The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-01 00:00:00

ROW TO GEP ON IN THE WORLD.

Of all the ill-used sons of misfortune s mit' en down 1,
by this commercial panic, surety none can pretend it
to the sympathies of the benevolent-minded public
with so good a claim as our merchant citizen, Mr. JJ
Michael Jamieson M'Haffie. Mr. M'Haffie is a
young man, and may be supposed to lack a little
expel tents of the ways of the wicked world. He bas
not altogether m tde himself master of the ordi-
nary mode of conducting business. The old style
of adding penny to penny and pound to pound
did not exactly suit his peculiar disposition. He
was rather of an inventive turn, and could devise a -
system of his own with less trouble than he could
acquire the routine of onerous trade. Business in -;
its customary aspect was too tedious and too
roundabout. It was too slow. He ,could, out of
his prolific brain and fertile imagination, discover t
a short and easy method of doing business—a plain,
straightforward, simple and comprehensive plan
that required little trouble, and no great amount of !'
book-keeping. If a man's debts must Le paid, and '
he has no money of his own, it stands to reason
that the next best thing to do is to pay with the
money of other people, and if everybody did so, it
could make little difference to the community, and
would come to neatly the same thing in the end, !'
besides being much more convenient to those who
are not incumbered with the root of all evil. The dis-
covery
of so simple a principle might have entitled
Mr. Michael Jamieson M'Haffie to an honourable
place in the museum of commerce, had it not been
for the pressure of the commerc al crisis, which, '
unfortunately, prevented the experimental trial of
the new system from arriving at complete ma-
turity. Money became dear, and an imaginary
profit of 2,8001., which constituted Mr. M`Haffie s
whole available funds on the 20th August, 1857,
persisted in disappearing. Cotton fell, and the
available fund vanished. But now came the opera-
tion
of the discovery. "I ordered 600 pietas of
goods from Heugh, Balfour, and Co., and handed
them to Messrs. Colquhoun. Mr. Colquhoundrew
on me a bill for 3001. against those goods which he
discounted, and handed me the proceeds, which I
applied in paying roast house, 1501., &c." "On
the sth Oct. I bought from Messrs. Beith and
Johnstone 1,000 pieces of jacenets. I handed 500
pieces to Godfrey Pattison and Co., and 500 pieces
to William Denholm on same date. I owed money
to those parties," and not having the money I paid
them in the jaconets, because "I viewed buying
jaconets, or any other goods, as a simple piece of -
finance." Very simple, no doubt, but, unfor 1.
-
tunately, not altogether successful. The jaconets
might, perhaps, have been paid in loog ells, the 4
long ells in Paisley shawls, and the Paisley shawls
iu a cargo of gridirons. So long as it is only a
" simple piece of finance" it can make no dif-
ference. Short'and simple no doubt, and tut for
the crisis no one knows how long the thing might
go on. But the crisis comes, and -the enterprisin,,u,
ingenious, and inexpefetwei Mr. Michael M'Haffie
discoVers that there a screw loci() in the machi-
nery of his admirable system. A help.° at the
coast—rent 150/. ; a- house in town--cost of some-
body's money or somebody's jacoupts—sav 2,500 i.;
a furnished establisment for a female " friend "
such " friends"as do occasionally help inexperienced
young men to the bottom of the hill called ruin ;
with liabilities to the extent of 10,0001. to 20,000/.,
and assets consisting of a little wine, a few cigars,
and a dog-cart ; these are the rather, amusing and
instructive adjuncts of Mr. Michael MUlaffie s ca-
reer of two or three years of fast life on the new
system.

" Henceforth let all young mon taka heed
How in this conjuror's book they read."
'—Glasgow Commonwealth.