The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1851-05-09
lconnr,rosDEscE OF the arrupLIc.l
New YoRx. NAV 6, 1855

i lSohhksfoNDENCE OF THE REPUBLIC
New York, May 6, 1851.
The spirit OF spec ulation is capricious and
Certain rs the wind; and although IL must be in
huenced by natural causes like all other things,
yet they subtle and often apparently remote,
that they elude the observation Of tho most expo
rienced and keen hted of calculators. For some
| reason or other which ii would require longer
| head than mine to fathom, state Of quictude,
| amounting almost to stagnation, exists in Wall
street, and in that part of our community general
ly who indulge in speculative movements, whether
of finance politics The active part of our popu-
lation appear to be INDUCING in Sabbath Of rest
Probably this may be owing to the great num-
Der of our entcrprising people who have either
gone already to the great exhibition, are putting
their affairs in order preparatory to their departure
for the great show in London. The arrival Of the
Georgia this morning, with bright and cheering
news from the auriferous regions, and with a
freight of nearly million and half OF gold, hard
ly created sensible emotion; the stock market
showed the effect Of the sudden addition of large
an amount to our specie basis; but it was slight
and transitory. Stocks advanced trife in the
morning, but fell off again in the afternoon.
Every thing, at present, gives indication of quiet
summer. Money is said to be exceedingly
abundant, and difficult of investment to secure le
gal interest; yet nearly all city banks have do
clared five per cent. semi-annual dividcnds-but
stocks do not rise under This prosperous condition
of affairs. There is kind of business, however,
which was never more active in New York than at
this time, or in which great an amount of capt.
tai has been invested, and that is the business Of
house and ship building. Our houses and ships.
shops and steamboats,, hotels and public halls, have
| 30 increased in magnitude and magnifcence, there
hardly seems room for any advancement from the
extravagant height to which we have reached.
Merchants who own fine ships, do business in mag
| nificent warehouses, and worship in splendid
churches, must live in mansions to correspond, and
travel in steamboats, which reproduce the luxuri-
| Gus comforts to which they are accustomed at
| home. Every vestigo of the littleness and mean
of our ancestors is fast disappearing from our
city; even tho poor longer live in small and in
convenient tcnements. Monster buildings, to ac-
commodate three or four hundred families, which
arc we'll built, and magnificent in their proportions
at least, have taken the place OF the tumble down
old rookerics in which poverty used to hide itself
One OF these immense houses has lately boon fin
ished in Cherry street, the most denscly packed
quarter of the city, which contains separate apart
ments for four hundred and fifty families; it is
hundred and ninety feet in depth, five stories high,
and thirty feet front. 1t was only completed last
month, and is already packed full of human be-
ings, the number Of inhabitants being not much
under thousand. On the corner Of Wall and
William streets 10 block of substantial brick and
granite buildings, which were erected about fifteen
years since, and would stand dozen centuries
if left alone; but the tenants have all moved out and
the process of demolishing the walls has already
been begun preparatory to erecting block Of more
elegant spacious, and fashionable buildings for the
accommodation of bankers, brokers, and insurance
Offices. On the corner of Wall street and Broad.
way similar work is going on; and even in quiet
old aristocratic Park Place private dwellings, are
in the process of demolition to be replaced by store
warehouses for the accommodation of silk-job-
bers. Fifteen years ago there was not Wholesale
dry goods store west Of Broadway, and now the
greater part of our dry goods jobbsrs have emil
grated TO that part Of the city Many of the stores
recently erected in these new business localities
may be called, without any extravaganza Of cx-
precision, magnificent; they have richly decorated
fronts of elegant design, carved out of solid free
stone, and lighted by immense windows of plate
glass. II seems to be debasing Of art to call in
her aid 10 ornament temple for the sale Of cali
But it is better than that she should squan-
der all her to bsautfy the palace Of ty-
rant, temple ofsupcrstition, as in the olden time
The order of things hurts the feelings of such
aesthetic writers the author Of the Seven Lamps
OF Architecture, but our merchants ma IT pronta-
BILE in business view, and that settles the question
handsome front 10 store il rather costly, but
| a profitable method of advertising; and, in the
competition now going on to Guido each other in
elegance, tho business part of New York is assum-
| ing tho character of city of palaces.
| After most dishcartening and drenching cold
rain, the weather has cleared of bright, sunny, and
exhilarating. and our religious visitors will pro-
badly have a pleasant anniversary week, notwith
standing the dismal beginning Of Sunday.
The first auction sale Of tickets for Jenny's fare
we'll concert took place this morning, and nearly a
thousand were sold At premiums ranging from
twenty live to seventy five per cent. She gives her
fret concert tomorrow night at Castle Garden.
The telegraph, fear, has put end to the pro-
fcssion Of the regular newspaper correspondent il
tells every thing, although rarely correctly, and
hardly lucidly; but il tells enough to take of
the wire edge from all the news that might be pu,
into letter, if the writer had not the uncomforta-
BILE consciousness Of having been anticipated by
that rapid eonveyancer of glad aud i'll tdings, and
to the whole tribe of letter writers it is undeni
able ncwB-ance. However, now and then an event
transpres which even Geographic operators do moi
get hold of, and may sometimes send you an item
Of actual news, but at present have none.