railroad terminus being about to be located in the neighborhood, or some great change in the avenues of trade in progress that would make it immensely valuable. Imaginary cities were bought and sold; and railroad and canal stocks, while not even the lines of improvement they pretended to represent had been surveyed, passed from hand to hand at twenty, thirty, fifty, and sometimes a hundred per cent. above their par value. Men stood looking on in wonder at this strange state of affairs, or plunged in headlong to struggle for the wealth they coveted. Nor were individuals permitted to remain the passive spectators of all that was going on around them. Daily, and almost hourly, some one, infected with the mania, would present himself, and urge, with such eloquence and seeming fairness, a participation in the vast benefits of some imposing scheme of profit, that to withstand his persuasions was almost impossible. And these individuals were so generous, too. They were not content to make fortunes themselves, but wanted every body else to take a share of the golden harvests they were reaping. If you had no cash to spare, that did not matter. Your credit was good, and your note, as an acknowledgment of the purchase, and a formulary of trade all that was wanted. To give a note of ten thousand dollars, to-day, for a piece of property that there was a fair chance of selling, in a fortnight, for twenty thousand, was, certainly, a temptation. Of course you had to sell, if you did sell, as you bought, for paper, not for cash. But that was nothing. Every body was getting rich, and, therefore, everybody was safe. There was no risk in taking a man’s note for ten or twenty thousand dollars, payable six or twelve months hence, when he was known to be worth one, two, three, or four hundred thousand.