The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-20
Dun's Report of the Condition of
General Business.
IRON ADVANCES In PRICE
HIGHER PRICES ARE PAID FOR
BOOTS AND SHOES.
Spectators Doing Large Business In
Wool - Wheat Has Been Rising
During Past Week, Nobody Can
Tell Why-Better Shipments Fol-
low Opening of Navigation.

New York, May 19.-R. G. Dun &
Cos. weekly review of trade tomorrow
will say:
While buying 100000 tons of Bessemer
pig at Pittsburg gave reason for the
advance in price to S16.50, with gray
forge quoted at SIS per ton, it is not
quite clear as it might be that the out
put, which was 255, 900 tons weekly, ac-
cording TO the Pittsburg Record, and
has since been largely increased by the
addition of many furnaces, viii con-
tinue to fall below the demand. For
the requirements in various depart
ments for manufactured produce, L
must be recognized, IS scarcely meas
ureable, and does not seem as mucn
diminished as might be expected by
higher prices and long delay in deliv-
cry. In plates, for instance, the de-
mand covers many thousand tons for
bridges at Chicago and PittSburg, and
a Philadelphia concern accepted sew
eral thousand tons, and afterwards was
obliged TO refuse more, one other con-
Germ in the same city refusing over
l., 900 tons.
The shipments of boots and shoes
from the east have been for two weeks
of May % per cent larger than last
year, and sos larger than in 1872.
Higher prices which have been asked
for several months are now more gen.
orally paid for mems wear, though
most works are covered by earlier or
derS for four months ahead or more.
Leather shows hesitation, dealers ap-
parently questioning whether the rise
has not been too much. At Chicago
the same question runs through the
hide market, though advances are
slight.
Spectators are doing a large bust
ness in wool, some foreign and some
American. They have bought about
1000 900 pounds of Australian wool In
bond here, as is now reported, and
about 100000 pounds domestic terri
tory wool is also said to have been sold
for export at about ~ cents, clean.
But this does not cast much light on
the question whether speculative sales
abroad have yet been covered, or will
be within a short time, nor is there
any indication that the market here
will respond to the temporary foreign
demand. The orders for wooden goods
are decidedly better, and although the
Wooden association is not yet in oper
alton, it seems to have given certain
kind of confidence to prices in the
wooden goods department.
Wheat has been rising during the
past week about cents, and nobody
can tell why, although the exports in
the past two weeks have been 1865, OO6
bushels, flour included, against S,1S5,174
bushels last year. Better shipments
were expected after the opening of nav
igation, and there is really no use in
considering the dreams of western
spectators and crop reports at this
time. No one can form fair judgment
at the middle of May regarding the
output, which will be visible to every
body in the middle OF July. The best
that can be done is to accept the crop
reports official and others, almost with
indefinite allowances. Better shipments
are expected after the opening of nav
igation, and are, in fact, coming, the
outward movement from Duluth alone
in two weeks reaching nearly 100000
bushels. Lack of rain in California has
caused a large reduction in all eSti-
mates for that state, and Pacific eX-
ports are decreasing, and holders are
less ready to accept current prices, with
the prospect of a shortage.
Failures for the week have been 147
in the United States, against $50 last
year, and seventeen in Canada, against
twenty-nine last year.