Year: 1875

A Chicago correspondent of the Springfield
Republican, writes as follows: Ask Chica-
90 man about business matters and he will
probably shake his head and grumble about
hard times, and talk about his neighbors and
all that; but he will unfailingly wind up by
telling how much better things are here than
in the benighted cities of the East. And not
only do real estate dealers and the like, whose
occupation is wholly gone, assuage their grief
in that way, but men yet able to turn an hon
est penny, and who have good means of
knowing whereof they speak, express them
selves in a similar way, and doubtless some
thing in that direction is, in fact, the case.
But it is pretty dull here. 1t is the dullest
season of dull year; the volume OF buiness
is everywhere contracted more or less, and
the profit is small on what there is; people
are not buying diamonds, or anything else,
as much as they were, and do not pay the old
rates or the old profits on things they do buy.
If Chicago has some advantages which pre-
vent business from coming as nearly to
stand-still as in some other towns, it neverthe-
less suffers the general depression, with the
local drawback of the great fire-which is
yet everywhere and continually felt-in addi-
| ton, and it is suffering season OF depres-
sion and light times which is pretty serious,
! even if the natives do refuse to have the
blues about it. Just now lovely women with
pull-bacA attire and hip pockets, linger in the
! dry good stores very little; other purchasers
are also scarce, the streets are comparatively
quiet and things are dull; the retail mer-
chants, particularly, suffering in way that
| is mostly new to them. Wholesale trade is
much better than retail, as has been the case
| for some time, the business done being well
enough as to amount, although the selling is
so ''close" that the dealers are not getting
| rich very fast. The transactions are reason
| ably large, but the profits don't foot up worth
a cent. AS one victim expressed it, 1T is
the goods cost" | hear of one wholesale
merchant who has been handling goods hea-
| vily, getting an advance of only four per
cent. and losing money as he did it.


| Of course real estate is inactive now that
business in general is pinched, and, in fact,
it is about as fiat as is possible. There is alb.
solutely no speculation except the picking up
of an occasional bargain when somebody is
forced to SELL there are few transfers recorded
and of the few a good many cover old bar.
! gains, exchanges, trades" and other trans


actions that are not simple cases of buying
and selling. ''Real-estate men," agents, brok
ers and such deer, are just as plenty and fool


ish as ever, but there is nothing for their
hands to do, and they amuse themselves by
exchanging one lot that can't be sold for an


other no better, and in like harmless ways,
and by talking about things. Of course un.
der these circumstances, it is not easy to
know or say much about the price of land,
beyond the general principle that the tendency
is everywhere downward; for the trouble is
not SO much that land will not bring a fair
price as that, practically, it can hardly be
sold at all, as is always the case with tha,
class of property at such times. Holders may


fix nominal prices as they choose, but sales
are so few that nothing like market rate is
established, and any one forced to sell is
likely enough to get en]y sum much below
what is upon all hands considered the real
value Of the property.