FARMERS' REGISTER— HINTS TO HOUSEWIVES. 



221 



them were atlengthunable to fulfil Iheir contracts. 

 Others squandered the wealth wiiich ihey had so 

 easily acquired ; whilst others again more discreet- 

 ly relinquished the traffic, and would no longer 

 subject their property to continual risk. The price 

 of tulips fell lower and lower ; the sellers, to avoid 

 utter ruin, offered the buyers natural tulips, but 

 the latter would not have them. Hence arose 

 numberless squabbles and law suits ; the tribuuals 

 refused to decide these complicated affairs; and 

 the speculators were obliged to abate their extra- 

 vagant demands, and to take what they could get. 

 Many were ruined, and had unfortunately con- 

 ceived an aversion to their original occupations, 

 %vhich had furnished them with the means of a 

 comfortable subsistence. Accustomed to indolence 

 and reverses of fortune, they chose rather to live 

 in penury than to return to their former employ- 

 ments. The eyes of all were at length opened, 

 and many people became sensii)le of their folly and 

 shame, at the expense of their property and peace 

 of mind. 



At the beginning of the last century a game of 

 chance of the like nature was introduced into 

 France, by a man name^l Law, a Scotchman, who 

 had gained the confidence of government by ex- 

 hibiting a plan which was greatly lo benefit the 

 finances of the state. He was appointed director 

 of a company of merchants trading to Louisiana 

 m America, and he opened a bank at Paris. By 

 spreading a report that gold and silver mines had 

 been discovered in Louisiana richer than those of 

 Peru, he roused the spirit of cupidity ; every one 

 hastened to partake of the working of these mines ; 

 shares were purchased with avidity, and this specu- 

 lation became in the end an insatiable passion. 

 The price of the shares rose from five hundred francs 

 to a thousand : fresh shares were now oflered — mi- 

 sers themselves could not resist the temptation, 

 exchanging their treasures against bits of paper, 

 which were to produce wealth Avithout end. All 

 ranks of the nation speculated; Law was looked 

 up to as a universal benefactor ; no private indi- 

 vidual had ever enjoyed so large a share of consi- 

 deration : a single audience with this banker was 

 talked of as an important circumstance in a man's 

 life. This mania extended to the provinces — the 

 country people flocked to Paris to partake of the 

 happiness of the Parisians; the bank was besieg- 

 ed from morning fill night ; but, as the treasures 

 for which they exchanged their solid gold for that 

 in the mines of Louisiana arrived not, the confi- 

 dence of the people began to be shaken. They be- 

 came anxious to dispose of their paper shares ; but as 

 every body nearly possessed moie or less of these 

 valueless tickets, there were no purchasers. The 

 bank was then beset, not for paper shares, but for 

 money ; and Law, after having been flattered, 

 blessed, and courted, was compelled to a disgrace- 

 ful and hasty flight. It was now perceived, that 

 instead of lightening the burthens of the state, it 

 had indeed added to them. This being the case, 

 government had recourse fo other and more sub- 

 stantial means. But the failure of this SLheme did 

 not prevent the French, in imitation of our bank 

 notes, resorting to a plan of the same kind during 

 the revolution. They issued a^-signats ; but the 

 nation in general was not to be so readily duped a 

 second time : some few persons were ruined, some 

 few made their fortunes, but the assignats were 

 quickly witiulrawa from circulation. A few have 



been saved as curiosities, and as a melancholy re- 

 membrance of the unhappy epoch. 



The foregoing account oi' die celebrated Tullpomania, 

 (of wliich every one has heard something, but of which 

 so little of the truth is known,) is extracted from a 

 work prepared for the amusement of children ; but it 

 may also serve for the instruction, and as a fit subject 

 for the reflection of men. ]Most of us have wondered 

 at the ridiculous madness of the Hollanders wlien they 

 paid large sums for a single tulip root : but if we view 

 things fairly, their madness was of the same kind, and 

 not greater than has sometimes raged in other coun- 

 tries, and even in our own. The high prices olTered 

 uid paid for tulips were not graduated by any estima- 

 tion of their intrinsic value, but by the expected in- 

 crease of price, and the consequent profit to the pur- 

 chaser. When a flower had risen in price from one 

 florin to five hundred, the immense j^rofits thereby gained 

 still more stimulated avarice and the spirit of specula- 

 tion, and there was a continually increasing impulse to 

 swell these exorbitant prices, until the bubble was 

 obliged to burst from excess of distension. The Mis- 

 sissippi stock in France, and the South Sea, and recent- 

 ly the South American mining stocks in England, rose 

 and fell i^recisely for the same reasons: and much the 

 greater part of the value of those stocks was as ficti- 

 tious, and baseless, as were the prices of Dutch tulips. 



Have toe always been wiser than the tulip specula- 

 tors of Holland ? 



The enormous and fraudulent issues of paper money 

 during the war of 1812, from banks refusing and una- 

 ble to pay specie, (which were in fact bankrupt, and yet 

 were the legalized manufacturers of the national cur- 

 rency without limit,) served to make an apparent a;5/>rc- 

 cialion of property, by what was truly only a depre- 

 ciation of money. When a dollar was worth only half 

 of its former value, it followed necessarily that an arti- 

 cle would sell for two dollars, which before sold for one, 

 and yet be no dearer than before. Yet intelligent and 

 experienced men of business, as well as those the most 

 deficient in such qualities, fell into and acted under the 

 delusion that land had suddenly doubled in value, and 

 every one hastened to get rich by buying a kind of pro- 

 perty which was every day inci'easing in price. No 

 where was this ruinous spirit of speculation, this mad- 

 ness carried farther than in and near Richmond. When 

 a purchaser paid $ 1 0,000 for a few vacant lots in the su- 

 biu-bs, or for a few hundred acres of barren and worth- 

 less Henrico land, which were totally unproductive of 

 present or prospective profits, but had increased ten 

 fold in price witliin twelve months, the probability of 

 the continued rise of price was the value considered, 

 and not the intrinsic value of the land. The same num- 

 ber of acres of rock, or of quagmire, would have equal- 

 ly served the purpose, and the madness of speculation ; 

 and tulijD roots as well as either. To buy and sell for 

 $10,000 a piece of land which no man could suppose 

 •ould yield a profit on §1000, wis ce'-tai'ily as mad, and 

 IS ridiculous, as to estimate at (^9,000 a tulip root, which 

 could yield nothing. 



HINTS TO HOUSEWIVES. 



Vessels intended to contain liquid of a higher 

 temperature than the surrounding medium, and to 

 keep that liquid as long as possible at the highest 



