The Kanzas news., 1857-11-14
From the New YorL Tribnne.
Insolvency.

l civilized community. One of these leading
: propensities is Insolvency. 1t may fall
4 strangely on the ears of those who have
never looked into the question, to be told
) that, of all the marriages which take place
in Massachusetts, 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 childish extravaganza of
the age has not taken so complete possession
: as to render them unable to indulge In the
luxury of marriage. The statistics of com
mercial life develop kindred facts of an
equally astounding character. If Massa-
chusetts presents remarkable condition of
things, so far as marriage Is concerned, her
history is equally curious IN relation to the
success of her mercantile community Be
fore this array, the :" solid men of Boston,
become but collection of phantoms Not
more than three in hundred of the mer-
chants and traders of that city become in
/, dependent Gen. Dearborn, who for twenty
years was Collector of that port, and who
had ample opportunities for observing the
vicissitudes of trade, declared, in public
address before the Legislature, that among
every hundred of the merchants and traders
of that city, not more than three ever ac-
quired an independence. This conclusion
was not arrived at without great distrust !;
but an experienced merchant, who was con
suited, fully admitted its truth A Boston
antiquarian in the year 1900 took memo
randum of every person on Long Wharf,
and in 1910 only five in one hundred re-
manned. All but these had either failed or
died insolvent. The Union Bank COM
menced business in 1898, there being then
only one other bank. The Union was over
run with business, the clerks being obliged
to work till midnight, and even on Sundays.
a recent examination of one thousand ac-
counts opened with the Bank at starting,
showed that only six remained. All the
others had either failed or died insolvent
Houses whose paper had passed without
question, the very parties who had consti-
tuted the g 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 regis
tered. He was astonished to find that more
than ninety per cent. of all the estates there
settled were insolyent. Of the Directors
of the Bank of Massachusetts,, over third
were found upon examination TO have failed
| In the Direction of the Union Bank, the
proportion was even larger. 1t would thus
sumed to have at command facilities not ac-
cessible to mere depositors, are not exempt
! from visitations of calamity which in this
country seems to be hopelessly chronic
| The proportion of capital affords no appar-
ent guarantee against ruin. Abstalning
from business by those who are able TO live
without it, may be considered the only safe
| ty. But, if wisdom come by experience,
Al Z
mer in consequence, those may be counted
comparatively happy who fail while young,
that they may have time, in after life, to re-
pair the damages of their early ventures on
the ocean of trade.
1t must not be inferred from this disas-
trous exhibition that commercial misfor-
tune has been peculiar to the people of Bos-
ton. The same examination elsewhere
would be found to expose the same results
as inseparable from the uniform imprudence
with which business is conducted in this
country. The Bankrupt Law of 1841 dis
charged some thirty three thousand men,
who returned in their petitions the names
of more than a million of creditors. Their
| debts were admitted to be $40, ,934, ,615,
but they probably amounted to a round
half billion. To pay this enormous indebt-
edness they returned only S48, ,687, ,307 of
assets. How much more was concealed, it
is impossible to conjecture with any accura
| cy. In Pennsylvania and all south of that
State, the records show that not one cent
on the dollar was ever realized from the as
sets surrendered. In Illinois they yielded
I63 cents to the 500, in Michigan and
Iowa I of a cent each to the 500, while
Massachusetts produced but cents, and
Connecticut 610 of a cent to the $780,
Kentucky yielded the highest, being Sc
cents No commentary on the mode of
doing business practiced in this country
can be more impressive than the array of
such facts as these.
What are the causes and what the rene
dy for an organic disease like that of a ten
dency in all American business toward in
! sOlvencv, might proftably occupy the
minds of the profoundest thinkers. Some
| great mind may yet collect the scattered
elements of the true theory and weave them
into coherent tissue. Extravaganza, want
of caution, and general bad management.
have been held up as primary causes of
failure; but it viii be found that the balance
of interest in most cases absorbs the whole
product of labor, and gradually but surely
produces bankruptcy. The evils of over
trading might be corrected when discovered,
| if no sudden crisis were produced and all
supplies of money at legal rates of interest
as suddenly intermitted. But the fact is too
well known to be controverted, that, in a |
large majority of bankruptcies, the heavy
deficit which exists, in spite of figures care
fully arranged to produce soothing i'm
preston on the sympathy of the creditor,
has originated in the payment of interest,"
This interest, moreover, has invariably been
nsurious- The street-rates have eaten the |
debtor up What, but such a necessity, |
has largely contributed to PROSTATE the no.
blest railroad enterprises which the world
ever beheld? What else but this has eaten