THE FARMER ANT) TITE RANKER. 



139 



the way easy for all iiiainier of frauds, and cheerfully passed 

 by Legislatures, sometimes, doubtless, corrupt, but for the most 

 part only ignorant. The result was a sudden abundance of 

 what was called money, but which had little or no value 

 except in the imagination of the community. When people 

 ceased to believe it to be money, as they did whenever 

 presented in any quantity for redemption, according to its 

 promise, it ceased to be money. This is known as the era of 

 " wild-cat " money, and is one of the picturesque eras of 

 financial history. Men were rich one day and paupers the 

 next. Bank-bills passed from hand to hand, with little or no 

 knowledge of their value, the shrewder sort carefully retaining 

 the bills of such banks as they believed to be strongest, and 

 paying out the shaky, the worst of all invariably finding their 

 way to the poorest and most ignorant, who lost all when the 

 crash came. Whenever there is a debasement of the currency, 

 it is the poorest who suffer most. The above is a fair 

 description of the condition of our bank currency as it existed 

 prior to 1837, in which year occurred the worst financial panic 

 in our history. The majority of western banks went out of 

 existence, and the people who held their notes lost them. 

 There was the same necessity for money, however, and grad- 

 ually new banks were formed or old ones reestablished, and 

 tlie issues began again. Wealth, however, had been grad- 

 ually crteping west, and it was now possible for some banks, 

 especially in the larger places, to give real security for mod- 

 erate issues of notes; and, taught by experience, legislation 

 became gradually more stringent in all the states. Specula- 

 tion started up, although less wildly than before, followed by 

 another panic in 1857. Again banks went down, with the 

 same unhappy consequences to poor men,* but the prostration 

 was not so complete as in 1837. By 1860 the country had 

 pretty much recovered from the shock. 



* Of course in all panics llic rich and well-to-do suffer losses, but they come 

 rather in the form of loss of deposits than loss upon currency. The wealthy 

 keep comparatively little money by them, it being their custom to deposit in 

 banks. It is mainly the poor who lose directly by a depreciated currency. 



