The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-01-30

SouNlHGeuS TeauN6 Lne ugly shape which
1.-THE industrial interests of the South
have assumed. This is the time of the
year when the cotton and sugar plan.
ters should be busily making prepara.
| tions for next seasons crop. The ploW
ought to be in the ground, the negro
tcrackinR the whip, and the mule tug.
cling his most sinewy at the traces.
tts shed TIE q neg 70, 8 lie aud be 1nnIe
depre slated in value fifty per cent, has
degenerated into a sort of debtors our.
rercy=-a pawn-brok pledge-and ia
even being shipped back to Kentucky,
where he was sraised-a disastrous send
ing of mules to muledom.
The inactivity that found in Ten
nesse and Mississippi, is even more
complete and threatening here in Lou
tsiana. The negroes are unwilling to
contract for the five or six dollars per
month offered, and the planters are
1ndiherent about giving anything.
Many have nothing to give. Poor as
was the crop last season, it viii. be the
symbol of plenty compared with what
will be produced in 1858, unless some
great change for the better occurs; and
the change must come soon, for already
the Southern spring is crossing the
Gull in her fowery shallop. In addi-
ton to being out of money, the planter
is afraid of, and disgusted with cotton,
and sonred at the negro, as he stands
invested with equal political power.
thousands ofplanters will permit their
broad lands to go untitled, save field
or two of corn and potatoes and kitch.
en- garden. The purchasing power of
the South Is almost exhausted. What
Will 1t amount to year hence2 II Mr..
Thaddeus Stevens could visit these
States before his clay is consigned to
that little resting place where there are
no laws regulating the ethnology of
skeletons, no aristocracy of mold-he
could thank God, were he SO minded.
that half the wealth of the South has
already been conflscated by an ordi-
nance of fate, not beginning, it is true,
with BE 1t enacted by the Senate and
House Of Representatives" but pos
sessinga tenure more terrible than all
the hestatnte-books in existence or In OBJ
nvlon. ,-.Y
Look at the myriad acres fallen in
value nom $50 and 500 to $40 and S25:
look at towns and cities sorrowing for
the present and startled for the future;
look at Louisiana, with one hogshead
of sugar for ten of former seasons; look
at the cotton crop, shrunk in the pro-
portion OF one to four, with the price,
tooi down to Its lowest notch; look at
railroads and steamboats, running emp
ty; look at warehouses rotting and
houses labeled "for rent;" look at ne.
groes foraging for existence and heed
less of provision for the future; look at
tashton-loYtng women in their old gar
ments, ana men accustomed to two new
oVercoats year, wearing old shawlS-
regard these things, as have been do.
ing for the last fortnight, and say il 1t
is not time to begin building up the
SICK man, instead OF shedding his re-.
naming drops of bad blood by4a pro-,
cess that involves letting ont ali the
good. am convinced that the people
of these States have no dream of further
rebellion; that they recognize the ex-
tinction of slavery, and would not,
perhaps, in cool moments, restore it If
they could. This is something in the
line of progress. On the other hand,
they are needlessly bitter, as 1 pointed
out in a former letter, toward the pro-
gramme of reconstruction, and disin-
cllned to take any steps toward recoR-
nizing the freedmen in those new func-
tions, the exercise of which alone can
ahord them stable protection as men
- Be this as 1t may, 1t Is time Congress
were treating the South with tonics In
some vigorous shape, and preserving
frequency OF doses. Further appIicas
ton of the lancet Will kill the natieht-
ana the Repnblicanparty. The South
lS a customer OF your martS and work.
shops, and when your merchants and
manufacturers find her utterly bank
rupt, they may try the virtues OF voting
the other ticket. I-hold that the South
herself Is mainly responsible for her
present depression and prospective dis
tress, If not famine; but Congress has
done something In that direction, and
talked about It infinitely too much and
too wildly. A big crop would do more
10 reconstruct the South than fifty bills
and hundred Major Generals. Next
70 no crop at all, which is the one
promised by existing circumstances,
Will not only postpone the hoped for
tranquility, but involve the North In
discomfort, and tighten the hard times
already complained of. Where, oh
where, is the Coming StatesmanP
ANY one who saw New Orleans in
1e60, or any other prosperous year pre-
cedtng the war, will look on the pres.
ent prostration with sad surprise. The
ftourteen-mile levee, once fringed with
fourteen miles of shipping, covered
with an endless expanse of heaped-up
freight, and enlivened by a motly mui-
titude of men and horses, is now the
emblem of giant doing and doing
over the work OF a pigmy. six or eipfit
steamboats, and thirty or forty ships.
mostly small, are what remain of that
once imposing commerce. A man
wanting store in any business block
in the city would find his choice en-
barrassed. by the many that are empty.
The merchants held meeting here
last night and passed resolutions ask
ing a reduction of hfty per cent in
rents, to enable them to bridge over
!theipresent dismal period. Hundreds
OF dwellings and thousands of apart
ments are vacant. The theatres
and hotels lin the gRyest of American
citiest y are doing II profitleRS business.
Even the bar-keepers have been in
convention to petition, under plea of
1osses, reduction in the city license.
The draymen have taken like action.
The streets are thronged, but with idle
men-wfth stagnation, not flood.
The building last year
did not cost $500 900, and their enumer-
ation In detail covers but half a page
In the City Directory. The merchants
last season made generous advances to
the planters. The crop failed, the loans
remain unpaid, and the merchants are
unable to grant further indulgences.
among leading firms In New Orleans,
was an event and q scandal. Protest
Is now the rule. The city itself Is
financially hard aground.
a stranger getting q dollar bill
changed receives a lot of municipal
fractional currency, dinghy printed
stuff looking like Confederate shin
| plasters, and on top of that a number
of dirty little pasteboard tickets, the
meaning of which / have failed to dis
cover. 1t is the testimony of all who
know New Orleans that it Is duller
now than ever before In its history AS
4 \ city. The omens, unhappily, are for
worse, and not for better times. 1t was
the seduction of quickly-made riches
that built great metropolis in this re-
/ without this allurement New Orleans
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