up their shares and sell them again; to
subscribe to loans, to build houses in Paris,
such as the Hôtel du Louvre. It receives,
as deposits, sums of any amount, paying
two per cent. interest, whereas the Bank
of France pays no interest. It refunds at
sight all sums below a hundred thousand
francs, four thousand pounds, and at three
days' sight sums of a hundred thousand
francs and upwards.

Parties interested in knowing more than
this, in short, all they can, have endeavoured
to obtain information respecting the
company, and have been obliged to content
themselves with generalities; such as, "It is an
establishment of the highest importance;"
"It merits respectful attention, on account of
the respectability of its founders, good men
all;" "It will make a sensation in the
world " (so have the Tipperary and the
Royal British concerns); "It will mark an
epoch in history" (so did the South Sea
edifice of Mr. Law). Other accounts are less
prepossessing. "The assets won't be heavy
when it comes to a settlement;" "It is a
weapon of war for the use of the managers;"
"The profits will belong to the body of directors,
the losses will fall to the portion of the
shareholders." Finally, common report affords
you but little aid to get a clear idea of Crédit
Mobilier. The giant apparition remains a
mystery.

The haziness of outline in which the colossal
form is thus able to shroud itself, is very
much owing both to the faults and the
misfortunes of the French press; to its want of
liberty, in respect to the trammels twisted
round it by the state; and to its want of
independence, by lending itself to exterior
influence, sometimes to selfish internal interest.
In England, Sir John Paul and Co.,
or the Royal British, could not have coaxed
or bribed into silence a single journal
of the faintest influence, and as to any
general hushing-up to be consented to
by the British press as a body, you would as
soon get the editors to agree to have their
mouths sewn up and their fingers chopped off.
In France it is otherwise, under whatever
influence. French bankers are fond of investing
money in journals. Very lately, the owner
of some shares in a provincial company did
not like them; and I should wonder, knowing
them, if he did. As a means of getting
rid of them, he wanted to advertise them in
the provincial journal as on sale at twenty-
five per cent. below prime cost. The editor
refused to insert the advertisement, from
motives which it is not for us to investigate
or impugn; and the would-be advertiser
brought his action for dommages-intérêts as
one means of publicity, and of taking a rise
out of the concern. To show the way in
which provincial editors sometimes do
business, the prosecutor's counsel told the following
tale:—

A marchande de papier, or female paper-
merchant, took an advertisement of her wares
to a country newspaper, whose régisseur was
proprietor, printer, and all. The gentleman
refused to insert the announcement.

"Why not?" asked the lady in astonishment.
"Here's the money down, if you are
afraid of that."

"Heu! heu!" said the editor. "I neither
want your money nor your advertisement,
madame. I too sell paper, madame—foolscap,
quarto, letter-paper, fine, coarse, and demi-
fine, besides envelopes, cards, and letters of
faire-part of deaths and marriages, all in the
newest style, a very large assortment, madame.
I cannot publish the advertisement of any
one who would undersell my paper. What
would you have, madame?"

The lady, too proud to make vain
remonstrance, went her way. In a few days she
returned to the office, and humbly asked—

"Monsieur, have you an attic to let?"

"What do you mean, madame? I don't
understand your question. Pray, What
project can you have with respect to my attic?"

"Before I can explain my intentions," the
fair merchant replied, "you must answer
my question, whether you have an attic to
let."

"No, madame; I have not."

"Very well, monsieur; I can now proceed
to business without fear of interruption,
Please insert this in your next number. I
have an attic to let; but I thought I would
ask whether you had one to let also, before I
ventured to bring the advertisement."

For reliable information, therefore, as to
Crédit Mobilier, we are obliged, like others,
to refer to the statutes of the company. There
we find:—

"The founders, considering the important
services to be rendered by the establishment
of a Société having for its object to encourage
the development of industry and public
works, and to effect, by consolidation into a
common fund, the conversion of the special
vouchers and title-deeds of diverse
undertakings, have resolved to realise so useful a
work, and to that intent have determined the
bases and the statutes of a Société anonyme,
under the denomination of Société Genérale
de Crédit Mobilier.

The duration of the Société is ninety-nine
years. The social capital is fixed at sixty
millions (of francs, which will be always
understood when not expressed otherwise),
divided into one hundred and twenty thousand
actions or shares of five hundred francs
each. [Divide by twenty-five, and you get
pounds sterling]. A first series of forty
thousand actions or shares only is issued at
present. The remaining eighty thousand shall
be successively issued on the decision of the
Council of Administration from time to time,
according to the wants of the Société. They
shall not be delivered below par. The
founders and the holders of the first issued
shares, have the right of preference in