Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
had no other earthly dependence--and yet that man had Spanish bonds
to the nominal amount of £2000 in his pocket. They were not worth
more than waste paper, and came into the hands of poor men like this
porter, who had no experience and knowledge in such matters; and it
is to guard such poor men that I now utter the voice of warning." We
have not read anything more affecting since we perused _The Dairyman's
Daughter_. Mr Cobden does not tell us that he immediately organised a
subscription for the behoof of the wronged individual; but we think it
probable that he did so, and, if it be not too late, we shall be glad
to contribute our mite--on one condition. The next time Mr Cobden tells
this story, will he be good enough to specify the precise sum _which
the porter paid_ for those bonds? Our reason for requiring particular
information as to this point, is founded on a fact which lately came
to our knowledge, viz. that the name of a promising chimney-sweep
stands recorded in the books of a certain railway company, which shall
be nameless, as the proprietor of stock in new shares, to an amount
of nearly double that possessed by Mr Cobden's acquaintance. The
railway has not paid a single farthing of dividend, several calls are
still due, and the market price of those shares is considerably below
zero. The chimney-sweep is a steady young man, whose only failing is
an inveterate attachment to whisky: he never was in possession of
five pounds in his life, except on the day when he became the nominal
proprietor of that stock. We make Mr Cobden a present of this anecdote,
in case he should have occasion, in the course of some future crusade,
to warn labouring people against indulging in railway speculation. It
is quite as genuine and forcible an illustration as his own; and we
suspect that for one person in the position of the porter, there are at
this moment some hundreds in possession of transferred certificates,
like the chimney-sweep.
In sober sadness, it is pitiable to see a man reduced, for sheer lack
of argument, to such wretched clap-trap as this. The wildest kind of
rant about freedom and tyranny would have been more to the purpose,
and infinitely more grateful to the popular ear. Mr Cobden's estimate
of his own position and European importance is delicious. "I have no
hesitation in saying that there is not a government in Europe that is
not frowning upon this meeting!" What a mercy it is that Nicholas had
no suspicion of the tremendous influence of the man who was once rash
enough to trust himself in his dominions! We positively tremble at the
thought of what might have ensued had Mr Cobden been detected on his
visit to the Siberian mines! The governments of Europe frowning on Mr
Cobden's meeting--what a subject for the classical painter!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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