Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-03-18
FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL.

| MoyEY.-Money is abundant, and grows
easier each day. Good paper is readily taken
by the banks, and the amount Of currency in
private hands is rapidly augmented. Note
shavers. hungry looking street shavers, who
were once followed by starving borrowers, are
now seeming about for good things to pick up.
They gobble watches and jewels with great
avidity, and absolutely are content with 2L
per cent. month in small transactions. Ifthe
prosperity of the country be unbroken by
knaves in Congress. the street broker will be-
come, like Radicalism, an extinct institution,
leaving behind him only delightful memories
of s TO 10 per cent. per month, which prevailed
not long ago in this plundered city. Cotton
bills are still taken at par. and exchange rules
at Il premium. City scrip is weak, and in no
demand, and County warrants too abundant
for Buyers. Tennessee money was sold at 70
cents, and scrip and warrants tend to the same
figures.
CorroN. = Yesterday was an active day.
Holders were a shade too confident and exact
ing. perhaps. But 1850 bales were sold. Mid
dlings, 2l@2115; good middlings. 22@23; strict
middlings, %; strict low middlings, q 4@211s ;
good ordinary, 1S@20 ordinary, Ia; low or
binary, l31z@l51S. The market this morning
was unchanged. and many transactions inau-
gurated will be closed probably at advanced
rates. before night
REDUNDANT CURRENcY.-If a currency be
good, plethora is no evil. or, impossible. An
cient bears growl in their dens about overtrad-
ing and bankruptcy as baleful results Of specu-
transportation it is that develops the re-
sources Of the country. 1t is speculation that
made Sam Tate and w. B. Greenlaw build
twenty miles Of first-class railroad in twenty
days. 1t is this sort of speculation, and this
sort Of men, born with speculative steam en-
gines in the neither extremities Of their trow-
sers driving them forward to great and hon
orable achievements, that make most useful
citizens. Such men are often honored by
criticisms suggested by envy. Speculation
will reproduce industry. II will cause every
desolated farm in the South to be re-enelOsed
and cultivated. Half the fields along the
Memphis and Charleston aud other Memphis
roads are now untitled, unfeneed. Speeula-
ton will rebuild every enclosure destroyed oy
war and open every furrow that has blossomed
no more since some farmers boy went down
IN Qcatu- OeSOlatiou ol ueiurt nedltlr Nl1
homes. wrought by politicians. willie cured by
speculation. Foreign and domestic trade will
resume their proper functions. give new life
to agriculture. manufactures, and infuse new
yigor into human industry. There Is every
thing TO hope, save that the hideous shadow
of Beast Butler rises mp threatening desola-
ton. his mouth watering for Tennessee be-
cause the word originally signifed spoon"
the future expanded before us is brilliant
enough. Radicalism has done its worst. Its
mission was accomplished when it made the
negro supreme as far as possible in the South
that these States might vote with New Eng
land in Presidential elections. Federal de- I
baucheries Of organic law have run their
course; every branch Of industry prospers;
even here in Memphis. spring [
into existence; railway systems are expanded; 7
confidence supplants doubt; and the hour has I
come when great enterprises will be rapidly /
initiated Gnd accomplished. Congress need /
only reduce taxation to the lowest possible I
limit and adjourn over tili is74. when a Dem /
oeratie Congress viii sit in the Capitol and all I
: Iii IA be we'll.