The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1857-10-09
TRUTHS FOR THE TIMES.

Ihe New YORK Express says: me grea
business world is just now undergoing one o
those violent periodical convulsions, which,
proceeding from variety of sources, to I
general arrangement Of our monetary anc
mercantile system-an OVerruling Providence
things-for our good; and it is to be regret
ted that so few among us will consent tC
contemplate it in that light. For then, the
"adversty" that is now at our doors, would
have its "sweet uses," and we should be al
the more disposed to submit with uncom.
planning patience, TO misfortunes which-say
what we will-are in the main, of our own
creation. AS it is, however, men are toe
much inclined to take desponding view oil
their individual disasters-and repine, like
misanthropes, over consequences, the causes
of which, little selfexamination would
show themselves to have been instrumental in
bringing about. Instead of every man laying
his reverses in business at his neighbor's
door-and referring all his unhappiness, or
his losses, to some Mordecai sitting at the
kings gate-is it not an infinitely better phil
osophy to withdraw the plea of lot guilty
and confess judgment at Once-that is, own
up, that we have all been living "too fast" and
''too high,"-have been spending more than
we have earned, subsisting too long on our
wits, instead of the slower but surer returns
of unpretending industry-been trusting too
much to our genius for speculation, and but
too little to the more solid resources of reg
ular trade. Making haste 20 get rich, we are
all of sudden become poor. There are GER
tain general maxims which govern the busi-
ness relations Of life, which cannot be trans
gressed or despised without entailing as sure
a retHbution as that which follows the viola
ton of the moral law. Not to live beyond
ones means, is one of those maxims-and
not to embark too largely in business, upon
borrowed capital, is another. Upon the vio-
lation of these maxims-we had almost said,
these ommandments-hangs all, or nearly
all, our present embarrassmoIts. Ever since
the discovery of the gold mines of California,
a spirit of extravaganza has grown up among
us, which has manifested itself in thousand
fantastic shapes--leading TO "wasteful and
ridiculous excess" in all our great ciiies-and
to wild land speculations, suppositious rail-
roads, aud a multitude of other unproductive
absorbents of capital in the country. Here,
we are no longer content to live in dwelling
of modest brick--made by aborers near by
on the North River. Nothing but marble for
stores down town, and pillared palaces of
freestone, up town. Outside show bespeaks
inside extravagance; bat, as we cannot pene-
trate the interior of those ducal palaces,
which have sprung up as if by magic during
the few years past, we have only to turn to
the Custom House statistics Figures that
don't lie) to see, that we have been buying
some "twenty mine millions Of dollars worth
of silks" during the last twelve months, and
everything else in proportion" Our bills for
foreign luXuries of all sorts have in fact been
run up higher than ever beforehand large as
our income has been from the great golconda
of the Pacific, our extravagances have out
stripped it, and brought us at last, not to the
brink of, but right over into, the precipice of
an almost universal bankruptcy. The fall,
though severe, is happily not fatal-for a
young nation like this, with its unboundcd
resources, multiplying every year-is hard
country to ruin, much less to kill. The blow
indeed may prove real benefit to us in the
end, if we will but learn to study the lessons
it teaches, and henceforth apply them to the
practice of every day life.
In speaking of personal and family extrav-
agances, of course, we do but touch an outer
crust of the big shell that is bursting all
around us-because disaster so wide spread
as that which is now sweeping over the land
is the net product, not of one cause, nor two
but of many; all impelled, however, by the
same spirit of unchecked extravaganza, TO
which, in only one of its prominent phases,
here, we have alluded. Yet New York city
-"fast" as it is, and has been-has rather
larqed behind than run ahead of the rest of
the country-for, while Banks are breaking
half a dozen at time, east, south and west
of us-ours stand, and are like to stand firm,
in solid phaanx; at the same time that sus-
pensions in mercantile circles here are rela-
tiyely fewer than elsewhere. What is need
ed now, then-as first steps to recover from
this bow-are, retrenchment and reform
more moderate notions of liying-reduction
of unnecessary eKpendtures-less Reliance
upon credit-contentmen with smaller prof
its--less speculation and fever'speculators
in short, to sum up-less haste TO get rich,
and higher standard of business morals, and
morals of all kinds-all around. Nothing else
will do.
A TOUCHING DuTY.-Mr. Payne, of Cali
forria to whom Capt tlerndon left his watch,
to be handed by him 20 his wife, in case of
his death, has just executed that painful duty,
and the watch is now in Mrs. Herndon's pos
session-the last, sad relic of her heroic hus-
band, and all she has now to connect her and
him in his last perishing moments. Some
men would have sent themselves in the boat
to their wves-but the gallant Herndon,
though in the midst of peril and death, for.