The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1857-10-28
FROM OUR NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT.
Nrw YorK. Oct. 2e. 1851.

NEW York, Oct 2G, 1857
The democratic doctrine in regard to banks banking,
and paper money begins 10 find great favor with the
munity not usually democratic These mammoth insti
tutions have long orded it the people of city
They have taken the gold from the hand of the citizen
and given him rags in return They have afforded the
chant place to put his funds and if he kept the round
deposit of $4,000 he could get occasional discount
costing him not less than ten per cent average.
Loanng out their money at extavagant rate of interest
the brokers and shayer aiding greatly by their coope
ton to fleece the people giving sparngy to the really
deserving and necesstous and upon the first pinch shut
ting down the gates hard and fast and stopping the
machinery of the financial nation which they had
ton suddenly that it has cramped the credit the bust
ness and the wealth of the community and at turn of
the brake swapping off the financial cable that of the
too sudden pressure cut off the Atlantic cable in mid
ocean
Our banks are bankrupt But one bank in this city
has legal exstencethe Chemical which has little cir
culation close corporation is owned mostly by the
directors and is bank of deposit mainly, and stands
like oasis In desert But the rest are ouawed,
and are at the mercy of any who has 500 note
and chooses to for specie
AS usual this matter presses heavily the artisans,
the of toll and the poor They get little work and
poor pay. Jersey money and money not secured by
State stocks, is their pay One man was In Albany he
had occasion to spend money he paid IL per cent
to have it exchanged there and when he reached New
York he had pay 10 per cent to have it exchanged
again before he could it, most bitter and intense
feeling pervades the community in relation tohe conduct
of our banks and that our judges should step in and
uncaled for, with motion before them to give aid
and comfort to nsolvent bank that they would not
give to insovent merchant or mechanic has no ten
dency to soften this feeling Indeed the suspension OF
the banks occaoned by cemented action OF the mer
chants The sudden and the suen action of the banks
in the refusal to discount induced the parties who had
them in their power to make them feel that power
little relief little generosity, little good nature would
have saved many noble merchant from the shame of
insolvency. And when it known that run had
commenced on the banks the East and North rivers
and far up town. the banks at Wall street smiled with
disain and when aid asked for to meet the pres
sure that all the banks might stand together the CEN
trail banks stood firm that they could hardly be civil
1t rather supposed that they would be glad to See
these weak, outside banks wind up No aid was sent;
and the banks after another broke and shut up their
doors But the great Wall street bankers did not knovs
their doom The artisans, master mechanics builders,
uptown merchants made the long AT ii o'clock
the downtown began and it was sight to behold
Men came in tes and hundreds. They held line, sim
gle file, at the length the Caornians stood at the
the Bank of New York. and others like it, sent out
man to the dewak to call in to get their gold
who did not want it, and to encourage the crowd to hold
on and persevere the end But bravado did not pay,
and the Bank of New York the first to in. The
American Exchange Bank which certified checks of the
Ohio Life Trust Company to the amount of $780, 900
the day the institution failed though at the time the in
stitution had not dollar of the money in the bank,
was especially deficient. In the midst of the run
the president ont the steps and made
speech He said that his bank with several Others could
not be broken But the crowd pressed on and the bank
suspended And now like train of off the track,
with the engine botomup in deep ditch the platforms
broken, and the general wreck, the passengers
not financially killed wounded surveying damages
and asking whats TO be done, or, like Nebuchadnez
zr who gloried in the great Babylon he had builded,
the trainers of this splendid fabric of paper are out at
grass MANHATTAN.