There are in London a number of advertising agents whose special business it is to undertake jobs of this kind on credit, their conditions being that they are to be paid out of the first moneys received from applicants for shares. If the applications are not sufficient, the promoter stands the loss; but it more frequently happens that the advertising agent receives something like fifty per cent. or more on what he has disbursed. It is in some respects risky, but it generally pays; and when it does so, the advertising agent makes an uncommonly good thing of it; and from one point of view, he deserves to do so. Without his aid, the Company would have probably proved a fiasco. Once the prospectus is published, and applicants for shares commence to send in their one pound apiece, the promoter begins to recoup himself. Presently, the allotment of shares begins, and the simple-minded public have to pay one pound on each share. The prospectus distinctly affirms that a tramway in the Fiji islands is sure to be remunerative, and what true-born Briton would dispute a statement which a peer of the realm, a baronet, an M.P., and sundry military officers of high rank tacitly confirm by lending their names to it? There are 150,000 shares in the Company, of which not more than 10,000 have been applied for. But this is better than nothing. Even if a few thousand pounds are received from the would-be shareholders, the promoter is not to be pitied. With a matter of three to four thousand pounds, he can satisfy all claims, even to paying directors’ fees for the few times they have sat at the Board. The whole affair is then allowed to die a natural death; unless, indeed, as sometimes happens, some disappointed creditor petitions the Court that the Company shall be wound up. By some mysterious means, the promoter or his nominee is named liquidator; a solicitor, who, as a matter of course, does not get the berth for nothing, takes the matter in hand; and so long as there is any money left to divide, all those concerned work together, and once more matters are made pleasant all round. And what happens when the money comes to an end? Why, what would you have? The liquidation of a Joint-stock Company can no more go on when there are no more funds, than a human body can live when the breath has left it. The business must then sink into oblivion, and for the present at least the Fiji islanders will have to do without their tramway.