to $1,000,000. The official statement later
placed the liabilities at $2,157,914, and assets at $1,400,000, of which
$884,198 were secured. Within three days this failure was followed by
the suspension of Bowie Dash & Co., with liabilities estimated at
$1,400,000.

For weeks thereafter there was virtually no market. With all of these
distress holdings pressing for liquidation, buyers, as was natural, were
extremely timid. In the meantime, the import arrivals showed further
enlargement at various southern ports, as well as at New York. Total
arrivals at this port during 1881 were almost 12,400,000 pounds heavier
than for the preceding year. The growing importance of Santos as a
market factor was demonstrated by the fact that shipments from there in
1881 were 1,198,625 bags, compared with about 628,900 bags in 1876-77.
According to the best informed members of the trade at that time, the
losses sustained by the various firms that were forced to the wall
aggregated between $5,000,000 and $7,000,000.

The utterly demoralized conditions prevailing while this collapse was in
progress, and the practical elimination of a market in the true sense of
the word, furnished the principal impetus for the organization of the
New York Coffee Exchange. At that time, the Havre market was the only
one with an exchange. The local body was organized in December, 1881,
and started business in March, 1882.

_The Cable Break of 1884_

The second noteworthy movement, embracing an advance of four to four and
one-half cents and a recession of slightly more than three cents,
covered a period of about eight months shortly after the Exchange was
organized. Various local and out-of-town firms were interested in the
bulge which carried Rio coffee in this market from about seven cents in
July, 1883, up to eleven and one-half cents late in November. By the
middle of December, the price had fallen to nine and one-quarter cents,
the final break to eight and one-quarter cents occurring late in March
of the following year. At that time, there was no direct cable
communication with Brazil; and as a result of a temporary break in the
roundabout service by way of Portugal, the New York and Baltimore agents
of the Brazilian syndicate were unable to put up additional margins in
this market, and their accounts were closed out. This happened on a
Saturday; and by the following Monday, partial cable remittances arrived
and all accounts were settled in full wi