Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-06-10

away. Here they come, men celebrat-
ed for prudence, to trifie with the live
lihoods Of widows and orphans. Do
you wonder that sometimes they be-
come insane? 1t is insanity. Do you
know there are hundreds of young
men who are perishing under the pas
sion for stock gambling? Do you
know that in all Christian lands this
e one of the greatest curses?
1t is not peculiar to mercurial Amer
cans. Oh, no! Almost every nation
aas INDUCED in it. The HoIlanders,
fhe most phlegmatic people in the
world, had their gambling seizure in
1858. 1t was called the tulip mania. 1t
was 2 speculation in tulips. Proper
ties worth half million dollars turned
into tulips. All the Holland nation Ell
Their buying or selling tulips One tu-
lip root sold for 5000, another for ST.
900. Excitement rolling OH and rolling
on until history tells US that one Am
sterdam tulip which was supposed to
be the only one of the kind in all the
world actually brought in the markets
$1,S16,OOO! That is a matter of his
tory. Of course the crash came, and
all Holland went down under it.
Great Financial Disasters
But France must have it's gambling
expedition, and that was in 1716. John
! Laws Mississippi scheme, it was call
ed. The French had heard that this
American continent was built out of
solid gold, and the project was to take
it across the ocean and drop it in
Franco. Excitement beyond anything
| hat ho1 in
Three hundred thousand applicants
for shares. Excitement so great that
sometimes the mounted military had
to dispense the crowds that had come
to buy the stock. Five hundred tenn
pOrary tents built to accommodate the
people until they could have Opportu-
nifty of interviewing John Law. A
lady of great fashion had her coach
man upset her near the place where
John Law was passing in order that
she might have an interview with that
benevolent and sympathetic gentleman!
| Stocks went up to 1850 per cent, until
one day suspicion got into the market,
and down it all went-John Laws Mis-
siSSippi scheme-burying its protector
and some of the greatest financierS in
all France, and was almost as bad as 4
French revolution.
Sedate England took its chance in
1920, That was the south sea bubble.
They proposed to transfer all the gold
of Peru and Mexico and the islands of
the sea to England. Five millions
worth Of shares were put on the mar
ket at $500 share. The books open,
in a few days it is all taken and twice
the amount subscribed,
Excitement following excitement I'M
til all kinds of gambling projects came
forth under the wing of this south sea
enterprise. There was a large cOmpa-
ny formed with great capital for pro-
viding funerals for all parts of the
land. Another company with large cap
ital-G500 1000 capitalize develop a
wheel in perpetual motion; another
company, with n capital of f4000,O00,
to insure people against loss by Serv-
ants; another company, with e., 100000
capital, to transplant walnut trees from
Virginia to England; then, to cap the
climax, company was formed for "a
great undertaking - nobody to know
what it is" And, 10, fG0OO in shares
were offered at 600 a share; books
were opened at 9 o'clock in the morn
ing and closed at o'clock in the after
noon, and the first day it was all sub
scribed. "a great undertaking nobody
to know what it ISL
An old magazine of those days de-
scribes the scene CHunt's Magazine.
1t says: "From morning until evening
Change alley was full to overlooking
with one dense, moving mass of living
beings, composed Of the most incon-
gruous materials and in all things save
the mad pursuit whereof they were
employed utterly opposite in their prin-
cipIes and feelings and far asunder in
their stations in life and the profess
siOnS they follow. Statesmen and
clergymen deserted their high stations
to enter upon this great theater of
speculation and gambling. Churchmen
and dissenters left their fierce disputes
and forgot their wranglings upon
church government in the deep and
hazardous game they were playing for
worldly treasures and for riches,
which, if gained, We're liable to disap-
pear within an hour of their creation.
Wings and Tories buried their weapons
of political warfare, discarded party
animOsities and mingled together in
kind and friendly intercourse, each eX-
ulting as their stocks advanced in
price and grumbling when fortune
frowned upon them. Lawyers, ply
sicians, merchants and travelling men
forsook their employment, neglected
their business, disregarded their en-.
gagements to whirl along in the stream,
to be at last engulfed in the wild sea
of bankruptcy. Females mixed with
the crowd, forgetting the station and
employment which nature had fitted
them to adOrn and dealt boldly and OK.