Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1855-01-18
Hard Times,

ldiu u'ucSs udtu Hines, Is tne universal CRY.
Wherever you 60 there is the same complaint.
Everything, except the necessaries Of life mas
deprecated labor is reduced shoals of un-
employed workmen and servant girls are like
Micawber, waiting for something to turn up
Hotels are dubious; some threatening 10 break
up before the end of cold weather. We find,
on enquiry, that the keepers of the crowded
eating and drinking houses in the lower part
of our city, confess 10 reduction of at least
one-balf in their business. st one of them,
where an average of $1,000 is usually received
every day, the clerk remarked, that large
part of its business consists of its dealings
with merchants and drummers, who taking
their customers to dine, in prosperous times
spent four or FIVE dollars apiece but that now
the receipts from such customers do not aver
age more than four or five shillings.
Credit is contracted, and no loans are pro-
durable on what re admitted TO be unexcep-
tionable securities. Real estate has deprecated
on an average from thirty to fifty per cent. 1t
was only the other day that we noticed the sale
of handsome freestone house, on foreclosure
of mortgage, for $l2, 900 which not year ago
was considered cheap at $40 900, a depreciation
of forty per cent. Happy the man now whose
Golfers run over with what our Chatham street
friends would call the only real, original,
genuine monish.' The Jubilee for pawnbrokers
has come.
There is, however, one hilarious feature in
this gloomy state Of affairs. The theatres and
places of amusement are full in fact, they do
better business than in times of less depression.
when man gets poor says Samuel Weller.
best if he don't go to eating oysters!' When
New Yorker feels desperate, he rushes to
the theatre, where he forge,s his troubles in
the world Of imagination, and draws supply
of happiness, which may, in some measure,
protect him from the evils of the morrow.
In recounting the melancholy signs of the
times, we find, after all, that one of the most
suggestive was omitted, namely, their effects
upon the ladies'. A gentleman-an assiduous
S""'S' So0' oi many ycdis etd"u'hS~tciis We
that at this period, when women are arrayiug
themselves in gay colors for the winter, he
never saw so many old bonnets about!
1t is beautifully characteristic of the sympa-
thetic relations existing between the sexes,
that this fact should be so observable. The
popular charge Of heartessness and unreaect-
ing extravaganza, made against the ladies. Of
our city, is thus dsproved. 1t is shown tina,
husbands need only communicats' their en-
barrassment to their companions, to receive all
the aid and comfort which conjugal affection
ought TO furnish.
While we are about it, it may be as well to
mention that the pressure of the money market
has even invaded the precincts of the grave.
During the year now past, there have been
fewer expensive monuments erected 10 the
memory of the dead than in any previous year
since the rage for such things fairly com
meDced in this country. We have the state.
ment Of one Of the largest marble dealers in
the country. that while in former times he has
been accustomed to receive annually orders for
monuments raging from 81 900 to S., 900 in
value; during the last eleven months he has
not had one. The demand, however, for mod
est, inexpensive monuments has greatly in.
creased, showing that the remembrance Of the
departed has not declined, with the means
to make an ostenlaiious display of fit.-N. Y.
Ere