Preble County Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1857-1859, 1857-11-12
Hisforx Recorded I'M Few WORDS.

History Recorded in Few Words.
The first two lines of the following
extract from the New York Herald,
gives the whole history of a paper cur
rencyAbubbles, mutations, expansions,
and explosions-that tells the whole
story, The whole extract is worthy of
a careful perusal:
aThe causes and the effects, the bub-
bles, the mutations, expansions and ex-
plosions of this revulsion are without a
parallel in the history of the WORLD
Outing the'jpfesent century we have
had three great financial reactions, and
several smaller ones; but compared with
the agencies involved, the rspiieatiSasJ
complications and extent Of this tfe5
mendous breakdown of 1857, all its
precedents sink into the shade. With
the suspension of the Ohio Life and
Trust Company there was commenced a
schedule of suspensions, failures and
bankruptcies, the, effects of which will
extend throughout Europe, and to the
most remote confines of Africa and Asia
In this country already some fifteen
hundred merchants and traders, great
and small, and some fifteen hundred
banks and railways nave failed or sus-
pended, involving the sudden '%annihila-'
ton of five or six hundred millions of
property II the shape of bank facilities,T
railroad stocks, bonds, assets, mortga-
yes, &c. And this, too, at a time when
the solid materiaAwealth, activity, pros-i
perity, crops and industrial resources
of the country are the wonder of all ma
tions.
1.-THE country was never rricher-no
country was ever richer-than is this
great Union at this day, in lands, mines,
railways, canals, ships, crops and man"
ufacturing and commerciaiwealth; and
vet in this sudden fnahcialHchaos and
confusion between crcdffors=dnd7dcbf-
'ors, banks and railroads, merchants at
home and. merohnnts abroad! imP6fters
and retailers, spectators and capital
stockholders aud real estate own
ters, and what not the whole eommuni-
ty deeply suffers as from the TOSS Of five
or six hundred millions of cotton, corn,
and gold sunk in the sea, w1ie1 In real
ity the loss is purely fictitious. This
country is richer to-day, than on the p
day when the Ohio Life and Trust Gomu
pany. suspended, la. 80
: sand what are. the causes, of this,
universal prostration of business, conf
dcnce, and bank and stockjobbing infa-
tons. The old story of 1887; withtlI6
difference between the government spec
cied basis of imitation in the FORMER I.
case of some thirty odd millions, and
the specie resources of California anil ,
Australia in the latter case of hundreds s.
of millions of dollars. Ohrr fictitious o.
paper bubbles of all kinds have been
inflated in proportion to this iaugmentcd
specie basis, and the cash, in uthc same
proportion, brings with it its iaccumuln-
led disasters. That is all. The States,
have created bankszbyith hnndred and
the thousand they have issued their,
paper accommo dations by miiiious : rail-.
road and all sorts of speculative combi-
nations have followed suit with th,i;1
stocks aud bonds merchants have bepm
enriched by credit purchases. and sales,
u2on PROMISE to pay; s~re:u'a'ors h.vs'
become n%iillionairesa upon Wall street
stockjobbing profits laird, thus we have
had a grand carnival of universal ere
dts, universal extravaganza and un-
bounded paper wealth, which has sud
denly collapsed like a bag Of wind
Nothin. more" - fFi"I ~-9arfr- etF
So