Year: 1863

The gold movement is the very pest and
peril of our traders. Its fluctuations up
root all the ordinary calculations Of profit
and loss, and make trade mere game of
hazard Within few days we find the
market quotations going down thirty nine
per cent. and then as suddenly going up
again with furious rebound. With such
furious changes in what is recognized as the
standard of value, what can merchants do
but stand still panic stricken. They dare
not buy because they have no assurances
that :heir purchases of today may not next
week be deprecated by fall in the gold
market; they are Indifferent about selling,
because they are not sure their merchandise
would not bring them handsome percent
age more profit few days hence. There
a.e now in this city many millions Of dollars
worth of produce and manufactured goods
held absolutely stationary at season when
it should be circulating throughout the
country for distribution. 1t is not easy to
over-color the feeling of perplexity that has
seized on the mercantile community under
these circumstances. They cannot afford
to stand still, for their engagements are
maturing and they need to keep up their
sales in order to pay their bills. And yet
to 60 forward may be, for aught they know,
running direct upon rocks and quicksands.
| Of course one necessary effect of this par.
alysis is to depreciate the value Of merchan-
disc. At the lowest point of the late
depression in gold, the decrease in the value
Of merchandise averaged from fifteen to
twenty per cent, and the advance since has
not been equal to the appreciation of gold.
Of course heavy losses have been made
during that period.


Merchants are anxiously straining their
ears for some oracalar utterance that shall
tell them what policy to adopt under these
changeful conditions. We make no pre-
tensions to being their oracle; but their
own sagacity will easily indicate abundant
reasons against operating on the supposition
that 100 and ITO is to be the price Of gold
for any considerable time. 1t may be that
the late fall in the price has been the result
of stupendous " bear swindle. For any
thing that now appears to the contrary, the
report of the one hundred millions foreign
loan, started in the Express so opportunely
at the period of Secretary Chase's visit to
New York, and kept up by the echoes of
correspondents at Washington, may have
been but the schemes of knot of specula-
tors for bringing down prices to a point at
which it would be convenient to buy up .
few millions of the precious metals. Be
this as it may, there is clearly too much
vitality in the political life of the country,
too much strength in the national finances,
and too little prospect of long continuance
of the war, to allow of any anticipation that
gold will continue long at more than about
so per cent premium.


The rapid exhaustion of the supplies of
the Southern army, and the condition OF the
rebel population, verging on actual starva-
ton, shadow with inevitable certainty the
speedy doom of the Coufederacy, unless
disasters should befall our armies and fleets
far more serious than We have any reason
to expect. The capture Of any of the strong
points of the rebellion, Charleston, Mobile.
Port Hudson or Vicksburg, would have the
effect Of rapidly Fastening the downfall ofi