Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1875-10-29

he does not have to go far for a reas on i.
The Chicago fire and the failure of Jay
Cooke afforded two splendid opportuni-
ties for shakY houses to get out creditably,
and thousands did 1t. So don't get
frightened at the long list of failures.
Those only are going under who ought
to go, and the most of them should have
gone long ago. Nevertheless,
BUSINESS
Is horribly dull here-an uncomfortable
fact which the merchants are not able
TO give good reason for. 1t is NOT so in
other cities, especially those in the West.
Chicago, st. Louis, Cincinnati, Toledo,
and all the other great business centers
of the country, are doing more than usu-
al, and the retailers all over the CO untry
are doing better than usual. 1 b ave a
notion that New York has perm nently
lost portion of its trade. Her business
men have relied so long upon her atural
advantages, they have trusted so much to
them, that they have permitted other
more enterprising points to steal trade
little by little, till the aggr egate makes a
very serious showing. Boston, Montreal,
and Baltimore are taking the grain trade.
and the great inland cities are doing the
jobbIng. 1t is not impossible for New
York to get it back, but there will have to
be work done to do it. Natural advan-
tages"n don't count much in this day of
railroads. ANY point that has enterprise
can have them. One good effect of the
hard times s the
KILLING OUT OF GAMING AND RUM.
The gamblers are having a terribly
hard time of il. John MOrrIsey found it
didn't pay any longer, and he has sold
his magnificent uptown establishment.
The smaller games are in an equally
hard-up condition, and the keepers of tn he
rum mills are in despair. 1t used to be a
verv nice thing for young De Smythe to
drop IN to a gaming house, eat magnif-
icent SUPPER, drink bottle OF splendid
wine, and lose few hundred at faro, and
1t was equally fine for the proprietor of
the house. In those days all the stores
and houses that the ancient Smith left
to the modern De Smythe were rent ing
at enormous rates, and the young man
didn't know what to do with his mo ne V
but now two o-thirds of them are empty
and the other third find tenants at half
the old rates, and Augustus fiEds it diff
cult 10 keep his mother and sisters, to
say nothing of his vices. The high-pri-
ced drinking places are scantily patron
iZed, and the clubs are in a fearfuIlY de-
moralized condition. financially. The
receipts at the bar of one prominent club
has dropped within year 66 per cent =,
and there are others still worse. It takes
more work to make O dollar now than it
did year ago, and the people haven't
got it to spend. So some good co mes
out of evil. The rum business isn't W hat
it was in New York.
THE NEW SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.
The attitude of the New York press in
the matter ofthe appointment of Ex-Sen-
ator Chan dler, of Michigan, Secretary of
the Int rior, is not only unfair, but brut-
tai. They denounce the appointment as
one entirely unfit 10 be made, intimating
if they do not assert, that the new Secreta-
ry is blatherer, a ninny, and drunk
ard. Possibly the gentlemen who are
discharging these little ink-squIrts at
, Chandler know him and possibly they
do not. 1 do, and predict that he will
make the best officer that department
has had since Cox left it. He was for
years the most prominent business man
in the West, and handled greater inter
ests than any other. He was a mer-
chant, a manufacturer, a shipper; he
purchased and developed immense tracts
of land in Michigan, and for forty years
he.has been known as a man not only
of absolute integrity, but one of great en-
terprise, foresight, method, and shrewd-
ness and he is anything but drunkard.
1t strikes me that these qualit1 cations are
about what the country wants in such
places. They are precisely thos that
Jewell brought to the Post-Ofice Depart
ment, and we all know what he has done
in that place. Mark my words, Chand-
Ter will administer the duties ofhis office
honestly. vigorously, and intelligently.
True, he is partisan, but lei it be re-
membered that those bowling at Grants
heels on that account howled just as
loudly seven years ago because he did
not put partisans in position. Time will
confound them.
THE WEATHER
is as delightful as weather can be. Soft,
balmY air and dry streets are what we
are revelIng in now.
New York Oct Goth, 1875. PIETRo.