Show t LOOKED MUCH j LIKE A PANIC Dealers Generally However Had Prepared Themselves Them-selves For It SEVERAL FIRMS FAIL I Prices Tumble and Banks Call In Their Loans New York Banks Are All lUgit and Are Ready to Face Any Emeri gene That May Ari e > Yet the Situation is Regarded as Serious Though i i Likely to Be Allayed Very Soon Humor of the Alleged Loan Ridiculed J NEW YORK Dec 20This was a day of excitement on Wall street and a matters for a time bore the resem blance of a panic But this condition of affairs had not been unexpected and in a measure the dealers had measre daers hd prepared themselves Before the opening of business on 01 the stock exchange it was announced that 3400000 in gold would be sent out of the country and later in the day the export of 600000 was announced This together with the cable advices j from London announcing extensive sales of American securities and the tenor of the war news from all I frm al quarters quar-ters was responsible for the general feeling of uneasiness that prevailed even early in the day The spirit of the market was to sell and in the big exchanges this was done to an extent rarely before surpassed In tha stock exchange the sales for the day were 775760 shares New York Central St Paul L N Wabash Missouri Kansas Texas pfd Read ing Atchison Illinois Central and Canadian Pacific were the principal sufferers by their international listing As a result of tho decline in stocks the failure of a number of firms was announced on the exchange a follows Nicholas Fotheringham Co Samuel Sands Co D Neufville Co and A Feldman B Felton With the fall in prices the banks called in all their loans thus adding to the complications of the situation Much money was loaned at very high interest to carry stocks and in many instances renewals would be made under un-der no conditions whatever As Jthe selling movement continued right up to the closing hour with slight and but momentary reactions the effect was demoralizing de-moralizing i1 the extreme Money was loaned on call late in the afternoon at as high as 80 per cent and most loans were marked up to 15 per cent by the banks Frederick D Tappan president of the Gallatin national bank chairman of the clearing house loan committee during the last panic said today that at the present time the New York banks are all right and are ready to face any emergency that may arise He added that the surplus reserve amounted amount-ed to 20000000 and that therefore there was no cause for alarm on the score of money Mr Tappan pointed out however that while these conditions condi-tions now prevail the situation is still a serious one though likely to be allayed al-layed soon The rumor that the United States is endeavoring to secure a loan of S5000000 on them continent is ridiculed ridi-culed generally Addison Cammack the veteran operator oper-ator said today The stock market seems to indicate a bad state of affairs af-fairs and the situation is i the warrant for every man taking care of his holdIngs hold-Ings Isaac Seligman of the banking firm of J W Seligman said Our gold reserve is low and the heavy withdrawals withdraw-als may necessitate the issue of new bonds He said further that he did not believe be-lieve that any concerted action was being be-ing taken by foreign capitalists to withdraw credits |