Thus, like the sudden and unexpected shifting of a dream, the Committee of Five who so recently had almost despaired of fixing a date for reopening the Exchange, found the Exchange open and themselves a memory of the past. The abruptness of their exit was tempered, however, in the following manner. As above described, the reopening was accompanied by the restraint of certain arbitrary minimum prices below which securities could not be sold. It was felt that, owing to the critical and indecisive state of the war, there was a continuing possibility of some news that might renew a crisis in the market. While this possibility lasted the maintenance of minimum prices furnished an automatic check upon sudden panic which would avoid raising the question of a second closing of the Exchange. In order to regulate these minimum prices and so change them from time to time as to keep in accord with normal supply and demand, it was necessary to appoint a Committee, and the original Five were continued in office with this sole regulative power. As bonds were similarly restricted, the Committee of Three also lingered on the scene for the same purpose. The two Committees performed this unusual function up to the first of April, 1915, when the very marked improvement in conditions led to the abandonment of this last vestige of artificial restraint. It is instructive, as showing the workings of some minds, that although the Committee of Five, in its capacity of regulator of minimum prices, issued a public statement that they were under no circumstances going to valorize or sustain prices but merely expected to maintain a safeguard against some unforeseen shock to confidence, many people wrote them urgent letters asking that in certain properties a minimum should be maintained which would render selling impossible. It was quite futile to try to disabuse some of these correspondents of the idea that no decline should be allowed in properties that they were interested in. * * * * *