The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1894-01-04
THE WORST SINCE 81.
General Review of the Situation
BY Dun and Bradstreet.
Collapse OF Industry Almost Without
Precedent --1G, $50 Failurers
For The Year,


with work and All business stimulated |
by high hopes, the year 1898 has
proved, in sudden snrihkage of trade,
IN commercial disasters anu dopress-
ion of industries, the worst for 50 years. |
Whether the financial results of the |
panic of 1887 were relatively more Sc
we're. the scanty records of that time
do not clearly show. The year closes
with prices OF many products the low
est ever known, with millions of work.
ers seeking in vain for work, and with
charity laboring to keep back suffer.
ing and starvation in all our cities.
III hope the new year may bring
brighter days, but the dying year
leaves only dismal record.
The review of different departn. ents
OF trade, gwen today, exhibits collapse
of industry and business which is al
most without precedent. The iron in
dustry sustained a weekly production
of 181, 551 tons of pig May l, but Octo-
Der the output had fallen to 1885
tons and the recovery to about 100000
December l, still leaves forty per cent
of the force unemployed.
Over half the wooden manufacturers
are idle and excepting brief recovery
in November, have been ever since new
wool came in, in May, for all sales at
three chief markets in the eight
months have been but LOG, AGO pounds,
partly for speculation, the price having
fallen 20 per cent for fleece 10 the low
est point ever known, against 2 IL, $780,.
003 pounds in the same month last
year. Sales of cotton goods are fully
8 quarter below the usual quantity
The small advance attempted in boots
and shoes year ago was not ustained,
but with prices as low as ever, the
shipments of boots and shoes from
Boston are "a per cent less than last
year in December,
Not only manufactured goods as a
whole, but the most important farm
products are so low that farmers find
little comfort. Official and other re-
ports deluded traders with tn. notion
that crops OF last year were so short
that famine prices could be realized on
purchases. Enormous stocks were
bought and held with the aid of banks
until heavy receipts in the spring
caused collapse of wheat, pork and
cotton pools. Disastrous failurers
helped to produce the alarm, which
soon made money impossible to get
but even at the worst hour OF the
panic prices were scarcely lower thar
they are now. Wheat has repeatedly
sold higher at Chicago and the loves
price ever known is but p cent above
it now.
Pork fell $500 in an hour when thu
speculation burst, but sells lower ye
today. Cotton was lifted cent will
accounts OF scarcity in September
but has lost most of the gain and sell
below cents. Thus unreasonable,
speculations by preventing the sale O
surplus products have proved grea
injury to farmers at time when thei
enforced curtailment of purchases i
disastrous to all other industries
Clear evidence of the shrinkage in di
ferent branches of business is afforde
ANSWERS already received to sewers
thousand circulars requesting figure
of sales during the last half of 1S9
and 1892.
Iron returns thus for aggregate $40
859.18O against 65,520,92l last year,
decrease of 3S per cent. Reports thu
far of jewelry show decrease of 20 pc
cent. 1t is curious that the only trad
showing any increase as yet bein
groceries, the trade being per cen
larger than the last half of 1892. l
thirty-seven years covered by the r
cords of this agency the number
failures has only once raisen a lit
above 1860 in year. In 1898 tt
number reported has been 1850. TT
aggregate of liabilities in all failure
reported has in six years risen aboy
$200,O00,000.
This year the strictly commerce.
liabilities alone have exceeded 1913
H22,939, the liabilities of banking an
financial institutions have been $21(
956,964 aud the liabilities of railroad
placed in the hands of receivers ahol
$1,212,217033 AS all reports hither
have been to some extent erroneo1
through inclusion of failurers n
strictly commercial, the classified :
turns given on the next page will
found more complete and instructi'
than any hitherto published. Thu
show 1926 manufacturing failur
with liabilities of 1854 707 ,449,10, 6
in legitimate trade with liabilities
SS5527 1876, and 302 other failures,
GLIDING brokers and spectators, wi
liabilities 1886, 1852, 1876. The avera
RTvs NOT what we say but wha