The mine not being sufficiently
charged in the United States the explosion had not recurred.
Speculation, unable to restore a new impulse to the rise in prices, was
nevertheless able to hold its own, until May, 1884, when the delayed
explosion finally occurred, covering the market with ruins and bringing
about a liquidation with its accustomed train, a great and lengthy
decline of prices.
We may here note similar delays in the breaking out of panics, in the
period of 1837, 1839, 1864-1866 in France and in England. Even an
involved state of affairs may be hidden by certain conditions, and the
situation, although itself exposed to the same excessive speculation,
may witness the breaking out of the panic which has been delayed for a
certain time, only to occur simultaneously with the beginning of a
decline of prices, and when it is thought that danger has been escaped.
As in Brussels and in the United States in 1837-1839 and in England in
1864-1866, large houses and powerful institutions of credit had
maintained a whole scaffolding of speculation which was already out of
plumb, but still able to stand upright through the general effect of the
parts which connected them, and in this unstable equilibrium it sufficed
for a single one to detach itself in order to overthrow the whole
edifice at a juncture at which it was hoped it would continue to stand
and even grow stronger.
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