Our treatment of these people was not good business in the general
sense. We could have put them all off the floor of the Exchange
and to a small degree it would have been to our advantage to do so,
but they had our sympathy in their trouble and we could afford to
lose the money.

The weeks flew by and we were approaching the end of April. The
discount on future deliveries was now enormous. In London (pounds)167 was
bid daily for spot and we were selling futures at (pounds)50 discount.
Under normal conditions futures should be at a slight premium over
spot.

In London in 1888 the last business day of April was on Friday; I
think it was the 29th. Saturday the market was closed, and as Monday
was a holiday, the first business day of May was on Tuesday.

Just before the gavel fell at the London Exchange at four o'clock
on Friday, (pounds)167 was bid for spot and the syndicate ceased buying.
On the curb, five minutes later, there were sellers, but no buyers,
at (pounds)135; but this price was not official. The last official price
was (pounds)167. On Tuesday morning the first offer to sell spot was at
(pounds)93 and the market had collapsed.

The losses were frightful. On the last day of April and on the first
two or three days of May we made all of our April and part of our
May deliveries on contracts. The differences between the contract
prices and the market on those deliveries amounted to three hundred
thousand dollars and we had thousands of tons yet to be delivered
over the summer and fall months. Fortunately the losses fell upon