There stood a potato man, in the midst of all the wet; He stood with his ‘tato can, in the lonely Haymarket. Two gents of dismal mien, and dank and greasy rags; came out of a shop for gin, swaggering over the flags: Swaggering over the stones, these shabby bucks did walk; and I went and followed those seedy ones, and listened to their talk. Was I sober or awake? Could I believe my ears? Those dismal beggars spake of nothing but Railroad Shares. I wondered more and more: Says one, ‘Good friend of mine, how many shares did you write for? In the Diddlesex Junction line?’ ‘I wrote for twenty,’ says Jim, ‘but they wouldn’t give me one’; His comrade straight rebuked him, for the folly he had done. ‘Oh Jim, you are unawares of the ways of this bad town: I always write for five hundred shares, and _then_ they put me down.’ ‘And yet you got no shares,’ says Jim, ‘for all your boast’: ‘I _would_ have wrote,’ says Jack, ‘but where was the penny to pay the post?’ ‘I lost, for I couldn’t pay that first instalment up; but here’s ‘taters smoking hot—I say, Let’s stop, my boy, and sup.’ And, at this simple feast, the while they did regale, I drew each ragged capitalist, down on my left thumb nail. Their talk did me perplex, All night I tumbled and tost; and thought of railroad specs, and how money was won and lost. ‘Bless railroads everywhere,’ I said, ‘and the world’s advance; Bless every railroad share in Italy, Ireland, France; for never a beggar need now despair, and every rogue has a chance.’” But, should anyone wish to watch the progress of the Railway Mania, I would recommend a perusal of _Punch_, Vol. ix., in which appears, _inter alia_, _Jeames’s Diary_, by Thackeray, afterwards published as _The Diary of C. Jeames De la Pluche, Esq._ The idea was started on p. 59, under the heading of— A LUCKY SPECULATOR. Considerable sensation has been excited in the upper and lower circles in the West End, by a startling piece of good fortune which has befallen JAMES PLUSH, Esq., lately footman in a respected family in Berkeley Square. One day, last week, Mr James waited upon his master, who is a banker in the city; and, after a little blushing and hesitation, said he had saved a little money in service, and was anxious to retire, and to invest his savings to advantage. His master (we believe we may mention, without offending delicacy, the well known name of Sir GEORGE FLIMSY of the firm of FLIMSY, DIDDLER, and FLASH,) smilingly asked Mr JAMES, what was the amount of his savings, wondering considerably how—out of an income of thirty guineas, the main part of which he spent in bouquets, silk stockings and perfumery—Mr PLUSH could have managed to lay by anything.