ys ruined many of the members. They,
like card houses in a puff of wind, brought down others; so that in one
short month the greater part of the Stock Exchange had fallen into
difficulties. The failure of principals out of doors, who had large
differences to pay, caused much of this trouble to the brokers. Men with
limited means had plunged into what they considered a certain
speculation, and when pay-day arrived and the account was against them,
they were obliged to confess their inability to scrape together the
required funds. For instance, at the time Zumalacarregui was expected to
die, a principal, a person who could not command more than L1,000,
"stood," as the Stock Exchange phrase runs, to make a "pot of money" by
the event. He speculated heavily, and had the Spanish partisan general
good-naturedly died during the account, the commercial gambler would
have certainly netted nearly L40,000. The general, however, obstinately
delayed his death till the next week, and by that time the speculator
was ruined, and all he had sold. Many of the dishonest speculators whose
names figured on the black board in 1835 had been "bulls" of Spanish
stock. When the market gave way and prices fell, the principals
attempted to put off the evil day, says a writer of the period, by
"carrying over instead of closing their accounts." The weather, however,
grew only the more stormy, and at last, when payment could no longer be
evaded, they coolly turned round, and with brazen faces refused,
although some of them were able to adjust the balances which their
luckless brokers exhibited against them. Now a broker is obliged either
to make good his principal's losses from his own pocket, or be declared
a defaulter and expelled the Stock Exchange. This rule often presses
heavily, says an authority on the subject, on honest but not
over-opulent brokers, who transact business for other persons, and
become liable if they turn out either insolvent or rogues. Brokers are
in most cases careful in the choice of principals if they speculate
largely, and often adopt the prudent and very justifiable plan of having
a certain amount of stock deposited in their "strong box" as security
before any important business is undertaken. Every principal who dabbles
in rickety stock without a certain reserve as a security is set down by
most men as little better than a swindler.

During the rumours of war which prevailed in October, 1840, shortly
before the fall of t