New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-11-15
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SAND COTTON.

The alleged conversion of the horn OF the COW
into gun-hints, was feat in manufacturing that
needed only the element of superior economy to
render it famous in the North as well as elsewhere.
The process, however, furnished the South with
an everlasting imputation against the mercantile
character of that portion of their countrymen,
who would neither breed nor buy negroes. 1t
is doubtful however, if that manufacture would
paw. 1t is more doubtful if it was ever estab-
lished, even on so limited scale as the ten fingers
and one iackknife of the idlest whittier of Connec
ticut. The Wooden Nutmeg has also served largely
TO characterize the trade of New-England with the
South. So, too, Eastwood pumpkin-seeds, and lg-
neous hams covert under whitewashed canvas, have
been permanently associated by our brethren South
of the line of White Labor with thesystem of manu-
featuring pursued in the Free States, and the
Yankee conception of the spirit of commerce.
But though there is a pleasant concet in the
wooden nutmeg, and an old-time familiarity
in the Eastwood pumpkin seeds and wooden
hams, from which we are 10th to part,
we are forced to pronounce them myths,
upon testimony that must be accepted as con-
elusive. Inc muuuiaCtuir vi thtoc
would not pay. Abundant reasons present them
selves to the practical mind, why the fabrication of
them would be misappication Of intellect and
waste of investment. But what shall BIO said of
the conversion of Sand into Cottonl Not the change
of the angular and unwilling slick into the soft up
land or silky Sea-Islsnd iber-not the. miracle of
lifting up earth and laying it down muslin-but the
direct simple, business-like operation Of selling
sand for cotton-of getting eleven cents q pound
for IT, out of somebody in Manchester, England
That is an eminently practical and practicable
business. Presented naked to the Manchester
spinner in a box it is not likely that he would
buy sand at eleven cents a pound, and order it to
be put through his looms. Though he believes in
ropes of sand as a figure of speech, he has not
particle of faith in sand shirtings, in printing
cloths made of any sttrited portion of this
earth's surface. He can not be cOaxed to spin
sand upon any terms whatever But with a
skill Of metamorphosing refusal into compliance,
and converting dissimilar materials into resem-
bling substances, that beats al hollow the mythic
manufacture of the wooden nutmeg, our Dissolying
Brethren Of the Cotton Zone force this sulky En-
gshman TO buy sand for his Icons, and persuade him
TO accept Us good understandable Uplands or Low
lands twelve pounds of earth to every bale of cotton
wool they sell hm-a metamorphosis as practicable
as ispractical Bull buys BY sample. That unques-
tionably is Cotton and not slick. But the Dis
solving Brethren have necromancy within their
plantation presses-a grinning African, waving
enthusiastically east-steel shovel above the feecy
fibre as it is being baed, and by few shakes OF his
hand adding nearly three per cent to the value Of
his masters crop, by snugly hiding within bis cot
ton, beyond the possibility of inspection, utterly
worthless weight.
This is a swindle whose profits amount to some