The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1867-07-27
FINANCE AND TRADE,
Financial and Cemmereial Items.

sued by the Treasury Department,
which will be great convenience, and
it is hoped will abolish the five cent
currency. We presume that the
mint will keep up the coinage of five
cent pieces, our first step toward that
specie currency which We aTe to have
ut some indefinite time in the uncertain
hereafter. Generals Grant and Sherman
ara to have their portraits on the new
notes and they deserve this honor quite
as we'll as some of the living men whose
likenesses 60 from hand to hand IN tne
every day business of life as guarantees
that the currency is worth the amount
which it promises to pay.
Over $50, zoo, 900 Of compound interest
notes mature in 1867, and their accumu-
lated interest will amount to nearly
sl4 900. 900. 1t is now understood that
the Treasury has determined to pay the
compound notes maturing in August,
reserving the 3 per cent. certificates un-
til the time when, from the sales of
long bonds, custom duties, and internal
taxes, the currency debt cannot be paid
as it natures. Congress, that often
apologies for non-eontraction with the
Secretary, is now out of the way, and
the sooner the sale of long bonds and
the purchase of 7-3O notes is resumed,
the better it will he for the solvent por-
ton of the people and the Treasury.
The New York Tribune says that when
call loans are at low rates is the Secre-
tary's opportunity to force the payment
of compounds, and the funding OF the
debt due in June and July, lS5S, ana
adds:
"This policy would intensity the pres
sure impending when the crops are
moved, but it would be of healthy
character, forcing, as it would, the crop
TO immediate sale, instead of remaining
the football of spectators, rs they
would do under an easy money market.
The road to specie payment was never
more clear than at present, and nothing
but culpable timidity in the adj
ministration of the finances can prevent
fall in gold, accompanied by steady
disappearance of the irredeemable paper
money under which the country suffers.
No man ever held the Treasury Depart
ment who equals Mr.. McCullOch in his
knowledge of the financial evils uHder
which all business la5Ors, and of their
remedy. 1t only remains to be seen
whether he has the courage to use the
power mt his command
The compound interest notes now
soon to become an institution of the
past, were issued under the acts OF
March 3, 1868, and June 80, 1864. Their
denominations were los, Dos, sos, HOS,
5OOs, 1GOOs. At dare of the last state
ment there were outstanding all sorts OF
these compounds Sl3O, 030, 240. Septein-
Der ~, 1865, the compounds outstand-
ing amounted to over two hundred
millions.
The New York State Insurance report
for the year 1866, has just been mad Q
public, though dated back to April last.
Among other items worth noticing in it,
we discover that the last was the first
year in the last seventeen years that no
new joint stock fire insurance company
was organized. Two companies were
changed from mutual to stock compa-
MES: one casualty was changed to a
fire company; five companies had their
charters extended 30 years; two cOmpa-
MES have increased their capital; requi-
sitiOns have been made on the stock
holders of seven companies to make up
impaired capital, three of which
were not responded to; five COM
panies have reduced their capital
Since January |, 1867; thirty-three
companies showed an impairment of
capital, December 81, 1867, varying
from si.74 per cent. to O.2l per cent;
ten companies which showed an I'M
paired capital January /, 1886, repair
their capitals during that year; seventy
one companies show capital intact, with
SURPRISES varying between S27l,3o7 and
SIS, and six companies discontinued
business, and are closing up their af-
fairs. The risks for the year 1866 were
1915 ,eS0,003; the premiums received
81 1886 POS. and the losses paid $500,
702. The fire business, which is in ad-
dition to the above, covered in the
amount of risks S2,753, 493, l07; the pre-
miums received amounted to 2O,7S6,-
S47, and the losses to Sl5,3l2, ISL. The
remedy to be applied to save insurance
companies from humiliation is dis
cussed, and the report inclines to the
plan of not insuring property to its full
value, ~ the surest safeguard against
incendiary fires.
We call attention to the following
striking facts and considerations pre-
scented by the National Mtelligencer
CONGRESS vs.. PUBLIC CREDIT-The
strides which this RADICAL Rump Con-
gress takes at each session towards re-
pudiatiou are so long that the goal will
probably be reached ut the next session,
unless the fall elections should retard
its movement.
The Radicals admit that it is ne
Cessity of their position to buy votes
with the public money, profusely dis
tributed among their followers. With
out bsying up gangs of monopolists,
jobbers, SPECTATORS, claim agentS-in
| fact, the whole force of party managers
they cannot much longer retain their
power. For this they pass bounty bills
freighted with millions. For this they
maintain a host of military and civil
officers in the Southern States. For
this they employ an army of tax collec-
tors and assessors, whose emoluments
divided with them and the subjects of
taxation, amount to more than a hun
dred millions year. For this they suf-
fer Indian agents and other irrespon-
sible parties to provoke Indian hostil-
tiles, and involve the country in cruel
and relentless war for the eXtirpation
of the Indian race.
When will this career of reckless and
corrupt expenditures stopf Not while
the Radicals control Congress; for it is
necessary that their largesses should be
constantly on the increase. Their fol :
lowers will clamer for more. The. more
they will receive, the more they will
expect. At every session the greed and
clamor for public plunder increases, and
members are told that the Radical party
must be propped up with more money,
more jobs, more bounties.