The Sierra citizen., 1854-07-22
Saturday. Juiy IA. A854.
Trade in the Mountains.

Trade in the Mountains.
LAST Saturday was quite an epoch in
the history of Downieville; several mule
teams arrived with goods from Sacra
mento. Although the road is not yet
finished the teamsters had but little diff
Guilty on the route, and signifed their in
tention of continuing on the road during
the summer. This will make q material
change in the prices of miners supplies
and those who were loud in their com
plants of an oppressive road tax, will
find the difference deducted from their
provision bills.
Trade in the mountains is very differ.
ent from trade in the lower cities. A
cash business must be done, or the dealer
finds himself involved and ruined at the
end of the year. But it is extremely diff
dcult to do cash business. Applica-
tions are made for credit every day, by
honest, honorable men, who happen to be
engaged in some project that does not pay
at present, but of the success of which
they are very sanguine. The trader may
have some misgivings, but if he refuse,
that same man may hereafter WELD an
influence against him that may result in
the ruination of his business. Such are
the uncertainties of fortune; and it usually
happens that the applicant receives what
ever goods he asks for, and for which he
often is never able to pay.
Great quantities of goods are sold on
credit, for which the dealer hardly ever
expects to receive an equivalent; he must
therefore sell at profit which will allow
him to lose at least one fourth of the goods
trusted out; hence the prices are kept
up, and from necessity. At the close of
the business season, when the trader ex-
poets to be paid for his goods and trouble,
he finds many of his customers poorer than
they were at the beginning of the year;
and though they have the disposition to
pay they have not the means.
NO one thinks of instituting a suit at
law for the recovery of the debt, for the
costs would fall on the prosecutor, and
public opinion would not suffer the on.
preston of an honest man, whose only
crilne was poverty. So it has ever been
In the mines, and SO it always will be-
Every spring since we have been in the
mines we have heard almost every dealer
uttering his fixed determination to trust
nobody, but in the fall we have heard the
same old story Of from five to ten thousand
dollars OF bad debts outstanding, which
the dealer reviews every day with q sort
OF indifference, reiterating his determine
tlon to trust nobody in future. A couple
OF hours afterwards one of his insolvept
debtors comes in, tells him of his misfor.
tuues-,hat the aat potato is gone, the
-four sack empty, anu the wolf grinpine
at his cabin door, and the trader forrets
his resolution, the warm blood of humanity
circles quicker through his heart and the
old score runs on. How that generous
hearted man sleeps that night! He has
done good action; and while the rain
drops patter on his clapboard roof, some
thing keeps whispering that it is better
to give than to receive. But others deal
not so with him. He himself is indebted
to others, and an execution comes and
sweeps away his little store, and with a
heavy heart he shoulders his pick and
shovel and betakes him to the mines "to
make another raise This is no fancy
sketch; we have seen the same thing over
and over, but in most instances, such men
come out as they say right side up
Some OF those whom they befriended prove
fortunate, and help to raise the fallen for
tunes OF their benefactors, aud thus it goes
eon.
These are the men whom every one
wishes to succeed, and no others can. In
the early days of merchandising in tho
mountains, the trader was liberal from
necessity; for If he refused to feed the
hungry the hungry helped themselves, and
paid "at their earliest convenience" and
though these free and easy times are over.
the trader who indiscrimissately refuses to
trust, ia gradually forsaken, while some
more accommodating rival stakes the run.
We are not advocates Of the credit
system. but merely speak Of facts, as they