Those having a precarious existence or value.
1838. About four hundred Irishmen working on the Canal took offence at being paid in “Wild-Cat” money, instead of Illinois.—The Jeffersonian, Albany, April 14, p. 72.
1838. We shall have Orono bills, Exchange bills, and Lumbermen’s bills, and Wild-cat bills, that nobody knows who the father or the maker is.—Letter to the same, Sept. 15, p. 244.
1839. I would not tax your kindness by accepting of Illinois or wild-cat paper bills, they being on a par with each other.—Sol. Smith, ‘Autobiography,’ p. 144 (1868).
1840. Some thirty banks or more were the fungous growth of the new political hot-bed; and many of these were of course without a “local habitation,” though they might boast the “name,” it may be, of some part of the deep woods, where the wild cat had hitherto been the most formidable foe to the unwary and defenceless. Hence the celebrated name “Wild Cat,” justified fully by the course of these cunning and stealthy bloodsuckers; more fatal in their treacherous spring than ever was their forest prototype.—Mrs. Kirkland, ‘A New Home,’ p. 220.
1841. Mr. Buchanan: The bills of some Wild Cat bank in Michigan. That, I think, is the name of this sort of money. Mr. Benton, across: Red Dog. Mr. Buchanan: I never heard it called Red Dog; but that may be the proper name.—U.S. Senate, Sept. 2: Cong. Globe, p. 343, App.
1842. Does he not know that it is the old, worn out, used up, dead and gone slang upon which every red dog, wild cat, owl creek, coon box, and Cairo swindling shop obtained their charters?—Mr. Benton in the Senate, Jan. 13: id., p. 65, App.
1842. We took our pay in wild-cat money, that turned to waste paper before we got it off our hands.—Mrs. Kirkland, ‘Forest Life,’ i. 111.
1847. What did they do? Set up a great Government bank—a regular wild-cat—a full-grown undeniable Wolverine wild cat; and, to make the resemblance perfect, they propose to put upon its bills “real estate pledged.”—Mr. Root of Ohio, House of Repr., Feb. 5: Cong. Globe, p. 332.
1853. We are glad to see gold coming West, and hope it will continue to come, and take the place of “Wild-cat” shinplasters.—Daily Morning Herald, St. Louis, Feb. 5.
1853. It will be remembered that in 1837–8 Michigan was overrun with “wild-cat” banks, the notes of which were sent all over the west to be circulated.—Id., Feb. 14.
1853. All the “individual issues,” “wild-cat rags,” “red dogs,” “plank road,” “Illinois river,” and all other fraudulent and swindling shinplaster notes should be driven from the city.—Id., Feb. 18.
1856. The ‘dollir noat’ inclosed by Mr. Grunter was on a wild-cat bank, broken and ‘busted up’ so high, the crows could n’t fly to it!—Knick. Mag., xlviii. 100 (July).
1858. Shall Col. Eldridge have control of the court-house fund, on which to start his Wild-cat Bank, whose charter makes paper money a legal tender?—Herald of Freedom, Lawrence, Kas., April 3.
1858. We are over-run with a wild-cat currency from all God’s creation, and every day we notice batches of new issues scattered amongst us.—Baltimore Sun, July 8 (Bartlett).
1862. These insurance companies break with as much facility as wild-cat banks used to break.—Mr. Lazarus W. Powell of Kentucky, U.S. Senate, May 24: Cong. Globe, p. 2338/1.
1862. Mr. Kellogg of Illinois. “When the gentleman from Rhode Island speaks of banks and bankers, I ask him where is the Central Bank of Rhode Island?—a specimen article of wild-cat banks.” Mr. Sheffield. “The Governor of Illinois got control of it, put it into his pocket, and carried it off.” (Laughter).—House of Repr., Feb. 6: id., p. 680/2.
1863. Governor Matteson, for several years, was king of the so-called “wild cats”; he owned stock-banks in all directions, and guided them as easily as a well-skilled boy manages a kite.—Mr. John A. Gurley of Ohio, House of Repr., Jan. 15: Cong. Globe, p. 342/3.
[This was Joel A. Matteson of Illinois, who became governor in 1852. He died in his 75th year in Jan. 1883.]
1881. Walsh next turned up in Washington as a wildcat banker.—N.Y. Sun, Nov. 16.
1909. [The mining engineer] has rendered valuable service to the public by lessening the opportunities of the wild-cat mining promoter, who flourished successfully in the old days of boom mining camps. The wild-catter would have few victims if [they] had the common-sense foresight to appeal to the engineer.—N.Y. Evening Post, Feb. 22.
1909. See BUCKET-SHOP.
