financial, industrial, and commercial depression that had never been equaled.
In the United States the phenomena antecedent to the crisis were enumerated at the time to be, "a rise of prices, great prosperity, large profits, high wages and strikes for higher; large importations, a railway mania, expanded credit, over-trading, over-building, and high living." The crisis began on the 17th of September, 1873, by the failure of a comparatively unimportant railway company—the New York and Oswego Midland. On the 18th, the banking-house of Jay Cooke & Co. failed. On the 19th, nineteen other banking-houses failed. Then followed a succession of bankruptcies, until in four years the mercantile failures had aggregated $775,865,000; and on January 1, 1875, the amount of American railway bonds in default amounted to $789,367,655.
The period of economic disturbance which thus began in Germany and the United States soon extended to France and Belgium; and thereafter, but with varying degrees of severity, to Great Britain (i.e., in the latter months of the succeeding year), to the other states of Europe, and ultimately to the commercial portions of almost every country. The testimony before the British Parliamentary Commission (1885–'86), however, shows that the depression in Great Britain was not at once universal; but that, on the contrary, production, employment, and profits, at such great manufacturing centers as Birmingham and Huddersfield, were above the average until 1875.
By many writers on this subject, the depression and disturbance of industry, which commenced in 1873, are regarded as having terminated in 1878–'79; but all are agreed that they recommenced, with somewhat modified conditions, and even with increased severity, in 1882–'83. A full consideration of the larger evidence which is now (1887) available would, however, seem to lead to the conclusion that there really was no termination of the abnormal course of events, the marked and definite commencement of which is assigned to 1873, but that what has been regarded as a "termination" was only an "interruption," occasioned by extraordinary causes, varying locally, and by no means universal. Thus, a failure during the years 1879, 1880, and 1881, of the cereal crops of Europe and most other countries of the world, with the exception of the United States—a failure for which, in respect to duration and extent, there had been no parallel in four centuries—occasioned a remarkable demand on the latter country for all the food-products it could supply at extraordinary prices—the exportations of wheat rising from 40,000,000 bushels in 1877 to 122,000,000 in 1879, 153,000,000 in 1880, and 150,000,000 in 1881; while the corresponding values of the amount exported rose from $47,000,000 in 1877 to $130,000,000 in 1879, $190,000,000 in 1880, and $167,000,000 in 1881. There was also a corresponding increase in the quantity and value of the American exports of other cereals, and also of
