The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1854-08-25
HARD UP.

There is much PLAIN, sober truth and food
for reflection in the following article which
we clip from the New York Tribune. AS a
nation it is evident to all we have been living
too fast. We must come back to the true
path, or suffer the consequences. There is no
law of nature more fixed and stubborn than
that retributon is sure to follow in the wake
of extravaganza. Bead, ponder, and act, be-
! fore it is too late:
ayes, it is the sober, prosaic, literal truth,
that we are nearly all of us hard up. We
either owe money, and don't know where to
get it, or are subject to "calls" FOR INSTALL
ments on unpaid Railroad or other subscrip-
TORS, o. are doing heavy business which
requires large disbursements weekly or
monthly and brings in no corresponding re-
turns. Many of us are shining from day to
day. and find the work grows harder and
harder, though we live in constant hope, with
Micawber, that something will turn up."---
Meantime property, unless it can be eaten and
drank Immediately, is very hard to turn into
cash, while borrowing is well nigh impossible.
The banks cannot abate the pressure. There
are doubtless some among them that are too
| timid, while Others are extended more widely
than they should be; but, taken as a body
! they have done and are doing about as well
as they could or can. They have not, but
the great mass of their customers have eaten
and drank and worn too many costly uxuries,
and built too many grand houses. Money is
very hard to get, simply because as a CON-
manity we have promised to pay far more of
q. Al hn
rare wines we have drank, the costly silks we
have worn the gems and jewels we have
bought, the iron we have laid down or used
up for some years past-nearly all imported
| and much of it bought on credit-now rise up
in Judgment against Us. We are like the fast
youth grown older, and suffering from gout,
| dyspepsia and other .maladies which result
from hard living, who grumbles that he
should be afflicted noio, since he has aban-
doned his evil habits, when he had never n
twinge while he was absorbed in them. But
the avengng bolt falls when it will, and
| doubtless at the very best time.
No palliative, no nOstrum, will relieve us.
We can only recover by desisting from the
wrong and returning to the right We must
| live in our old houses or build more frugally
than of late, buy fewer and cheaper new
dresses, drink more pure water and less cost
| ly liquors, commence no more railroads by
future subscriptions of stock or sales of bonds
to eke out the cost of their construction-in
short, we must tpke in sail generally. We
must lay out fewer streets and clear up more
farms; SOW more acres to grain and edible
ROOTS while we spend fewer thousands on
stage dancerafsnd race-horses; undergo fewer
ten dollar balls and five dollar dinners, and
not be ashamed to be seen wheeling bar
row or carrying package. The change will
be trying for many, especially for wives and
daughters reared in indolent luxury, whom
the bankruptcy and consequent death or flight
of husbands and fathers will leave suddenly
destitute; ye', since we were all Intended to
20 sonethin.- for a living, and not to live
uselessly on the labof Of others, 1t will be best
in the long run even for them. Many no.
Bile character has been developed by adversely
which would have remained unmatured and
unsupported had the possessors been dandled
through life in the lap of prosperity; and the
widow who in poverty and obscurity trains
her orphans to lives of industry, frugality and
usefulness, is pursuing nobler and holier
career than if leading them giddily through
the mazes of fashion amid the snares Of
wealth and pleasure.
We shall pass through the existing pres
sure, and be the better for it in the end
Many of US will be weaned by it from city
WAYS for ever, and drawn away into the broad
green country, where a man may sit down to
his dinner without feeling in his pocket to be
sure he has the wherewithal to pay for it, and
sleep through the night untroubIed by visions
of notes that must be paid to morrow or he
is ruined. From the purgatory of shining
and the nightmare Of bankruptcy, this pres
sure will liberate many of us forever. There
are city lads now attending expensive board
ing schools whom this pressure will transfer
to Illinois corn fields and Minnesota saw
mills, and who will live to be thankful for the
change. "Ths sickness is not unto death
but unto life" and if our people ever learned
anything from disaster, or were weaned from
folly by suffering, it would be an excellent
thing for us. Yet, at this very hour, when it
is morally impossible that we should pay for
the imports already consumed, there are many
more coming in than we ought to buy, and no
immediate prospect of a falling off Either
the importers or the buyers must lose money
by them; we hope it may be the latter.
II we could only reduce our imports de.
cidedly below our exports, SO as to pay OIL
one quarter of our Foreign Debt, within the
year, we should be all right by Christmas,
and resume the construction of our suspended
Railroads; but the present tendency is toward
a reduction of the Tariff and consequent in
fux of more Foreign Fabrics. Let our peo-
pie buy no more than they are really able to
pay for, and we shall have an abundant re-
ducton of the Revenue without any diminu-
ton of the rates Of duty.
As yet the country has scarcely felt the
pressure which bears so heavily on the city.
The farmers are obtaining good prices for
whatever they have to sell, and the general
harvest prospect is good. Probably no former
crops ever exceeded those now on the ground,
while the prices of most farm products are
very good. They will be lower before De-
ccmber; but labor will also be lower so will
goods; and the farmer who is out of debt can
buy as much of whatever he wants with his
crop MS he ever could And so long as the
earth yields abundantly and the majority OF
our countrymen are neither afraid or ashamed
to till it, the report of pressure and panics
will visit most tiresides only as tho vague,
fantastic recollection of u dream.
r35@ The editor of German newspaper,
published in Louisville, says that some Of the
most wealthy German citizens of the United
States have raised million of dollars, and