Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-10-24

duct which distinguish the American peOple .hhNe
no parallel among any other civilized community'lt
NAV fall strangely on the ears Of those who have
never locked into the question, to be told that, oil
all the Marriages which take place in Massachu'
sets, four-sevenths are Irish. Yet the fact Is not
less true than strange, The Irish there would
seem to be the only class OF which the chlldish ex-
travagauce of the age has not taken so complete
possession as to render them unable to indulge in
the luxuries of marriage. The statistics ct com
mercial life develop kindred facts of an equally
astounding character. If Massachusetts, presents
a remarkable condition Of things, so far as mar
riage is concerned, her history is equally curious
in relation to the success Of her mercantile com
munity. Before this array, the solid men OF Bos-
ton"become but a collection of phantoms. Not more
than three in q hundred of the merchants and ira
ders of that city become independent. Gen. Dear
born, who for twenty years was Collector OF that
port and who had ample opportunities Tor OoseTV-
ing the vicissitudes of trade, declared, in a pubic
address before the Legislature, that among every
hundred of the merchants and traders OF that CITY
not more than three ever acquired an independence
This conclusion was not arrived at without great
distrust; but an experienced merchant. VINO was
consulted, fully admits its truth. n Boston anti
quarian in the year 1900 took a memorandum oil
every person on Long Warf, and in lo4O only hVe
in every hundred remained, All but these haa
either failed or died insolvent. The Union Bank
commenced business in 1898, there being then on
ly one other bank. The Union was overrun with
NV u - bOlbE ObiiSSN
midnight. and even on Sundays, A recent exam
ination of one thousand accounts opened with the
Bank at! starting, showed that only six renamed
All the others had either failed or died lnsolvent'
Houses whose paper had passed without question,
the very parties who had constituted the solid
men" all had gone down in that time. Another
person had occasion to look through the Probate
Office, where the estate of every man who dies is
registered. He was astonished to find that more
than ninety per cent of all the estates there settled
were insolvent. OF tho Directors of the Bank OF
Massachusetts,, over a third were found on exam
ination to have failed. In the direction Of the
Union Bank, the proportion was even larger. 1t
would thus appear that even a class so generally
presumed to have at command facilities not Access
slble TO mere depositofs, are not exempt from the
visitation of a calamity which in this country seems
to be hopelessly chronic. The proportion of capital
affords no apparent guarantee against ruin. Alb
staining from business by those who are able to
live without it, may be considered the only safety.
But if wisdom come by experience, and if those
who fail acquire any Of the former in consequence,
those may be counted comparatively happy twho
fail while young, that they may have time, in
after life, to amend the errors and repair the dam
ages of their earlier ventures on the ocean Of
trade.
1t must not be inferred from this disastrous ex-
hibition that Commercial misfortune has been pecu-
liar to the people of Boston. The same examina-
ton elsewhere would be found to expose the same
results as inseparable from the uniform impru-
dence with which business is conducted in this
country. The Bankrupt Law of 1871 discharged
some thirty.three thousand men, who returned in
their petitions the names Of more than q million of
creditors. Their debts were admitted to be S440,-
934, 6l5, but they probably amounted to n round half
billion. To pay this enormous Indebtedness they
returned only S4S,6 S7, 307 Of assets. How much
more was concealed. it is impossible to conjecture
with any accuracy. In Pennsylvania and all south
of that State, the records show that not one cent
on the dollar was ever realized from the assets sur
rendered. In Illinois they Yielded g cents to the
800, in Michigan and Iowa of a cent each to the
500, while Massachusetts produces but 4 cents,
and Connecticut 10 of a cent to the 800, Ken
lucky yielded the highest, being SO cents. No
commentary on the mode of doing; business prac-
ticed in this country can be moro impressive than
the array of such facts as these.
What are the causes and what the remedy for an
organic disease like that of tendency in all Ameri
can business toward insolvency, might ~proftably
occupy the minds of the profoundest thinkers
some great mind may yet collect the scattered ee
men.s of the true theory and weave them into {
coherent tissue. Extravaganza want of caution
and general bad management, have been held u,
as primary causes of failure; but it will be founC
that the balance of interest in most cases absorb
the whole products Of labor, and gradually an,
surely produces bankruptcy. The evils of over
trading might be corrected wheni discovered, if n
sudden crisis were produced and all supplies o
money at legal rates of interest as suddenly inter
mitted. But the fact is too we'll known to be con
t~roverted, that in a large majority of bankruptcie
The heavy deficit which exists, in spite of figure
carefully arranged to produce a soothing impre:
sion on the sympathy of the creditor, has originate
on the payment of interest. This interest, more
over, has invariably been usurious. The stree
rates have eaton the debtor up. What, but such
necessity, has largely contributed to PROSTATE til
no best railroad enterprises which. the world eve
beheld ? What else but this has eaten up the sui
stance of the scores of the business houses whic
have everywhere suspended within a month
What else but this is eating up, with a certaint
as inevitable as death, hundreds of others sti
. houndering on with courageous hopelessness? TIL
!, Great West is especially staggering under ii
|, weight of this ex~austing burden and the peri9
q is not far distant when that paradice Of usure,
q will be hopelessly bankrupt, so far they are col
cerned. Indeed, this unwholesome traffic in none
II is now pretty nearly ended, for the time at leas
The money lenders, wh) have fourished at ever
corner and fattened on every curbstone, have gor
n with the rest of the world. Would that the
trade might never know a resurrection