that we will rather run the risk of seeing Canada merge in the United States than make any sacrifice of our pride, even where our interest is concerned. A considerable deal of capital has gone to Australia; but we suspect, from late events, that the future supply will be limited. Before the railways opened to capitalists a channel of investment which appeared exceedingly plausible, and which was, in a great measure, guaranteed by the result of experiment, vast masses of realised wealth accumulated from time to time. Upon these hoards the members, myrmidons, and jobbers of the Stock Exchange, cast a covetous eye: they whispered to each other, in the language of King John-- "Let them shake the bags Of hoarding abbots; angels imprisoned Set thou at liberty: the fat ribs of peace Must by the hungry now be fed upon: Use our _commission_ in its utmost force." Acting upon this principle, they made their business to find out new channels of investment--an easier task than the discovery of a north-western passage in the arctic regions--and to represent these in all the glowing colours which are peculiar to the artists of 'Change Alley. The year 1823 was remarkable for the commencement of an epidemic which proved, in its effects, even more disastrous than the South Sea delusion. It would be tedious to enumerate or discuss the causes which led to this sudden outburst; some of them have been indirectly traced to the operation of Sir Robert Peel's famous Currency Act of 1819, which fettered the Bank of England, whilst it left the country bankers free to issue unlimited paper, and to the respite of the smaller notes which had been previously doomed to extinction. Whatever may have been the cause, speculation began and increased at a rate which was quite unprecedented. All kinds of ridiculous schemes found favour in the public eye: nothing was too absurd or preposterous to scare away applicants for shares. Mining, building, shipping, insurance, railway, colonising, and washing companies were established: even an association for the making of gold was subscribed for to the full amount, and doubtless a balloon company for lunar purposes would have been equally popular. This period was marked by the apparition of an entirely new animal in the precincts of the Stock Exchange. Bulls, bears, and even lame ducks, were creatures coeval with its existence; but the "stag," in its humanised form, first appeared in 1823. The following sketch might pass for a view of Capel Court some two-and-twenty years later:--