The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-09-10
COlNERCIAL MATTERS. Etc.

Que ships, and is not likely to be the fore
runner of much trade in that way.
great discovery of sulphur has been
made on Rabbit Hole Mountain, thirty miles
rom the Humboldt House, on the Central
Pacific Railroad, in Humboldt county, Ne.
vada- The mountain is a mass of sulphur,
and, so far as worked, yields 80 to SO per cent
OF the pure article It is shipped in its crude
state to the Carson and San Francisco minis
at the rate of ten to twenty tons per week.
and Is use in the manufacture of sulphuric
acid. 1t is preferred to the article imported
from Sicily and japan for that purpose, and
also BY farmers making wash for sheep.
The New York Evening Post says the trade
with the South is opening better than was
calculated. Good business was expected
With the West, and there is disappointment
Trade with New York and the Middle and
Eastern 5 'ates is small, as it was expected, be-
cause of the depression in manufacturing in
terests. With the agricultural sections flour
ishing, however, it is but step to improve
ment in manufacturing. There is the same
caution and prudence manifest in trade this
season which there has been since the panic,
and 1t Is safe to assume that whatever bust
ness ID done Will be done on a safe basis.
The Apple Crop.
Florida reports full average crop; Texas
also reports her trees are bearing more than
thirds of crop; New jersey Maryland and
Delaware are in about the same position;
Maine and Vermont report excellent crops,
and as these are to the apple market what
Delaware is to the peach we shall probably
have fair supply. 10 this State the indica-
tions are that we shall only have little more
than half crop, though it is suspected that
It is with this as with the average Of the other
States-those portions which report poor
hN- IA
course, the average of the whole State, but
that portion of New York which makes apple
growing particular feature will, it is proba-
BILE. yield nearly as much as usual-N. T.
Bulletin, 9Th inst.
Margins.
New York Shipping List
Margin is an opportunity for profit With
the merchant and manufacturer, it is the diff
ference between cost and the selling price.
With the stock gambler, it is a certain per.
centage required to cover fluctuations. 10
the one case, it is the opportunity which labor
and enterprise, with the use of ones own
capital, give for legitimate profit In the
other, 1t affords the opportunity to gamble for
profit on some one else's capital The diff
ference is q radical one. The merchant starts
with capital, and endeavors to realize a
margin; while the stock operator starts with
margin, and endeavors to realize capital.
ably sure; in the other, rapid but hazardous
A. T. Stewart has passed years of enterpris-
ing exertion for the margin which has ena-
bei him slowly to accumulate and solidify
great fortune, until now his name is a syno-
nym for financial strength. Ralston, with
his capital constantly at stake, amassed with
wonderful rapidity, but has made an abrupt
and disastrous finish. Through different
methods, the same result-a fortune-was
L.. l~..k Al
to the one could not possibly befall the
other.
Financial greatness implies strength and
solidity; but strength and soldlty come only
through slow growth which makes failure
an impOssibility. It may seem a small thing
to work only for the narrow margin, and year
by year to make only that small advance But
those narrow margins. like the successive
rings Of the oak, make in the end material
which no power can break. Great business
enterprises must be undertaken and carried
on, but an imperative necessity also exists for
houses with strength commensurate with such
undertakings. Thousands of men have the
pluck and the skill to carry on great bust
ness; but the times come when pluck is moth
ing, skill is nothing, but giant strength
is everything to carry the load The list is a
long one-of houses imputed great-that
were tried and found wanting. Each in Its
fall caused widespread distress, and ruined
those whom it should have saved
The reason for these failures is simple and
apparent. The methods Of Wall street have
been carried into all branches of mercantile
business; and the capital which ought to be
the basis and measure of q merchants opera
tions, and the strong foundation on which he
rests, is turned into margin to be staked on
the chance fluctuations of the market, and
liable to be swept out of sight by a sudden
change of values. In every direction these
great, hollow shells, foated along by their
debts, have one after another collapsed and
astonished the world with their emptiness.
The merchant who turns his capital into
margin, to make fortune in season, is |
devoid of sound business sense-is in fact Q
fool. If he risks in the same way, money |
which others have trusted with him, he is |
criminal It would be q mournful chapter IN |
the history of the past three years to tell the
tale CT the poor unfortunate ones whose very |
life-blood has been drawn by the splendid
gamblers who have been forced to raise their
stakes when on the verge of ruin. The
country does not need those brilliant men,
though they may seem to occupy very large
place in it. While they are successful their
example is q curse; and when the end comes
thew carry sore distress into thousands of
quiet, happy homes.
Many branches of business are suffering
to day from this fatal system of oper iting in
the staple products of the country. The
and dealer find no margins,
because those which their enterprise have
shaped are destroyed by the unnatural floods
which weak spectators precipitate A large
part of the daily transactions Of the Produce
are purely speculative. and men
who pray long and loud on Sunday to be
from temptation and sin, and who
vould raise their hands in holy horror at q
game of faro, yet are at their larger game
every day in the week, watching their
neighbors' hands. and playing their cards,
with all the cunning of the Father OF Evil, I
while they make it respectable by calling it
Ill business. Perhaps it is business. but 1t IS
not the kind of business which is making the
nation prosperous, nor that which is yielding
.nything but the bitter fruit of bankruptcy
md ruin. This generation of business men
nave been wiser and smarter than their
athers but their wisdom and their smartpess