Among the companies which sprung up daily was one to make gold; and success was declared to be undoubted. The shares were all greedily taken; and it was then advertised, that, as the expense of producing one ounce of gold would cost double the value of the produce, the company would be dissolved, and the deposits kept to pay expenses. The capital of a mining company was divided between fifty proprietors, whose advertisements and puffs were disgraceful. The meanest utensils of the peasantry were declared to be silver; and, although there were but ninety-nine mines in the whole district, the company professed to have purchased 360. In a place containing 5,000 inhabitants, it was affirmed the projector possessed 3,000 mines; and, although they had been previously abandoned after a loss of £170,000, they were purchased at a high price, and puffed to an enormous premium. The Equitable Loan Company was another specimen. In paragraphs calculated to excite the sympathy of the public, the directors denounced the profits of the pawnbroker, arraigned his evil practices, and delicately concluded by hinting that a company formed upon the most philanthropic principles, and paying forty per cent., would soon be formed. The philanthropy might have been proclaimed for centuries, but forty per cent. was irresistible. The Duke of York good-naturedly lent his name; members of Parliament were bribed with shares; and when it was honestly said by one, that the bill would never pass the House, the triumphant reply given was, “O, we have so many on the ministerial, and so many on the opposition side, and _we are sure of the saints_!” The shares, however, went to a discount; both opposition and ministerial members lost all interest in the nefarious doings of the pawnbrokers, and the philanthropy of the saints faded with the fading vision of forty per cent. The Bolivar Mining Company boasted of “mountains, not mines,” of metals. A railroad was projected to cross from Dover to Calais. A loan of £225,000 was proposed for Patagonia; another in derision advertised for the Lilliputians and Houyhnhnms of Swift’s political satire; and, to assist them all, a parliamentary steam company announced to pass more rapidly the bills before the House.