Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-12-21
price Two cents.
GBt DAILY spg.
THURSDAY, DEC. 81, 1854.
Business Dull and Hard Times.

the merchant the mechanic and the laborer--
and it is true, terribly true, many persons
will prove between this and April There is
no good reason for the pressure felt by the
whole community, and which is not likely to
be less at present. It is the legitimate fruit,
however, of our reckless system of overtrad-
ing and extravaganza for several years past.
We owe it to our own indiscretion, and to
nothing else. Extremes follow each other in
trade as much as day and night Never has
there been such hurrying driving, adven-
turous world as this we have lived in for ten
years past. Men and women and children
have been delirious with the excitement it
occasioncd and nothing could be conceived
of, that somebody with more faith than
knowledge, with more enterprise than capital,
would not undertake. Banks have shed their
| notes abroad like snow flakes; manufacturers
have called new cities into being in day and
erected huge aud costly buildings such as
Manchester or birmingham, Lyons or Nantes
never saw; railroads have stretched over
plains and through solid mountains, as though
we had only to wish TO realize, and no money
or even labor was requisite to the undertake
| ings. If ships were wanted, they must be
from two to five thousand tons if steamboats,,
they were floating palaces if public ediices,
they riyalled the architecture and decorations
| of the old world; if private dwellings, they
| were such as lords and dukes might envy.
Nothing was done according to former rules
| or ideas-the very barns our fathers would not
have known. We could buy more than we
sold, and nobody asked how long our imports
could thus exceed our exports-there were
large crops to go abroad at high rates, and CAL
ifornia was lavish of her gold, and as men
| grew rich, and did more, and spent inore and
| lived faster there was no doubt to them that
it would always be so.
| No merchant was contented with one kind
of business, he wanted dozen-all the irons
| IN the fire at once. This sphere of operations
constantly extended beyond all limits of pru-
deuce. Legitimate and honorable trade was
changed for gambling speeulatons. Clerks
were increased, but they were the clerks of
extensive operators, and often themselves at
| the same time, stock brokers and Spectators
| and In the end some of them have been
Schuylers In private matters we have seen
the same excess-in carriages and furniture,
in dress and servants, in everything that could
crafty the taste, the eye, the ear. And thus
we have swan on till the storm has come, and
| the great and the SMALL the weak and the
strong, the rich and the day laborer, must feel
| the effects thereof. The seed has been sowll
and the fruits must be gathered. The failures
and frauds and for cries the pernicious but
necessary results Of the wild delirium that has
| driven us on.
|
the commencement of winter the cry is shard
times That's what the merchant says, when
his ship is reduced one third of her value and
two thirds Of her income; that's what tho
builder says, when the demand has ceased
that's what the carpenter says when there is
little to do, and the pay is poor; that's what
the capitalist says, when railway shares are at
so per cent, and factory stocks at IS, and
small dividends from both; that's what the
| ,nlrn !.
without feet, but the south and west are short
of money and do not purchase, and therefor,
he is out of wo=k that's what the laborer
says who yesterday had dozen calling for
hun, and now has to call on dozen for day s
work that'sswhat all say-for it is present
we might almost say, omnipresent, reality.
But it is not alone i'll having less income
and less work that times are hard but every
thing that is needed to sustain life and make
| us comfortable-and there is much more need
ed when money has been easy and plenty,
than when it has been scarce and hard--is
enormously high, and it must bring sigh
from any laboring man who means to pay his
debts, to look to the bills that will come to him
in the course of the next twelve months.-
| The house he lives in, the daily bread he
| needs, the fire that is to warm him, are all at
| great expense. Look at the fuel, the flour,
the beef, the milk, the vegetables, and all are
extravagaptly high, FOR the demand and wa
| ges of labor.
What are We to dos This, most evidently,
| if we would not be in debt, lose our indepen-
| dence and be slayes-for. the poor debtor suf-
fers all that-liye within our income. This is
| certain-desire to accumulate wealth as you
will-one's expenses increase with his means.
Many rich man looks back with wonder
that he could do as well as he did, with SO lit
tie, when he was poor. Men hate poverty
they hate restraint upon their desires and
when they have the means, they are sure, by
indul gence, to be revenged for anything they
may have suffered before. The last ten years
of prosperity have greatly increased the ex-
penditures Of the mechanics and laborers-
They have had many rooms where they lived
in few-two coats or bonnets, hats or shawls,
where they had one; and, if times pinch
them, they will be surprised to see how much
they can reduce the expenses-how well the
women can get along without so many silks
and fnery-ribbons and velyets, laced sleeves
and embroidered petticoats-how much lon
ger the old hat will wear, and the old coat
and how much may be saved in thousand
ways. A spare pig is better for poor man,
than spare parlor, and costs less well fill
ed coal bin or -four barrel, than rufies and
hounces, tobacco and rum, or waste of any
kind. The check in business, after ALL may
be useful. 1t may teach us good habits, that
will not be abandoned when the times are
better. Adversely is necessary prosperi-
ty, and nobody can tell what we should have
come to, if we had century like the last ten
years, with no explosions and no revolutions.
Progress will continue. The world don't stand
still, and we shall lay better foundation to
| build upon, where there are winters frosts
and severe storms, than though all was sum-
mer and sunshine Newburyport BerGld.