The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1895-06-01
pUN'S COMMERCIAL REVIEW.

strained Spirit OF Speculation Following
Relief from Long Anxiety and the Album
dance OF Money.
New YORK. May 25.-R. e. Dun Il
Co.'S weekly review of trade, Issued
to-day, says:
Ifwheat has been so greatly injured
by the SHOWS and frost in May that
a sudden rise of twelve cents in
two weeks is justified, the calamity
will affect all business products. The
markets do not believe it, for stocks
do not collapse; iron, leather and
| hides still rise, and no holders
Of wheat would sell at 50 cents, a
lower price than had been known at
this season for thirty years prior to
1895, if current reports were credited.
Some injury has undoubtedly beer
sustained. but our own dispatches do
not show that it is really serious.
The fact is that relief from long
anxiety and the abundance and cheap
ness of money for which industry and
legitimate trade give as We: no ade-
quate demand, have excited the specu-
lative spirit beyond all restraint.
They, however, will have nothing to
do with cold facts. The temper
is to buy, regardless of visible
requirements. in the faith that
prices are sure to rise. Wild excite
ment in wheat, with sales in one
dav at Chicago alone of 300, 900, 900
bushels. about three times the wheat
there is in the country, and a renewed
frenzy in cotton, with sales in three
- -.oolS1. tla Yrlp1a riSihln SfnAlK
in America, followed the furious rise
in stocks, in oil, and in leather-at
once a recognition of real improve
ment in business and a menace to its
progress.
Western receipts of wheat for three
weeks have been larger than last year
in spite of stories of frOsts. But the
rise has practically stopped buying for
export, as the similar rise did in April,
1854. which was followed by about the
lowest price then ever known. The
weeks sales here have amounted to
. I55. 900, 900 bushels and accounts OF
damage by frosts and by insects are so
mixed up that some traders infer the
bugs must wear OvercOats.
l On Thursday July rose to S44 cents,
: but, with heavy sales, receded to s1t3,
and closed for the day at 20 cents.
| Corn rose 81 cents during the week,
though most of the corn killed may be
replanted; pork rose 80 cents per
barrel, lard ) cents per 100 pounds and
/ oats , cents.
2 Cotton also advanced three-eighths
| for the week. with sales of l,55G,2O
(. . ,.+;,,t,r ~ut+inr tho
decrease in acreage at 3.5 per cent,
f and the crop at 1885, 900. Even this.
with known commercial and spinnerS'
f stocks, would give the world for the
year and a quarter to come more
American that it has ever consumed
in Il year and Il half.
= Excitement has been diverted from
stocks, and London has been buying
5 but little, while current crop news did
I not help trunk lines or grangers. The
terms of the Northern Pacific reOr'
: ganizatiOn do not help lOw-priced
stocks: nor does the loss of fruit crops
e help sugar. Yet the average decline
was only IS cents per share for rail
roads and lG cents for trustS. Report,
of railroad experts maintain that the
: injury to crops has been greatly eXag
gerated.
; Actual earnings for the first half o.
May are Is per cent. larger than last
year, but 3D. per cent. less than IL
1898. Exchanges include enormous
speculative transactions, and for the
month are ESQ per cent. larger than
/ last year.
: The iron industry distinctly gain'
and the Improvement is no longer con
fined to prices of materials. Better
wages at and west of Pittsburgh con
vince buyers that prices must rist
: and there have been larger sale:
of finished products with about
81 per ton better prices fol-
t structural forms and steel bars
. while BesSemcr pig has risen to S11.5l
= at Pittsburgh and gray forge to SO
u The Thomas company has advanced it
anthracite pig 30 cents, and highe
> freights make southern cost more a
! the east. Sales of rails to May wer
42O, 600 tons, and deliveries 250.00O
- both larger than for the correspondent!
: period last year.
; Purchasers of dry goods, in the be
lief that prices must rise, have KEEP
textile mills fairly busy, but the de
= mand for cotton seems Stacker on tn,
whole, and print cloths are a sixteenth
. weaker. There is no improvement il
demand for woolens, and strikes d.
not abate.
: Sales for three weeks have beer
r s.273, $50 pounds domestic and $4,000
p foreign, slightly exceeding the tota
l. sales in lS92. Shipments of shoes ar
+ also heavy, in three weeks 2SS, O9g
a against 2O1, 9SI cases last year. Th
demand for some kinds is active, bu
9 many mills have orders enough 70
Y two months and do not want to bu.
4 leather, which continues firm. Hide
~ are firm and larger exports are eS
pected.
i, Liabilities for the two weeks of Ma,
were So, IO7, $50, of which 81, 90S, 81
A were of manufacturing and S3,279,22
d of trading concerns. Last year in tn
" same weeks the amount was S5,07l, lie
a. of which 81, $50, 1888 was of manufactul
h ing and 81, 356, 637 of miscellaneou
d trading concerns.
o. Failures this week have been POI /
j +ho J-pifaI StatnS AGAINST 1S3 las