In the spring of 1866 a catastrophe far beyond the mercantile panics ...

In the spring of 1866 a catastrophe far beyond the mercantile panics of 1847 and 1857 fell on the City.

The failure of Overend and Gurney, in its magnitude, and in its social consequences recalled rather the disasters of 1825. The new system of Limited Liability had brought into the area of speculative finance thousands of quiet-living families who had hitherto been satisfied with the Funds or a few well-established Railways or Foreign Loans.

They were now the chief sufferers, and the contraction of their expenditure, and the loss of their confidence weighed on the country for years. It seemed as if the resiliency of old days had gone, as if we were moving from our apogee, yielding, as Cobden had foreseen, to the larger resources of America,' yielding, too, to the higher efficiency of the Germans.