I was accordingly employed, and following up such traces as I apprehended would lead me on her track. I was not a great while before I discovered that Mrs. Green had become “one more unfortunate” parading Waterloo Place every night, at present decked in the garments which Mr. Green, her husband, had purchased; and I further learnt that, out of the proceeds of her sin, she was maintaining “the prior attachment.”
When all this evidence had been collected and laid before Dr. Jinks, a very accomplished lawyer, as I have seen cause to know, who practises in the court till recently presided over so ably by Sir Cresswell Cresswell; and when his opinion had been written upon “a case,” to the effect that there was no doubt the court would grant Mr. Green a divorce from his adulterous wife,—that gentleman called upon Eliza’s aunt, and explained to her that he felt bound to mark at once his sense of the merit and virtues of her niece, and his desire to make the amplest reparation in his power for the injuries inflicted upon her, by offering to place her in the position of her late mistress as soon as the legal ceremonies clearing the way had been effected.
The court readily granted a divorce. The opposition on the wife’s part was but a sham resistance. It was an attorney’s defence, that would never have been made if the law, in its kindly regard for woman under all circumstances, had not allowed her, although demoralised, to dip her hands in an injured husband’s pocket for the costs of any pretended resistance to his prayer, as well as for alimony during the litigation. As soon as Mr. Green issued his citation, he had to allow his wife at the rate of 600l. per annum until he got his decree for a dissolution of the marriage, and he had also to pay her attorney 150l. 4s. 6d.
These moneys being paid, and these processes having been gone through, and after further waiting the time prescribed by law for the other side—that is, for Mrs. Green—to appeal against the court’s decision, no such appeal having been attempted, the adulterous woman was no longer entitled to the use of the merchant’s name; she ceased to be, in the eye of the law, in any respect his wife; and Eliza became Mrs. Green, under the sanction of law and of the Established Church of England.
THE VIRTUE OF AN AMERICAN PASSPORT.
I WAS once employed to track an absconding bankrupt and hand him over to the tender mercies of a criminal court. There was nothing in the case, as it appeared on my instructions, to distinguish it from a host of other cases. It had not even the merit of difficulty to lend it interest. I made sure of catching my man with little trouble, as I did, and as I will point out. The affair, however, took a rather curious turn in the sequel, as the reader will perceive.
The bankrupt had been a trader in Liverpool. He had not been in business there more than ten months, but had contrived, during that short period, to contract debts to the extent of 84,000l. I don’t know in what line he traded. I believe in many, or in all lines. He professed to be a believer in homely saws, and the philosophy they embody. He would not object at any time, he said, to turn an honest pound in any way. He therefore bought all that came within the range of his credit, from rags and hempen fragments to jewelry, and from tallow to diamonds. I don’t know where he traded to especially. I believe that he sold more in the home-market than abroad, although he talked largely about consignments, bills of lading, &c. If he had a skill for getting credit, he had a genius for disposing of goods. He was also an expert at what is called hypothecating,—a process which, for the unenlightened, I may explain to be as like pawning as any one thing can be like another. A peculiarity of his business was, that he always bought on acceptances, and for credit; he always sold for cash on delivery. Hence he frequently, if not always, traded at a loss. He was sometimes so unlucky as not to be able to get half as much in cash for things as they had cost him in bills.
Such trading as this, the reader may think, would soon come to an end. It is quite clear that such trading must end in bankruptcy and ruin to some one, or to more than one. It is not, however, so sure that this mode of carrying on business would overtake ruin speedily. Our American bankrupt lasted ten months; and it is the opinion of many well informed persons that he might have gone on for three or four years if he had calculated well, and held his ground boldly. How was that to be done? Easily. There is a process which I have heard scientifically described as “widening the ratio.” That would have done it.
Suppose that a man in trade loses 500l. upon the business of 1000l., which is about the proportion in our Yankee’s business or its results. Suppose that he wants to spend, and therefore does spend, the 500l. on himself. Is he bound to stop payment at the end of that partial experiment, and treat the problem as one therein solved? No. He may double his business and losses, and still keep right, in a familiar sense of that nice phrase. If he should trade to the extent of 2000l., and lose 1000l. upon it, he will be able to pay off the first credits out of the net proceeds of his second series of operations; and all the people who get their money—noticing, also, the activity of his business—will sound his praises as “a rising merchant,” “an upright man,” “a punctual tradesman.” To live during the second series of operations out of them, they should, however, be extended to 3000l. or 4000l., instead of 2000l.; and nothing is much easier than to do this. Keep on paying each bill as it falls due (no matter at what sacrifice,—by the forced sale of goods, or by discounts at any rate of interest), and there will be no difficulty about “widening your ratio of trade,” until you are entitled to a place in that category of worthies which Mr. David Morier Evans has culled and put together in his work entitled, Facts, Frauds, and Fallacies. Some day the bubble will burst, I know; but the ball may be kept rolling for a series of years on this plan.
It is just possible that a hitch may stop the machinery. There are accidents against which no human foresight can guard; and if the bright pleasant road to ruin gets blocked up, you may in the side paths encounter a policeman, who will lead you to a judge, and a prison, or a hulk. That I take to be one of the inevitable contingencies which any swindler will look fairly in the face—avoid it, if he can; and if not, then meet it with calmness and resignation.