The Portland daily press., 1877-08-21
Our New York Letter.
specuIati tion in ihe Stock Market-The
Turn Of the Tide-Secretary sherman's
speech-The Silver Dollar nad the Re-
sumption Act.
New YORK. Aug. 1s. 1877.

New YORK. Aug. Is, 1877.
The midsummer dullness does not seem in
the least to have repressed the love of specula.
tion among the gamesters of the stock ex-
change. There has been extraordinary actiyi-
ty in all classes of shares. The transactions
have been large, and prices have in many in
stances reached enormously high figures.
There has been rise of thirty-three and third
per cent. in the quotations of stocks that neth-
er pay dividends nor can be expected to for a
long time to come 1t is not perhaps to be-
wondered at that the coal propertesI have ad-
vanced, because in the first place the decline in
them had been unnaturally severe and there
has already been rise in coal aud there are
portents of diminished production. The in
creased value of the railways, however, can
only be attributed to faith in the prospects
of the future. The Wall street operators
are proverbially quick in discerning signs of
prosperity or adversely. They see now that
there are to be immense crops of cotton and
grain-that the movement of them will aug
nent the earnings of the roads-and they have
begun early to discount the profits that will
accrue from this accession of business. They
may be OVERRIDING it. Probably they are Gen
way, it becomes uncomfortable until it has
swept beyond any rational limit, and then it
collapses very suddenly.
But viewed merely as an indication of popu.
lar feeling in respect to the chances of gener-
al improvement in affairs this stir is highly
significant. After every severe and continu-
ons depression theturn of the tide higgins in
the stock markets. 1t is in them that sales and
purchases are made with the greatest rapidity.
Then follows a revival in merchandise and
lastly, though most likely good ways beyond,
an appreciation of real estate.
Undoubtedly the present rush of stock specu
lation is confined mainly to parties who buy to
sell again rather than to bona tide investors.
There is still so much distrust of the manage
ment of corporations among capitalists that
they will not easily be persuaded t, risk new
ventures while their recollections are so fresh
of prodigious losses they have witnessed or ex-
perienced, caused by previous ones. But these
things are all taken into account quite as care
fully by the men who buy as by the men who
sell. They are shrewd calculators, and studv
the advantages and Disadvantages of their posi-
tion with assiduous diligence. They NAV be
over-sanguine. 1t is not safe to predict wheth-
er the optimists or pessimists will win In the
end. Nor is it matter of much consequences
so far as the individuals themselves are con-
cerned. But the fact remains, that there are a
considerable number of persons in this city,
with vast resources at their command and all
they possess at stake, who have such abiding
faith in the recuperative powers of the country
that they anticipate an early restoration of its
industrial energies and material prosperity.
Secretary Sherman's speech at Mansfield,
Ohio, on the 18th, has, as a matter of course
attracted much attention. What was merely
political in it may bs commended for its in
genuity if not for its frankness, but the prac
teal part of it is that which more nearly con-
Germs the public Just now. That he should
commit himself to the resumption act in its
entirety was to be expected for he was one of
theEprincipal authors of it. Still it is salts
factory to have the finance minister pronounce
himself unequivocally in favor of maintain
ing the national faith. Curiousy enough Mr..
Sherman evaded the silver question altogether.