Together with the Financial Agent, another class of men has been called into existence by the great extension of the Joint-stock Company system. The gentlemen who help with their names the floating of such enterprises form a distinct class of themselves, and are termed ‘guinea-pigs,’ most probably from the fact of each ordinary director receiving a guinea for each meeting he attends. In order to be considered of any value as Director of a Company, a guinea-pig ought to have a handle to his name. A Lord, a Baronet, or even a Knight is looked upon as unexceptionable, and may almost command his own price; for it is not to be supposed that a director is to work for nothing. His value, like most other things, varies with the quality of the article. A peer who has a seat in the Upper House will probably not allow his name to appear on a prospectus under three hundred to four hundred pounds a year, besides some fifty or a hundred fully paid-up shares. And he is worth the money. The Financial Agents are well aware that when a peer of the realm is secured and heads the list of directors, the most difficult part of their task is accomplished. What remains will follow as a matter of course. The next step is to write, or to get some one to write—for the promoter has generally a soul above literary composition—that portion of the prospectus beginning: ‘The object for which this Company is formed,’ and so on. This is quickly accomplished. There are certain gentlemen who describe themselves as connected with the press whose speciality is to compose these prospectuses. The charge for such a document varies from two to five guineas, and they are cheap even at the latter price. There is perhaps no kind of writing which requires more care or skill than this. In the case of the ‘Fiji Tramway Company,’ the writer must make it appear that no undertaking so purely philanthropical, or so sure to cause so much prosperity to Fiji, has ever been proposed either by government or by private enterprise; while at the same time he must, as it were, allow to escape from his pen the fact that a Tramway Company in the Fiji islands is certain to be exceedingly lucrative to all concerned. To repeat the old French joke, he must not lie in what he writes, but he must economise the truth. The prospectus written, and the officials, such as secretary, solicitors, bankers, &c., chosen, an expensive step comes next—namely, very long advertisements in the leading daily papers and elsewhere. But here also modern enterprise comes to the help of the promoter, and sees him over the difficulty, which to an outsider might seem almost insurmountable.