| business. | |
'- The "World War." | |
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The retarding or precipitating influence of a good or bad condition of
agriculture upon the advent of a panic is also indicated.

The symptoms of approaching panic, generally patent to every one, are
wonderful prosperity as indicated by very numerous enterprises and
schemes of all sorts, by a rise in the price of all commodities, of
land, of houses, etc., etc., by an active request for workmen, a rise in
salaries, a lowering of interest, by the gullibility of the public, by a
general taste for speculating in order to grow rich at once, by a
growing luxury leading to excessive expenditures, a very large amount of
discounts and loans and bank notes [Footnote: Our recent banking history
has proved rather an exception to this law as far as bank notes are
concerned, because of the obviously unusual cause of sudden and enormous
calling in of government bonds, the basis of bank-note issue.] and a
very small reserve in specie and legal-tender notes and poor and
decreasing deposits.

On the other hand, the lowest point of depression following a panic is
accompanied by the converse of the symptoms just enumerated.

Bank balance sheets reflect in cold figures the result of the above
influences. Prices being high, and discounts and loans large in
proportion to deposits, and having steadily increased for years, danger
is near; further, when discounts and loans are not only large in
proportion to deposits, having increased steadily for years, and then
suddenly fallen off noticeably for a considerable time, only to increase