For a moment there was silence; then a hoarse murmur broke out from bulls and bears alike, followed by yells and cries indescribable, clearly audible on the street. Even the heartless bear, in glee over the havoc he was making, paused to utter a growl of sorrow that gentlemen so honorable should become ursine prey. The news of the failure ran like a prairie fire, spreading dismay that showed itself on all faces. Annotators of values in the various offices made known in doleful ticks the depreciation of stocks and securities. Old habitués of the exchanges, each usually placid as a moonlit lake, were wrought up till they acted like wild men. At the corner of Broad Street and Exchange Place a delirious crowd of money-lenders and borrowers collected and tried to fix a rate for loans. The matter hung in the balance for some time until the extent of the panic became known. Then they bid until the price of money touched one-half of one per cent. a day and legal interest. One man, after lending $30,000 at threeeighths per cent., said that he had $20,000 left, but that he thought he would not lend it. As he said this, he turned toward his office, but was immediately surrounded by about twenty borrowers who hung on to his arms and coat-tails till he had agreed to lend them the $20,000. The Stock Exchange witnessed the chief tragedy and the chief farce of the day. Such tumult, push, and bellowing had never been known there even in the wildest moments of the war. The inte rior of the Exchange was of noble altitude, with a vaulting top, brilliantly colored in Renaissance design, that sprang upward with a strength and grace seldom so happily united. A cluster of gasjets, hanging high, well illuminated the enclosure. On the capacious floor, unobstructed by pillars or by furniture, save one small table whereon a large basket of flowers rested, a mob of brokers and brokers' clerks surged back and forth, filling the immense space above with roars and screams. The floor was portioned off to some twenty different groups. Here was one tossing "New York Central " up and down; near by another playing ball with "Wabash;" Northwestern" jumped and sank as if afflicted with St. Vitus's dance. In the middle of the floor Rock Isand" cut up similar capers. In a remote corner "Pacific Mail" was beaten with clubs, while Harlem rose like a balloon filled with pure hydrogen. The uninitiated expected every instant to see the mob fight. Jobbers squared off at each other and screamed and yelled violently, flinging their arms around and producing a scene which Bedlam itself could not equal. 66 66 Behind the raised desk, in snowy shirt-front and necktie, stood the President of the Exchange, his strong tenor voice every now and then ringing out Over the Babel of sounds beneath. The gallery opposite him contained an eager throng of spectators bending forward and craning their necks to view the pandemonium on The attempt to Fire the Pennsylvania Railroad Round-house in Pittsburgh, at Daybreak on Sunday, July 22, 1877. Painted by W. R. Leigh, from photographs by Robinson. the floor. The rush for this gallery was fearful, and, apparently, but for the utmost effort of the police, must have proved fatal to some. Excitement in Wall Street not infrequently draws crowds to the main front of the Exchange; but hardly ever, if ever before, had the vicinity been so packed as now. Two large blackboards exhibited in chalk figures the incessantly fluctuating quotations. Telegraph wires connected the Exchange with a thousand indicators throughout the city, whence the quotations, big with meaning to many, were flashed over the land. The first Black Friday was a bull Friday; the second was a bear Friday. Early in the panic powerful brokers 66 " began to sell short, and they succeeded in hammering down from ten to forty per cent. many of the finest stocks like Harlem, "New York Central,' "Erie," "Wabash," "Northwestern," "Rock Island," and "Western Union." They then bought to cover their sales. Bull brokers, unable to pay their contracts, shrieked for margin money, which their principals would not or could not put up. They also sought relief from the banks, but in vain. It had long been the practice of certain banks, though contrary to law, early each day to certify checks to enormous amounts in favor of brokers who had not a cent on deposit to their credit, the understanding in each case being Scenes After the Railway Riot of 1877 in Pittsburgh. tation, and gazed curiously through the windows trying to make out how the broken brokers were behaving. In deference to a general wish that dealings in stocks should cease, the Exchange was shut on Saturday September 20th, and not opened again till the 30th. Such closure had never occurred before. On Sunday morning President Grant and Secretary Richardson, of the Treasury, came to New York, spending the day in anxious consultation with Vanderbilt, Clews, and other prominent business men. Had the Secretary of the Treasury acted promptly and firmly he might have relieved the situation much; but he vacillated. Some $13,500,000 in five-twenty bonds were bought, and a few millions of the greenbacks which Owing to the general congestion of traffic there were miles of freight trains blocked at this point, which the rioters burned just as they stood. Round-house. market and kept it from breaking to a point where half of the street would have been inevitably ruined, was Jay Gould, mischief itself on the first Black Friday, but on this one a blessing. He bought during the low prices several hundred thousand shares of railroad stocks, principally of the Vanderbilt stripe, and in this way put a check on the ruinous decline. The national banks of New York weathered this cyclone by a novel device of the Clearing-house or associated banks. These pooled their cash and collaterals into a common fund, placed this in the hands of a trusty committee, and issued against it loan certificates that were receivable at the Clearing-house, just like cash, in payment of debit balances. Ten million dollars worth of these certificates was issued at first, a sum subsequently doubled. This Clearing-house paper served its purpose admirably. By October 3d confidence was so restored that $1,000,000 of it was called in and cancelled, followed next day by $1,500,000 more. None of it was long outstanding. The Clearing-house febrifuge was successfully applied also in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and other cities, but not in Chicago. The panic overspread the country. Credit in business was refused, debtors were pressed for payment, securities were rushed into the market and fell greatly in price. Even United States bonds went down from five to ten per cent. There was a run upon savingsbanks, many of which succumbed. Manufactured goods were little salable, and the prices of agricultural products painfully sank. Factories began to run on short time, many closed entirely, many corporations failed. The peculiarity of this crisis was the slowness with which it abated, though fortunately its acute phase was of brief duration. No date can be set as its term, its evil effects dragging on through years. THE GRANGER AGITATION THE Complaints evoked by industrial depression were in due time echoed in politics. Agrarian movements and labor movements in great numbers V. The "Grangers," Grangers," or "Patrons of Husbandry," was a secret organization for the promotion of farmers' interests. It was founded at Washington, December 4, 1867, women as well as men being members. In 1868 there were but 11 granges. The total membership of the order on April 1, 1874, six years from the time when local granges began to be formed, was 1,500,000, distributed throughout nearly all the States, though most numerous in the West and South. The central aim of Granger agitation at first was to secure better transportation and lower freight rates, particularly from the West to the East. After waiting for railway facilities to be developed, the shippers of grain and beef found themselves, when railways were at last supplied, hardly better off than before. The vast demand for transportation sent freight charges up to appalling figures. All sorts of relief devices were considered, among them a project for opening canal and slack-water navigation between the Mississippi and the Atlantic coast. This was earnestly urged by the Southern Commercial Convention at Cincinnati in 1870. The difficulties of freight transportation between the States was discussed at length by Congress, spite of railway attorneys' insistence that the subject was beyond Congressional control. In (Notice found in yard of D. Patchen, Engineer, Cressona.) from the gap Daniel Patch remember you will be running in this coal ragion at night you took an nother mans engin we will give you fair warning in time and some more. V. L. M. M. H. S. T. we hear notify you to leave th Road for you took a nother man chop take a warning to Save your live to Yost A Notice Put in Evidence During the " Molly Maguire " Prosecutions. social phenomena at first, but rapidly evolving political significance-marked the times. VOL. XVIII.—9 the House of Representatives, during January, 1874, Hon. G. W. McCrary, Chairman of the Committee on Railroads and Canals, made an exhaustive report affirming the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. This valuable paper laid bare, in Section 8, Article 1, of the Constitution, a depth of meaning which, till then, few had suspected, a discovery that prepared the way for the Interstate Commerce Act, passed on February 4, 1887. Discrimination in freight charges was a fruitful source of discontent. In Illinois a dispute known as the "Three-Cent War" intensified feeling against railroads. This particular trouble was the outgrowth of the Illinois Central's disregard of an order issued by the Illinois Railroad Com |