have you a
string?"

"No, boss, what's de matter?"

"I have broken the shaft of my carriage," said the Justice.

"Yas, sir, I guess you is, boss. Is you got a knife? If you is, I
think I can fix it for you."

Taking the knife, he jumped the fence and cut withes from a sapling,
with which he lashed a lath to the shaft.

"I guess da'll git you home, boss."

"That's a good job," said the Judge; "why didn't I think of that?"

The boy replied: "I don't know, sir, 'cept some folks know more than
others."

That boy did know more than the Chief Justice of the United States
about mending a broken shaft. I think I know a thing or two about
panics which Mr. Whitney did not seem to have learned. Let me give you
two causes for panics. They are not all but they rank with Mr.
Whitney's.

First, the extravagance of the people. When times are good and money
plentiful, people are extravagant. They buy everything and pay
enormous prices. A horse, Axtell, brings his owner one hundred and
five thousand dollars; a two-year-old colt, Arion, one hundred and
twenty-five thousand. A town site is located in a barren waste and
lots sell at ten to one hundred dollars a front foot. All kinds of
wildcat schemes are promoted, and the people bite at the bait. An era
of extravagance is on and "sight unseen" investments are made. Several
years ago my brother said to me: "Are you going West soon, as far as
Kansas City?" When I replied that I was he said: "I have never been in
that city but I have two lots there I wish you would look at and
ascertain their value." He advised me to call on a certain real estate
agent, who would show me the lots. When I called on the agent a little
while later, he informed me the lots could not be seen until a dry
spell took off the water. Two lots my brother never saw and never
sold; decidedly "watered stock."

A man with a thousand dollars buys a five thousand dollar lot. He
knows he can't pay for it, but there's a boom and he expects to sell
for six thousand before the second payment is due. He doesn't sell.
When he can't sell he goes to the bank to borrow money to make the
payment; he finds there many more in the same condition as himself.
The banks see the trouble coming and will not loan. When the banks
refuse to loan the depositors get scared and take their money out of
the bank. During that great panic in the nineties three hundred
millions of dollars were taken out of circulation within four months
by