teemen were not more easy of access.

"One Railway advertised the names and addresses of thirty--none of
whom were to be heard of at the residences ascribed to them. Letters
were returned to the Post Office day after day. Nor is this to be
wondered at, when it is said that, on one projected line, only 60
pounds was received for deposits, which should have yielded 700,000
pounds.

"It was proved in the Committee of the House of Commons, that one
subscription list was formed of 'lame ducks of the Alley'; and that,
in another, several of the Directors, including the Chairman, had,
also, altered their several subscriptions to the amount of 100,000
pounds, the very evening on which the list was deposited, and that
five shillings a man was given to anyone who would sign for a certain
number of shares.

"Nothing more decidedly marked the crisis which had arrived, than the
fact that everyone hastened to disown railways. Gentlemen who had
been buried in prospectuses, whose names and descriptions had been
published under every variation that could fascinate the public, who
had figured as Committeemen, and received the precious guineas for
their attendance, were eager to assure the world that they were
ignorant of this great transgression. Men who, a month before, had
boasted of the large sums they had made by scrip, sent advertisements
to papers denying their responsibility, or appealed to the Lord Mayor
to protect their characters. Members of Parliament who had remained
quiet under the infliction, while it was somewhat respectable, fell
back upon their privileges, when they saw their purses in danger.
There is no doubt that an unauthorised use of names was one feature
of fraudulent companies, and that, amidst a list of common names, it
was thought a distinguished one might pass unnoticed. The
complaints, therefore, of those who were thus unceremoniously
treated, were just; but the great mass of denials emanated from
persons who, knowingly, encountered the risk, and, meanly, shrunk
from the danger.

"It is the conviction of those who were best informed, that no other
panic was ever so fatal to the middle class. It reached every
hearth, it saddened every heart in the metropolis. Entire families
were ruined. There was scarcely an important town in England but
what beheld so