The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-02-11
THE GENERAL BOOM IN VALUES.

Those of our readers who have recently
taken the trouble to daily read our market
column have doubtless frequently been aston
ished at the extraordinary advance in almost
every article entering into human wants and
industries. Compared with list of prices
six months ago the present position of Ill
most every standard article is not less
than fifty, andsolnetimcs one hundred,
and yet in Others three hundred
per cent. higher. Take nails, for
instance, and we find that last August
they were selling for 81 rs to So perkcg and
the price now is from So 20 to 81 rs. Rail-
way iron has jumped from SIT to $40 per
ton. There is not m item in the whole cata-
logue of household furniture wearing
apparel, agricultural implements, mechan-
ical tools, in provisions, in stock, and stocks,
n real estate, and everything else which can
be mentioned that has not bounded upward
and is still going higher 1t requires one dollar
now to buy that which twenty-five or fifty
cents would lave bought twelve months ago.
The impetus given to United States produce
tons and property has been the most extra
ordinary known in the history Of the country.
IL is proof most convincing of its latent
wealth and elastic nature For seven years
the Biblical span for famines and general
calamities in the old time--we were bowed
down under the effects Of the most disastrous
panic that ever overlook us. Values went to
zero; colossal fortunes, handed down from
sire to son from the earliest days of the
Republic, and fortunes more recently accumu-
lated, were swept away, not even leaving
foundation stone, Daily reports of fail
ures in which millions were lost ranged down
the columns of al the press, and it did seem
that the bottom, ms the top appears now,
would never BIO reached. But of a sudden.
and in moment, asst wcre this downward
career was arrested the turning point ap-
pearing as totally unexpected as the begin
ming of the panic itself. Like the panic, the
boom should be calmly and soberly weighed,
and the question asked where will it stop,
and when will the reaction begin? There is
danger of its going too far. The advance in
prices must eliminate somewhere. Iron can
not assume the value of gold, common real
estate the worth of Mines road wagons that
of carriages, woolens and cottons the worth of
silk and satin. There is imminent
danger of too quickly involving all ones
wealth upon speculation. Whilst the aph-
orism that bad investment is better than to
never make an Investment at all is true, take
care not to invest borrowed money in that
where there is chance of losing it, As in
viting az real estate is now, there is no spe-
cies of it which will command IL per
cent, and yet there are those all around us
mortgaging it at this rate in order to obtain
money with which to enter into purely spec
ulstive enterprises. Solid investments are at
all times in order and eminently proper,
and speculative opportunities frequently pre-
sent themselves which should be embraced.
But in these last the greatest caution should
DO exercised and every circumstance care
fully considered. 1t is nearly certain that
losses will be sustained upon PURCHASES even
now made, and absolutely so that before this
boom ends stranded wrecks will be counted
by the thousand in every State.
The present excitement is but another illus
tration of the break-neck speed at which
Americans usually travel. They do every
thing in hurry. Go At a gwen task before
them and either finish it or fail at it in less
time than other people take to make their
preliminary figures. They either "make a
spoon or spoil horn" and do il quick.