. The history of Springfield in Massachusetts, for the young; being also in some part the history of other towns and cities in the county of Hampden. ing soldier foundnothing in his hands with which to pay, except the now almost worthless paper. The former priceof a yoke of oxen would scarce buythree mugs of cider; and if a manhad borrowed a hundred dollars, hemust now get four thousand dollars,in paper money to make it good. Thisfarmer, pictured in an old broadside,The Looking glass for 1787, hasfilled a bag with paper money andeven then has scarcely enough topay his taxes. When things came t
. The history of Springfield in Massachusetts, for the young; being also in some part the history of other towns and cities in the county of Hampden. ing soldier foundnothing in his hands with which to pay, except the now almost worthless paper. The former priceof a yoke of oxen would scarce buythree mugs of cider; and if a manhad borrowed a hundred dollars, hemust now get four thousand dollars,in paper money to make it good. Thisfarmer, pictured in an old broadside,The Looking glass for 1787, hasfilled a bag with paper money andeven then has scarcely enough topay his taxes. When things came to this passeverybody was alarmed for the , of course, came very muchto a standstill and it was hard to sell anything with whichto pay anybody. People to whom debts were due began tocollect them. If the debtor could not pay he was broughtbefore the court and his farm or personal property was orderedto be sold to raise the money, and when nobody wanted tobuy nothing would bring its real value. The debtor wasruined and under the old law of imprisonment for debt mighthave to go to jail. Thus it came to pass that a sense of distress,. SHAYS REBELLION 105 suffering and alarm overspread Massachusetts and involveda considerable portion of the population. The large portionof the people who were not so greatly troubled might havedone more to make things better. They might have passedcertain laws which would have tided over the difficulties fora time till the cause was removed; but they were not wiseenough to do so. The result was that here and there people began to consulttogether to see what they could do. All the danger was com-ing through the courts by the ordering of the collection ofdebts, so the malcontents decided to prevent the sitting ofthe courts. This was, of course, a high-handed courts had been established by the people of Massachu-setts for the purpose of doing justice between man and manand they tried hard to do so. The judges were not respons
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