"Not only the financial centres of this country," say the city's natural-gas trustees in their official report for 1890, "but those of Europe were invaded with these circulars."[526] The circular was headed "Caveat Emptor." It contained twenty-four questions, and every one of the answers, except those which referred to matters of record and routine, like the date, amount, name, etc., of the bonds, was incorrect. What hurt the people of Toledo most, as it was most base and baseless, was its attack on their hitherto unquestioned credit and financial honor. Asking the question, "How does the credit of the city stand?" the circular answered: "Refunding has been going on ever since 1883. The bonded debt was greater at the beginning of 1889 than of 1888; bonds bearing interest at 8 per cent. will become due in three or four years. The mayor, in his last annual message, admits the inability of the city to pay much of these except the refunding." "Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike," the authors of this attempt to pull down an entire city managed, by the interweaving of such phrases as "ever since 1883," "bonded debt greater," "inability of the city to pay," to create by insinuation the feeling of financial distrust for which their greatest industry and ingenuity had been able to find not a particle of foundation. No modern municipality is asked or expected or desired "to pay much except the refunding." Capitalists would greatly prefer that even the refunding should not be carried on, but that the debt should run along at the original high rates of interest, which they regretfully see dwindling away. The circular failed to state that the city was borrowing money at 4 per cent. to pay off debts bearing 8 per cent. The insinuations of the circular could have been used of "the credit" of the United States, New York, Paris, London, Chicago, with the same appropriateness--with this exception, that Toledo's municipal financial credit was relatively to its resources on a sounder and more conservative basis than these much more highly financed cities. The circular did not state that the proportions of debt to population had been decreasing for many years past.[527]