The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1869-01-13
FINANCE AND TRADE.

EInanciHi ana Somhhercus A'eS'
Fhe Wall street bull clique, it is said,
expect during the present week to car
~ up Erie fifteen or twenty per cent.
and then sell out the shares they bought
at recent advance and have never
been able to dispose of since. The bull
clique is strengthening every day, and
will make o combined effort for gen.
eral advance in few days. 1t is as
serted again, upon what claims to be
Authority, that the Erie Directors will
begin building an air line between Gin
cinnati and Dayton, early next spring.
Judge Drummond, of the U, S. Dis
trict Court fer the Chicago district, in
regard to the constitutionality of the
Congressional Whisky Tax law, has de-
cided that those portions of the acts of
July 20 and March 81, 1868, imposing
restraints upon the FREQ manufacture of
spirits, and giving extraordinary pow
ers to the revenue officers to protect the
revenue from fraud, are clearly consti
tutional. This is an unfortunate deci-
SIGN for the whisky ring.
The Philadelphia Gazette says: The
vast number of houses in Philadelphia
makes the insurable valuation of prop
erty much higher than in other cities
of the new world, so that in point of
fact Philadelphia is the leading insur-
ance mart Of the Continent. All the
foreign and domestic companies doing
general business in the United States
seek this market naturally, and the
competition is so great as TO enable all
to insure here on favorable terms.
The overland telegraph informs us
that the earnings of the Central Pacific
Railroad for December were $4,000 in
gold, or at the rate of four millions per
annum. Doubtless we are expected to
throw up our hats. But We happen to
know how this result is attained. The
princely revenue is derived from charg
ing passengers ten cents per mile in
specie. You must pay the fare in coin
or be dragged or kicked off the cars.
The tariff for freight is equally imperial
and robustuOus.
Is not this delightful state of affairs
on q railroad built by all the tax payers
of the United States, at an immediate
cash profit of ten millions to the COM
pany.
Illinois has reason to be well satisfied
with her financial exhibit this year.
On December 1, 1864, the State debt was
ST., 24G,21O. During the two years fol-
lowing it was reduced by the payment
ofS2 COZ, 953; $50, 900 was added by special
act in 1SG7, and the payments since then
have reduced the whole to $5,958, 453.
In addition to the payments on princi-
pal the State has, during the four years,
paid for interest, exchange, premium on
gold, ETC., S2,3l4,5l4, which added to the
payments on principal, makes an aggre-
gate expenditure of S7,65l,79O. The
balance in the Treasury January |, 1869,
was S1,146,73S. In 1871, S3,253,OOO of
the State debt will fall due, and by the
lst of January of that year there will
have accumulated an amount of revenue
largely in excess of what will be re-
quired.
The Washington correspondent of the
Cincinnati Gazette gives n truly start
ling exposure of the operations of the
Railroad Ring in Congress. The result
of the game of grab is summed up as
follows: Congress up to March last had
granted in all to various Western and
southern States over 81 ,O0O, 900 acres of
lands for railroad purposes. 1t has Civ
en- besides over II 100000 to canals and
similar improvements. The Pacific
railroads and branches have received
i,000,0 900 of acres, and if to this Is
added the even numbered sections along
these routes, which the Secretary of the
Interior decided to be closed for settle
ment, it will appear that nearly one
third Of the entire public domain has been
made Or0' TO the control Of railroad COM
pORiCS.
THE quantity of lands conveyed by
these grants" says the Commissioner of
the General Land Office, sis of empire
extent exceeding in the aggregate, by
more than five millions of acres. the en-
tire areas of the six New England
States, added to the surface of New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Delaware, Maryland and Virginia: He
says the grants to the Pacific railway
lines alone care within about fourth
OF lreing twice the united area of Eng
land, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Guern-
sey, Jersey, the Isle of Man, and the
islands of the British seas, and less than
a tenth of being equal to the French
Empire proper"