“This morning (November 15) M. Eiffel has engaged to execute these works at his own risk within the period and on the conditions desired by the company. It now rests with the Government of the Republic, inasmuch as French law obliges me to apply to it, to insure definitively the execution of our programme, by authorising the Universal Inter-oceanic Company to issue lottery obligations.” On the 1st of January, 1888, the amount of money at the disposal of the company was stated by M. de Lesseps to be 110 millions of francs (4½ millions sterling), and it was calculated that 300 million francs (12,000,000_l._) would be required by the end of the year. M. de Lesseps, in asking permission to raise this sum by a lottery, placed at the disposal of the French Government all the contracts and documents in the hands of the company, “whereby the execution of the programme drawn up is guaranteed.” During the first half of 1888, several discussions of a more or less stormy character took place in the French Parliament on the proposal to authorise on behalf of the Panama Canal Company an issue of lottery bonds. In the result M. de Lesseps got his own way, the Senate sanctioning a loan with 4 per cent. interest, and a deposit of rentes as a guarantee. Subscriptions were opened on the 23rd of June. The French people, backed by the most influential newspapers in the country, looked favourably on the lottery. There were a large number of prizes to be drawn, the chief being one of half a million francs (20,000_l._), and there were to be six drawings a year. At the outset, with inducements that appealed so strongly to the French imagination, the loan seemed likely to be covered several times over. All at once, however, the flow of subscriptions stopped. It was then ascertained that the opponents of the canal had set afloat some sinister rumours with the object of frustrating the lottery scheme. One of these was the rumour that Lesseps was dead. The veteran projector, however, was never more entirely alive. Threatened with failure, he made almost heroic efforts to avert it. He arranged for attending and speaking at meetings in all the principal towns of France, beginning at Paris. The labours now undertaken by the octogenarian canal-builder are thus referred to by the _Times_ correspondent at Paris:—