The next time I saw that card it was in the hands of the commissaire of police, who came, accompanied by the juge d’instruction, to make some perquisitions as to what I might know of the last hours of M. Houlot; for he had been found that morning lying dead on his mattress.
The sad end of Houlot—well, of Dawson, if you like, but I have grown to think of him and talk of him as Houlot—quite unmanned me for a while. I could not help blaming myself as being in some way the cause of it. From the moment of its discovery, I took a violent antipathy to the work I had in hand. Houlot seemed to be always standing at my elbow, reproaching me with killing him over again. I don’t know whether the widow—really now a widow—had any such visions; I fancy not. After the first shock of the news, she found that Houlot’s death was really a great relief to her. It put an end to her troubles once for all. We found at his lodgings a great heap of manuscript, which she purchased from the agent acting for the landlord of the premises—who had taken possession of everything in satisfaction of rent—for a few francs. Whether she found the material among it for a series of novels, I don’t know, for as soon as I had finished the work in hand, I gave up my connection with Collingwood Dawson. I have since taken to writing improving books for the young, and find that it pays much better. Still I hear of him occasionally, and find that he continues to be a tolerably successful author; and the other day I met my late employer, who told me that she was married for a third time, and to a gentleman of great literary ability, who had undertaken the management of Collingwood Dawson. For my own part, I advised her to form him into a Limited company, with a preference in the allotment of shares for gentlemen of the press.
MR FAIR, ‘THE SILVER KING.’
The prodigious quantities of silver recently dug from the mines of Nevada and California, have, as is generally known, had the effect of lowering the commercial value of silver to the extent of several pence per ounce, and thereby depreciated the American dollar from one hundred to about ninety cents; that is to say, the dollar has sunk nearly fivepence in value—a circumstance greedily seized hold of by certain parties in the United States, who propose, with more ingenuity than honesty, to pay the public creditors in silver money without making any allowance for depreciation. On this extraordinary policy so much has been said by the newspapers, that we do not need to go into particulars, further than to hint that before all the play is played, the supporters of this scheme may unpleasantly find that there is some truth in the old proverb that ‘honesty is the best policy.’
Something like an idea of what enormous wealth is being realised by means of the above-mentioned silver mines is given in an account of Mr Fair, ‘The Silver King,’ in a late number of that smart London newspaper, The World. The following is an abridgment of this amusing paper.
‘There is a man alive at this present moment who, if he were so minded, could give his daughter a marriage-portion of thirty millions sterling. He would then have about ten millions left for himself. He lives six thousand miles west of London, half-way up a mountain-side in Nevada; and his daughter lives with him. Seven years ago he was a poor man; to-day he is the Silver King of America. He has dug forty million pounds’ worth of silver out of the hill he is living on, and has about forty millions more yet to dig. If he lives three years longer he will be the richest man in the world. His name is James Fair, and he is the manager, superintendent, chief partner, and principal shareholder in the Consolidated Virginia and California Silver Mines, known to men as the “Big Bonanzas.” He has an army of men toiling for him day and night down in the very depths of the earth—digging, picking, blasting, and crushing a thousand tons of rock every twenty-four hours.
‘Seven years ago there were two little Irishmen in the city of San Francisco keeping a drinking-bar of very modest pretensions, close to one of the principal business thoroughfares. Their customers were of all kinds, but chiefly commercial men and clerks. Among them was an unusually large proportion of stock and share dealers, mining-brokers and the like, who, in the intervals of speculation, rushed out of the neighbouring Exchange five or six times a day for drinks. Whisky being almost the religion of California, and the two little bar-keepers being careful to sell nothing but the best article, their bar soon became a place of popular resort. And as no true Californian could ever swallow a drink of whisky under any circumstances without talking about silver mines or gold mines or shares in mines, it soon fell out that, next to the Stock Exchange itself, there was no place in San Francisco where so much mining-talk went on as in the saloon of Messrs Flood & O’Brien, which were the names of the two little Irishmen. Keeping their ears wide open, and sifting the mass of gossip that they listened to every day, these two gentlemen picked up a good many crumbs of useful information, besides getting now and then a direct confidential tip; and they turned some of them to such good account in a few quiet little speculations, that they shortly had a comfortable sum of money lying at their bankers’. Instead of throwing it away headlong in wild extravagant ventures, which was the joyous custom of the average Californian in those days, they let it lie where it was, waiting, with commendable prudence, till they knew of something good to put it into. They soon heard of something good enough. On Fair’s advice they bought shares in a mine called the Hale and Norcross, and were speedily taking out of it fifteen thousand pounds a month in dividends. This mine was the property of a company, and though it had at one time paid large and continuous dividends, it was now supposed to be worked out and worthless. Mr Fair, however, held a different opinion; and when he came to examine it carefully, he found just what he expected to find—a large deposit of silver-ore. Thereupon he and Flood and O’Brien together bought up all the shares they could lay their hands upon, and obtained complete control of the mine.’
Besides being a clever and experienced miner, Mr Fair entertained the belief that by patient examination into holes and corners of the mine he would discover a gigantic vein of silver-bearing ore. He discovered the vein, the estimated value of which was a hundred and twenty millions sterling.
‘In the excitement caused by this astounding discovery it is scarcely more than the hard truth to say that San Francisco went raving mad. The vein in which the Bonanza was found was known to run straight through the Consolidated Virginia and California mines, dipping down as it went, and could not be traced any farther. But that fact was nothing to people who were bent on having mining stock; and vein or no vein, the stock they would have. Consequently they bought into every mine in the neighbourhood—good and bad alike—sending prices up to unheard-of limits, and investing millions in worthless properties that have never yielded a shilling in dividends, and never will. When Flood had bought a large quantity of the Bonanza stock, and had assured to himself and his partners the controlling interest in the mines, he recommended all his friends to buy a little; and O’Brien did the same. Those who took the advice are now drawing their proportionate shares of dividends, amounting to about five hundred thousand pounds a month. The majority of those who bought into other mines are, in Californian parlance “busted.” What these three men and their latest partner Mackay are going to do with their money is a curious problem, the solution of which will be watched with great interest in a year or two to come. The money they hold now is yielding them returns so enormous that their maddest extravagances could make no impression on the amount. Every year they are earning more, saving more, and investing more. They have organised a bank with a capital of ten millions of dollars; they control nearly all the mining interests of Nevada and California; they have a strong grip of the commercial, financial, and farming interests all along the Pacific slope; and by a single word they can at any moment raise a disastrous panic, and plunge thousands of men into hopeless ruin. It will be an interesting thing to wait and watch how this terrible power for good or evil is to be wielded.’