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  BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

  NO. CCCLXXXIII.   SEPTEMBER, 1847.   Vol. LXII.




HOW I STOOD FOR THE DREEPDAILY BURGHS.


CHAPTER I.

"My dear Dunshunner," said my friend Robert M'Corkindale as he entered my
apartments one fine morning in June last, "do you happen to have seen the
share-list? Things are looking in Liverpool as black as thunder. The
bullion is all going out of the country, and the banks are refusing to
discount."

Bob M'Corkindale might very safely have kept his information to himself. I
was, to say the truth, most painfully aware of the facts which he
unfeelingly obtruded upon my notice. Six weeks before, in the full
confidence that the panic was subsiding, I had recklessly invested my
whole capital in the shares of a certain railway company, which for the
present shall be nameless; and each successive circular from my broker
conveyed the doleful intelligence that the stock was going down to Erebus.
Under these circumstances I certainly felt very far from being
comfortable. I could not sell out except at a ruinous loss; and I could
not well afford to hold on for any length of time, unless there was a
reasonable prospect of a speedy amendment of the market. Let me confess
it--I had of late come out rather too strong. When a man has made money
easily, he is somewhat prone to launch into expense, and to presume too
largely upon his credit. I had been idiot enough to make my _debut_ in the
sporting world--had started a couple of horses upon the verdant turf of
Paisley--and, as a matter of course, was remorselessly sold by my
advisers. These and some other minor amusements had preyed deleteriously
upon my purse. In fact, I had not the ready; and as every tradesman
throughout Glasgow was quaking in his shoes at the panic, and
inconveniently eager to realise, I began to feel the reverse of
comfortable, and was shy of showing myself in Buchanan Street. Several
documents of a suspicious appearance--owing to the beastly practice of
wafering, which is still adhered to by a certain class of
correspondents--were lying upon my table at the moment when Bob entered. I
could see that the villain comprehended their nature at a glance; but
there was no use in attempting to mystify him. The Political Economist
was, as I was well aware, in very much the same predicament as myself.

"To tell you the truth, M'Corkindale, I have not opened a share-list for a
week. The faces of some of our friends are quite long enough to serve as a
tolerable exponent of the market; and I saw Grabbie pass about five
minutes ago with a yard of misery in his visage. But what's the news?"

"Every thing that is bad! Total stoppage expected in a week, and the mills
already put upon short time."

"You don't say so!"

"It is a fact. Dunshunner, this infernal tampering with the currency will
be the ruin of every mother's son of us!"--and here Bob, in a fit of
indignant enthusiasm, commenced a vivid harangue upon the principles of
contraction and expansion, bullion, the metallic standard, and the bank
reserves, which no doubt was extremely sound, but which I shall not
recapitulate to the reader.

"That's all very well, Bob," said I--"very good in theory, but we should
confine ourselves at present to practice. The main question seems to me to
be this. How are we to get out of our present fix? I presume you are not
at present afflicted with a remarkable plethory of cash?"

"Every farthing I have in the world is locked up in a falling line."

"Any debts?"

"Not many; but quite enough to make me meditate a temporary retirement to
Boulogne."

"I believe you are better off than I am. I not only owe money, but am
terribly bothered about some bills."

"That's awkward. Would it not be advisable to bolt?"

"I don't think so. You used to tell me, Bob, that credit was the next best
thing to capital. Now, I don't despair of redeeming my capital yet, if I
can only keep up my credit."

"Right, undoubtedly, as you generally are. Do you