Page:The Tulip Mania.djvu/4

746 flat, tulips were unsalable, and Semper Augustuses were plenty at $120 each. A refused to take the flowers or pay the difference of $14,800. Defaulters became common through all Holland. Every body had bulbs and nobody had money. The most prudent had sold out in time and invested their profits in English funds. Many substantial merchants were, however, reduced to beggary.

When the financial panic had somewhat subsided, the tulip-holders in the several towns and cities held public meetings to restore public credit. Deputies were sent from all parts of Holland to Amsterdam to concert with the ministry; for a whole nation was affected. Government refused to interfere, and advised the tulip-sellers to settle among themselves. But complaints rose high, and the meetings became of a stormy character. At last it was agreed, after much bickering and ill-will, by all the deputies assembled at Amsterdam that contracts made in the height of the mania, or prior to November, 1636, should be declared null and void, and that all after that date should be released on payment of ten percent. But this decision only gave satisfaction to those whom it relieved. Those who had tulips on hand which they had sold at high prices, but had not delivered, became greatly discontented. Tulips worth at one time $2400 now sold at $200, so that one-tenth was more than they were worth. Again the whole matter was referred to government, and again government refused to interfere. Those who were unlucky enough to have a large stock of tulips on hand at the time of the fall were left to bear their own loss. But the commerce of the country received a shock from which it took years to recover.

The example of the Dutch was, to some extent, imitated in England. In 1636 tulips were publicly sold on the London Exchange, while in Paris jobbers strove in vain to create a tulip mania. They only succeeded in bringing these flowers into great favor, a favor they still retain, after a lapse of two centuries. But the Dutch are to-day prouder of their tulips and their tulip beds than any other nation. In England they are still highly valued, and a tulip will produce more money than an oak. In 1800 rare bulbs sold for $75; and from that time the mania began to spread, so that in 1835 a tulip of the Miss Fanny Kemble species sold at public auction for $370. The principal horticulturist in England has on his catalogue tulips labeled at $1000 each; but this is an exception. The prices in England today for the best kinds are from $25 to $75, according to the rarity of the species.