Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1894-01-03

New YORK, Dec 30-R. G.. Dun &,
Co.'S Weekly Review of Trade says:
Starting with the largest trade
ever known, mills crowded with
work and all business stimulated by
high hopes, the year 1898 has proved,
| in sudden shrinbage of trade. in com
! mercial disasters and depression of
industries, the worst for fifty years
Whether the final results of the panic
of 1887 were relatively more severe
the scantv records that exist do not
clearly show. The year closes with
the prices OF many products the lowest
ever known. with millions of workers
seeking in vain for work, and with
charity laboring to keep back suffer
ing and starvation in all our cities.
THE review of different depart
ments of trade exhibits collapse of
industry and business which is almost
without precedent. The iron industry
sustained weekly production of 1sl,
55l tons pig May !, but by October l
the output had fallen to 1885 tons,
and the recovery to about 100, 600 De-
cember still leaves forty per cent of
the force unemployed. Over half the
NOOicu lulc.
Official and other reports give the
notion that the crops of last year
were SO short that famine prices
nous stocks were bought and held
with the aid of banks till heavy re-
ceipts in the spring caused collapse
of wheat, pork and cotton pools Dis
astrous failures helped to produce the
alarm which soon made money i'm
possible to get, but even at the worst
hour OF the panic, prices were scarcely
lower than they are now. Wheat has
repeatedly sold higher. and at Chicago
at the lowest price ever known. and
Is but one-half cent above it now
Pork fell 81 in an hour when the spec
ulation burst, but sells lower yet to-
day.
Iron returns thus far aggregate
$40, s53, $50, against So ), 520,9.l last
year, a decrease of 3S per cent; reports
thus far of jewelry show decrease of
30 per cent; of furniture 26 per cent;
OF dry goods, % per cent: of hats, '195
per cent; of hardware, 10 per cent; of
shoe manufacture, IS per cent, and by
dealers per cent, and of clothing, 1S
per cent. 1t is curious that the only
trade showing an increase is in gro.
cerles, the aggregate sales being per
cent larger than in the last half of
1892.
In thirty-seven years, cogere1 by
the records of this agency, the num-
Der of failures has only once risen a
little above 1865 in year. In 1893
the number reported has been 16, $50
The aggregate of vhe liabilities in all
failures reported and in six years have
not arisen above $500, 600, O0), and this
year the strictly commercial liabilities
alone have exceeded S331, 4?2, 930; the
Liabilities of banking and financial in
stitutions have been S210, 956 S64, and
the liabilities of railroads placed in
the hands &C re"",vers about Sl,122.-
PIT, S33 As all reports hitherto have
been to some extent erroneous through
inclusion of failures not strictly COM
mercial the classified returns show
3,226 manufacturing failures, with
liabilities of S164, 7O7, 449; 10, 63S fail
ures in legitimate trade, with liabill-
ties of $50, 527, S96, and 3O2 other fail
ures, including brokers, speculators,
etc, with liabilities of $50, 662, 735. The
average of liabilities in manufactur-
ing is $4,000; in legitimate trading
$4,000, and other failures, S11, O00