impossible to continue the old plan of buying
up shares from the market, since every
one who could, became a seller; the stock
rapidly fell to par, and then to much below
that moderate point, until all the world
had shares to sell, but no buyers were left.
And then, but not until then, the price
ceased to fall any lower, for the shares had
no price; they fell to zero.

The next general meeting was an anxious,
and an unpleasant meeting for all parties. Still
the directors' report spoke confidently of the
future. No actual panic had then occurred,
and although heavy losses on all sides were
matters of notoriety, the considerate auditors
had put down no more than a few thousand
rupees as bad debts. To be sure, the dividend
of five per cent. boldly declared on the current
year, would have had to be paid out of the
capital, but it was dreaded that it would be
very difficult for the manager to discover any
capital whatever. This difficulty was soon
mastered; the directors were not put to the
trouble of fishing for capital in empty coffers,
and an infinite amount of vexation and
declaring of accounts was saved them by the far
more simple process of suspending payment;
which was done not long afterwards to the
terror of many, and the astonishment of more.

It was then clearly demonstrated that
whilst the Great Chowsempoor Bank had
been so ardently bent upon " developing the
resources of the country," the directors had
overlooked the necessity of developing the
resources of the Bank. The stale old maxim
about being just before being generous had
found no place in the managers' creed, and
when the hour of trial and difficulty came,
they who had been so lavish towards others
found there was not a single friend or
supporter for themselves.

Of the scenes which passed in and about
Hooghly Bund, after the stoppage of the Great
Chowsempoor Bank, it would be not less
difficult than painful to treat. To such firms
as Hookey, Walker and Company, it was no
doubt distressing and inconvenient to a degree;
to the Insurance Companies it was perhaps
more so: while the young, confiding, embryo
civilians, and the juvenile captains and innocent
ensigns, all of whom had learnt to look at
the Bank as greatly honored by the accommodation
accorded them, considered it extremely
hard to be called upon to "pay up " their
accounts—so very hard indeed that scarcely any
attended to the call. But if it proved harassing
and annoying to all these, how was it with
the poor friendless widows and orphans, whose
all in this world had been eugulphed within
the fatal vortex of the banking mania? Terror
would be a faint term to apply to the feelings
of these stricken people when they learnt the
extent of the blow—that they were not
only friendless, but penniless! Their official
Trustee was exceedingly sorry for what had
occurred; but he had acted for the best!

As for the Great Chowsempoor Bank itself,
its affairs are still being wound up, with no
prospect of a dividend; although some very
clear-headed, sharp-dealing individuals have
contrived to realise fortunes out of the
scattered wreck; how, it is scarcely necessary for
me to relate.

SNAILS.

EPHRAHIM SLITHERHOUSE, the father of
William Slitherhouse, our hero, was a
respectable mechanic, who gained his livelihood
by making clock-faces, or to speak more
correctly, a certain part of them, for he only
made the hands. After working sedulously
at this branch of horological mechanism
during fifty-three years, he was just beginning
to think of importing a few Dutch clocks, and
establishing an independent trade, when his
own hour-hand stopped. He, dying,
"bequeathed to his son a good name," together with
special directions as to the manufacture of the
black hands, in the Swiss style, as he thought
them more elegant than gold ones, and also
clearer to be seen at dusk, or by night. William
Slitherhouse followed all his father's
injunctions so carefully, that after remaining in
business five-and-forty years, he had saved enough
to retire to a six-roomed villa, at Camberwell.
A strip of garden at the back, enclosed by a
brick wall on two sides, with a wooden paling
and a salubrious ditch at the bottom, afforded
him every opportunity for rural recreation
and the pursuit of new sources of interest in
life.

William Slitherhouse took to gardening.
In his first season he tried a great many
things, and found they would not grow.
Some died at once, and others in the course
of a few weeks. He saw that it was not wise
to be too ambitious, and that the climate of
Camberwell had been overrated by his landlord.
After his third season, he came to his
senses, and was content with humble flowers
and vegetables. His greatest success was in
cabbages; that is to say, so far as their growth
and promise were concerned; but
unfortunately there always came a large colony of
snails in the spring, which multiplied
immensely all through the summer and autumn,
and devoured the best of his produce. Not
a cabbage was left heart-whole, and all the
best of the intermediate leaves were riddled like
very fine old point lace, or otherwise damaged
for all edible purposes. This gave Mr.
Slitherhouse a hostile feeling towards the
marauders, and he always did his best to get
rid of them.

It is very much to be feared that humane
people, who are fond of gardening, dispose of
their surplus snails by throwing them over
into the gardens of their next door neighbours.
It is clear they must be disposed of somehow.
The question is, in all similar cases, who are
to eat the vegetables—the grower, or the
pirates? But a snail is a sort of substance