Financial Craze in England.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 92, 15 October 1895, Page 3

Financial Craze in England.

- (Per Frisco Mail Steamer.) Acabfe to the New York Sun from London, dated September 7, says the financial madness which began to spread among the English public last spring has reached what is probably its calininating stage. Never during the present generation has there been such an amazing display of insane folly and recklessness m speculation as there is now being witnessed. The South African and West Australian mining craze has grown until hundreds of millions of pounds have been ponred into all manner of enterprises by the general public. Most ot the schemes are advanced by Barney Barnat whose fame is now world-wide. He has been so successful that his name is snffi. cient to draw millions from the pockets of the gain-thirsting public without other guarantee. The sum which this man has been able to stow into the treasuries of his enterprises in the form of popular subscriptions has now amounted to the amazing total of 30 millions. His last coup is the most astonishing, possibly, in financial history. He put on the market last Monday (September 2) the stock of the Barnat Banking, Mining, and Estate Corporation (Limited). No prospectus was issued, nor any statement of constitution of the object or management of the scheme. One or two preliminary deals were made with a syndicate whose members cleared more than L2.000.000 in a single day by uuloadine on the public The demand for the shares ot this bank when offered for sale on the Stock Exchange on Monday seemed limitless. One pound shares were sold in immense quantities before business closed at L4 and over. This is equivalent to a capitalisfttion of more than L15,000,000 of an undefined financial proposition which has hardly began business. Men m finance who are not infected by this strange madness are wondering how soon the crash will come. _ _ I-M——-M _ .. _ _