I have said it was not surprising that the public failed to observe signs of disturbance in the happy conditions that seemed to prevail before the panic. The blindness of the mass of the people to these impending catastrophes is, indeed, a marked characteristic of all similar epochs. Let us digress for a moment and consider the history of other great disturbances. In 1825 the King’s Speech as read by the Lord Chancellor dwells on “that general and increasing prosperity ... which, by the blessing of Providence, continues to pervade every part of the Kingdom.” This was in July; in December of that year the whole country was torn by a devastating financial crisis. The London _Economist_, in 1873, dwelt at length on the “astounding” progress of the Austrian States, and said, “All over the rich countries of the Danube, capital and labor are vigorously at work in the discovering and turning to profit the amazing resources which have been lying unheeded for centuries.” This was written in March; the Bourse at Vienna closed its doors May 9th, and a panic of exceptional severity was followed by long and continued depression. On December 31, 1892, R. G. Dun & Company’s _Weekly Review of Trade_ said: “The most prosperous year ever known in business closes to-day with strongly favorable indications for the future,” and yet four months later the storm burst.[65] These instances go to show how the elect may err in estimating conditions, despite the fact that in two of these three memorable crises ample warnings of an impending catastrophe were proclaimed in the stock market long before these prophecies of continued expansion were printed. In each instance the portent was ignored; in each the ultimate penalty was paid. So it was in our own great crisis of 1907, and so it will always be. There was a panic throughout the United Kingdom in April and October of 1847, yet the early response to changing conditions took place two years before, when stocks began to fail in July and August, 1845. In the year 1857 commerce and industry expanded throughout America in increasing volume up to the very eve of the August crisis, yet the stock market in the summer of the preceding year gave clear warning of what was to occur. One year before the panic of 1873 a similar “slump” foretold what was coming, and the same was true of the year preceding the panic of ’93.[66] Previous to the last-mentioned crisis stocks began to fall, with unmistakable emphasis, early in 1892. Of seventeen of the most active, five reached their maximum price in January, 1892, three in February, four in March, two--Lake Shore and Michigan Central--in April. And as we have seen, identical preliminary warnings developed on the Stock Exchange from one year to six months before the last great panic of 1907.[67]