The Financial Excitement.
THE topic of the week, of course, has been the panic. It has been preached about in the pulpits, written about in the press, talked about in the streets, and become, in the parlor, the substitute for the weather when other conversation lagged. The panic has extended from New York to other cities. The banks in the great commercial centers have very generally suspended currency payment, except in small sums for actual necessities. Greenbacks were one day at a premium of five per cent on Wall street. Some few of the large manufacturers have been compelled to stop or to reduce work because they could get nothing with which to pay their hands. What has become of all the money? A single incident will help to answer this question. One large mercantile house in New York, which shall be nameless, foreseeing the storm, drew out their bank account, and locked up, in gold and greenbacks, in their safe enough to meet all their incoming obligations. Now, said they, we are safe, whether the banks break or not. The same course was pursued, though on a smaller scale, by thousands of depositors. The only thing therefore that can give ease is confidence; when confidence returns, money will return to circulation again. Meanwhile the general outlook is brightening: Gold is reported as being shipped from abroad in large quantities. The produce exports in the week of the panic are reported as at $1,000,000 in excess of the average. The President’s refusal to lend the United States funds to the street, has been almost universally approved of on Wall street, and even by conservative men there. The fact that in the city of New York, on the first day for the payment of personal taxes, $133,350 were paid in, shows that money is really not so scarce even here as it appears to be. Two of the suspended bankers propose to begin business again, taking new deposits, and settling up the old as rapidly as their circumstances will permit. The Stock Exchange has opened again, and with fair sales and no injurious results; and the President has written a reassuring letter which has had the effect, without making any very definite promises of relief, to strengthen public confidence and inspire public hopefulness. The general conviction of moneyed men is that the storm will do us all good: that it will clear the market of worthless securities; that it will lead to greater caution in investments; that it will check the flow of capital into wild speculation and deflect it into immediately productive trade and manufacture; and that it will compel more attention to economy all over the country. Best of all, there is a faint hope that it may lead to the resumption of specie payments or accelerate their return, by bringing gold to our shores, and by the lesson it has taught of the evils of our present artificial system. We could afford to appoint a public holiday in commemoration of the event if that were the result of it.—Chris. Weekly.