moral tone of
society, had led the directors to institute a new society, founded on
the noblest principles and the most moderate calculations,--proceeded
to demonstrate that twenty-four and a half per cent was the smallest
possible return the shareholders could anticipate. The company began
under the fairest auspices; an archbishop was caught as president, on
the condition always that he should give nothing but his name to the
society. Uncle Jack--more euphoniously designated as "the celebrated
philanthropist, John Jones Tibbets, Esquire"--was honorary secretary,
and the capital stated at two millions. But such was the obtuseness
of the industrial classes, so little did they perceive the benefits
of subscribing one-and-ninepence a-week from the age of twenty-one to
fifty, in order to secure at the latter age the annuity of L18, that the
company dissolved into thin air, and with it dissolved also Uncle Jack's
L3,000. Nothing more was then seen or heard of him for three years. So
obscure was his existence that on the death of an aunt, who left him
a small farm in Cornwall, it was necessary to advertise that "If John
Jones Tibbets, Esq., would apply to Messrs. Blunt & Tin, Lothbury,
between the hours of ten and four, he would hear of something to his
advantage." But even as a conjurer declares that he will call the ace
of spades, and the ace of spades, that you thought you had safely under
your foot, turns up on the table,--so with this advertisement suddenly
turned up Uncle Jack. With inconceivable satisfaction did the new
landowner settle himself in his comfortable homestead. The farm, which
was about two hundred acres, was in the best possible condition, and
saving one or two chemical preparations, which cost Uncle Jack, upon the
most scientific principles, thirty acres of buckwheat, the ears of
which came up, poor things, all spotted and speckled as if they had been
inoculated with the small-pox, Uncle Jack for the first two years was
a thriving man. Unluckily, however, one day Uncle Jack discovered a
coal-mine in a beautiful field of Swedish turnips; in another week
the house was full of engineers and naturalists, and in another month
appeared; in my uncle's best style, much improved by practice, a
prospectus of the "Grand National Anti-Monopoly Coal Company, instituted
on behalf of the poor householders of London, and against the Monster
Monopoly of the London Coal Wharves.

"A vein of the finest coal has been disco