Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-08-11
Dell Times.

The people of cities and villages, are now
seeing what are distinguished as Hard Times.
There is little trade, because the last years
crop is substantially eaten up, aud very little
OF this years is yet ready for market The
farmers are busy with their crops the coun-
try merchants are working off their stock and
trying to scrape together the means of meeting
their fall payments; manufacturers and arti-
sans find small demands for their wares, and
are discharging hands so as to reduce their
production; the city merchant is doing little
but laying i'll and arranging his goods for the
fall trade; the courts are mainly in vacation,
and the lawyers off at the Springs or in the
woods; the wealthy (real or suppositions) are
inhaling Lair at Newport, Nahant or Cape
May; SO our hotels are empty, the railroad
trains running with few passengers; our news
papers bare of refreshments, and Broadway
far from crowded at the hours when its tide
swells highest. /" The world is out of town
at present; and those whom memorable Ne
cessity dooms to remain here, are losing money
by their business, which they yet cannot susr
pend. July and August are usually dull
months in our Atlantic cities; but this year
they are far duller than they have been since
1887. Even our people rambling by the sea-
shore, or clambering over the mountains par
take Of the general collapse: they are far less
numerous than last year, and OF those on the
wing two thirds are short of cash, and must
make dimes serve where they lavished dollars
last year. They make no noise about it, but
actions, more eloquent than words, proclaim
that they, like the rest of us, are hard up.
Yet all this approaches its termination
Next month, Wheat and Flour will come for
ward followed in due time by Corn and Cot
ton, Pork and Sugar; next month, our wan
derers will return to relight their hearth fires,
rendered grateful by the cool evening air, and
will meet their customers, the country mer-
chants, with elasticity in their steps, and
health in their slightly bronzed faces. Some
of our merchants will have broken meantime,
and will have cut the City henceforth for po-
tato- growing on Lake Superior, or lumber
saving on the Minnesota; but the great ma
jority Of them will be back, poorer perhaps,
and more circumspect in their outgoes, but
prepared to play the dizzy game of trade as
sanguinely as ever.
For the world will not come to its end one
whit the sooner because of dull season. I'm
poyerished as so many are, their are still laces
and barages, Cashmere shawls, and diamond
necklaces, champagne and game suppers, with
people able and willing to pay for them. And,
III spite OF the devastating rains of April, the
lateness OF the Spring, and the destructive
drouth OF the Summer-so pervading that we
estimate the losses from this source, in our
State alone at Twenty, and in the Union al
One Hundred Millions of Dollars-there is yet
fair crop secured or on the ground-heavy
in the North West, fair in the South and
South West, and about middling in the Cen
ter and East. Our own state has suffered Sc
verely, especially i'll the north eastern Coun-
ties; perhaps notmuch less in the southwest;
yet III the average we shall have middling