and a call made for the remaining 98 pounds of the subscription. Next
morning, at nine o'clock, this great man opened an office in Cornhill.
Crowds of people beset his door, and when he shut up at three o'clock,
he found that no less than one thousand shares had been subscribed
for, and the deposits paid. He was thus, in five hours, the winner of
2,000 pounds. He was philosopher enough to be contented with his
venture, and set off the same evening for the Continent. He was never
heard of again.

Well might Swift exclaim, comparing Change Alley to a gulf in the
South Sea,--

Subscribers here by thousands float,
And jostle one another down,
Each paddling in his leaky boat,
And here they fish for gold, and drown.

Now buried in the depths below,
Now mounted up to heaven again,
They reel and stagger to and fro,
At their wit's end, like drunken men

Meantime, secure on Garraway cliffs,
A savage race, by shipwrecks fed,
Lie waiting for the foundered skiffs,
And strip the bodies of the dead.

Another fraud that was very successful, was that of the "Globe
Permits," as they were called. They were nothing more than square
pieces of playing cards, on which was the impression of a seal, in