Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1873-09-12
5Miscellanu.
Two Notable Humbugs.

an article on business vagsries,' recalls
the old tulip mania which took Holland
by storm, several years ago. The traffic
in flowers excited to actual frenzy whole
towns and cities, destroyed commerce and
universalized gambling, enlisted the
gree diness of the rich and the har ker-
ings of the poor, raised the value of
simple root to infinitely more than its
weight in pure gold, and which finally
ended in bitter Despair. The many
were ruined few were by bare luck,
enriched. Bargains were made for the
delivery of autumn roots, and when as
in one case, there we're but two in the
market, houses and land, horses and OK
en-, were sold to pay the deficiency.
Contracts were made, and thousands of
dollars we're paid for tulips, "rare and
unrivalled Sorts" which in fact were
never seen or known by broker, by buy
er or by seller. For time it is true,
good fortune, to a greater or less degree,
smiled upon all; if some lost they also
won. Poor persons became wealthy.
High and low traded in one peculiar
flower. To do this people of all profess
sions turned their property into cash,
and houses and furniture were offered at
ruinous prices the idea spread through
out the country that the passion for tu-
lips would be like that for gold, and
when it was known that even foreigners
were seized with the fever, the anticipa-
tIops of wealth knew no bounds That
they were sincere in their belief, is prov
ed by the prices they paid. Goods to
the value of thousands of forins were
given for one root another species COM
monty fetched two thousand forins
third was valued at new carriage, two
gray horses aud a complete harness !;
twelve acres of land were paid for a
fourth and sixty thousand forins were
made by one dealer in few weeks.
Merchants possessed vast or limited
capital in proportion to the magnitude
or insignifcance Of their tulip roots.
Daughters were portioned with few
ounces magnifcently, and some noble
men of the highest consideration and
family Importance vested their posses
sions in a perishable vegetable that
could be carried in a tea-cup. When
the bubble burst-as of course it did
and the panic came, it is stated that de-
faulters were announced in every town
in Holland, dreams of wealth are dis
sipated, and they who, day or week
before, rejoiced in the possession of few
tulips which would have realized
princely fortune, were pale and speech
less as they looked on the miserable
bulbs before them, useless in themselves,
and now unsaleable at any price. Eff
forts were made to create the impression
that the panic was absurd and ground
less, but the whole thing had gone up
Some comparisons not altogether COM
Elementary to the American character
for shrewdness and sagacity, have been
made between this absolute tulip lunacy
and the mania for merino sheep which
once turned the heads of so many of our
most sedate countrymen. There is some
ground at least, for the suggested anal
ogy, but there was in the latter case
with all its extravagances, an element of
common sense, which certainly did not
exhibit itself in the former. 1t appears
from the history of this remarkable ex-
citement that it originated in very
natural business transaction, the impor-
tation by a gentleman in Boston, of
some half dozen sheep from one of the
provinces of Spain, whose ffeeces were
said to be of the finest texture and such
undoubtedly was the fact, though the
sheep were SO thoroughly imbedded in
tar and every other offensive substance,
on their arrival in America, that their
superiority was in no wise apparent
Judged by the usual standard. But even
this repulsive external condition of the
animals seemed to imbue them with a