The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

384: LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON. [chap. xxxi.
As titles to a future profitable investment, the tens of thousands
of shares created and issued in 1844. and 1845 were not in the
slightest degree valued. What were they worth to hold for a
time, and then to sell ? what profit could be made by the ven-
ture ?—that was the sole consideration.
A share-dealing spirit was thus' evoked ; and a reckless gam-
bling for premiums set in, which completely changed the char-
acter and objects of railway enterprise. The public outside the
stock exchange shortly became infected with the same spirit,
and many people, utterly ignorant of railways, knowing and
caring nothing about their great national uses, but hungering
and thirsting after premiums, rushed eagerly into the vortex of
speculation. They applied for allotments, and subscribed for
shares in lines, of the engineering character or probable traffic
of which they knew nothing. "Shares! shares!" became the
general cry. The ultimate issue of the projects themselves was
a matter of no moment. The multitude were bitten by the uni-
versal rage for acquiring sudden fortunes without the labour of
earning them. Provided they could but obtain allotments which
they could sell at a premium, and put the profit—often the only
capital they possessed *—into their pockets, it was enough for
them. The mania was not confined to the precincts of the stock
exchange, but infected all ranks throughout the country. Share
markets were established in the provincial towns, where people
might play their stakes as on a roulette table. The game was
open to all,—to the workman, who drew his accumulation of
small earnings out of the savings' bank to try a venture in
shares ; to the widow and spinster of sinaU means, who had up
to that time blessed God that their lot had lain between poverty
and riches, but were now seized by the infatuation of becoming
suddenly rich ; to the professional man, who, watching the suc-
cess of others, at length scorned the moderate gains of his call-
ing, and rushed into speculation. The madness spread every-
where. It embraced merchants and manufacturers, gentry and
shopkeepers, clerks in public offices and loungers at the clubs.
* The Marquis of Clanrioarde brought under the notice of the House of
Lords in 1845, that one Charles Guernsey, the son of a chairwoman, and a clerls
in a. brolcer's oiiioe at 12s. a -week, had his name down as a subscriber for
shares in the Loudon and Yorli hue, for 52,000^. Doubtless, he had been made
useful for the purpose by the brokers, his employers.