Let us look at the latter in the face; laugh
who will. The smallest expression of this vain
and paltry spirit will be found in those with
whom it is a pride to do everything at the last
minute with a dash and a defiance of time and
casualty; who will boast that they are never on
a railway platform a second before the train is
to start, and who are triumphant because they
say they are never left behind.

Never?—as I write, the spectre of one arises
to recollection, with a bitter distinctness—a
force bearing on the argument so strongly to be
pressed as a duty on every brave Englishman,
by this late, gratuitous tragedy on the Mont
Cervin. I look upon a good, honourable, intelligent
fellow, with life, promise, and fortune
opening to him on every side, but with whose
spirits and strength an element of boast and
defiance had become so closely intertwined, that
to name a peril was to make him leap at it, no
matter what the chances. He was in the south
of Spain, on a pleasure journey; and by those who
knew how the coast-road is liable to be traversed
by rains, as sweeping as those of the Sicilian
fiumara, was warned, on a certain autumn night,
following many days of storm, not to go on.
He was not alone. One of the most complete,
unselfish, and gifted men that ever did England
honour—a man marked out for honours—the
central point of a large and loving family, was his
travelling companion. There had been a cataract
of rain pouring from heaven for eight-and-forty
hours; and the two, as I have said, were, at night-
fall, by one who knew the country, advised to
wait. Had the adviser known one of the party,
he might have calculated on what followed. The
more venturesome traveller overruled his
companion by mere habitual force of high spirits.
The two set forth through the night. In the
morning, on the shore betwixt Barcelona and
Castillon de la Plana, there was only to be seen
a solitary mule belonging to the diligence
straggling about. Its inmates, borne down to
the sea by the torrent, against which they had
been warned, had been torn to pieces on the
cruel rocks. Two homes were made
desolate—one for ever; and for why? Because
the bragging vanity of Foolhardihood had had
its will.

There is not one out of ten of those who
arrive at Man's estate in this country, who
is not cognisant of some such disaster as I am
dwelling on; of some case in which a valuable
existence has been flung away, at the incitement
of a folly which will own no difiiculties, nor
can endure to find itself surpassed in effort and
enterprise; of some generous being goaded to
seek his death by false shame or false emulation.
Those who make capital of any kind out of
"sport," will gloss over these terrible deaths
as inevitable visitations of Providence, and
whine a remonstrance made up of a few catch
words. The salubrious excitement of
mountaineering for over-worked men; the proud
preeminence of England in manly courage. We
know the tune by heart. And then the accident
ought not to have happened. There was no
need for the dead men to have slipped, had the
mystery of scrambling about in perilous places
been more elaborately practised or better
understood. And as to risk—think of the appalling
and certain perils of a ride "across country"—
why, a chimney (this is a very favourite
illustration) may be blown down and kill the quiet
citizen as he passes along the street.

The Alpine Club has had nothing to do with
the fever of competition which the last few
years have seen. There is hardly one of the
apologists, be it also noticed, who has not to
tell of some narrow escape of life, due to his
own judicious management of ropes and
crampons, and the rest of the machinery got up in
London for the use of the foolhardy. But
which of them will deny that the problem of
the Peak of the Matterhorn being accessible or
not, has been solved at a cost to which no true-
hearted man, be he ever so bold, so muscular,
ever so skilled at describing scenes of breathless
peril, would wish, directly or indirectly, by
precept or example, to have contributed?

AMATEUR FINANCE.
IN THREE PARTS. PART II.

SOME fourteen months ago, the writer of this
paper happened to make the journey from
Smyrna to Trieste in the Austrian Lloyd's
steamer. Among the few passengers was a
Greek merchant, a native of Chios, with whom
he became pretty intimate. This gentleman's
conversation—like that of most Levantines—
turned upon matters monetary. The writer
and he discussed the subject of finance and
credit companies, which just then had found
their way into England. The writer hazarded
an opinion that if these undertakings multiplied
in anything like the proportion in which other
kinds of companies had multiplied, there would
not be found capital enough in all England
wherewith to work them. " Capital!"
exclaimed the Greek, " that is what you Englishmen
are always talking about, and the craving
after it keeps you always behind the rest of the
world. Give me pen, ink, paper, and stamps,
combined with commercial credit, and I will
never ask for capital. Capital, my dear sir, is
merely nominal, and can be increased to any
extent you like, in five minutes."

I have since thought, that in the " HOUSE
AND LAND FINANCE AND CREDIT COMPANY
(LIMITED)," we conducted our business much
on the principles of this Greek gentleman. We,
as it were, created securities for ourselves, and
upon these securities we based our operations
as if they were bonâ fide assets derived from
some good source, and bearing some other
signature. But the working of our system,
and of the easy manner in which we managed
to raise our dividends to a fabulous amount,
and our shares to a proportionate premium,
will be best illustrated as I proceed with my
story.

Among the directors of our company was a