Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1881 — Anecdote of the Dutch Tulip Mania. [ARTICLE]

Anecdote of the Dutch Tulip Mania.

Many anecdotes are related of the .tulip mania. A Dutch merchant, who prided himself qn hisrere tulips, was informed by a sailor of the,arrival of a valuable cargo of merchandise, and the merchant rewarded the sailor for the pews by presenting him a fine red herring for hjs breakfast. The sailor had been absent from the country, add knew no( of the mania for tulips. Seeing What he supposed was an onion out of place among silks and satins he put it In his pocket. It was a tulip bulb worth <I,OOO. The precious bulb was soon missed, and the whole establishment was in an uproar of search. Finally the sailor was thought of. The merchant rushed to the quay, where he found the sailor eating the last morsel of the bulb as a rylfib |q his herring in the belief that |t was an onioq. ft Is recorded that an English traveler. whp wasan amateur botanist, while in the conservatory of a Dutohman, picked .up a costly tulip root, and, being ignorant of its quality, took out his pocket knife, peeled off its coats, and cut it in two to make experiments upon it. When the Dutchman came in the Englishman made some learned remarks on the singular

appearance of the unknown bulb, which he supposed was an extraordinary onion. “Hundert tousand duyaels,” said the horrified Dutchman, “its an Admiral Vander Eyck!” *•* Thank you,” said the Englishman, taking out his note book to make a memorandum, “are these admirals common in your country?” “Death and the devil,” said the Dutchman, seizing the astonished botanist by the collar; “come before the syndic and you shall see.” The Englishman was forcibly taken through the streete, followed by a mob, and, when brought before the magistrate, learned to nis consternation that the bulb which he had cut up was worth $1.600. He was lodged in prison till he found security for the payment. Marte for the sale of tulips were opened in 1636 on the stock exchange of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and in all the principal places in Holland. The gambling mania of speculating in tulips ran wild throughout Holland. Jobbers bought for a rise or fall in tulip stocks, and many grew suddenly rich by enormous increase in prices. The tulip marts were crowded, and everyone imagined that the passion for tulips would last forever, and that the world would send to Holland and pay any prices asked. Everybody dabbled in tulips, and people converted their property into cash and invested in tulips. Mackay says that “foreigners became smitten with the same frenzy, and money poured into Holland from all directions. The prices of the necessaries of life rose again by degrees; houses and lands, horses and carriages, and luxuries of every sort rose in value with them, and for some months Holland seemed the very ante chamber of Plutus.” The mania spread in England, and tulips were publicly sold fn the London exchange. Paris also was bitten by the tulip mania. In England tulips were catalogued at SI,OOO.