Daily evening star. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1852-1854, 1853-10-07
THE TIMES.


Notwithstanding the existing stringen-
cy of the money market, caused by an in
considerable arrangement in commercial
affairs, we remember no previous time
when the business interests of the United
States were ever so thriving. No branch
of real American manufactures, agricul-
ture or trades, were ever better remuner
ated than at present e; and never before,
during season of universal prosperity,
was less business done on an unsound
credit basis, we take it. How long is
this to be the case! Are we wiser and
more prudent than those who did business
in the United States from fifteen to twen-
ty-five years ago? 1t strikes us that we
are; that the bitter experience of 1887
has permanently superinduced an al
most entire change in the terms on
which business is done everywhere among
us. In our own city, the system of cred
iting among the retailers now well-nigh
precludes the possibility of per centage
of losses, which might in the end Sc
riously embarrass the trader. To fail
in these times in New York, or any other
large mercantile city in the Union, is to
loose caste, as the breaking merchant did
not loose his character in times past. In
Mississippi there is less dealing on credit
than almost any where else in the Union,
ION the principle that burnt children
dread the fire, we presume.) Indeed,
there are no more thrifty and accumu-
lating people in the land just now, than
the farmers, planters and mechanics of
that State, as strange as it may appear
to those who remember them only through
Brandon and Union bank "reminiscences.
The aecruing surplus or profits of all
seem to be invested much more prudently
than heretofore. That is-than during
the high times preceding the last general
crash. Diamonds and faro are by no
means as much in vogue as in 1887, hav-
ing given place to bricks and mortar,
railroads, and country boxes for city peo-
ple-to expenditures for substantial and
Understanding purposes. Under these
circumstances, we feel no alarm at the in
crease in prices of everything, as it were.
Those who speculate too deeply will
and should suffer; but where ten men
gambled in business fifteen years ago,
hardly one trades after the same fashion
now. The bugbear Of foreign debt is
no longer feared, because money borrowed
from abroad, in these days, is almost uni
versally returning profits to the borrower
such as serve to dissipate the error, that it
is injurious to the Industrious, skilled and
independent business man to employ cap
ital in his trade at cost of six per cent,
which yields him in gross profits all in
terest of from twelve to twenty per cent.
per annum. We repeat, we cannot vet
perceive the first sign of unsoundness in
the current condition of the general bust
ness of the country, not even in the ruling
prices of breadstuffs. If there should
be an European war. they must go even
higher. If not, the now clearly-ascer-
tanned failure Of European crops general
ly, and the cutting off of the usual supply
from the Black sea by the political condi-
ton of the countries tributary to it, it
strikes us, absolutely preclude the posi-
bility of any considerable decline in
prices, until their affairs shall have been
settled and another harvest shall have
been secured.