Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-09-05
NO WORSE THAN GRIP
is Matthew Marshall's Opinion of
the Now Threatening Plague.
THE FAIL IN THE STOCK MARKET,
Re Thinks, Was Caused More by Juggling
Than Any Real Danger.
he FAIL IN THE STOCK MARKET,
EFFECT on THE NATIONAL FINANCES

NEN 1Ohh, Sepl. r Lie SuOlCfb dLiC
lIn Wall Street. is the title of Matthew
AIarshall's article for to-morrow's Sur
(which is as follows:
The peaceful calm which for many months
had reigned in Wall street was broken on
Thursday by what, during more exciting
times, would have been called only a furry
in Stocks but which, by contrast with the
quiet which preceded it, assumed the pro-
portions of q panic. The news that the
6holera, which, it was known, had long been
prevailing in Hamburg, had not only reached
England and France, but had actually
arrived at our own shores, started selling
movement on the Stock Exchange which, in
the course of the day, carried down the
prices of all kinds of securities, good, bad,
and Indifferent, and left them as much as ten
points, in some cases, below those which
prevailed the previous week.
The fall, as usual was accelerated and in
tenshed by the wiping out of the margins
OF weak operators on what are called stop
orders, or orders to sell a given stock when
st reaches certain price: but it looks very
much as if strong and sagacious men con-
tributed to it by sales made for the purpose OF
buying it again at the lowest possible point.
The game is one which L confess 20 not
understand having never even attempted
TO play 1t. % that have to take my informa-
tion concerning it at second hand, from
more experienced acQuaintances, but can
readily see how art can be made to assist
nature in depressing the prices of stocks, as
In other matters.
Prices OF stocks During a Pestilence.
To this same lack of experimental knowl-
edge will be attributed, L presume, my in
RbEity to trace the connection between the
deaths by cholera at this port ofimmigrants
from Europe and the fall which they seem
to have caused in the value of coal stocks
railroad stocks and bonds, industrial stocks,
telegraph stocks and gas stocks. If, indeed,
the pestilence were going to sweep the coun- |
try, and TO Suspend all business for the next |
l. months, it mi-ht be proper to calculate
on a total loss of corporate dividends and |
Interest for that period of time. and to de- |
duct their amount from the present value OF |
Investments. But, in the first place, the |
nlo-, alarmed and Respondent sellers do not |
fear ANYTHING like so extensive calamity |
q that l speak of, and then the depression |
OF prices on Thursday amounts to far more, |
in many cases, than the greatest loss pos |
siblc in the period named.
For example the fall in Manhattan Rail- |
way shares was fully ten points, which |
equals the dividends on them not for Il, but
Tor is months. American sugar Renner1es |
dropped l3 points, Lead Z, W estern Union |
Telegraph :, Reading c, Lackawanna G, Della |
ware and Hudson :, and in many cases sell |
ers parted with their property at prices |
which put these buyers in position to go /
without dividends for year. and still be as !
well of as ii they had bought at last weeks 4
prices ana got their dividends in full All |
the same. l see and acknowledge that the I
human mind is complicated and sensitive /
organism. ana l. SWayeI DIV motives Wnlcn L
reason cannot always discover and point /
out
Effects of the Frenzy of Fear
The frenzy of fear which seizes audi
ence in a burning theater and reduces it to |
the condition OF maddened brutes, the /
equally crazy ferocity of a mob, and the ex- |
Citement of crowd listening to an inflam-
matory haIangue are none the less real be- |
cause they have not solid basis of fact. The |
ancients attributed these phenomena to a |
supernatural source, and said, for instance,
that the rout OF an army without any dis |
vention of the god Pan, whence the word |
''panic." Some such heathen demon seems /
to be on the watch at the stock Exchange
and every now and then gets a chance, as he
cid on Thursday, to exert his power,
My readers will infer from this, and quite
properly, that do not expect the ravages
OF the cholera to be very extensive, nor the
iui jury resulting there rom to business to be
serious. While the authorities do well to
take measures for preventing the epidemic
nom becoming unmanageable, and will |
doubtless very much restrict its area of mis-
chief, have an idea that if it were lett to
Iun its course unimpeded 1t would not GO
much more harm than the grip did last year.
ii so much. All the fatal cases of it which
have thus far occurred, both here and
abroad, have been those in which any other
vi-ulent disease would have been equally
destructive. The victims have been feeble |
children, and adults weakened by old /
axe, fatigue, bad food and want of decent
cleanliness So far as the same kind of
material exists in this country the cholera
viii ind it out and prey upon it, but, fortu-
nateiy, owing to the better conditions of
life here there is not much oft and, between
Deaths on the one handand sanitary care on
the other, 1t will soon De exhausted With
/ the cholera itself will disappear a fire |
disappears when it has burned itself out. |
\ ready it is on the wane, even in ST. Peters
bJrg and in Hamburg, and that its career
among us will be short and comparatively
harmless feel quite confident.
a Good Time to Hold on to Securities. |
do not want any OF my readers to buy
-tocks on the strength of this assurance but
whatever they hold as investments they |
would, in MY opinion, be very foolish to sell
merely because OF the cholera. 1 have lived
through two of the most severe visitations
his country has had OF the scourge, and
s. the present one is no worse than they
we're, it is not likely to be- the injury it
viii do viii be very slight. The most serious
loss Will be that arising from the hampering
O. foreign commerce by the enforcement of
quarantine regulations and a falling off in |
the movement of passengers and goods at
home, as well as abroad, caused by fear.
Immigration from Europe has already been |
stopped, to the great injury of the steamship
lines engaged IN promoting it.
TmiG people in this country who would |
otherwise travel will stay at home Ia ther |
than risk being taken sick among strangers |
ana the caution exercised in diet will d.
uinsh the consumption of many important |
food Injuries. A slight increase in the av- |
erage Of deaths will also check amusements |
and the industries atdepend on them. But |
all this has been discounted three times |
over at least and it need not be further con- |
ElGered.
What 1 am particularly interested in
watching is the effect the epidemic is going |
o have upon the Governments finances.
With all his energy in staving off claims,
the Secretary of the Treasury has paid out
during the first two months of the cur |
rent fiscal year a little more than he has
taken in, and if the cholera, by diminishing |
tile imports of foreign goods, shall diminish |
the customs receipts, the excess of expendi- |
tuEe over income must go on increasing, es- |
(eelally when the accounts hitherto de- |
-ayeu lmperativelY demand liquidation.
Bound to Have a Bad Enect.
The Secretary asserts that in case of emer-
gehcy he has the right of drawing upon the
SloO,OOOOOO gold fund supposed to be reserved
Ior the protection of greenbacks but an ex-
erclse OF this right would produce an un-
pleasant impression, to say the least, If it | ,
ul9 not cause run upon the Treasury gold. |
This leads me to remark by the wav that | ,
my opinion OF the redundancy of our paper |
currency Is every day more and more con-
nrmed by lacts. Here, at the beginning of
September long after the harvesting of the
crops, ana IN the face of a probable dimlnu-
uon OF imports of foreign goods we
are exporting gold in very considerable
amounts without causing any financial
stringency. This shows that the place
OF the gold shipped has been filed
by paper, especially by the bullion
notes issued under the act OF july 1890 (of | .
which Sll0O0O,O0O are already out and - Co.,
UJJ more are coming every month. How
j uch better the West is supplied with cur-
rcncy than it was is proved by the fact that