The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-05-02
whom our lot s.cast and whose for
tunes We wish to share.
WANTED, A FINANCIAL SERUM.


WANTED, A FINANCIAL SERUM.
While scientists are following in the
steps of Koch. Behring and Pasteur
and discovering anti-toxins to render
humanity immune from the contagious
Of disease that come and sicken. there
Is as great need for science to direct
attention to the pathology of those
mental diseases men call booms and
speculations, that come as cholera and
Ia grippe come, and cause fevers in
the brain that distort vision. invali-
date judgment, stupefy conservatism.
make bubbles take on the semblance Of
solid globes and iron pyrites the reality
Of precious metals. It Is mistake to
regard them as anything else than a
disease, as contagious as diphtheria or
smallpox, from which no mind Is safe,
and which demand the discovery of the
germ, the microbe and the provision Of
it's antidote.
dent and sagacious as her people are
thought to be, was caught in one Of
these waves Of infection last year and
the year before, and thousands Of good,
troll Of themselves, set prudence, judg-
ment, common sense, ordinary business
sagacity aside, and plunged headlong
into the gold mining boom Of the Rand.
Is lob nv.fxy ~, h.,
Transvaal were promoted and found
their stocks snapped up eagerly by the
crazy multitude. A prospectus tender
ing stocks drew to the brokers' Offices
crowds that fought for the privilege OF
throwing their good money. into bot
tomless holes. All classes were infect
ed, the rich poured in their thousands,
and the salaried men and women took
flyers in the Kaff1rs. Stocks went sky
ward under the deft manipulation Of
Barnato and Rhodes, and their poor,
duped holders wallowed in their fan
cied wealth 1t was the same old story
of the run Of the fever there that 1t is
everywhere when the epidemic strikes
any country or community. And the
collapse came as it always comes. and
thousands are now buried in the ruins.
Sanity returns to the investors to make
them wonder how they could ever have
been so foolish The same old story
again.
They are now holding their post-mor-
TENS. The Economist gives some start
ling figures. Forty-one Rand COM
panies, whose stock values in 1895 were
$610, 900, 900, are now quoted at 215,000,-
000 Four leading companies have had
their stock shrink from $50, 000, 900 to
s43.000,O00 and the shrinkage In the
forty-five companies Is over $535. 000,-
900. That is to say, that amount
OF good money has been lost to invest
ors.~ Two years ago Barney Barnato,
once circus rider, was the king of the
Kaffirs, reputed worth forty or fifty
million dollars made in this craze. He
was great promoter, what we would
call the boss boomer. He was the head,
the organizer of numerous companies,
and it was into his Golfers that good
English gold went to make him sud-
denly one of the wealthiest men in
England. But to make him and Rhodes
and a few others rich, thousands have
been made poor.
The best evidence Of the fact
that these boons are actually mental
epidemics Of a disease affecting the
mind is that experience goes for moth
ing. England had hardly recovered
from the Argentine and Australian cpl
denies when this one swept the land,
as it had not long been over the Egyp-
tian and Turkish crazes before infected
by the epidemics from across the At
lantic and Pacific oceans. This disease
has not the merit Of smallpox and
measles in making immune its victims
from subsequent attacks, for the suf-
ferer in one period is as apt to become
infected in q recurrence as is one who
had never been afflicted. It is dis
ease and scientists should at once pro-
coed to investigate it as such, and pro-
vide humanity with an anti-boom Sc
rum.