The Rock Island daily Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1872-1873, 1873-09-24

Inc fhnlc, from mural EVlub VI 'lo"'
"FluctuateP p said a rural practitioner
with the long bow, to the crowd of village .
loungcrs who gathered round him in the .
post'ofhce 20 hear the story of what he .
saw in Wall street, on one of the panicky
days during the war" huetuate? You
lust bet she huctuated. Why jist went
down Wall street hodin up this ere gold
tive dollar piece between my thumb and
finger so-and you could fairly see gold
fluctuate every step took. She went up
aud down, and yibrated and swung round
and there wa ut nothn certain about the
market till i put the money in my pocket
and left the street Fact is there ain { no
gold in the country and it don't take
more n s. 10 upset every thing.
There may have been incredulous per
sons among his auditors. There are PEG
pie who reject the simplest narrative of
facts from a constitutional skepticism who
will not believe anything except upon the
testimony ot their own eyes What the
rural Spectator wants TO do is % come ~
New FORK and look at a panic once. Then
he will understand it, Had he been here
on Thursday night at the Fifth Avenue
Hotel, and listened intently to the CONVEX.
satiOn, and watched carefully the conspic-
uous figures in the crowd. and kept his eye
on the bar 10 see who drank, and how
many times, and what, and perhaps talked
with two or three of them between
drinks himself, he would have compre-
hended it thoroughly. Then he could
have gone home and got his neighbors
together in the postofice, and talked to
them about Jay Cooke" and Fisk &
Hatch, and the Fourth National, and
the Northern Pacific and New York
Central, and Western Union and
Vanderbilt, and all the rest ct the soul
stirring topics that everybody is so fluent
about, IN such way as tO extOrt admlra-
ton and excite envy. To such u person
the street on Friday was an exhilarating
spectacle. He was here, no doubt, view
ing II with enthusiasm. He stood on the
curbstOne opposite the Fourth National
Bank and watched the crowds passing in
and out with inteusest interest He knew
1t was crisis, and he wondered at the
nonchalance of young clerical person who
sat 10 window and ate peanuts with great
self-pOssessiOn and no end of shucks. He
looked from the marble steps Of the Sub
Treasury into the windows of Jay Cooke
* TO-, and Fisk Il Hatch, and felt a pang
OF regret that these penniless gentlemen
should be so suddenly reduced 10 crust
OF bread and rags. Down Broad street a
river OF umbrellas flowed and meandered
and bumped about in the most mixed and
confusing fashion, a kind of trrshet of
toad-stools, or wild breaking up of bed
OF mushrooms There were umbre las
upon umbrellas, and he got points -
umbrella points-trom all quarters The
inturate bull punched him in the stomach.
the hilarious bear went waltzing BY thrust
ing HIM IN the ear as he passed small
boys lostled him and hOwled and friend
y bystander, holding an umbrella so as to
lead a trickling stream Just inside his shirt
collar, contributed moisture and mellow
ness 10 his emotions.
In the Stock Exchange. where he strar
gled unchallenged by the person in gray.
who on ordinary occasions stops Won with
the bland inquiry Who do you want 10
see? he took heaps Of comfort. Indeed
It Is doubtful ii he would have understood
the matter thoroughly it he had not visited
the Stock Board There every thing was
plain Small boys with large mouths came
whizzlng by him and grasping the rail
poured bullying mOuthtul of soprano into
the space where two or three hundred men
were cnacting the parts Of popped corn in
skillet--eyery man kernel-men with
their trousers turned up at the bottoms,
bounced out Of the ring and wrote some
thing on pad, and then danced round the
edges bowling tor somebody who invariably
wasn't there other men held up their
hands and their fingers and shook them at
each other, and made their mouths 90 as
though they were saying something: a
man with a white neck tie and benlgnant
mien stood up in a pulpit at intervals and
hammered till the crowd fOeked round him:
then he said something to them or read a
hymn, OF telegram. or an anecdOte. or
some such thing, and they all grunted and
scattered away; then he got them together
again and had an auction; the smallest
possible boys used some Of the profanest
possible language, and everything was lust
as clear and translucent as the Treasury
bookkeeping
Ii was great joy to him to have those
things so easily untangled. lie looked at
II with uualloyed delight for an hour and a
halt, and went away with only a single
question left unsolved, and that was,
whether he was enjoying the first symp-
toms of the delerium tremens, or had his
hat full of bumblebees. There are
some people in New York who do not un.
derstand the cause of the panic. This
gentleman found out all about it, and will
explain it to his constituents on his return.
There is no doubt in his mind that it relates
to the moving Of the crops.