THE GREAT BONANZA BUBBLE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 62, 13 March 1875, Page 4

THE GREAT BONANZA BUBBLE.

The San Francisco correspondent of the Anckland Herald writes:— In my last I gave you a sketch of the excitement produced by the discovery of the Great Bonanza. Look now on the other side of the picture. A month ago, California was crowded with mil-lionaires—to-day there is a weeping, excited mob, of broken men and women. In three days the leading stocks made a drop of 125 000,000 dollars — £25,000,000; followed by another drop, making, in one short week, a difference of over two hundred millions of dollars in the market value of the Great Bonanza and other leading stocks. And yet the mines are improving. The fall is attributed to a gigantic manifestation on the part of a number of brokers who combined to bring down the market to enable them to fill their " shorts." Now everybody you meet in cursing stocks, and proclaiming the whole business a gross swindle. Of course all who held on margins are ruined, your correspondent amongst the rest. ... I was sitting in my sanctum, quietly inditing a letter exposing the utter sinfulness of slock operations, end had risen to an elevated plateau of morality, and bad become so eloquent upon the subject that I bemoaned the fact that I could not telegraph my brilliant ideas, or convey .promptly to you the whole force of my cutting sarcasm; had effectually damned all stock jobbing, and clearly convinced myself that I, of all men here, alone occupied the position of an honest man; I had just closed my letter with a whole army of notes of admiration, when I was rudely disturbed by the entrance of a friend— shall I say fiend? — it's the same, thing. " How do you do, Major?" I said. "Right well," he suavely replied. "How is everything?'* "First-rate," said I. " Market booming," continued the Major. " Everything away up. Now's your time, old boy. I can put you on to a « good buy.' I have just got a tip from Bill Jones. Andes, my boy, Andes is the thiDg. There's millions in it." "My dear fellow," I said, look here; I have just written all these pages condensing the whole business. You know it's a regular gamble." " That's so," said he smiling sweetly, " but do you find your letters pa? ? Not much I guesß," he continued. " Send off your letter, my boy; that's all right; and just put up 100 dollars and I'll make it thousands for you. You know I was cleaned out by that infernal break in Belcher. Well, now you just stand in with me; I'll do all the swindling, and you can do the moralising." Will you credit it, deal Herald, that such was the magnetic iufluence of the Major, I actually put my letter in the waste basket, and -let him have 100 dollars, which my wife had been saving up for a year, and had given me to pay a tailor's bill. You see she has a very high opinion of the Fourth Estate, and don't like to see me shabby. Well, I had purchased a nice suit, a real cassimer, and the tailor was in good spirits, for I had told him in confidence how strongly I was opposed to the stock gambling business. "Yes, said the Major, "Andes is a good buy." So I went home and dreamt that ere another sun should rise and gild with his mornlag glory (he plate-glues windows of ray. tailor's shop, I should be a millionaire. The Major put the hundred up as a margin, and Andes were not only "a good buy/- but it was good-bye Andes" — and nay 100 dollars. The tailor groans in spirit. I am sorry for him poor man— 'tis bard upon the tailor. I have forgotten his address, but your representative is clothed and in his right mind, and, — well really tailors are very common sort of fellows, and, 'pon honor, they ought to be proud of a special correspondent's patronage. It would be bo anywhere but in this infernal democratic city, and my tailor thinks himself quite equal to any " newspaper bummer." Fancy him' addressing the "special" of the New Zealand Herald in such a language. With his own goose I slew him, and there is peace in the land. The Major has disappeared.