} THE CITY OF UNLIMITED PAPER. gow there is the branch firm of M'Vortex and Company, who have established friendly WITHIN a certain circle, of which the Royal relations with all the leading banks, and Exchange is the centre, lie the ruins of a whose paper, drawn upon the substantial firm great paper city. Its rulers-solid and sub- of O'Docket and Company of Dublin, is stantial as they appear to the eye-are made "done" without a whisper, at the minimum of paper. They ride in paper carriages; they rate. The substantial firm of O'Docket and marry paper wives, and unto them are born Company of Dublin enjoys the highest credit paper children; their food is paper, their that can be obtained by a long course of rethoughts are paper, and all they touch is gular trading in the land of generous sympatransformed to paper. They buy paper and thies and impulsive genius; and their paper, they sell paper; they borrow paper, and they upon the highly respectable firm of MVortex lend paper,-a paper that shrinks and withers and Company, of Glasgow, is much in demand, in the grasp like the leaves of the sensitive at very low rates of discount indeed. Then plant; and the stately-looking palaces in there is Alphonse Collaps and Company of which they live and trade are built of paper, Paris; the great house of Collaps Brothers, -small oblong pieces of paper, which, like at Calcutta; Vortex, Collaps, and Docket, of the cardboard houses of our childhood, fall San Francisco; Docket Brothers and Collaps, with a single breath. That breath has overtaken them, and they lie in the dust. Let me collect the scattered pieces, and build them up into such another variety of trembling structures as they formed before; as they form now; or as, in a few years, they will undoubtedly form again. of New York; Collaps, Collaps, and Company, of the Cape of Good Hope; Vortex, Docket, and Vortex, of Melbourne, Australia; and Vortex Brothers and Docket, of Montreal, Canada. These all draw and feed upon each other as their necessities require; and the parent firm of Collaps, Vortex, Docket, and Our first paper-house is the firm of Collaps, Company, of Tobacco Lane, London, watches Vortex, Docket, and Company, general mer- over its obedient children with a more than chants. It is quiet and unobtrusive in appear- fatherly interest, and trades upon their ance, being in Tobacco Lane, Fenchurch Street; acceptances to the extent of millions. Forand its small office has not had its windows merly the great London house used to stop cleaned for thirty years, which gives it a payment during every commercial panic,-favourable appearance of solidity. The lead- their credit preventing the necessity of their ing peculiarity of this firm is ramification; and it is remarkable for the harmony and beauty of its complex machinery. The senior partner, Mr. Collaps, is a merchant of the old school. There is a fund of credit in his shoe-buckles, and in the heavy yellow family coach that comes to fetch him of an afternoon. Mr. Vortex affects an almost Quakerish severity of attire ; he attends to the discounting department, and the chairmanships and directorships of those important and choice public companies which he finds so useful in consolidating the credit of the house. Mr. Docket is a copy of Mr. Vortex, some fifteen years younger; he attends to the working part of the business, whatever that may be; superintends the clerks, answers troublesome inquiries, and is supposed to buy and sell all the merchandise. The ramifications of the house extend to most cities of importance in England, abroad, and the colonies. In Glas doing so at any other time. Now, they have grown too wise and important to do that. It is not that their trade has become in any degree sounder or more legitimate, but the accumulated liabilities of many years have swelled their transactions into such gigantie proportions, that the mere whisper of any difficulty to the Governor and company of the Bank of England causes a representation to be made to our paternal government, whose mission it is to foster, protect, and accommodate trade; and it is agreed that such a public calamity as the suspension of Messrs. Collaps, Vortex, Docket, and Company must be prevented at any cost. It is prevented by the suspension of the Bank Charter Act instead; an extra issue of Bank of England notes is authorised, with a government guarantee in case there should not be gold to exchange for them; and commerce-ill-used commercebreathes again. VOL, XVIL 404 |