184 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



stringency, and increasing the want by the artificial 

 means at their command, the gamblers expected to reap 

 a rich return. It mattered nothing to them that the 

 country at large would be called upon to suffer, and that 

 values of all kinds would be seriously endangered by 

 the success of their infamous scheme. They looked 

 only to their prospective gains, and cared nothing for 

 the community. The movement was one of unusual 

 magnitude, and the scarcity of funds in New York 

 proved to be greater than even the conspirators had 

 believed. Wall street early took the alarm, and for ten 

 or twelve days a feeling of general uneasiness pervaded 

 the community. 



The first sign of the coming storm manifested itself 

 on Wednesday, the 17th of September. On that day 

 the paper of the New York & Oswego Midland Railroad 

 was protested. The news of this misfortune threw the 

 stock market into a fever of excitement. The Tribune, 

 in its money article, thus describes the state of the 

 market on the 17th : 



" There was a dreadful sweeping away of stock mar- 

 gins to-day, the depreciation covering the entire list, 

 and showing a decline from the closing quotations of 

 last night to the lowest points reached to-day, of from 

 i to 7 per cent., and averaging about 2i per cent. . . 

 . . There will no doubt be a general overhauling of 

 brokers' ledgers to-night, and the mails will go out 

 freighted with letters calling for more margins. Of 

 course, many may be unable or unwilling to respond, in 

 which case their stocks will be forced upon the market 

 and sold for what they will fetch, the tendency of 

 which will be to still further depress prices. As was 

 foreshadowed in this column a month ago, numerous 



