The Americans are greatly excited by visions of coming prosperity.
Their war with Spain is over, the crops of the past year have been very good, the volume of their trade, especially in metals, is enlarging, they think the "silver craze" is over, and their accustomed optimism has increased by several degrees. They are accordingly thronging to the Stock Exchanges to buy and sell shares. The brokers are wild with excitement, solid shares have risen greatly, in some cases 20 per cent., and "wild-cat shares,"' shares that may pay but don't, rise and fall in a style which the newspapers can hardly record. All who deal in this centre, that is, perhaps 10 per cent. of the whole population, are having, as they admit, "a good big gamble," and being Americans, who do not care much when they are ruined, are enjoying themselves mightily. These " booms " are periodic in America, and, as we have said elsewhere, we should like to know more accurately what their effect on the national character is. So far as we can see, their principal effect is to increase the national sanguine- ness; but there must be another side. No typical American ever fears any result of his own actions, but yet there are few typical Americana without some look of care.
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