The Sun.
London, England, 1853-11-08 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1853.

According to present appearances the " Bears'
are likely to suffer severely for the reckless de-
termination with which they endeavoured to force
down quotations, and to occasion a monetary
panic on the Stock Exchange. They would listen
to no arguments—would suffer themselves to be
nfluenced by no advice, however reasonable. They
had made up their minds to a panic, and a panic
they would have at any price. They were, how-
ever, for once deceived in their calculations. The
envenomed shafts which they sent forth
have recoiled on themselves. The poison
is circulating throughout their own veins.
It has for some time been notorious, that the
speculators for a fall had largely oversold them-
selves, and that they cannot .meet their engage-
ments on the settling day unless they can once
more induce fundholders and shareholders to lend
stock, or, in other words,. adopt the suicidal
policy of providing dangerous and unscrupulous
opponents with weapons to be used against them-
selves with terrific effect. By doing so, they
succeeded in evading their difficulties on the last
account, and that they are again attempting to play
the same game is palpable from the existence of
that anomaly termed, in Capel Court parlance, a
" backwardation" or "baccadation," by which
stocks or shares are cheaper for the account than
for money ; or, in other words, where parties do
not pay for pecuniary accommodation, but receive
a handsome rate of interest for keeping the
Money of the speculators. That " backwarda-
tion" will be even still heavier on the present oc-
casion, because the parties have not only to supply
the new stock for the heavy sales made during
some weeks padt, but also to replace the large
amount formerly borrowed. They are, in fact,
completely driven into a corner, and two days
only now remain for the reception of the evil in-
telligence for which they are looking forward
with such intense anxiety. They have discovered,
too, that the public are not so easily alarmed as
they had anticipated ; that the only effect of the
rurnelirs which they have circulated with such
indefatigable energy, is to render capitalists more
firm aml,
at the decided, as if they had at length arrived
decision that the more imminent the danger
°l' a collision the more likely there is to be a
speedy and, Permanent settlement, that the nearer
the opposing armies
are brought to each other, the
sooner will they be
relieved from that state of
suspense and indecision
that is far more inju-
rious to trade and commerce
th
n could be the most
-active and decided host ilities. In truth, the
ursce minores are placed in a
pitiable predicament,
and if they had not 80 richly desereed their fate,
y rejected sound
if they had not so contumeliousl
and wholesome advice, and if their spe-
culations had not been directed
of public to such
credit and
purposes, to the damaging
depriving the widows and orphans of their means
of subsistence, we might sympathise with
their sufferings, and endeavour to relieve them
from the meshes of the net in which they are so
firmly bound. Under all the circumstances of
the case we cannot, however, discover a single
ground for mitigation, or for softening in any
degree the severity of the blow' to which they are
now liable. They require a sharp lesson. Public
safety demands that they should bitterly
expiate the acts of which they have been
guilty. Nor will the paying the full penalty of
their misdeeds leave them altogether penniless.
They may have to disgorge a considerable propor
Whin of their ill-gotten gains,,, but if a balance were