A Financial Crash Coming.
That such an event is surely coming, no shrewd individual will deny. Business men seem to have lost nearly all confidence in each other, and are running wild with the speculation excitement. The following from a New York correspondent of the Boston Journal, gives a glimpse of things in that city:— CRAZY SPECULATIONS IN NEW YORK.
"Not since the war broke out, have shrewd men been so much at their wits' end as now. Speculation is rampant, and men are fairly mad with the gambling mania. But there are unfledged speculators who have yet to learn how treacherous and uncertain the sea is on which they have launched their all. Men of capital78are standing aloof from the madness of the hour. They confidentially predict a crash that will be more sweeping than anything New York has known this century. A gentleman of large means called upon one of our largest and most successful brokers this week, told him he had $100,000 to invest, and said to him, what would you advise me to do? 'Go and ask that man,' said the broker, 'he knows as much about it as I do.' Such is the general feeling among shrewd and experienced capitalists. The speculation in real estate the past year have been astonishing. Prices have reached a figure that it is impossible for them to maintain. A broker in this city, 1863, hired a house on Fifth Avenue, and took a lease at $8,000; and that was considered a high price for it. In January last he underlet the house at the rate of $5,000 a year, semi-annually in advance. He is now travelling in Europe on the gain. A house that was sold last November for $30,000, was sold in February for $50,000, and the owner is grumbling over the loss of $10,000 on the sale, as he has since found a man who would have given him $60,000 for it. Men have been sold out of house and home by asking what they supposed to be an exorbitant price for their property, and finding themselves suddenly taken up. One man offered a house that cost him $16,000 for $25,000. His offer was immediately taken. When the papers were drawn they were made out to a third party, to whom the second party had sold it in advance of $10,000. An ex-mayor of the city, who lived in an elegant residence, in sumptuous style, was visited one day by two ladies, who asked permission to look at his house, stating that the house next door was for sale, but the occupants would not allow them to view it. His Honor courteously informed them that the houses in that block were exactly alike, and they might examine his house as fully as they pleased. On leaving one of the ladies said to him, 'I suppose you would not sell your house?' 'Oh, yes,' said his honor, 'I would sell anything but my wife and children.' That afternoon he received a note from a leading real estate house, asking him if he would sell his house, and at what price. He offered it at $30,000. The offer was taken at once. The papers were passed and the money paid that night. The next day it was sold for $40,500. Two or three things in this transaction made his Honor a little unquiet. He had to abandon his luxurious and comfortable home instantly. He was literally turned into the street. Somebody made $10,500 out of him. Getting a fashionable residence at any price was out of the question. Nothing remained for him but the overcrowded Fifth Avenue Hotel. He is now with his family in the attic story waiting for something to turn up. Such a state of things cannot abide. Our shrewdest financiers are looking out for a crash. Our leading merchants confess that they do not know how to buy or sell. Many of them are curtailing their business, for like experienced mariners, they read a storm in the sky, where, to an unpracticed eye, nothing but fair weather is seen. But the inexperienced men of small capital and professional men, are rushing into the opening vortex, whose pathway is strewn with gold."