, 1859-02-11
Hard Times al the West.


The late commercial revulsion laid its
hand heavily upon many of the cities and
towns of the West, where the credit sys.
TEN was expanded to an enormous extent,
and now nothing is heard from them but O
terribly earnest cry of "hard tines The
city Of Chicago, which has been the great
headquarters of speculation at the West,
and where store-lots two years ago were
worth almost untold gold, feels the reaction
with great severity. Business is emphati-
cally down to the hard pan" What
trade there exists is limited to the actual
necessities Of commerce, and the Improve
ments" which depended on flush times are
greatly retarded. The price of labor,
building materials and produce of all kinds
has fallen one hundred per cent. within q
year and half Real estate is kept up by
making no sales, except forced ones. Mort
cages are not foreclosed by land agents, for
the reason that it would prove loss to
the holder, as not enough has been paid by
the purchaser to make up the difference Of
depreciation in value since the purchase was
made, to the present time. Hence it is for
the interest Of the creditor to obtain an
other payment on the land. The number
of unoccupied stores and houses, already
counted by hundreds, is increasing daily
Says letter in the New York Journal of
Commerce:
We have but few strangers here; all the
avenues to travel and our hotels are de-
serted, except by the very few absolutely
obliged to patronize them. All our prin-
cipal railroad thoroughfares, that reckoned
their passengers by the hundred SO few
months past, now number them by the
dozen. Our railroad companies, although
they have greatly reduced their expenses
by economy and retrencbment in their
hitherto extravagant management, are
now, at the sacrifice of dividends, tasked
to the utmost 10 meet their unavoidable
liabilities. i
Other corporate enterprises have Jared
the same. Mauufactories/ and machine
shops, the smoke of whose tall chimneys
hung over our city like cloud, now are
tcnantless; their fires have gone out; the
ring Of the hammer and the busy hum Of
the machinery is hushed. Society, too, has
suffered. Some Of its stars and brightest
ornaments, floating but short time ago
on the top wave Of prosperity, courted and
praised, now help make up class Of seedy
looking individuals hanging around our
hotels, railroad Offices, and other public
places. Such must be the case when the
basis Of our FIRST society is wealth. When
o man needs only galvanizing to make him
eligible to. our aristoeratic circles, he is La
bic to have bis mock auction" gliding de-
tected at any moment, and be branded as
q Peter Funk" Of society.
At St. Pauls, Minnesota, rents have de-
clincd from twenty-five to fifty per cent,
while real estate has, on an average, lost
one-third Of last years valuation. Outside
the city the decrease has been greater
Wages have partaksaof the downward
tendency, and laborers who last year OBJ
tanned 81 so per day, are this year forced
to be content with 90 cents. From Iowa.
too, there is general cry Of hard times II
We hear of young men who have gone
from this section TO the West during the
last six months, TO seek employment, who
came back with very different notions Of
the resources of the West from what they
had when they started, and purses ssdly
depleted.
These evidences Of pecuniary suffering OF
the West are by no means pleasant to re-
cord. Not only are many Of the sufferers
our old friends and neighbors, but their
react upon US. We trust, how
ever, that the rampant spirit Of speculation,
which has been so rife in that section Of
the country of late years, has received o.
check, which will lead the people to adopt
a more cautious policy and confnc them
selves more closely to legitimate operations.
Boston Post.
R1- When we sit in Judgment upon our