The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-09-25
The rro.pee.a in Ne,v Yorls.

The Prospects in New York.
Erhe New York correspondent oi
| }e Baltimore Gazette writes in O
kely and graphic strain about mat
| PRS and things in Gotham. Omit.
fng sundry paragraphs about social
life, and other gossip, we extract the
following paragraphs in relation to
the business prospects of the city:
The truth is, that New York and
New Workers are getting poorer every
day; and when community lives SO
exclusively for money, as this com
munity does here, and its tone and
actions are regulated so entirely by O
money standard, poverty means ruin,
for it means loss of power, loss OF
position and loss of the means of en-
joyment which give zest to life. Foi
months past the dullness in business
and the shrinkage of values in pocds
have told painfully on houses whose
expenses are still kept up at the same
rate at which they were three years
ago when expansion and imitation
were the order of the day. 1t was
nothing then to pay ten, twenty,
forty thousand dollars per annum
rent for a store, and it was not ex-
travagant for firm, with q capital of
less than hundred thousand dollars,
to carry on business which required
an expenditure, irrespective of the
cost of merchandise, of one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars q year.
But that is all changed. The day for
enormous profits has passed by and
there is scarcely man who has been
largely engaged in business and who
is still obliged to keep up heavy ex-
penditure, rs all men in business are,
who does not now find his expenses
greater than his profits. Rents are
still very high, living is very high,
labor is very high. It is indeed
little wonder that there is many
man here dancing with q very heavy
heart to measure that is anything
but lively one TO him.
There is still another reason why
very large portion of the business
community here are likely to have q
most Improbable year. The import
ing merchants, almost to O man,
have their goods still to pay for. In
other words, they are as a class, and
this is q very large and influential
class. short of gold. They have
made their purchases with the opticn
of paying for them at any time
within three or four months, in the
anticipation of decline in gold.
But gold has not declined. They
have sold many of their goods at
gold valuation of 135, and to-day it
is up to l45. IF it go no higher, this
gives still considerable loss, q loss
of at least five per cent. which is
fair profit on large importations. It
is not a loss of ten per cent, be-
cause, with the excessive duties now
levied and the transportation, freight
and expenses all payable in gold,
when goods are once in the ware
honse. more than fifty per cent. nf
their total cost has been paid upon
them. Ii gold goes up fifteen or
twenty per cent. higher, the loss, of
course, will be so much the greater,
and the prospect of such o rise causes
an nunder-current of uneasiness, which
Is very marked to the intelligent OBJ
server-the probability of such rise
being in fact heightened by the
knowledge that large amount of
gold has still to be provided, to pay
for importations still unsettled for.
But this is by no means the only
reason of the excitement in the gold
market. 1t, is on the contrary, the
least of the reasons which act upon
it, and of itself would have little or
no influence upon it. The true cause
of the advance in gold is. the very
unsettled political condition of the
country. No one seems to know to
what the dispute between johnson
and Congress may lead. Since the
removal of Stanton, an idea SEEM, 10
be gaining ground that the President
may show fight after all, and that, if
, Congress attempts an impeachment,
he may, in his turn, follow the ex-
ample that the Lincoln administra-
ton set him, and use the weapons it
taught him to WELD. In addition to
the utter prostration which this
would cause to all trade, the prospect
of reign OF terror, of summary ar
rests and lawless incarceration, would
only add to the confusion and in
crease the distrust Among those
people who have been sufficiently So