TEE SOURCE OF PROSPERITY. 217 



growing upon us a condition of great industrial and 

 business distress, so that in 1860 there were multi- 

 tudes out of employment those having work receiv- 

 ing the smallest possible compensation with great 

 destitution in all our larger towns and cities. In 1857 

 there were 4,932 failures, and in 1861 the number had 

 increased to 6,993. But in that year the large armies 

 that were formed absorbed great numbers of the un- 

 employed. The old industries were made active, and 

 new industries were created, which also made addi- 

 tional demand for laborers, and tended directly to the 

 increase of wages, larger consumption of the necessa- 

 ries of life, activity in trade, with greatly developed 

 production. The result of these operations was gen- 

 eral prosperity, indicated by the reduction of the 

 number of failures in 1862, from 6,993 of the previ- 

 ous year, to 1,652, being a falling off of 5,341 in one 

 year, and of 1,157 in the next, there having been only 

 495 failures in 1863, and for the next two years a 

 change from that figure of but 35. 



For four years following the summer of 1861 there 

 was an increasing demand for the employment of the 

 people, with an increase of wages, and fully corre- 

 sponding increase in the prosperity and development 

 of society. How great was that development and 

 prosperity the Hon. Daniel Needham, United States 

 Bank Examiner for Massachusetts, has told in an 

 address delivered by him before a meeting of the 

 Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Horticultural and Indus- 

 trial Association, October 3, 1877, as reported in the 

 Massachusetts Ploughman, of October 13th, of that 

 year. His description is so thoroughly truthful so 



