celebrated the triumph of this financial reform. Time soon dissipated all these illusions; the deficit monthly increased, and is now at the figure rep resented by the reduction of the tax.* The Minister of Finance has resigned himself to his fate, contenting himself with announcing that the revenues from salt will not exceed 27 millions for 1850, while they brought to the treasury 70 millions in 1847. We have paid 43 millions for an experiment which has wholly failed! They tell us the experiment has not yet concluded; England has been waiting twenty-five years, and nobody there now hopes anything from the good effects the tax will produce upon the agriculture of the country. I consulted upon one occasion a distinguished English statesman, who had devoted the leisure left him by the labors of a glorious administration, upon this subject; "Oh," said he, with a fine irony, "none of the persons engaged in the salt trade doubts the immense benefits to agriculture."

A similar deception seems to await us in all of our other financial experiments, and the revision of our taxes will excite more murmurs than they can calm, which is borne by habit, when new excited revolt. Does any one think that the new stamp tax will be thought lighter than the late rates of letter postage, and that the income tax will be more popular than the salt tax? We have ceded to the complaints of a portion of the community against the rigors of those taxes--what shall we respond to complaints of the whole nation against inquisitions upon our fortunes? We have seen, during days of riot, some octro offices burned; the English Parliament, in 1816, burned all the papers relating to the income tax. Ah, if those taxes were still in existence, would any one be so bold as to place the two alternatives before the nation? And even now, does any one believe this question would be doubtful, if the Minister of Finance would employ all the resources of science and talent in redemanding the old impost he has displayed in defending the new impost, and the Assembly, interpreting the wishes of the tax-payers, would hesitate to repudiate all those changes which alter without assuaging the weight of taxation? Must we henceforth renew all our institutions frequently, and hold that if the twenty-four hours pass without introducing some change, the human mind has lost a day? These reformers used to reproach the most obstinate friends of stability, by saying they would have been conservators in chaos; we may reproach them, that even in Paradise they would have desired progress. If it is true that the spirit of innovation is the characteristic of our age, let the reformers, when they place before the public pretended abuses which they denounce, place also the reforms they propose, that the nation may choose between them. If the reforms are accepted by the people, they will immediately replace the abuses, and an interregnum-as fatal to imposts as to power-will be avoided. But what if the public should like the ills they know, rather than the remedies they are ignorant of? What if they should prefer the empire of the old rates of taxation, under which everything, salaries, profits, farm rents increased, to pursuing the new Utopias which, promising the reduction of all the taxes, have only so far reduced all the revenues?

S. DUMON, late Minister of Finance.

Table of the diminution, month by month, of the return of the salt tax, in 1849, compared with 1848:

Art. II. MERCANTILE BIOGRAPHY.

GEORGE HUDSON.

USE OF THE HISTORY OF POPULAR FOLLIES, AND THE LIVES OF THE LEADERS THEREIN-GEORGE HUDSON-BIRTH, ETC.—A LINEN-DRAPER-MUNICIPAL DIGNITIES ENJOYED BY HIM-HIS RAILROAD CAREER-INDOMITABLE ENERGY AND REMARKABLE SUCCESS-WISDOM AND PROPRIETY OF HIS COURSE TO 1845-EXTENT OF HIS RAILWAY COMMAND-VAST POPULARITY-THE MANIA OF '45— HUDSON'S DECLENSION AND FALL-FIERCE REVULSION OF PUBLIC FEELING TOWARD HIM—QUESTION OF HIS TURPITUDE-PERSONAL CHARACTER-POLITICAL SYMPATHIES-QUESTION OF HIS REAL INFLUENCE IN EXCITING AND DIRECTING THE EXCITEMENT or '45-HIS POWER THEREIN LESS THAN IS AWARDED HIM-REAL CAUSES OF THE MANIA-PROSPECT OF HUDSON'S REVIVIFICATION.

THE articles in the Merchants' Magazine under the above heading, are not intended solely to record the lives of men whose careers may be com mended as in all, or in most respects even, proper models for the formation of mercantile character. Such a course, would be to exclude some of the most fit subjects for study which could be presented to the attention of the young merchant. The biographies of the remarkable men who have been the originators and leaders of those gigantic Delusions which have drawn within their vortices the great heterogeneous multitude, whelming almost every other concern of life in the one universal absorbing passion of gain, are among the most valuable lessons furnished by human experience. The details of a Money-Mania furnish one of the most instructive chapters of Commercial History. Nowhere can we read more of that Human Nature, its weakness and its strength, its springs and its incentives, its modes, its motions, and its causes, all which it is so much the business of the merchant to understand. Nowhere do we discover more clearly the propelling forces by which the world is driven, and nowhere do we learn better to handle them. The province of legitimate trade has no clearer boundary-exposition than is here made; and there is, of course, no other practicable illustration in which the errors and dangers to which a commercial life is liable, are so palpable. We learn from the movement, even though it be as flagitious in inception as it may be ruinous in result, the line of mercantile tendencies, and the best order of mercantile system; we witness in the mover, whatever the judgment we pass upon his motives and conduct, the most elevated exertions of human energy, the finest combina ions of operative plan, and the most efficient methods of execution. He must be a stolid merchant, who is not made in some way a better one, after reading the history of the Mississippi scheme, of the South Sea bubble, of the tulip phrensy of the Dutch, or who can find no instruction in the lives of Law, of Blunt, of Fordyce, and their associates in speculative fame.

Between Railroads and Commerce there is so intimate a connection; the former, with all its powers and results, is so peculiarly the agent of the latter, has received an influence so potential in the development, form, and character of modern trade, and promises such immense loan of power, and such vast achievements in behalf of the commercial future-that the history of the Iron Road, and the biographies of Railway projectors, Railway engi neers, and Railway architects, must ever hold a prominent place in the annals of mercantile progress and the lives of mercantile men. To ignore the personal history of the "Railway King," whatever opinion we may have of his career, and of his actuating motives, and however just that opinion may be, would create an hiatus in the volumes, as marked, and as much becloud

ing all the subsequent record, as would an omission like that of the life of Oliver Cromwell, or Elizabeth, or Napoleon, confuse the later political histories of England and France.

GEORGE HUDSON was the son of a farmer of Yorkshire, in England, with an ancestry that appears not to have materially changed its condition during a period of two centuries, through which its residence could be traced upon the estate of Howsham. His first business, to which he was apprenticed, and in which he became a master, and realized, it would seem, a respectable fortune, was the same as that of the immortal John Gilpin, viz., “a linendraper;" like the hero of Cowper's undying ballad, he left his employment for an adventure, with the leading locomotive power of his time; Gilpin lived in an age when the Horse had undisputed pre-eminence over all the agents of combined speed and strength subdued by man-the most useful locomotive power in the possession of society. When Hudson, a century later, left his counter for the recreation of another pursuit, the horse had lost his supremacy, and the linen-draper sprang upon a steam-engine for his ride. The world wondered, as it did in the case of the journey from "famous London town" toward Edmonton; and what was of more concern yet, the adventurous rider, still following the friend of Tom Callender, "went farther than he meant," but, unlike him, did not have the good fortune to get safe back again. A still more material difference was, that the pleasure of a whole nation, instead of that of a single very small family, was attempted in the ride of the "Railway King," and well would it have been if the catastrophe thereof had caused no more serious discomfort than the mischance of the "train-band captain."

Mr. Hudson appears in his first public capacity as a member of the Board of Health of the city of York, in 1832. In 1835, he was a member of the lower branch of the council of that city, and was soon after appointed a member of the chamber of aldermen. He next received the highest honor which the city could bostow, becoming its Lord Mayor in 1837. His administration was, of course, energetic, and the evidence of its wisdom is in the promotion of the prosperity of the city during and in consequence of the measures carried out in that period.

His first prominence in connection with Railways was in 1833, at the time of his being a member of the Board of Health. The ten per cent dividend of the Liverpool and Manchester road, and the projection of the Leeds and Selby, in their own neighborhood, had led some bold spirits in York to the idea of a life from thence to certain portions of the West Riding. But the project seemed so vast and momentous that, except by the few harebrained, as they were considered, it was little favored. The expenses of construction and working would be so enormous, it was feared it would never be made to pay. This was in 1832. The next year the scheme was brought more prominently before the public, through the energy of Mr. Hudson, now in its lead. Meetings were held and committees appointed, surveys made and the usual preliminary steps taken amid an opposition that might well have discouraged a less enthusiastic mind. Before any route had been indicated, Mr. Hudson, at one of the meetings, with the boldness which characterized his whole career, placed his name down, which was almost alone on the subscription list, for several hundred shares. He then accompanied the engineer, Mr. Rennie, in his surveys for the road, devoting himself with the utmost assiduity to the exploration of the neighboring districts,

野

examining and estimating the value of the land, ascertaining the sentiments of the proprietors, and endeavoring to influence the undecided or hostile by argument, promises, or otherwise. In the latter part of this self-assumed task, he was especially happy, having a peculiar facility in eliciting the real feelings of other men, discovering their weak points, and applying just those particular kinds of argument in each case, which were best suited to make the impression desired. He had indeed a very remarkable aptitude in convincing men, against their own first inclinations, of the channel in which their interest was to be sought. The great aim and the result of his power was that of combining-to bring men of opposite views, if not to one way of thinking, at least to one way of acting-and it will be found throughout his whole career, when he came to deal with companies and associations, as he had before with individuals, that it was his great effort to unite and combine their energies in a common interest, proportioned to the magnitude of the union, to discountenance as far as possible all separate action, and to resolutely suppress, so far as could be done, the waste of strength in competition.

Mr. Hudson's triumph in the York railroad affair was not immediate. The opposition was too strong-the alarm too great. It was impossible to get through Parliament. He recommended, accordingly, a delay, showing therein that it was not a blind devotion to purpose which urged him on, but that he was possessed of discretion, did not overrate his own energies, nor underrate those of the opposition. There was, moreover, exhibited in this act, that sagacity which knew how to bide its time, and perceived that a little patience only was required to secure the object. It is seldom, indeed, that men of so energetic character have that calmness of view, and are able to effect that wise self-restraint here displayed. Men so constituted are the fittest to conduct all great enterprises, whether in war, government, Commerce, religion, or any other possible field-indeed, none others, we may say, are at all qualified for such services-and the mental characteristics exhibited in carrying their schemes into practice, will always be regarded as forming the highest order of human genius. Such men were all those who have acquired any lasting fame in any department of human action.

The opportunity for which Mr. Hudson postponed his darling scheme, was not long coming. He had waited in the belief that by uniting with some other project, when one should arise with which such alliance could be beneficially effected, a line might be obtained, not with the West Riding only, but with the South of England. In 1835, while he was in the council of York, a railway was proposed from Leeds to Derby, and another, called the Midland Counties, to Rugby. The hour had arrived. The York scheme was revived, a union was effected with the North Midland, under the name of the York and North Midland Railway Company, and, in virtue of his large subscription, Mr. Hudson was placed on the provisional committee. Here he labored as before; convincing by logic, or by indirect pecuniary argument, where either was possible, and fighting with the most determined energy those who could not be gained. Among the latter was a powerful canal proprietary, whose attacks upon his project he triumphantly repelled. In 1837, during Mr. Hudson's mayoralty parliament granted an act to the York and North Midland Company, with a capital of £446,666. This was in the period of the second railway mania of England. Mr. Hudson was appointed by the directors chairman of the company. The onerous duties of his magisterial station did not abate his zeal in his railway labors.

He managed the negotiations with the landholders with the most consummate tact, and it was certainly in great part due to his abilities, that while men of capital in York had estimated the cost of the road at more than £7,000 a mile, and while the North Midland actually cost, for land, £5,000 a mile, the cost for land on Mr. Hudson's line, averaged only £1,750. The result of this extraordinary vigor was, that the road, its length being twentythree-and-a-half miles, was opened on the 29th May, 1839; and on the 1st of July, 1840, steam communication was fully established between York and the metropolis. It was a proud day for Hudson. He stood confessed, by all of his associates, and by all who had noticed his efforts and achievement, a man of extraordinary power.

About this time he retired from the mayoralty, in the enjoyment of a high popularity, the award of his judicious political administration, conjoined with the admiration of his skill and vigor in effecting the railway, and a just appreciation of the benefits which he had thus conferred upon the city. A testimonial acknowledging in warm terms the advantages derived from his official and other labors, was presented him, signed by the inhabitants of the town, and also by the nobility of the county.

The next effort of Mr. Hudson was for a railway from York to Scarborough, an attempt in which Sir John Rennie had failed, being unable to obtain the required capital. Mr. Hudson obtained the grant of £500 for the survey of a route, but the road was not at that time constructed. His next step, in 1840, was a bold one-it was the lease, in which he was aided by a few of his colleagues at the directors' board of the York and North Midland, of the entire Leeds and Selby line, for thirty-one years, at £17,000 per an

num.

The object was to avert the competition of the latter with the former, for the Leeds and York traffic. The bargain was made on the sole responsibility of Hudson and his associates. A meeting was called to consider the negotiation, and the company were so well satisfied of its policy, that it was unanimously approved, and the chairman warmly commended for effecting the arrangement. It proved highly beneficial to the company.

The next project of Mr. Hudson was to assist the Great North of England company through with their road. The company had been chartered in 1836, with a capital of £1,330,000, and an intended length of seventy-six miles. They had stuck in the work, unable to reach Newcastle. Mr. Hudson undertook to effect the object by a combination of companies. At his call, the delegates of six railroad companies convened in September, 1841, and his scheme was laid before them. Nothing definite was, however, decided at this time. He then pressed it on the attention of his own company, the York and North Midland, now in a very prosperous state, and not having then acquired the power to control the whole money market, he recommended that the requisite sum, £500,000, should be raised by several companies, leasing the Great North of England road for ten years, the shares to be divided proportionally to the rent they guarantied. The Board of Trade granted its approval of the scheme, and it was effected. In connection with this, the Newcastle and Darlington, designed to open an eastern communication with Edinburgh, was projected, and Mr. Hudson was elected chairman of the company. It was incorporated by act, in June, 1842. In this road, Mr. Hudson subscribed five times as much as any other director, and to prevent any delay, took upon himself a responsibility from which most men would have shrunk appalled, taking the entire risk of the pro