he Thiers administration in France, the fluctuations
in Consols were as much as 4 per cent. The result was great ruin to
speculators. The speculators for the rise--the "bulls," in fact--of
L400,000 Consols sustained a loss of from L10,000 to L15,000, for which
more than one broker found it necessary, for sustaining his credit, to
pay.

The railway mania produced many changes in the Stock Exchange. The share
market, which previously had been occupied by only four or five brokers
and a number of small jobbers, now became a focus of vast business.
Certain brokers, it is said, made L3,000 or L4,000 a day by their
business. One fortunate man outside the house, who held largely of
Churnett Valley scrip before the sanction of the Board of Trade was
procured, sold at the best price directly the announcement was made, and
netted by that _coup_ L27,000. The "Alley men" wrote letters for shares,
and when the allotments were obtained made some 10s. on each share. Some
of these "dabblers" are known to have made only fifty farthings of fifty
shares of a railway now the first in the kingdom. The sellers of letters
used to meet in the Royal Exchange before business hours, till the
beadle had at last to drive them away to make room for the merchants.
There is a story told of an "Alley man" during the mania contriving to
sell some rotten shares by bowing to Sir Isaac Goldsmid in the presence
of his victim. Sir Isaac returned the bow, and the victim at once
believed in the respectability of the gay deceiver.

With the single exception of Mr. David Ricardo, the celebrated political
economist, says Mr. Grant, there are few names of any literary
distinction connected with the Stock Exchange. Mr. Ricardo is said to
have amassed his immense fortune by a scrupulous attention to his own
golden rules:--

"Never refuse an option when you can get it;
Cut short your losses;
Let your profits run on."

By the second rule, which, like the rest, is strictly technical, Mr.
Ricardo meant that purchasers of stock ought to re-sell immediately
prices fell. By the third he meant that when a person held stock and
prices were rising, he ought not to sell until prices had reached their
highest, and were beginning to fall.

[Illustration: ON CHANGE. (_From an Old Print, about 1800. The Figures
by Rowlandson; Architecture by Nash._)]

Gentlemen of the Stock Exchange are rough with intruders. A few years
since, says a writer in the _City Press_,