Rogers did? Was not your avowed object to cheat the public into thinking they were to be allowed to subscribe to seventy-five millions, when actually you were only going to let them subscribe to five? And if, on that last day, you knew the subscriptions were pouring in in such a flood, and knew that offers of a big premium were then being made, how in the world did the idea of letting the outside public have twenty millions or so (on which to immediately realize this premium) seem so abhorrent to you, when you professed to be looking after their
The more I think of these points, the more mixed I become, and I think many, very many of your readers are in the same boat. Your illustration of the horse-race does not clear the matter a particle. It certainly does appear on the face of the facts you present that the people who did not get any stock were the lucky ones, whether Rogers's precise action was criminal or not. You say yourself that it would have been good all round if you had pricked the bubble that night—that is, if you had then and there prevented anybody from getting any premiums, from buying or selling a share. Then in the name of reason, why was it not really good for those who were rejected, that they were left out?