Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1881-02-14
LETTER FROM NEW YORK.
Especial Correspondence of the Monitor.1

especial correspondence OF the Monitor
NEW YORK, Feb. Z, 1881.
In spite of good times generally, and
the prospect of better when the weather
holds up little and the streets become
paSsable, we have some occasional COM
mercial catastrophes to prevent us for
getting former consequences of reckless
ness or dishonesty. The tobacco trade
has suffered from some very heavy fail
ures the domestic wine trade has receiv-
ed knockdown by the suspension of the
Urbana Wine Co., of which the genial
host of one of the famous hostelries of
Long Branch, Hildreth, is president, and
even the heightened dry goods trade has
been disgraced by scamp who, not sat
listed with doing good business and
the esteem of his fellows, forged
$75, 900 in notes, which he got shaved in
Wall street, ruined his trusting partner
and deserted his family, leaving them
penniless and heartbroken. This last
was such a senseless piece of business,
committed, as it were, without the small
est temptation, that it would almost argue
insanity in the man who would thus throw
himself away.
Apparently discouraged by the Arctic
temperature which has prevailed, the
cackling pullets of our neighboring farms
any where within railroad reach of sew
eral hundred miles, have cut short their
supply of eggs. 1t is melancholy to see
how many disappointed tipplers are fore
ed to dip their red noses into whisky
straight, when they have vainly called for
Tom and Jerry. A decent omelette has
become more costly than a turkey on
toast, and we are as badly off for oysters.
There is a regular famine in the succu.
lent bivalves precious few are coming
to market, and from the dispiriting &C
counts of the wholesale freezing up O.
numerous banks of them, it looks as i
oysters would be as valuable as pearl:
before long. This sort of weather MAJ
suit the ice men, but the rest of us thinl
the original ''Old Prob" managed mat
| tiers somewhat better than his successor
When Paterfamilias has got through
| paying his Christmas bills, and, even i
| comfortably off, has sober thought O
| two about how future Christmas and 9th
er bills might be met by those he love
best if he should Mapped to be removes
| from this mundane sphere, the sight 0
an insurance circular is apt to attract a
unusual degree of attention. Possibly o.
account of their knowledge of this trai
in civilized human nature, or more prob
ably because they transact their bushes
in its broad outlines, the same as othe
| people, and take stock at the close @
each year, and render an account of thei
stewardship as soon thereafter as COZ
veniently may be, the insurance fratern
ty are accustomed just about this time t
present statement of their affairs t
their present and possible friends. l hay
before me now the annual statement
the Mutual Life Insurance Co. 1t is e;
silly the grandest corporate institution
any kind, bar none, in the world, its al
sets, estimated closely, with very libe
al margin for any possible depreciatio
in any of its very judiciously placed il
yestments, aggregating the stupendot
sum of $91, 735, 7s6.2O.
! Mere bigness is of course not of itse