The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-01-04

within month, when full particulars
would be given of an enterprise by wnlch
each share of stock would bring Its owner
9100 per anpum. One thousand shares
were subscribed for by o'clock the first
day, and the brilliant protector, finding
himself just $4,000 ahead Of the game.
SKIPPED OUT OF THE COUNTRY
And was never heard of again. Dean Swift,
who was an interested spectator OF scene
which must have nightly pleased his cynical
taste. compared Change Alley to gulf in
the South Sea thus:
Subscribers here by thousands float
And joStle one another down,
Each padding in his leaAy boat.
And here they fish for gold and drown.
Now buried IN the depths below.
Now mounted up TO heaven again,
They reel and stagger to and fro
AT their wits cad, like drunken men.
Meantime secure on Garraway cliffs
savage race. by shipwrecks fed.
LIE waiting for the foundered skitfs
And strip the bodies of the dead.
THE BUBBLE BURST
Very soon after South SEA shares touched
1000 when Sir John Blunt, the Chairman of
the company, and several Others sold out
The stock fell steadily through the month of
August, and on the I'd OF September was
quoted at 700 Then the Directors called a
public meeting OF the whole corporation for
the purpose of restoring confidence; but
confidence was past restoration, and in
spite Of encouraging speeches by prominent
men, the stock continued to drop, and soon
reached 400. The bad boys on the street
corners were singing this pretty verse:
The headlong fool that wants to be a swopper
MAY. in Change Alley, prove himself an ass,
Aud give rich metal TOR adultrate brass
Everybody wanted to sell and nobody
wanted TO buy. so general stampede was
threatened. Failures were numerous; many
1o1At l,.a;-
crossing the channel, and the eX plodng bub-
bic was almost as dangerous as if it were
loaded with dynamite. The Ministry be-
came alarmed, and Walpole was asked to
use his influence with the Bank of England
for the benefit Of the South Sea COMPANY,
But the shreWd
"oLD LADY OF THREADNEEDIE STREET"
Declined to throw her money into
bottomleSs pit, and as last re-
sort Parliament was summoned for
December Sth, to see what could be
done. Both houses met in an angry mood,
which is not the best mood for sensible legis-
lauon. 1t was taken tor granted. IN advance
of substantial proof, that the officers of the
company were simply pack of thieves who
had conspired to plumber honest people;
when the truth apparently was that the hon
est people are themselves very considerably
TO blame, though they had certainly been
assisted in their folly by the men who prof
tied by it. The officers were forbidden to
leave the Kingdom for year or dispose of
any OF their property, and an Investigation
ordered. This investigation developed some
interesting facts: That the Duchess of Ken
dial and the Countess Of Platen, mistresses
OF the King, the two neceS of Platen,
Craggs, member of Parliament, the COM
pIny's Secretary and a certain corporation
had been given SS05,00 in South Sea stock
for pushing the bill of April, 1920, through
Parliament, and that the total amount of
fictitious stock issued for this and similar
purposes was not less than SIS, 800, 0OO Fur
Their inquiry showed other very sharp
practices which the outside public did not
hesitate TO denounce as rascalIy, and which
WAS punished as such. Those Directors who
were members of Parliament were expelled
and imprisoned, and their property contis-
Gated in proportion to their guilt. Sir John
Blunt, Chairman of the board, was only
allowed $4,000 out of an estate of $500, 000;
Sir John Fellows $4,000 out Of So OOOOOO:
Sir Theodore Jansen, S250,000 out of
S2,200.000; Edward GibbOn grandfather of
the historian), $4,000 out of S530,000; Sir
John Lambert $4,000 out OF S560,O
Craggs, NJ. P,
DIED OF APoPLEXY
Produced by excitement, and his whole es-
tate, estimated at 81, 100000, was afterward
confscated for the benefit of the victims of
the delusion to which he had so largely con-
tTibuted.
Meanwhile the popular fury was kept
alive and aggravated By street ballads, carl
catures. pamphlets and all the machinery in
such cases made and provided. Hogarth
furnished pictures, Pope and Swift poetry,
and unknown scrIbblers doggerel rhyme
all leVeed at the luckIess Directors, who,
however guilty, were saddled with sins for
which the public generally was in large
measure responsible. Nne-tenths of those
who dabbled in South Sea stock must have
known or might have known-the utter
rOttenness of the foundation upon which
it rested. and if they were badly bitten
only paid the penalty Of that insane
folly which expects, In some mysterious
way, TO coin money oct ofmoonshne. They
deserve little sympathy and less respect, and
the punishment inflicted upon those who
deceived them was certainly as heavy, il
not heavier, than the crime deserved. And
the losers did not lose all. At the end of
1920 large portion OF the genuine stock
was taken and divided among the losers,
giving them dividend of 33h per cent. By
other methods of adjustment the pressure of
loss was so much diminished and distrib-
uted that The popular excitement gradually
subsidized, and the South Sea Bubble finally
passed into history to point a moral
which nobody cares to heed, and "adorn a
tale" which few care to hear.