A certain gentleman of large property, and who had figured, if he does not now figure, as a Railway Director, applied for shares in a certain projected railway. Fifty, it seems were allotted to him. Whether that was the number he applied for or not, deponent saith not; but by some means nothing (0) got added to the 50 and made it 500. The deposit for the said 500 was paid into the bankers’, the scrip obtained, and before the mistake could be detected and corrected—for no doubt it was only a mistake, or at most a lapsus pennÆ—the shares were sold, and some £2000 profit by this very fortunate accident found its way into the pocket of the gentleman.

—Herepath’s Journal, 1845.