The Camden weekly journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1853-1861, 1854-07-18
New York i'm 1858 and 1854.

New York i'm 1853 and 1854.
A year ago New York was the scene OF the
utmost excitement. Her hotels and b"arGlng
houses overhowed with the vast crowds gath
cred there from the ends of the earth. Her
shopkeepers of all kinds were worn down with
excess of business, and her hundred places of
amusement could not accommodate one halt
the host of strangers in the town. Extrava
gance was rampant, and sort OF fury OF ex
penditure ragged among all, to such an extent,
that every one whose business brought him in
to contact with strangers was enriched 1t was
the season preparatory to the Crystal Palace
opening-that ceremony so august in its prom.
se, but so tame in its conclusion. The world
was taken in for the time, and New York gath.
cred rich harvest from the seed then scattered.
The rage of high prices became an epidemic.
1t seized upon landlords, who advanced their
rents fifty per cent; it spread among wholesale
dealers and retailers; it attacked the cab dri-
vers and the porters; it ran through the ranks
of the large aud small manufacturers, and it
spread especially among the richer ranks OF the
community. The poor laborer by the day.
however, was compelled to work for his old
wages, though his rent, his clothing and his
food were enormously advanced. The influx
of fortune was not for him; Crystal Palace
prosperity was chiefly for the benefit of the
s.,art stockholders, the rich hotel proprie'ors,
thu merchant princes They did, indeed, gath
-r in wealth by thousands, and throughout the
summer their good fortune continued, although
the Paace itself, the chief instrument of their
prosperity, was soon pronounced bank apt.
The excessive imitation of affairs in New
York last summer was regarded as unhealthy
by all sobermiuded people. Individual for.
tunes, it is tue, were made, to an extraordlna'
ry extent, and there was a feverish excitement
among all classes that was mistaken for sound
prosperity; but it went down as rapidly as it
advanced. The last winter reduced New York
to less than its former hustle. The spring
showed il to have lost large amount Of what
has hitherto been regarded as its peculiar west
EN- trade, and the present summer is one OF un.
exampIed dulIness. Onc of its le:ding jour
-nals peaks ofthvlieteli business being overdone
and half of the establishments now tossing fa4aaRa.
ey; of boarding houses breaking up by hun
dreds for want of dodgers for the accommoda
tions hastily provided for last summers emer.
gencies. Ali the papers have complained and
still complain of the serious decline in the trade
of the city, especially with the West, and, for
the first time, Philadel phia is acknowledged to
he competitor worthy to be respected and
even to be feared in the race of commercial
prosperity.
Those who have visited New York this sea-
sun speak oi the contrast between the appear
arce of things this year aud last as remarkable.
Tie comparative dullness Of the streets, the
quiet of the hotels, the long rows of unoecupied
houses hurried up last year for the Crystal Pal
ace excitement, and the dleness in the jobbng
houses are all impressive lessons They tell
us that thousands of families have been driven
to other cities or to the far West, by the ex-
travagant rents and the high prices charged for
everything; that New York may be city for
the rich, but not fss the poor, and that that hest
element of populations hard working, hon.
est industrial class-is dwindling down to a
very small proportion of the entire mass
Their place is filled by successive arrivals Of
inexperienced, ignorant and in most cases,
wretched immigrants, who, in turn, soon lind
that their own ouly chance of success in the
new world is by further emigration.
While all these circumstances are observed
in New York, how is it in Philadelphia which
is less than hundred miles distants Even
the imitation of New York last year caused no
sensible depression here. The fall trade of
1853 was excellent Throughout the whole
winter everything went on prosperously. The
spring trade of 1854 exceeded anything ever
before known, and was only to be explained by
the decline of the trade in New York. I'm.
provements of every kind have never been so
extensive, so costly or so substantial. Enter
prise has never been 30 active. The advance
in rents and prices generally has not been ex-
travagant; the hundreds of new houses going
up constantly are filled as soon as finished t;
trade and manufactures of all kinds hursh: our
railroads are doing an unprecedented business,
and without single symptom of unhealthy or
unnatural initiation, Philadelphia may be said
to be more prosperous than she has ever been.
In the two pictures thus presented, Of the
chief American cities, the public see the advan
,ages of sound, healthy system over an exag
gerated feverish excit tement The levulsion
from last year, in New York, is calamity for
which no compensation is found in the remem.
brance of the success of that year, or the fact OF
"A few colossal fortunes sprnging from it. Here
we had no excitement, and no business that
had moi substantial and permanent basis
The growth of our prosperity has been mode.
rate and gradual. but it is secure, and it is fully
warranted by the demands of trade and popu-
lation. In every aspect of the subject we have
reason to congratulate ourselves that we had
no Crystal Palace here, and nnne of the mad
excitement mis.caled prosperity, that the
New Yorkers so Justify rejoiced over in 1853.
Phil Eue. Bulletin.