minds to secure their salaries ; the secretary
was drawing out advertisements for another
situation.

"How much do you say has been paid into
the bank, Mr. Secretary?" asked the noble
chairman.

"Forty-two pounds; neither more nor less,
my lord."

"That's a bore," said his lordship, as he
twirled his moustache.

At this moment the secretary recognised
the seedy individual. He had a book under
his arm — a stag-book belonging to the
Timbuctoo Mining Company. The secretary
asked the seedy individual to take a chair,
and then introduced him to the directors.
These gentlemen clustered about the possessor
of the stag-book, and begged to look at it.

"Will you give me a list of the applicants
to whom you have allotted?" This request
was at once complied with. The seedy
individual then set to work.

"In the first place allow me to inform you,
gentlemen, that Captan Bluebill, of Tanglebury
Hall, Mr. Button, of Clapham, and the
Admiral, are one and the same person — one
Samuel Brown, who lives at a coffee-shop
somewhere in the Borough." After a few
minutes' further examination, the seedy
individual showed the directors that all the
great names upon which they relied were
forged; and that the stags who forged them
made arrangements with the servants at the
great houses to which their forgeries were
addressed, for the letters to be sent back to
them. Thus the honourable Board of the
Patent Corkscrew Company found
themselves with liabilities amounting to about
six hundred pounds, and, as the result of
applications for three hundred thousand
pounds' worth of stock, with forty-two
pounds in the hand of their bankers.

The seedy individual now strongly advised
the Board to extend the time of payment, by
public advertisement; meanwhile to buy up
all the letters in the market, and
commission brokers to buy shares. This advice
was adopted, and the seedy individual was
employed to buy up. In a few days, the
market was cleared; the brokers created a
demand for the shares by purchasing them
at the bidding of the directors — in other
words, by rigging the market — and the end
of it was, that the Company scratched together
two or three thousand pounds.

It was found that they might with the aid
of a few stags contrive to scramble to complete
registration. The stags were wanted to
enable them to comply with the Act which
declares that one-fourth of the capital must
be subscribed for, before complete registration
can be granted. And in this the stags
were useful — since they readily wrote their
names upon the deed for a few shillings.

Of the permanent prospects of the Patent
Corkscrew Company it is not easy to form an
estimate. Some people say it will do well, some
people say it will wind up in a few months.
All I know is that they have not yet
produced a corkscrew, and that their lawyer's
bill is as Iong as their Board-room table.

REGULAR TRAPPERS.

In our last number* we gave an account
of the territory over which the Hudson's
Bay Company enjoy exclusive trading and
proprietary rights, as well as an account of
the peculiar policy which has from the first
distinguished that body. We will now place
before the reader the proceedings of the
Company as Trappers, showing their commercial
career, and the results of their policy, as
regards the people with whom they deal, as
well as the trade itself.

* Page 449.

We have already spoken of the mediæval
character of the Hudson's Bay Company.
As Chartered and therefore Regular Trappers
and dealers in furs, they are peculiarly old-
world. There is, indeed, nothing of the present
age about them. If one could but gain access
to their Hall, and catch a peep at the Boardroom
we should doubtless behold such a sight
as would gladden the spectacles of the oldest
antiquary.

Our readers will remember having read in
some early school history, of the state of
British commerce in the merry days of Queen
Elizabeth: how in those darkened times,
England despatched her two annual ships
to the Mediterranean, to bring home the
riches of eastern lands. This Company
realises the historic legends of the past;
and, as in the days of Charles the Second,
two ships sailed annually for Hudson's Bay
with sundry woollens, cottons, and
hardwares, to bring home beavers and other
furs, so in the year eighteen hundred and
fifty-four, a similar brace of ships enter
those same waters every year to fetch home
the produce of two millions of square miles
of territory; — precisely one vessel of four
hundred tons to every million of square miles
of country.

The territory on the west of the Rocky
Mountains, over which the Company has
recently obtained the exclusive right of
trading, may be said to comprise about
another million of square miles. To this portion
two other ships are yearly despatched on a
similar errand. These four ships carry to
England, furs, to the value of about five
hundred thousand pounds yearly.

The Hudson's Bay Company was
incorporated on the second of May, sixteen
hundred and sixty. Their first governor
was Prince Rupert; and, upon the original
committee list may be found the names of
the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Craven, Lord
Arlington, &c. The original capital
subscribed amounted to not more than ten