| £ 1,050 | ||
| 300 | working days | |
| £315,000 | ||
| Deduct cost of 900 trees, say £10 | 9,000 | |
| £306,000 | ||
| Erection of saw mills and 12 months’ labour of 100 men at 25s. per week | 10,000 | |
| £296,000 | Profit on first year’s operations. | |
It is perfectly obvious that the public demand is so great that the entire estate can be disafforested at an enormous profit, the price of three shillings per cubic foot block being as nearly as possible 30 times the normal value of the timber.
As the only drawback to the success of the undertaking is the illness, or, it may be, possible demise of the vendor, his life will be insured as a first preliminary for £100,000, being the entire capital of the company.
It is not anticipated that it will be necessary to call up more than the allotment money, as it is calculated when the premium has been paid on the vendor’s life, and the stipulated price for the goodwill (£25,000) has been handed over to the vendor, there will still remain sufficient in hand to erect the necessary saw mills and machinery.
The following contract has been entered into: An agreement dated the 23rd day of October, 1887, and made between William Ewart Gladstone of the one part, and Archibald Philip Primrose, Earl of Rosebery, on behalf of the company, of the other part.
Copies of the agreement of purchase, valuers’ certificates, and memorandum and articles of association may be inspected at the offices of the company, or of the bankers.
Scarcely a week passes but what Mr. Gladstone appears as the central figure in Judy’s political cartoon; Judy has also published (separately) some burlesque Company prospectuses, one in 1885 was entitled “W. E. Gladstone & Co., Limited,” with a capital of One Million in £10 Shares. The proposed Directorate included the following names: The Rt. Hon. W. E. G. Chairman. Mr. H. Childish. Sir Veneer Half-caste. The Earl Gumboil. The Earl Drowsy. Marquis of Heart-in-Mouth. Joseph Chimneypot, Esq. (of the Birmingham Affidavit Manufacturing Company), and Sir. C. Bilke.
A long list was given of the objects to be achieved by the Company, all of which were represented as being nefarious and unpatriotic, such being the usual and natural assertion of each political party with regard to the actions of the other.
Another publication issued from the Judy office, dated November 1, 1885, and sold for threepence, was a legal looking paper, endorsed The Last Will and Testament of William Ewart Gladstone. This was not a very witty production, the most notable clauses it contains are those in which Mr. Gladstone appoints Joseph Chamberlain and Bottomley Firth as his executors; the bequest to Lord Randolph Churchill “of twelve pence sterling to the end he may therewith buy a rope of hemp and go hang himself;” to the Sublime Porte of “a complete file of Newspapers containing all my speeches on the Bulgarian Atrocities;” and to Sir Charles Dilke “my Law treatise containing chapters on Decrees Nisi.”