Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-02-08
suggestions to Southern People.
TEXARKAgA. ARK. January 30 1Qs

40AA4hAAA~t<Ag A1Ahs 4A00lJ CV, 1COl.
Editor 81. Louis Republican. do not
own bale Of cotton nor contracts for
the same. My home and sympathies are
with the Southern people. Ny facilities
for observations are unsurpassed as TO
crops in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennes-
see, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, and
/ believe can help those who are not
posted by this letter.
/ advise all to stick to their legitimate
business; never sell what they have not
to deliver of their own and not to buy
what they cannot pay for nor use. In
other words, advise our people to stop
paying tribute to market R1dnipuIators
In the month of December, under
heavy receipts and fair probability of
good weather in January, the leading
staple of the South advanced materially
and with feeling of general prosperity
Assisted by encouraging letters and cir
culars, large numbers of our interior
merchants and even planters bought fu-
ture contracts of cotton for February and
March deliveries. They are now paying
for their credulity at the rate of halt to
one cent per pound All this in the face
OF moderate receipts and continued bad
weather and poor prospects for gathering
the balance of the crop. What has been
done cannot be cured, but | feel some
one should now advise them not to
the ''Janus.faced" advisers, the
bears who say to them ''sell short, /"
whilst they themselves take in their con-
tracts. The truth of the matter is this:
We made possibly as much cotton as we
did in 1879 and 1880, not more; we will
lose two hundred and fifty thousand
bales by bad weather, possibly more
The crop may be five million six hun
dred thousand, but you need not be sur
prised to see figures from these six mil
lion manipuiators showing the crop de-
stroyed and estimating the yield at even
five million in sixty days hence; but
these estimates will be like those now
being given, based upon contracts made
with the innocent ones, before they, the
"bears," change their opinions.
The States OF North and South Caro-
lima and Georgia will have some increase,
which will all be more than lost in the
States named at outset of this letter.
To prove this I assert that not one in ten
depots or river landings in these States
CABCGt vi Will GAAlp A4A0hy NnANO cso AA
1879 and 1880, and it is not claimed that
any have gained. The assertion about
what is in the fields is preposterous; even
if gathered, which is an impossibillty, it
would make but a small figure In the
great total
/ have taken the pains to estimate the
amount yet gathered but not forwarded.
For sixty days past hands have had
nothing to do but gin out, bale and mar
ket the gatherings of early months in
gins. We of the South know how little
trouble this part of handling crop is,
and the great industry and diligence
always used by both white and black Ia
borers to haul TO the markets. The
question of bad roads preventing is too
unreasonable to consider at all. In fact,
railroads aud river facilities have
all so multiplied that no one
holds cotton now on account OF
inability to move, and these
transportation companies have We'd with
each other in prompt moving of all
freights offered, and there is not block
ade in the South today, nor has there
been this season. Gin houses and pens
are empty, and the only hope the bears
0dfC " Od1 ID " luOACC Jul pSCPIC W ~
''short" for what they say is in the
fields, which, if even gathered and saved,
could not possibly make the crop in ex-
cess of last years. Now. they bought at
the wrong time, and if they sell now
"shoTt" it will, in my opinion, prove
even worse for them. Trade is
good, provisions high, stocks and
bonds at a premium. Why should
cotton go lower whilst all the
world is at peaceP There is no reason
in the tempting allurements spread
broadcast over the country TO sell
short" SO let your readers, WHO are
many, throughout the South, pocket and
pay losses to date, sell their spot cOttons
when it will net producer fair profit
and stop paying twenty-five dollars per
hundred for wind contracts aud ten
times the amount Of being idiots on said
contracts Present prices are not ex-
tremelY low, but as compared with
wheat, corn. meat and commercial secu-
rites Stocks, bonds. etc.. it is 90 per
cent. under them. NEUTRAL.