A FISCAL CRASH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 90

A FISCAL CRASH.

By a. Banker. From time to tim-e during the last century the financial world of Europe and America was shaken to its foundations, many families formerly in affluence being reduced to penury, «nd many firms of repute and standing beiyg swept away. In less than 50 years, from 1825 to 1870, no leea than six severe panics occurred in London— that of '66, Black Friday, having been, perhaps, the severest of them mil, though not attended with suoh grim desolation and universal havoc as the crash which ensued at the bursting of the South Sea Bubble. ' And what a pitiab'.e spectacle is presented when the announcement is made of the stoppage of an important financial institution, Such as the great Trust Company of New York which recently closed its doors. The street is filled -with * surging mob of mea and women, some cursing, some weeping, some half distraught, with « stony glare looking blaikly into space. Here is a "trong man, furious and exasperated, nw nsta clenched, and in a towering rage pouring out ihe vials of his wrath upon the unfortunate, officials within ; here a widow, pale as death, and trembling like an aspen leaf, as sh« realises that her all is engorged in the insatiable maw of the palatial building outwardly so substantial, but, as she fears, rotten at the core, and thai she is now aj destitute pauper whose orphaned children will soon be crying out for a morsel of bread ; or here a newly-married pair, hand in hand commencing to share together the joys ol life, with every prospect of happiness and unalloyed sunshine, and looking forward to a life of luxury, free of care, and without V solicitude or a misgiving for the future. Buft now perhaps all their hope* and all then* glad anticipations are shattered and hurled) prone to the ground, and they may have to wrestle with grinding poverty in a supreme 1 effort to earn their daily bread. And on the blenched and dejected countenances of many in that motley throng what corroding heart-«tches, what hopeless despair, ■what gloom and sullen desponde ncy are stamped. And yet soon the world will go> round as before; the unreasoning panic which helped to accentuate all thifc diaasi^ar will gubside; confidence will bo restored:, -an* let us hope that all these anxious ietmn wilt prove to be needless, and' -thai tlyb ember-* rasamen-t will be but temporary. /' But though man is born to trouble as fh« sparks fly upwards, yet thos^ who lvava conformed their lives to therultas laid dowrii by their Creator, arfif whose najfnea are writ* ten in the Book of I»ife uv virtue of thtf sufferings of the Redeemer, «ndured on thei* behalf — for by His stripes , tl|iey ate healed--will look with equanirpitv? at the ev<mesoanf troubles of this life ; foif they know that in' the life to come sorrow and sighing and trouble -will bo no mr/re. — Eighc olive trsSes in the famous Garden of Olives in Jerusalem, are known- t+* Vf over 1000 years old.