HOW PANICS ARE GENERATED. 91 



until the wire-pullers, having gained their ends, unload at 

 far higher prices than those at which they bought, leaving 

 the struggling smaller fry to suffer their losses as best 

 they may. 



Again, a railroad is projected (a Pacific Eailroad, for 

 instance) through a region of swamps, mountains, and deserts. 

 Congress is partly bribed and wholly duped to aid the scheme, 

 and passes a law granting a territory equal in extent to 

 Illinois and Indiana combined a territory comprising land 

 enough to found an empire. Financiers are posted off to 

 Europe to negotiate the bonds. Banks are cajoled into lend 

 ing the money, much of it deposited by customers, hoping 

 to be reimbursed from the sale of lands before the bubble 

 bursts. European capital has been bitten by this dog before, 

 and is shy ; it does not take the well-covered bait ; there are 

 rumors that all is not right ; apprehension ensues. A great 

 banking corporation, that has accumulated millions from the 

 treasury of the nation, through the sale of its bonds, goes 

 down. Consternation seizes the money kings, the brokers, 

 and gamblers of Wall street, as bank after bank succumbs 

 to the pressure. And now the banks can not pay, the mer 

 chant can not pay, the manufacturer can not pay, and the 

 laborer may starve. Business stagnates, the price of every 

 commodity depreciates, and financial ruin engulfs thousands 

 in quick succession. 



Depreciated stocks and commodities are then quietly ab 

 sorbed by those who set the ball in motion. By a series of 

 such moves, these accumulate fortunes ten, twenty, fifty, or 

 even seventy millions of dollars, perhaps. They retire to 

 their fastnesses, but only to issue forth, like Ghouls, at the 

 chosen time, to again arid again rob the graves of buried 

 hopes and reputations, and revel once more in those fearful 

 charnel houses horror and despair. 



