The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-16

00ei That is . matter of history. Of course. the crash came. and all Hol-
 land went down under 1t.
 l Historical Gambling scheme.
 But France must have its gambling expedition, and that was in f716. John
 Laws Mississippi scheme, 1t was
 called. The French had heard that this American continent was built out of
 solid gold, and the project was to take
 1t across the ocean and drop 1t in
 France. Excitement beyond anything l Three hundred thousand applicants for
 shares. Excitement so great that
 sometimes the mounted military had to dispefse the crowds that had come | to buy the stock. Five hundred tenn
 porary tents built to accommodate the
 people until they could have oppor- tunity 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 2.050 per cent. until
 one day suspicion got into the market. and down 1t all went-John Law s l Mississippi scheme-burying its pro- | jector and some of the greatest finan- ciers in all France and was almost as | bad as a French revolution.
 Sedate England took its chance in l 1720. 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 e300 share. The books open, in few days it is all taken and twice the amount subscribed. F, ExcifAnauf f0l10Ufnv axcifarnAnt mn. til all kinds of gambling projects came forth under the wing of this south sea enterprise. There was a large com- pany formed with great capital for | providing funerals for all parts of the land. Another company with large capital s5.000.000 of capital-to develop. | wheel in perpetual motion. Another l company with a capital of E4,00O, 900 to | insure people against loss by servants. | Another company with G2,5J0, ,000 capi- | tai to transplant walnut trees from Virginia to England. Then, to cap the climax, a company was formed for
 "a great undertaking, nobody to know | what it is." And, 10, 96O0,0OU in shares were offered at E10O a snare. Books were opened at g o'clock in the morning
 and closed at 3 o'clock in the afternoon,
 and the first day 1t was all subscribed. "A great undertaking nobody to know what 1t is."
 An old magazine of those days de-
 scribes the scene (HunSs Magazine).
 It says: From morning until even
 ing Change alley was full, to over
 flowing with one dense, moving mass
 of living beings, composed of the most
 incongruous materials and. in all things
 have the mad pursuit wherefor they
 were employed utterly opposite in their
 principles and feelings and far asun-
 der in their stations in life and the
 professions they follow. Statesmen and clergymen deserted their high sta
 tions to enter upon this great theater of speculation and gambling. Church.
 men and dissenters left their fierce
 disputes and forget their wranglings
 upon church government in the deep and haza rdous game they were playing
 for worldly treasures and for riches,
 which, if gained, were 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
 exulting as their stocks advanced in price and grumbling when fortune drowned upon them. Lawyers, phy- sicians. merchants and travelling men
 forsook their employment, neglected
 their business, disregarded their en-
 agreements 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
 extensively and. like those by whom
 they were surrounded, rose from
 poverty to wealth and from that were thrown down to beggary and want. and all in one short week. and per- haps before the evening which termi- hated the first day of their specula- ton. Ladies of high rank. regardless Of every appearance of dignity and blinded by the prevailing infatuation, drove to the shops of their milliners and haberdashers and there met their stockholders, whom they regularly employed and through whom exten- eive sales were daily negotiated in the mids tof the excitement all distinc- tions of party and religion and cir cumstances and character were swal- lowed up."
 The Largest swindlers.
 But it was left for our own country to surpass all, about S7 years ago. We | have the highest mountains and the | greatest cataracts and the longest | rivers, and, of course. we had to have | the largest swindle. One would have | thought that the nation had seen | enough in that direction during the | morus multicaulis excitement. when | almost every man had a buuch of | crawling silkworms in his house, out | of which he expected to make a | fortune. But all this excitement was | as nothing compared with what took | place in 1864 when a man near Titus vile. Pa. digging for a well struck oil. Twelve hundred oil companies call for a billion of stock. Prominent | members of churches, as soon as cer- tain amount of stock was assigned | them. saw it was their privilege to be- come presidents or secretaries or mem- bers of the board of direction. Some of these companies never had a f6ot of ground, never expected to ,haye--vTbeir entire equipment was map It region where oil might bekand ,tkbfVials of grease, crude 'and clarified. People rushed down from all ipaLas of the by thesfirSt traln &Oa put their hard earnings in the g&R i young man came down from thS 0tItfe region of utterly demented. having l sold his farm at fabulous price be- cause it was supposed there might be Oil there-coming to a hotel in Phila- ielphia at the time I was living there. throwing down a 5000 check to pay for his monday meal and saying he did not care anything about the change! Then he stepped back to the gas burner to light his cigar with $1,000 40ta TJtfarIv insane