued at 600_l._ to the recipient, and it was always bought back by the usurer for 70_l._ This man, a wealthy jeweller named Salvador, was a specimen of another class, common enough in the middle of the eighteenth century. His shop in Cornhill was the general resort of those who wanted money and could give good security. He ran from his house to ’Change Alley twenty times a day, to ascertain the price of the funds, in which he dealt largely; and his agony was excessive when it went against him. He would tear his hair and gnash his teeth; he truly rent his heart, but not his garments, for the latter cost money. During these paroxysms, the youngsters of the day were made to suffer most exorbitantly, and one of them openly calling him Shylock