The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1857-11-03
a From the N. Y. Times, goth.
Effect Of the Hard Times ON Household
Economy and Social Life.

A From the N. Y. Times, 2oth.
Effect Of the Hard Times ON Household
! Economy and Social Life.
The space between the millstones is mar
rowing daily. Tho pressure has broken
down many of the great houses, but the
grinding of tho. poor is only just begin
ming. II begins to be shown by the record
of the lower courts and the books Of the
Almshouse Commissioners. On Saturday
night last 24S persons were accommodated
with LODGINGS at tho % different Station
houses of the city-a number almost un-
precedented for this season of the year.
1t was singing suggestion of what the
winter will show us. Most of the actual
distress that the revulsion has involved has
been felt in high business circles, for with
others it is principally in anticipation yet.
We dropped into the warehouse Of q large
wholesale dealer yesterday, and were sup
prised to find the naughty head of it with
red, swollen eyes-boing an honest man,
he had not failed rich. His family that
had lived in luxury for years were bank
rupt as well as he. But when such men
break, their employees are not apt to be
very merry. The clerks were sitting around
idly, each one looking as if he were at
funeral-those who had not been discharg-
ed expected to be, or the few that were
safe, in the misforthnes of their principal
were sad from sympathy.
Still the streets are not "dolorous ways"
nor are the homes generally Of our people
full of shadows. Even the poorest, until
the pinch comes, are merry, and the great
body who are cramped only take it as they
do the bustling of a crowd-anything but
agreeable, still rather disposing to jocosity
than to crying. We have been travelling
among the retail traders good deal of
late, feeling their pulse through the crisis.
Scarcely one in thousand is not worse off
for the late panic and present depression of
trade; still the majority feel, so general is
the dullness, that their individual condi.
tion is much 10 be mourned over.
The retail grocers have 10 tolerate pass
books great deal more than Il quite de-
sirable, and while credit in large eircles
grows into disfayor, in these small circles
it comes unwontedly into use. Their sales,
too, arc much diminished. The staples
always must find SALE but suddenly the
dciicocies that are SO appetizing as seen
through their cleanly windows, the fruits
that are the more relished for being bit
out of season, the dainty pickles and lu-
cious preserves, the little kegs SO formally
scaled, and the boxes so elaborately pic
turcd, all packed with the luxuries that
grow with marvellous rapidity into necessa-
ries while the times are good-all these
arc suddenly drugs in the morning market.
Of hundred women that were giving
parties last Fall, ten arc not now; and as
everybody knows that one party is rs
good to the grocer as weeks bill from
the ianiy giving it, it is evident that the
grocer has lost largely on this item. Even
in the absolute essentials to the family tn
bic there is great contraction. The di-
gcstion and the stomach arc consulted
more and the palate less. There has been
a general resumption Of those old-time
Yankee lodges for shortening the inner
mans expenses, which is illustrated in the
Connecticut custom Of pudding before
meat
The retail tobacco dealers say that they
have lost more Of their receipts than of
their customers. While the storm was
still coming, men who used to drop in ev-
cry two or three days for their "Solace" or
"Lilenthal" rushed in daily for plug or even
pig-tail. The day of the general suspen-
sion those purchasers tore in three or four
times, and when they got their supply,
set their teeth like iron into the doctorcd,
l5e-csred weed. But when
the storm burst they fell back again upon
"Solace," and chewed with gentle mode
ration. These chewers never quite stop;
the heavens might rush, economy might
find its way to their table, their bed, even
their babies playhouses, but they would
never stop buying tobacco. The smokers,
however, are more sensitive to current |
events, With the tightness of the money
market and the appreciation of specie they
buy fewer high priced cigars, and some
lay in the fine-cut and brace of pipes, as
# contemplating new me,hods of narcot-
SIN.
The retail crockery dealers say their dish
Is broken on the counter for this Fall. No.
body gets new set-only replaces parts
of broken ones. 1t is the time that young
couples gets disgusted with boarding and
start house kecping-but not young
couple had one Of our inGormants--a large
lealer in crockery-scen since the panic
was abroad. In short, if it were not for
he battered fingers of servant girls and
Tho mischief of small boys, they confess
hey might as we'll shut up shop and 90
,isiting their country cousins.
One or two of our cotemporaries, alarm.
ID at the brief list of marriages advertised
n their columns, cry out that the panic has
luenched the marrying ardor. Postponed
I, it has, but we believe that the institu-
ion of marriage is great gamer by the
hard times, Good, careful, sharp house
wives, were never in such demand before.
Tidy, saving housekeepers were never so
before. Solacing, tender, COM
'anions never were so sighed after.
The consciences of men and their tastes
lavc always been right about marrying,
he terribly expensive outfit of woman
n society, and tho ridiculously absurd no.
ions of many men have doubtless doiain-
ID whole focks of angelic Paris outside
he gate, and made wretched bachelors of
Of men who deserved a better
ato Rut tho hard t;p,oe have cl;,nol A. |