Connecticut western news., 1888-10-24
THE BOTTOM FELL OUT.
Failure of Corwith & Co.,, Who have
 been CornerinG Lead.

The failure of the house of Corwith X Go. marks the downfall of the pig lead corner. The firm began handling copper and tin in vast quantities two years ago and became closely allied with the French copper syndicate. year ago it was very successful in it's copper and tin speculations and Is reputed to have made as much as S250, 900 on single deal in tin. Continued successes led to the firm branching out more and more The copper and tin syndicates were formed and assumed gigan- tic proportions. The tin combination proved m re than the firm could handle and about three months ago it went under. It was fully expected that copper would be the next to break. The market was anxiously watched for some time, but it only fell of few points and then rallied again. Even to this day there are those that metal It was in January last that the Corwiths began to load up heavily with lead. They started in with 8 will and bought every thing upon which they could lay their hands. In Chicago, New York, and wherever there was any body representing the house of Corwith X Co: in any market, not pound of lead went begging for purchaser. The price began to climb and kept on going up for months. There seemed to be no limit to the prices this firm was willing to pay.
 When the firm began to buy the price was between S3.25 and S3. 75 per 100 pounds. It kept advancing until it reached S5.35, and still the firm purchased every pound of lead in sight. The price only reached 8 few points higher tHou tulS, duu Lueu blo uldlhet pIuhc Oll largely increased supplies and rapidly sank to S3.65, with the Corwiths selling out their enormous holdings all the way down the scale. the largest under S4 involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. The enormous capital and splendid credit of the firm kept it ol it's feet, but the blow was severely felt, nevertheless. This was at the time of the fail ure of Charles Benton of New York early in the year. Other speculations were again made in lead, but not on so grand a scale, though the firm never made anything. A strange fa- tality seemed to accompany all it's dealings in this metal. It made money on everything it touched excepting lead until the collapse of the combination. This also had 8 crippling effect, but the credit of the firm and it's enormously large capital again came to the rescue, and 1t began to look as if nothing could break 1t up.
 In July another effort was made to corner the lead market. Prices had gotten away down again. Men in the metal trade were surprised in July and August at finding that there was market at almost any price for all the lead they could handle. 1t soon became apparent who was manipulating the market, and prices be- gan to advance, and reached S5.15 per 100 pounds. At one time it was thought the mar ket was we'll under control, and that every thing was in their hands. But the firm was at this time without capital Its enormous wealth was all in lead. Drafts became due and could not be paid without letting go of the lead holdings which would be sure to break the market. The banks refused to extend time and issued attachments. The firm could no longer buy lead, and there being no one to whom to sell panic struck the market and prices went to pieces.