Year: 1873

From Our Special Correspondent


COLUMBUS, MISS, October A
week ago I wrote from this place that
this was the best time possible for the
resumption of specie payments. The
country has suffered quite enough at the
hand Of Wall street, and gold and sill
yer, rather than bonds and paper,
should determine the financial fortunes
Of the country. 1t is a foul shame that
one man, holding the keys to the vaults
of the treasury, should have the power
to control at will the fortunes, and thus
the action of every bank and of every
person interested in a bank, and of all
that mighty multitude dependent for
labor upon the action of banks. Grants
itself of this royal purple,
also enclosing within its ample folds
every public and private vice that de-
lights an age Of progressive corruption.
The people, too, impatient of inaction,
are only anxious for the resumption of
paper payments, never rejecting how
necessarily rotten and dangerous must
be a financial system which sIspends
even for want Of paper. The fact
would be wholly incredible if We had
not witnessed it, and then the disaster
comes down upon the country when no.
body was anticipating it, and even more
strange Is it that one single wildcat
railway scheme, far away in a frozen
zone, is potent enough for mischief to
parslyze, through the intervention Of a
wretched banking system, the whole
trade and commerce of a
wonderful empire. These COZ
vulsions must constantly recur.
There can be no stability of property
and little mercantile or other solid pros
perity until national laws of supply and
demand las these affect gold and silver
regulate the cOuntry's and the worlds
finances.


NO HELP FOR Us.


We would have British gold sent
hither to be paid for American cotton.
If this suspension ntinue a month,
you will see golden guineas everywhere
in the south. The south will receive for
the crop quite as much in gold as ii
would in this baseless currency. The
Intervention of countless intermediate
agents and spectators who come be-
tween the planter and British manufac-
turer would be avoided, and the cotton
take the shortest and cheapest route
from southern cities and seapOrts to
Liverpool. But Grants reelection
depends upon his maintenance of
perfect mastery over the banks and
country's finances, and the wretched,
tax-impoverishod people must still en-
dure calamities born of the neeessi-
ties of Grant His chosen aristocracy
must still be aggrandized at the cost OF
plundered popular industry.


PLUCK OF THE PEOPLE.


Despite the condition of the money
market, this inland city has been enjoy
ing, through the current week, the de-
lights of an agricultural and mechanical
fair. There were fewer persons in at
tendance than in some former years, but
these entered into the sports, and pleas
ures, and business Of the day with the
greatest enthusiasm. They had a foot
race, with eight entries Of colOred racers.
A long-legged African, that ran a quar-
ter OF q mile in two minutes, was
beaten in half mile by q
short squarely built genuine Congo.
A slender little mulattO out-ran the
black racers for two hundred yards.
speak of this contest because ii was an
amusing interlude, and would draw a
thousand negroes to the Memphis fair
grounds if repeated there. The best
horsemen from each of the several coun-
ties rode for prizes and at a terrific speed
on the swiftest studs, went headlong
around the ring. One horse went over
the enclosure with his rider; bright
beautiful boy was thrown violently
against q tree and almost killed; a light
wagon was smashed, the driver dragged
some distance and the terrified animal
went over the fence and rushed madly
about among wagons and horses to the
great dismay Of the animals and people.
Colonel Tom COnnell, Of Mayhem. was
the efficient manager-general of the ex-
hibition, as he used to be of the Missis-
sippi legislature, and Columbus was per
fectly blest. Major Duncan and several
f1gitives from yellowjack are here.