THE TULIP MARTS OF HOLLAND. And the first which we mention is, the mania for dealing in Tulips, which engrossed even so calm and sedate a people as the Dutch, about two centuries ago. It began about the year 1634, and, like a violent epidemic, it seized upon all classes of the community, leading to disasters and misery such as the records of commerce, or of bankruptcies, can scarcely parallel. In their "haste to be rich," one of the most temperate and self-possessed of all the nations of Europe rushed upon a ruin which affected thousands, and plunged multitudes into penury for life. In the year 1636, Tulip Marts had been established at Amsterdam, at Rotterdam, Haarlem, Leyden, and other towns in Holland.[21] As happens in all gambling transactions many were speedily enriched. Their fortunes, it has been said, rose like exhalations from the earth, but in many cases they vanished as speedily. Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maid-servants, even chimney sweeps--all caught the fever for tulips and gold. Houses and lands were either sold for what they would bring in the market, or pledged, and bartered, that men might get possession of the coveted bulb or blossom. Amid these things, the prices of food, and other necessaries of life, rose to an unprecedented extent; and so complex, so ramified and pervasive did the tulip trade become, that special laws were passed to regulate it; special functionaries were appointed to direct it; in a word, amid the activities of Holland, then perhaps the foremost nation in the commercial world, a frail, ephemeral flower became literally the representative of man's wealth, or the object on which the hearts of thousands doated. THE SHADOW GRASPED.