The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1876-07-05
Down with Retail Prices.

While rents have gone down and general
values of all kinds have shruuk, IA certain
class OF well-to-do tradesmen, principally
those who furnish the wealthy and middle
classes, stoutly resist the fall in prices
This is more especially noticeable among
fashionable taIlors. matters, shoemakers,
dressmakers, and the like. They have no
longer the excuse of high rents and rapa-
cious landlords. The landlord interest
has perforce made great sacrifices and ex-
porienoed heavy Losses. When l3,000.000
of people abandon habits of extravaganza
and enter upon course of rigid economy,
it is time 10 let prices 90 down. realize,
aud start fresh again. Tho sooner every
thing finds it's level the sooner will the
tide, which has SO long been receding,
return To its highest flow, hitting in Its
upward course all those interests which
for two years have been so prostrated.
The retail dealers of whom we speak
complain Of dull times. No wonder.
Their customers have III very many cases
been absolutely driven away by prices
forty 10 fifty per cent. higher than are
charged in other establishments where
business Is Conducted on the new basis OF
values. This is especially noticeable in
the matter of clothing. While many fash
ionable tailors charge from forty to
forty-ive dollars to make to order thin
tweed or other light stun morning snit,
the same suit equally well cut and put
together Of the same material, can be
bought ready made from some enterpris-
ing Establishments at eighteen or twenty
dollars. These establishments have put
their prices down, and are for the most
part doing brisk business, which is daily
increasing at the expense Of the fashion,
able artists who sit In their shops waiting
ior customers who will come never again
more"
All this class OF retail dealers must
lower their prices, and that speedily or
they will be obliged to step down and out.
The large business interests of the country
have been adjusted to the new scale of
values, and are gradually reviving. Two
classes combine to retard the coming era
Of prosperity. First, those well-to-do
tradesmen OF whom We have spoken
above. Second, those merchants, specu-
lators, tradesmen, and Others, who, since
1873, have been hopelessly struggling
against u mass of Indebtedness, which
must eventually crush them. They hold
on with desperate tenaoity to stocks of
goods bought at high prices, with the hope
of rising market which will enable them
to retrieve their losses in the near future:
they cling TO real estate in which their
equity has long since been swept away by
the fan Of values.
They hold on to imaginary values rs n
drowning man grasps at q straw. TIL
these unfortunate debtors liquidatc, go
into bankruptcy, make assignments, OF
permanently disappear, the revival which
is already noticed at our principal trade
centres will not gain that impetus which
is warranted by abundant crops, and the
generally prosperous condition of the
agricultural classes throughout the coun-
try. The difficulty we speak of ia princi-
pally felt in large cities, aud nowhere
more than here In New York. whore mul-
titudes of speculative enterprises that
have led TO the ruin of their prof tors
and involved all those who were engaged
IN them, were organized and furnished
with capital New York has set to the
rest OF the country the example OF crimi-
nal extravaganza in municipal aud per-
sonal expenditures. ont of this eXtrava-
gance has grown system of official COR
ruptlon which eliminated in Washington
and brought such dEhOnOr on our national
name.
The man who would command success
in the future will need to cherish habits OF
industry and economy. The number of
those who can afford to pay and are will
ling TO pay forty dollars for au article that
can be procured for half the money. has
been wonderfully narrowed down. TIC