h he contracts, and which are his own devising; which shares he sells
as soon as they are at a high premium, to which they are speedily forced
by means of paragraphs, inserted by himself and agents, in newspapers
devoted to his interest, utterly reckless of the terrible depreciation to
which they are almost instantly subjected. But he is worth a million
pounds, there can be no doubt of the fact--he has not made people's
fortunes, at least those whose fortunes it was said he would make; he has
made them away; but his own he has made, emphatically made it; he is
worth a million pounds. Hurrah for the millionnaire! The clown who
views the pandemonium of red brick which he has built on the estate which
he has purchased in the neighbourhood of the place of his grand debut, in
which every species of architecture, Greek, Indian, and Chinese, is
employed in caricature--who hears of the grand entertainment he gives at
Christmas in the principal dining-room, the hundred wax-candles, the
waggon-load of plate, and the ocean of wine which form parts of it, and
above all the two ostrich poults, one at the head, and the other at the
foot of the table, exclaims, "Well! if he a'n't bang up, I don't know who
be; why he beats my lord hollow!" The mechanic of the borough town, who
sees him dashing through the streets in an open landau, drawn by four
milk-white horses, amidst his attendant out-riders; his wife, a monster
of a woman, by his side, stout as the wife of Tamerlane, who weighed
twenty stone, and bedizened out like her whose person shone with the
jewels of plundered Persia, stares with silent wonder, and at last
exclaims "That's the man for my vote!" You tell the clown that the man
of the mansion has contributed enormously to corrupt the rural innocence
of England; you point to an incipient branch railroad, from around which
the accents of Gomorrah are sounding, and beg him to listen for a moment,
and then close his ears. Hodge scratches his head and says, "Well, I
have nothing to say to that; all I know is, that he is bang up, and I
wish I were he;" perhaps he will add--a Hodge has been known to add--"He
has been kind enough to put my son on that very railroad; 'tis true the
company is somewhat queer, and the work rather killing, but he gets there
half-a-crown a day, whereas from the farmers he would only get eighteen-
pence." You remind the mechanic that the man in the landau has been the
ruin of thousands and you mention pe