The companies floated in 1882 and in the three following years were not very numerous, and their capital was insignificant as compared with the capital of those that followed: yet a very marked impulse towards progress was already perceptible, as much in numbers as in capital. Thus the sum of 10 million piastres, the amount of the nominal capital declared by the limited companies in 1882, rose to nearly 13 millions in 1885. But as the fever of speculation and affairs grew higher and ever higher, thanks to the aid of the credit too liberally granted by the banks, whether mortgage or money-lending banks or otherwise, and as at the same time all the paper thrown upon the market was immediately absorbed, to the great profit of those who issued it, the limited company followed the upward march, although this movement did not always correspond with the idea of progress. Thus we see with surprise that from 13 millions of piastres (paper) in 1885, the capital of the companies rises to 34 millions in 1886, to 95 millions in 1887, to 196 millions in 1888, and in 1889 to 378 millions; and in these two latter years the fever has reached the period of greatest danger. In 1890 the economic-financial crisis, long delayed by artificial means, burst over the country with terrible force, and a revolution broke out simultaneously. Under the weight of this double disaster the banking houses tottered on their foundations, soon to fall in ruin; credit, personal or secured, vanished absolutely; the paper currency, already depreciated, fell to a still lower value; industry and commerce were arrested in their progress, and the whirligig of speculation, which had so far gone merrily but giddily round, came to an abrupt standstill. As a natural reaction, the formation of companies, which speculation had stimulated to excess, was stricken with an almost complete paralysis; so that we see the capital of these companies, which in 1889 had risen to 378 millions of piastres, fall in 1890 to 190 millions, and finally, in 1891, to the modest sum of 13 millions. These, rapidly denoted, are the salient lines of a sketch of the vicissitudes of speculation and the affairs of the capital during the last ten years; a picture which begins with the rosy tints of hope and illusion, and ends in the sombre colours of bankruptcy and ruin.