Litchfield enquirer., 1855-01-18
HARD TINES.

expressed by the Boston Transcript will be
read with interest by all. The subject is
one that comes. home to the consciousness
Of every member of the community, and
should be though.fully considered
Everybody talks and thinks about the
hard times, and almost everybody feels
them, and knows by bitter experience wha;
they mean. But very few stop to consider
as carefully as they should, what is the
cause of all the suffering and anxiety they
share or witness, or what remedy there
may be for either. Some attribute our
troubles TO the banks, and demand more
disconnts-as if the banks We're not al
ways eager to do just as much business as
they can do lawfully and safely. Some at
tribute them to the great frauds of Agents,
who have mismanaged the affairs OF great
corporations, and SO created wide dis
trust:-as if a few unprincipled men could
by mere populations, blight whole land
worth million times more than they have
cheated it out of. And others give other
reasons for them. Each of these reasons
may have weight; but no one of them is of
much significance, nor could all put togeth-
er produce such effects as we witness, or
account for them. 1t is the people-the
mass of the people-that make the trouble.
No less power can bring about such results
The universal extravaganza has caused the
universal depression and anxiety.
If an individual spends more than his in
come, everybody knows that he must re-
trench or be ruined. If the whole nation
runs into similar eXtravagance-a nation
being only a mass of he..whole
nation must retrench or be ruined In the
United States, for several years back, we
have been spending extravagantly, and the
consequence is, that there is now general
embarrassment and trouble; and we begin
to hear cry to know the cause and find a
remedy. The cause is as plain as the way
to church /; the remedy is equally plain,
but by no means so agreeable. We have
bought more than we can pay for with our
present incomes. We must therefore re-
trench, or 90 on suffering more and more.
That this is the true state OF the case may
be made clear by two examples, taken from
the opposite extremes of our folly. The
Secretary of the Treasury tell US. that in
our last financial year we imported
$4,000 900 worth of silk goods. Silk we
produce at home only in small quanti-
ties. and it is the merest luxury. We
should be as warm and as we'll off, in all
respects, without spending dollar on it
Now, if we want to know what is done with
1t, look at the dresses of Our women, whose
husbands and fathers cannot afford to pay
for them, or at the drapery of their parlors.
which are becoming mere monuments of
vanity and bad taste, by their heavy inele-
giant extravaganza. Or, what perhaps, is
vet more obvious, look at our large hotels
and the people who frequent them. One
of them, in New York, whose Ladies' Ordi-
nary was lately a sight like slow at the
play house, had damask curtains in its
drawing rooms that cost $4,000. At the
last account they were in the sheriff S
hands. Private parlors Of the same fashion
are coming fast TO the same end.
But let US go TO the other extreme of cur
folly. We are compelled to import silks il
of which we have enough and to spare, it is
stones-marble, granite and sandstone, and
all kinds of stones. New England and the
Middle States are full of them But GUAM.
titles of them are imported from France -
Churches and houses, in no small numbers
are built of them in New York and Brook
lyn, and elsewhere. One person in New
York, we understand, now offers hundred
tons of them for sale. Next, we ought to
hear of importing dirt to cover up our own
rocks, lest the sight of them should re-
proach US with our senseless extravaganza.
Sancho, in Don QuiXote, characterizes a
mans folly by saying he wants better
bread than can be made Of wheat. DO you
wan, better churches and houses than can
be built of Quincy and Rockport granite
or Berkshire and Vermont marble, or Con.
necticu, sandstone / The very suggesiion
is ridiculous.
But there is no need of such separate il
lustrations. Our importations for the past
two years show our extravaganza and folly
in tie gross, jus: as plainly as our French
silks and French building-stones show
them in detail Take for example. the
years 1911 and 1916, and compare them
with the years 1853 and 1854, and see what
the Secretary of the Treasury says about
them; we mean, what he says about ner-
chaadize and goods Of every sort imported
and consumed in the United Stat, in those
years, taking tho asooan; as estimated a,
the PLACES whence they were shipped.
In ten yelrs, we have almost exactly
doubled the average proportion of our i'm
poT,ations for each individual in the coun-
try. We have paid. in The places tchefe
the goods scere shipped, ten dollars for every
man, woman and child in the United States
including the slarss-and 10 these ten
dollars we must add charges, and duties,
and profits, tha. will bring the whole up to
an average OF sixteen ar eighteen dollars o
merchandise imported for each soul on cul
soil, each of the last two years. Such Z
monstrous fact needs only to be stated.
needs no Poor Richard TO cypher out it:
| meaning and its consequences. If, there
fore, we intend to get out of our troubles
! It is plain that We must import less. Bu
to stop this ruinous importation, the peopi'
| must buy less of it. 1t is their affiir en-
tirely. They can mend the times or nlak'
them harder, just as they choose; ard NJ
other means or power on earth can do either.
STEAM VS.. Gr.PowpER.--MT. Perkins
the son of a gentleman who some years az,
1 inwantoI aa.l syhihisa1 in the xnafronotio /.