upon what the price of funds will be on the next settling-day.  These transactions have been pronounced fraudulent by the superior courts, and liabilities so contracted cannot be legally recovered.  It is, for all that, quite certain that these ’debts of honour’ entail misery, ruin, often death, on the madmen who habitually peril everything upon the turn of the Stock-Exchange dice—­dice loaded, too, by every fraudulent device that the ingenuity of the two parties engaged in the struggle can discover or invent.  To the ‘Bears,’ who speculate for a fall, national calamity is a God-send.  Especially a failure of the harvest, or a great military disaster like that which befell the Cabool expedition, is an almost priceless blessing—­a cause of jubilant thanksgiving and joy.  The ‘Bulls,’ on the other hand, whose gains depend upon a rise in the funds, are ever brimful of boasts, and paint all things couleur de rose.  If the facts bear out the assertions of these bands of speculators—­we prefer a mild term—­why so much the better for the facts; but if not, sham-facts will answer the purpose, and to manufacture them ‘is as easy as lying.’  It is a remarkable fact, by the way, that out of the multitude of British fundholders there are not more than about 25,000 persons who are liable from that source to the income-tax—­that is, who receive dividends to the amount of L.150 and upwards annually.  The most numerous class of the national creditors eleven years ago—­and there has, we believe, been no later return—­were those whose annual dividends did not exceed L.50.  These numbered 98,946:  the next largest class, 85,069, were creditors whose yearly dividends did not exceed L.5; whilst only 192 persons were in the receipt of annual dividends exceeding L.2000.

But leaving these haunts of money-dealers, let us pass over to Leadenhall Street, turn down Billiter Street, and walk on till we reach Mark Lane and the plain, spacious, substantial, Doric-fronted building on the left hand, in which the great London Corn Market is held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—­the chief market, however, being that of Monday.  There are no clamorous shoutings here.  These crowds of staid, well-dressed, respectable people fly no kites, deal in no flimsy paper-schemes and shares.  Their commerce is in corn, flour, seeds—­the sustenance of man, in short.  There are sober traders in realities, and the busy hum of voices has a smack of healthy traffic in it.  It would so appear at all events, if we care not to look beneath the surface; and, in sooth, since the abolition of the sliding-scale has rendered the corn-supply continuous and regular as other staples, gambling to any ruinous extent has become almost impossible.