of the laboring class--went down until, at a time when prices of food,
clothing and various articles of consumption were enormous, wages were
nearly as low as at the time preceding the first issue of irredeemable
currency.

The mercantile classes at first thought themselves exempt from the
general misfortune. They were delighted at the apparent advance in
the value of the goods upon their shelves. But they soon found that,
as they increased prices to cover the inflation of currency and the
risk from fluctuation and uncertainty, purchases became less in amount
and payments less sure; a feeling of insecurity spread throughout the
country; enterprise was deadened and stagnation followed.

New issues of paper were then clamored for as more drams are demanded
by a drunkard. New issues only increased the evil; capitalists were
all the more reluctant to embark their money on such a sea of doubt.
Workmen of all sorts were more and more thrown out of employment.
Issue after issue of currency came; but no relief resulted save a
momentary stimulus, which aggravated the disease. The most ingenious
evasions of natural laws in finance which the most subtle theorists
could contrive were tried--all in vain; the most brilliant substitutes
for those laws were tried; "self-regulating" schemes,
"interconverting" schemes--all equally vain.[86] All thoughtful men
had lost confidence. All men were _waiting_; stagnation became worse
and worse. At last came the collapse and then a return, by a fearful
shock, to a state of things which presented something like certainty
of remuneration to capital and labor. Then, and not till then, came
the beginning of a new era of prosperity.

Just as dependent on the law of cause and effect was the _moral_