legitimate system by which such rapid fortunes are made and lost upon 'Change. Now suppose, that, operating in this way, you are in possession of a secret means of intelligence, instantaneous, to be relied on, peculiar to yourself,--does not Monsieur perceive that it insures one a fortune incalculable, and to be made within the shortest time? If I to-day learn that to-morrow's steamer will bring news that cotton has advanced one cent a pound, of course I am justified in buying cotton to the utmost extent that my capital and credit will afford me means, being sure of selling it to-morrow at a higher price; and if I am continually in the receipt of similar information, I can turn my capital over fifty times in a year, and double it every time. There is actually _no limit_ to the possible fortune of a man who is so favored, provided he conjoins prudence and boldness to his manner of transacting business. The supplying of such secret and unshared information to the firm of John Meavy & Co. was the end of my invention, Monsieur. I was to go to Liverpool, and act as signaller, while he was to stay in New York, receive the information, and buy or sell in accordance with it. "Our apparatus was very simple. At each terminus of our line, so to speak, we had a room, inaccessible save to ourselves. These rooms, darkened, and carefully kept at a fixed temperature, contained nothing, save, in one corner of each, a chronometer regulated with precision, and, in opposite corners, a set of boxes, containing each a snail. At the signalling end, at a fixed hour, which the chronometer gives with the greatest accuracy, and when I know that my partner, by agreement, will be present at the other end to receive intelligence, I go into my room, informed as to the condition of the Liverpool market, and prepared to transmit particulars of the same to him. Here are two boxes, divided into three compartments each, and a _male_ snail in each compartment. If flour is down, offering a chance for profit in New York upon 'time' sales, I approach the box marked _minus_, the three snails of which are called _x_, _y_, and _z_. I take up a little tube,--such a one as is used by chemists to drop infinitesimal portions of any liquid; I dip this into a vial marked _No_. 1, containing a solution of salt in water,--there is a row of these vials, the solution in each being of a different strength,--and then, with the moistened tube, I touch snail _x_, or snail _y_, or snail _z_, or any two of them, or all three, once, twice, three times, or repeatedly, according to the news I wish to signal,--noting the effect of the poison, and recording the particulars in a book kept for the purpose,--recording them with a nicety of intelligent discrimination such as can be obtained only by long and practised observation. I send an abstract of this record by every mail to my partner, so as to verify our results and to detect immediately any derangement.