I expect the school mistress will run away with that fellow yet, says a third, (she ran away once herself.) And before the week is out, the whole neighborhood is in a panic, for fear the school mistress should run away, and their dear daughters be corrupted, by her example—while the innocent subject of their fears is attending to her duties, all unconscious of the commotion she has occasioned.
PANICS AND PANIC MAKERS.
In great commercial cities, a panic is a different thing, and first indicates its approach in a different way. The subjects to which it generally points, are politics, and money, chiefly the latter, and never the first, except as it may have a bearing on the last. Like great and pestilent diseases, it generally has premonitory symptoms, which commonly exhibit themselves in plethora, and a wasteful indulgence in luxury. And like those diseases also, it never attacks or alarms those of regular habits, and an equal mode of living. In the city there are regular panic makers! some of them work on their own account, as Donald said he fought, when it was found that he had killed more of his own clan, than of their enemies—and some of them work for hire, as the penny-a-liners do, in fabricating marvellous stories; and hence the opportunity and inducement for making panics in the city, far exceed those in the country.
Political panics, and money panics, are like electric bodies, one is positively charged, the other negatively, and the effect of this kind is, that when they approach each other, they produce an explosion, like the breaking of the Banks, &c. These are properly termed compound. A simple panic is more harmless, and like the Simoon, if a man can stand still, and hold his breath, it will pass by without harming him.
There is also another kind, called natural panics. These are such as sometimes happen in churches, theatres, &c.—and, although they have nothing to do with the subject about which I am writing, yet a description of one of them may aptly illustrate the reasonableness of the others.
NATURAL PANICS—A RUSH.
When I was a young man, I went to a popular lecture in an old wooden church, which was very much crowded. During the service, as it appeared afterwards, some boys without, threw a handful of small gravel stones against the clap-boarding of the house, which made such a rattling, that a general rush took place, and the church was tenantless in less than a minute. Imagination pictured to some the tumbling walls. The noise of the rush, stunned every one. Some smashed the windows, and leaped to the ground, others, and some of them females, impatient to reach the door, and as they supposed a place of greater safety, strode over the heads of the dense crowd, making the most grotesque figures imaginable. Some were trodden down, but none were killed; and when all were safely out, with the exception of crushed hats, torn shirts, sore bones, and lost reticules, the enquiry began to be made, what has happened? I don’t know says one. Did you see any thing? asked another? No—did you? No—Nor I, said a fourth, and a fifth—and when all were satisfied that nothing had really happened, except a fright, they began, one by one, to approach the house again, and cautiously peeping in at the door, lest the walls might suddenly tumble about their heads, they saw the light burning brightly, and the honest clergyman sitting in his desk, the only man in the house, convulsed with laughter, at the fright of his late audience.
And so, when a panic comes in Wall-street, if any man will take a position, a little above the heads of the multitude, where he can see their folly, he may safely enjoy a hearty laugh, instead of suffering a fright.
A money panic, in the city, sometimes begins with a mere question of doubt, as, what do you think of the condition of the banks? and this question, handed from one to another, assumes new shapes, and gathers strength and importance as it flies.
A MONEY PANIC.