The Washington union., 1857-11-14
WEEKLY MISCELLANY OF LITERATURE AND ART

The frightful money panic epidemic, which is now
raging with such violence throughout the whole country
and which, though disease, battling the efforts
Of the sfu financial doctors to arrest Its progress
as successfully as the Shattic cholera Of 32 resisted
the attempts OF the bestbred practitioners of that day to
stop course, has elected from the face Of the
thor of the Sparowgass papers the suboned diagnosis
of the disease AS money making has been recognised
an art we have thought the article Of Mr. sparrowg
entitled to a place in our miscellany Of this week
HARD TrMss--The question is often asked what is
the cause Of this embarrassment Why is it that rich
and prosperous country suddenly finds itself bankrupt
its workshops closed its looms, forges, and anvis 81
lenced its warehouses vacant its ships without freight
and its farmers without money =? Yesterday money
abundant; today there is none! Who has the money
Who keeps it The rich Who Is rich now? Do the
banks the landlords the owners OF mortgages the stock
jobbcrs hoard 1t from the rest Where is it? What is
it9 What is money
Money to the trading world is the rain the Clouds
and dews to the earth The vapor that rises from the
surface of the not forest timber the wheat Of
the field the cotton of the plantation it oil
nor corn grapes Yet let that vapor be suspended
in the sky and the and the cotton the forest trees
and the fruits, wher in the drought Let the rain
to fall and the farmers sickle is idle, the grapes perish
on the stalks the raftsmens wealth of timber far up
among the mountains is arrested in the dry bed Of the
stream Nay more the very grass IN the valley, the
weeds the flowers, droop and die.
Yet let the rain fall and again everything springs to
lifegrnss and weed brook and grape waermelons and
water mills rvulets rivers, and ,afsmen rise and float
and flourish and yet, after ALL 'what the net value
of water r.
The slender stream that rigates valley in itself is
nothing Dam it up at the spring-head, and all the
glory of the valley below turns to dust and ashes Let
its current meet with impediment and 1t flows on
giving vitality to farm and flower to mill and sedge and
yet it pous on not with diminished but with augment
ed volume TO reach yet broader stream TO be again
raised into vapor to be again distilled in rain dew
''Gods blessing shed upon the thirsty EARTH
This Is not poetic fgure-a ancifu illustration
We speaking Of prosaic thing namely, money and
| s'what is II O.
The English language is very explicit language to
any who will take the trouble to get at the Of
its meaning For instance say that certain bank
notes are 'current " that gold silver and notes is the
currency Of the country that when bank stops, it
must go into liquidation that merchant is ''solvent
| or ''insolveptH
Now what does ''curTent, solvent, or t'liquidate
| mean
The very terms employed the very language of trade
and suggestnay fix the and real value Of
money Its current unimpeded its blessings felt in
every quarter, II its smaller streams checked or
turned aside to fill the cstens of the few its greatest
value has departed from it, Banks the great dstrib
uting reservoirs of the country Nothing more What
is the bullion their vaults An idle aud dead
useless metal Is II the wealth Of the country2 hun
dred steamers pouring in those vaults from the California
ships do not add ioa to the real wealth of the
try Does the specie of the city represent in degree
its wealth All that boarded in the entire Union would
not purchase of ground in the centre of the
tropolis Let money be current 1t will turn again
TO its original II is not wealth. it is not conn.,
coal candles or bank stock Arrested, it pays no div
dends arrested it stops the sickle Of the reaper the
canal boat In the locks the bill of exchange the rent
the landlords When IL flows on, it touches with vitali
ty all alike in ther pro rata the rich and the poor the
| thrifty meadows and the idle weeds.
Take money when it is "current and how easily
one hundred dollars ''liquidntcs twentysx hundred
| owes one hundred, and pays it, owes G. Thai
hundred pays BIS debt TO G. and he pays d. hands
A., 10 " nd on M vho Ia lo,l,
again to A. But In the transit of this current money
there has been positive benefit from A toz.
1t has given credit side, confidence the other.
In no point Of is progress has that one hundred dollars touched
,ciaom bsne somebody That hundred dollars has
paid all the letters of the alphabet On Its day journey