midnight
The principal towns of the north established for that purpose stock exchanges of their own , and Leeds especially , one-fifth of whose population had been authoritatively described in the first session of the new parliament as dependent on the poor-rates , now boasted a stock exchange which in the extent of its transactions rivalled that of the metropolis . And the gambling was universal , from the noble to the mechanic . It was confined to no class and to no sex . The scene which took place at the Board of Trade on the last day on which plans could be lodged , and when midnight had arrived while crowds from the country were still filling the hall , and pressing at the doors , deserved and required for its adequate representation the genius of a Hogarth . This was the day on which it was announced that the total number of railway projects , on which deposits had been paid , had reached nearly to eight hundred . What is remarkable in this vast movement in which so many millions were produced , and so many more promised , is , that the great leaders of the financial world took no part in it . The mighty loan-mongers , on whose fiat the fate of kings and empires sometimes depended , seemed like men who , witnessing some eccentricity of nature , watch it with mixed feelings of curiosity and alarm .