The business revulsion of 1837 was so marked in some of its features that it stands out as an epoch in our commercial and financial history. After the great depression in 1825, trade gradually revived, and from the year 1830 to the fall of 1836, the country saw a period of feverish excitement, when rash speculations of every kind were carried on from one end of the land to the other. Western emigration had just then taken possession of the people, and thousands turned their backs to New England, and journeyed toward the setting sun. They stopped, however, some ways short of this, not even thinking of crossing the Rocky Mountains, and generally halting before they reached the confines of the Mississippi. The great States of the West-Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri - were, even then, being settled at a rapid rate, and chiefly by young men from the East. The tide of foreign immigration had just begun to flow, and the next twenty-five years witnessed a spectacle of growth and development that was the marvel of modern civilization. Ohio was then the Queen State of the West. In a little more than a quarter of a century she had grown from a wilderness to the first rank among agricultural States. In 1840 she had risen to the first place in the production of wheat, Pennsylvania standing next. She stood fourth in the production of Indian corn, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee standing before her. In the value of live stock and wool she was exceeded only by one or two States. In 1850 she took the lead in the production of Indian corn. What are now the great agricultural States of the West - Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, and Wisconsin - had, for the most part, but just begun to send their products to market, and the last two were but little else than a wilderness in the speculative period that culminated in the panic of 1837.

     Those States whose population now numbers some 10,500,000 had then scarcely reached 900,000, or about one-twelfth. The difficulty and cost of transportation cut off the bulky products of the West from distant markets. But the West of that day was a different region from the West of to-day. In 1830 Illinois had, in round numbers, 476,000 ; Indiana, 340,000; Missouri, 140,000; Michigan, 32,000. Wisconsin contained only a few thousand, scattered through the wilderness. She contained 31,000 in 1840. In 1830 Chicago was a mere trading post, and the wigwams of the Indians were just beginning to disappear. In 1840 it contained less than 5000 inhabitants. St. Louis, in 1830, contained less than 7000. Cincinnati, the Queen city of the West at that time, contained less than 25,000, and it nearly doubled its population in the next ten years. For twenty-five years she was the greatest pork market in the country. Detroit, in 1830, had but 2200 inhabitants. It more than quadrupled its population in the next ten years. Even Columbus was then a small town whose population did not reach 6000 till 1840. In the next ten years it trebled that number. New Orleans was one of the great cities of the Union in 1830, having a population of 46,000, which increased to 102,000 in 1840, or nearly two and a half times in a single decade. Baltimore was then one of the chief flour markets of the country; St. Louis, Haxall, Michigan, and other leading brands of flour were then unknown. Baltimore and Howard Street flour then took the lead. Western flour was just beginning to find a market in the East, but had not gained a very high reputation.

     The decade between 1830 and 1840 was the period when fortunes were made and lost in raising and speculating in cotton. Machinery, and a general development of manufacturing industry, had given an extraordinary impetus to its cultivation, and its price during the years 1833, 1834, and 1835, averaged nearly fourteen cents a pound. Southern cities grew up as if by magic, and speculation in real estate promised great wealth. The real estate of Mobile was assessed $4,000,000 in 1834; $6,000,000 in 1835; $18,000,000 in 1836; $27,000,000 in 1837. In 1838 it collapsed to $7,000,000, and ten years afterwards - 1848 - it was assessed just under nine millions. This real estate mania showed itself in the sales of public lands. In 1833 about $4,000,000 worth was sold. In 1834 nearly $5,000,000. In 1835, $14,700,000., In 1836, $24,800,000. In 1838 the sales had fallen to $3,000,000.

     Crazy speculation showed itself in every direction. There was Eastern land speculation and Western land speculation. A good deal of valuable time was wasted in making diagrams of hypothetical cities. Eligible corner lots were marked out, showing the exact site - as near as might be - of future hotels, warehouses, factories, and all the other adjuncts that attest the march of civilization and this, too, in the forests of Maine that had been a wilderness ever since the crust of the earth had been clothed with verdure; a region which remained a wilderness fifty years after, and which promises to be a wilderness for a time outrunning the horoscope of man. Western land speculation was nearly as silly as this. In this case, however, subsequent developments marking that marvelous growth of our Western empire, gave promise that within fifty or a hundred years the woodman's ax might be heard felling trees upon the site of these paper cities.

     The bank system of this period was probably one of the most vicious of modern times, if not, indeed, of any time. The overthrow of the United States Bank, in 1836, and the collapse of the Pennsylvania Bank, designed to take the place of the old institution which had run since Washington's administration - a period of forty years - gave rise to the "pet bank" system. Under this system each State created as many of these mills for making paper money as the supposed wants of business seemed to demand; and the terms by which this money was designated were more expressive than euphonious. It was called "red back" in Texas, and "wild cat" in Mississippi. Its value was more miscellaneous, if possible, than its appearance. It was worth one-third or two-thirds the value expressed on its face, according to circumstances of time and place. But the functions of these "fiscal agents" were designed to operate, for the most part, in the home market; and if any of them strayed beyond the State that was responsible for their existence, they found their way into an old scrap-book, or something else, where they were looked at occasionally as a financial curiosity. The paper money of the Eastern and Middle States generally passed current at par within the States where it was issued; but it was looked upon with suspicion when it strayed far from home, and was often subject to a discount sufficient to embarrass business, and entail a loss upon the receivers. The old shoemakers of Lynn now living will well remember when the boss gave them a New York bill; and how it was scanned, and the probable discount calculated. They will also remember the healthy exercise they took in running round the neighborhood to find some one who, having dealings in the Empire State, would take it off their hands without a discount. When the government became wise enough to establish a national, currency, all those eleventh-century methods were put an end to; and equality of value, whatever that value might be, was maintained from one end of the country to the other.

     During these years of business activity Lynn did its full share. There were probably more poor shoes made at this period than were ever made in our city before or since in the same length of time. The "stock," for the most part, was better than the workmanship, and the soles were generally better than the uppers. The great defect was a lack of system, which ignored all the laws of adaptation. Firm, stout soles were joined to uppers that were evidently got up with no reference to wear; and worse than this, if both were equally good - as was sometimes the case - they were often spoiled in making up. As an illustration of this, thousands of pairs of boots cut from stout grained leather upper stock, and having soles of the best quality, were spoiled by the miserable expedient of using paper stiffenings. When it is understood that this paper was not the stout, compact leather-board of the present day, but a tender straw-paper that a drop of water would penetrate through and through, no comment is needed to demonstrate the utter worthlessness of the article when it was ready for the foot of the wearer. Nor was this the only unscientific and wasteful arrangement. Shoes were sewed in such a manner that they dropped to pieces long before they were half worn out; and when the sewing was good the labor was wasted by the senseless practice of "trimming the uppers close to the stitch" - a practice that made it impossible to wear a pair of these shoes a second time - thus causing a waste that could be reckoned by tens of thousands of dollars, if not by millions.

     The break-down in business, which came in the winter of 1836-7, was more complete and widespread than any the country had ever known. Numerous causes conspired to intensify its severity. Not the least of these was the short crop of nearly all the great staples in 1836. There was frost every month in that year. The extreme cold, accompanied with excessive droughts in some parts of the country, lessened the amount of production by more, probably, than $100,000,000. We had been running in debt at a fearful rate, both at home and abroad. In six years ending January, 1837, we had imported merchandise to the amount of $134,000,000 more than the value of our exports. $52,000,000 of this was in the single year 1836. The exports from Great Britain alone to this country rose from $7,500,000 in 1833 to about $42,500,000 in 1836 and fell the next year to about $4,500,000. Our vast export of cotton - the production of which increased 150 per cent. during the decade ending 1840 - went but a little way to balance our foreign indebtedness. Besides this, we had imported $34,000,000 in specie. The impetus given to trade by the building of the Erie Canal turned speculation in this direction, and the mania to acquire land on the borders of the lakes outrun all common sense. In 1835 this canal was enlarged, and this enlargement did not lessen the speculative delusion. The fact that there were millions of acres more than could possibly be utilized within a century under any possible conditions of wealth and numbers, did not prevent men from investing their money in land which gave no more promise of a reasonable return on their investment than the same amount of territory in the moon. Immense fortunes were made, and the nation, States, corporations, municipalities, and individuals were piling up wealth in all directions - on paper. But after making full allowance for this fictitious increase, the real additions to the nation's wealth were very great. Evidences of this were seen on every hand. More land was brought under cultivation, more iron produced, more coal mined, and more manufactured goods of every kind produced. As an illustration of this, the coal mined in 1830 was 200,000 tons. In 1837 it was more than 1,000,000. The nation was getting rich, but not so fast as appearances indicated. The mistake comes from confounding transfers with increase. A man may invest $10,000 in land, and if he adds nothing to the productive capacity of that land, marking the price up ten per cent. will not enrich him nor the community.

     The impulse given to trade soon after 1830 changed the condition of Lynn during the next six years more rapidly and more essentially than at any previous period in her history. This showed itself at every turn. The number of buildings erected during these years was probably greater than the whole number built from the first settlement of the town two hundred years before. The number of new streets opened between 1830 and 1840 was nearly equal to the whole number previously existing. There were sixty streets in the town in 1831. In 1840 there were one hundred and three, and nearly all of the new ones were opened during the first six years of this period.

     When the panic came the foundations of business seemed to be taken away. In November, 1836, the Agricultural Bank, of Ireland, and the Northern and Central Bank, of Manchester, England, became involved in difficulties, and called upon the Bank of England for aid. Aid was given on condition that they wind up their affairs. Next came the tidings of the unsound condition of the three great English houses, Wilkes, Wilde, and Wiggins - known as the "three W.'s" These houses did an extensive business with this country, giving large credits; and the shock was felt from one end of the land to the other. Then came a series of business explosions that kept the commercial world in a high fever of excitement for months. The first inquiry men made, as they met each morning, was -"Who has failed now?"

     Shoe houses in all the great cities of the Union, and especially in the South, "went up" one after another in rapid succession, and Lynn held its breath in suspense. The indebtedness of these houses to the chief shoe town in the country was larger than ever before. Long credits were then the order of the day. The planters of the South usually had their crops mortgaged a year ahead. The crop of 1836 was probably the lightest - taking into account the area planted - gathered since 1816. The deficiency of the cotton crop was reckoned by millions. The planter had nothing to pay the merchant, the merchant had nothing to pay the manufacturer. The recoil upon Lynn was tremendous and overwhelming. The per cent. of loss was enormous. All but six or eight of the leading manufacturers of the town failed. A prominent citizen recently informed the writer that he walked through the business portion of Lynn, from east to west, and found but one cutter at work. Then came such times as the shoemakers never saw before. Each "jour," as he carried in his "lot," got the "sack" or a "cut-down" that withered his ambition. It is, perhaps, well enough to explain to the uninitiated that the "sack" meant the loss of a job, or "seat of work," as it was often called. The comments that were made in the several shoemakers' shops at that time were numerous, suggestive, and highly instructive. "What did Mike say, Joe?" "Said he did n't want any more. Said he might have some 'cacks' bye-and-bye, four cents a pair, orders on 'Union.''' " Well, I do n't know what I shall do this winter. I've got ten bushels of potatoes, and a pig in the sty. I shall have to go it on pork and potatoes." "I expect to get the 'sack,' Jim, when I carry in this lot. Perhaps I can get some 'scuffs.' I can earn thirty cents a day on them." The old shoemakers will understand what "scuffs" mean without turning to the dictionary. Webster will give him no light on this point. The "scuff" was simply a vamp of russet sheepskin sewed to a sole shaped to a last. The wearer could put his foot in as far as the instep, and so "scuff" round the house when his ambition did n't rise high enough to make the needed exertion to put on a decent pair of slippers. When an old shoemaker had got down to making "scuffs" his career as an artist was about ended.

     It may as well be mentioned here as anywhere that some of the conditions existing in Lynn at that time broke the force of the overturn in business that followed the panic of '37. Lynn had not then outgrown its agricultural character. One of her newspapers, some fifty years ago, boasted that more hogs were raised in town than in any place in the vicinity. Whether this was true or not, every well-to-do shoemaker had his garden, and a pig-sty somewhere on the premises. This gave him pork and potatoes; and if he could eke out this supply with a few groceries and a little flour, he could bid defiance to financial tempests, and if he had a tolerably tight house to live in, he did n't care much for any other kind of a storm. In winter he could go clamming and eeling when the weather permitted, and if he had two or three cords of wood, split and piled up in the shed, he considered himself in easy circumstances. (Coal was then very little used in Lynn. ) When the spring opened the horizon of his hopes expanded. Less clothing and fuel were needed. The clam-banks discounted more readily; haddock could be got at Swampscott so cheap that the price was n't worth quoting. The boys could dig dandelions without any risk of being driven out of the yard. (There were not many yards then, as most of the houses were out of doors.) Then if the poor man had his little "spring-pig" that he had kept through the winter, "pork and dandelions" were no small items in the bill of fare while "greens" lasted.

     But notwithstanding all the dandelions, and all the haddock, and all the clams, and all the other adjuncts that lessened the chances of starvation, the spring of 1837 opened with prospects gloomy enough. Many had leisure to attend to any matter of local or general interest; and such an occasion arose when the Eastern Railroad Company announced its purpose to build the railroad between Boston and Salem.

     The Eastern Railroad Company began operations in the fall of 1836. A railroad was then comparatively a new thing. Absurd ideas were entertained as to the speed of locomotives. Some who had never seen one supposed that it would be impossible to get off the track in season to avoid the engine if it were anywhere in sight. The bustle and stir incident to starting the new enterprise in Lynn broke up the monotony of the dull season following the panic of the spring of 1837. Gangs of Irish laborers were set to work in several sections of the town along the line of the road, and their work was watched with a high degree of interest by the boys, and with hardly less interest by men of the largest size. Immigration on a large scale was then also a new thing, the first impetus being given to it by the great canal enterprises of New York and Pennsylvania, some ten or fifteen years before, and intensified a little later by the railroad projects then in their infancy. The number of immigrants arriving in the United States for the six years ending 1836 averaged about 60,000 a year. There were but twenty-three miles of railroad in the United States in 1830. In 1835 all the lines in operation hardly reached eleven hundred miles. In 1850 nine thousand miles had been built, the increase in the meantime showing that the number of miles constructed doubled each five years.

     So many men, and so many teams - and especially so many three-wheeled carts - so many shovels, and so many pick-axes, wielded by as many men working in the gravel pits, where the deep cuts were made through the high land; so many interesting and amusing episodes arising from the various work going on, all tended to enliven the summer of that memorable panic year, if they did not add much to the pockets of the idle lookers-on. There was a good deal of gratuitous supervision given that year. Rows of men and boys sat along the banks on the sides of the "cut" without once thinking of charging the Eastern Railroad Company a cent for their disinterested superintendence.

     Perhaps as good an idea of the simultaneousness of motion could be obtained from the way the shovels and pick-axes of these laborers dropped to the ground when the bell struck twelve, or when the signal was given to quit work at night; and the way they scrambled up the slopes on their way to dinner exhibited a variety, if not the poetry, of motion. Three shanties were built on the southwest side of Green street, near the bridge - on the northwest side - for the accommodation of the gangs of men at work on that section of the road - one for cooking, one for lodging, and one for an eating saloon. None of these edifices bore the slightest resemblance to any of the leading hotels of New England. The sums paid to architects for plans of these buildings were probably not large. They were not entirely air-tight, but had various openings that cut off all necessity for patent ventilators. The diet furnished was simple, and no time was lost in making selections - corned beef, potatoes, and flour bread, and tea made from a brand, to the writer unknown. As gunpowder tea was not much used at that time, and as the Emperor of China had not advertised the kind he used, it was probably neither of these grades. On Sundays large numbers would gather about these shanties to see how matters were conducted; especially those who had no opportunity to note the progress made during the week. Some of these did not attend church regularly.

     The digging necessary in building the road through the elevated land lying between the Central Station and Chatham street supplied a vast amount of gravel that raised the grade of several streets in the vicinity. Union street - till almost this time called Estes Lane - was one of those that put on a new appearance from that day. Up to this time this road was one of the worst in town. It was then some three feet lower than its present grade, and in the spring of each year when the freshets came was half this depth, more or less, (and in spots considerably more,) under water, from the foot of Pearl street to Green street. Besides the hundreds of loads of gravel put upon the road at this point, a large amount was used to fill certain low lots on the northwest side, thus changing some worthless swamp land into valuable building sites. The three-wheeled carts in which this gravel was carried were objects of special interest to the boys, as these, with horses attached, gave frequent occasions for amateur driving. These teams were loaded and sent in pairs, one following the other, the horses, from long training, knowing where to go, and what to do; and the small boy marching by the side of the head horse felt the weight of his responsibility more than the horse did his load of gravel.

     But the interest heightened to the spectators seated on the banks, as well as to many others, when the shovels and pick-axes of the workmen struck against the formidable ledges lying just east of Green street. Blasting on a large scale had never before been done in Lynn. The sight and operation of the gigantic drills; the immense quantities of powder used; the scampering away to a safe distance when the signal was given that the fuse was about to be touched off; the moment of suspense while waiting for the charge to explode; the fragments of rocks flying into the air like rockets, or larger masses of rock forced through the covering, and thrown up above the top of the pit and burying themselves in the soft earth; all this was an excitement and a diversion that relieved the tedium of many an idle hour when clam-digging, fishing, and berrying were not the more serious employments of the long-to-be-remembered summer of 1837.

     There was a good deal of gardening done in Lynn in the summer of 1837. This was also true elsewhere. If this were a treatise on political economy it would be proper to remark that this always takes place in periods of depressed trade. When business is driving in the various branches of manufacturing industry the gardens and small lots of land are likely to be neglected. Ten thousand of these small parcels of land are brought under cultivation in seasons of dull business, thus adding largely to the agricultural products of the nation. These products may make little show in census returns, but they, nevertheless, have a great significance. The writer has not at hand the industrial returns of the town of Lynn for that year; but he feels confident in saying that more potatoes, more beans, more corn, more squashes, and other vegetables, were planted, as well as more hogs raised, than for several years before. Uncle D.'s experience illustrated the domestic economy of keeping a pig. On one occasion one of the financiers of the neighborhood undertook, by the following argument, to prove to Uncle D. that pig-keeping was not profitable. "You paid, Uncle D., five dollars for your pig when you bought him?" Uncle D. assented. "Now, in thirty weeks, from this time till Christmas, the pig will eat twenty bushels of meal; that will cost fifteen dollars?" Unde D. again assented. "Now, there's one dollar for two loads of seaweed, and a dollar for killing. That makes twenty-two dollars, and we've reckoned nothing for the trouble of taking care of the pig . So you see your pig will cost you twenty-two dollars, with the risk of all accidents. Now, suppose he weighs two hundred and fifty pounds when you kill him, (about a fair average,) and you get eight cents a pound for your pork (as much as you can expect) ; you will have but twenty dollars, and so you'll lose two dollars." "Just so," said Uncle D. ; "but if I keep my pig till Christmas time, I shall have him. If I do n't, I shall not have him nor the money to buy one; and I shall be so much out." Uncle D.'s philosophy has a wide-spread application. The pig was his savings bank.

     Perhaps there never was a year when so much miserable trash called provisions was eaten in the town of Lynn as in the panic year of 1837. There also never was a time since the second war with Great Britain when such price was paid for any such stuff. Pork was eighteen to twenty cents a pound, and such pork! The utmost impartiality was displayed in packing this pork. All parts pretty much went into the barrel, not excepting a good many bristles that ought to have gone to the brush-makers, and a good deal besides that never ought to have gone anywhere except, possibly, to the foot of a grape-vine. It is not surprising that Grahamism flourished a few years after this. One look into a barrel of this pork would make more Grahamites than a whole course of lectures. This pork was known by the euphonious and suggestive name of "rattlesnake pork," as the opinion more or less prevailed that the pigs were raised on that stimulating diet. The abundance of this reptile in some parts of the West, and the well-known exemption of the hog from all danger coming from the bite of this venomous snake, probably lay at the foundation of this opinion. To this may be added the extremely social disposition of the hog when he found himself in the company of these graceful vermin. The reader may possibly infer that Western pork was not held in high esteem at that time. That inference is correct. This allusion to the diet of those times would not be complete without the mention of the corollary of pork - beans. These, perhaps, had been round the "Horn," or experienced the rigors of an Arctic winter, or the dessicating effect of a torrid climate, or most likely had borne all three of these geographical seasonings. They were sold for white beans. Some of them were white. Butter was something of a luxury in that memorable panic year. Not many could afford to eat it, and there was a good deal of it that nobody wanted to eat if he could afford it. This butter had several characteristics. It was miscellaneous in its appearance, in color ranging all the way from a lard-like whiteness to a yellow, suggestive of the setting sun. But its chief characteristic was strength rather than beauty. Some of the wags used to allude to this kind of butter as a motive power in moving buildings. Its price at this time kept pace both with its strength and beauty, though it did not reach such high figures as in after years. The extremely high cost of provisions, occasioned by the scarcity arising from the short crops of the preceding year, intensified the hardships of the panic. An apology was sometimes thought to be needed for indulging in any such luxury as butter. In one of these periods of high prices Mr. I. called at a grocery store and inquired the price of this article. "Sixty cents a pound," was the answer. Mr. I. hesitated a moment, and then said, "I'll take a quarter if a pound, for sickness."

     A significant fact is brought out by comparing the retail prices of commodities at this period when the order system prevailed, with the wholesale prices as quoted in the Boston and N ew York markets. As an instance of this, the highest wholesale price of superfine flour in Boston, as shown by the commercial record for the year 1837, was $9.50 per barrel. It was sold as high as $2.20 by the quarter of a hundred, (28 pounds,) the old style denoting a quarter of a gross hundred, (112 pounds,) or one-seventh of a barrel of 196 pounds. This, it will be seen, was at the rate of $15.40 per barrel, and was not, probably, very superfine in quality either. The prices of a list of articles could be given showing how wide was the gap between wholesale cash prices and retail order prices; and the gap was still wider, probably, between these cash prices and the prices charged by the manufacturers who kept goods with which to supply their work-men.

     The order system - already treated upon in a former chapter - was spasmodic and irregular in its operation. In "good times" cash was generally paid to "jours" and" binders" as far back as 1830. During the six years preceding the panic of 1837 workmen were in great demand, and cash was generally paid to those who demanded it. Perhaps the question will be asked, why did n't they all demand it? To fully answer this question would require a statement unfolding the idiosyncracies of individuals, a history of business at that period, and, in short, a complete microcosm of society as it then existed. It was understood that some preferred to take orders, giving as a reason that the "boss" would be more likely to keep them at work in dull times if they took orders for their labor when they might get cash. Another class had an account at the store. This account would run a month - sometimes three months - then an order would be drawn covering the whole amount. This looked like business; but the workman did n't see that this was like paying twenty per cent. interest - an immense drain upon his resources that kept hundreds like him poor without their knowing the reason why. He did not see that credit, when needless, was the bane of the poor man, leading him into expenditures he would not make if cash were to be drawn from the pocket when the purchase was made. Many did not find out how bitter was their bondage to the system of orders and long credits until a fortunate experience of the cash system delivered them from the harassing burden of unsettled accounts, and made its indelible marks upon the pocket-book.

     This period - between 1831 and 1837 - did a great work in teaching the workingmen of Lynn the lesson that cash and short credits gave him more bread and less anxiety, and a better chance to lay by a few dollars for a rainy day. The growth of Lynn was never so rapid before as during these years. But when the crash came everything was changed. Orders took the place of cash to a great extent. Manufacturers traded off shoes for any sort of "truck" they could get, and the workman was glad to get work, and take his pay in anything that would supply his wants, from a chip-hat to broken salt fish, or from "stoga" shoes to "lantern" mutton that bore no sort of resemblance to the South Down variety seen in English markets. There was any quantity of shoes in the market which the owners were willing to exchange for any product made or raised in any part of the earth, or that came from any known sea. The shoe manufacturers of Lynn had a large share of these shoes. By a sudden freak of fashion, more idiotic in its operation than the freaks of fashion usually are, the style of shoes changed from the extreme wide toes to the opposite extreme of a style running almost to a point. This left no room for the toes unless the shoes worn were two or three sizes longer than the feet of the wearer. Till within the last few years, shoes were made - both men's and women's without any reference to the anatomy of the human foot. They began to narrow just where fhe foot begins to widen, as though the direct intention was to produce a crop of corns, bunions, and protruding joints. Shoes are now made (especially men's) with some reference to the shape of the foot. The civilization of the nineteenth century is wrestling with this problem, and it is to be hoped that brains will triumph. No apology is asked for this digression - if it is one - as the writer considers this matter of more consequence to all concerned in the questions here treated than any topic falling in the direct line of this record.

     The manufacturers found these wide-toed shoes a drug in the market; and they were a drug because they possessed the only good quality that could be urged in their favor - they would, not cramp the toes of the wearer. For this reason, mainly, they were carted from place to place, and transferred from hand to hand, until whatever of beauty or comeliness they had was lost. Not one pair in ten, probably, ever reached their destined end as a covering for the human foot; but on some bright, cool morning they doubtless eked out the fire in some retailer's or jobber's store, giving their odorous testimony that they had been sacrificed on the altar of a brainless fashion. It was necessary to make a new departure in the style of shoes, and for several years we had ladies' shoes with toes running to a rounded point, exhibiting a fashion not much sillier than the Chinese styles seen in museums, and elsewhere.

     Business was thoroughly prostrated till the summer of 1838. It then rallied, and Lynn had a short spurt of brisk trade which lasted hardly a year. The causes of the prostration were too deep, and run back too far to make any sudden cure possible. Politicians now took up the subject, and gave a diagnosis of the case that was perfectly satisfactory - to themselves. The administration was held responsible for the hard times. "Two dollars a day and roast beef" were promised to the workingmen if the "Hero of Tippecanoe" should be elected President of the United States.

     As an evidence of the condition of the shoe business in Lynn in the years following the panic, the statistics of the leather trade might be cited as conclusive testimony. In 1838 the leather on hand and in process of tanning in New York was 1,009,917 hides. In 1841 this had fallen to 541,600 sides, or about fifty per cent. Other kinds of business showed similar results. Things were in a grand condition to give the politicians who were out of office just the leverage they wanted. At the outset of the business troubles, political action was demanded to set the financial current the other way. To get an intelligent appreciation of the notable campaign of 1840 it will be necessary to review, briefly, the political situation during the few preceding years. In July, 1836, President Jackson issued the famous "specie circular." This document instructed land agents to take nothing but specie in pay for public lands. This meant, simply, that government was to get something for these lands besides worthless paper. Speculators had been paying for them in "wild cat" currency issued from "coon-box banks," and the treasury already had more than it could use to any good purpose. Benton says that ten millions of this paper was on the way to the Land Office when the "specie circular" was issued. This, of course, put an end to a good deal of business activity - such as it was - inasmuch as it substituted money for worthless bank paper. Jackson had the sagacity to see how things were drifting. The crash came a few months after, and the administration was held responsible for all that happened, and also for continuing to reckon according to the rules of arithmetic. When Congress met in December, it passed an act rescinding the "specie circular." The bill was sent to the President the day before the adjournment of Congress, but as he did not sign it the act was null, and the circular remained in full force. In the following March a committee was sent to Washington, who told the President - Van Buren, just then inaugurated- that the value of real estate had depreciated, within the last six months, more than $40,000,000; that within the last two months there had been more than two hundred and fifty failures, and that local stocks had declined $20,000,000. The trouble, they said, "was not to be laid to any undue extension of mercantile enterprise, (of course not,) but to the 'specie circular,' and several other things." But they reported that they could get nothing satisfactory from him. The President concluded to let the water run whichever way the slope set the current. This, of course, was not satisfactory to the politicians.

     The partial revival of business in 1838 run their capital stock down very low, but when the "bank crash" of 1839 came this stock went up again like a rocket. All the business troubles were laid at the door of the administration. The opposition to the President was of the fiercest kind. But it was too late to remedy matters then by an appeal to the people, as Van Buren was just elected. The breakdown that came almost simultaneously with his inauguration supplied the Whigs with texts and party war-cries until the election of Harrison in the Fall of 1840.

     The immediate cause of this second breakdown in 1839 was the disturbance of our trade with Great Britain, arising from the short crops of that country in that and the preceding year. Extreme cold and excessive rains throughout England, Ireland, and Scotland diminished agricultural products - especially wheat - to a degree almost without parallel since the first years of the century. Wheat rose to a price it had not reached since 1816, and the quality was never so bad since that memorable year. This produced panic and financial distress in all the business centers of Great Britain, and the magnitude of our commercial relations, even then, with England brought the inevitable reaction to the United States. In October, 1839, the Bank of the United States closed its doors, and a general bank suspension followed. This was the old government bank whose charter, expiring in 1836, Congress refused to renew. It then obtained a charter from the Legislature of Pennsylvania. This was the king bank of the country, and its influence upon business, and upon the financial legislation of that period, was very great. Unless history lies, it was engaged in a good many crooked transactions, beginning with obtaining its charter by bribery in the Pennsylvania Legislature.