GLOOMY TIMES* 24"? 



pen, and often did happen, that all the streams in the state of 

 Ohio were up, at nearly the same time. The flood came, and 

 with it departed such an amount of produce, that the market 

 was glutted. The best flour has been sold for three dollars a 

 barrel, and pork for four or live dollars a barrel, in New Or- 

 leans, which amounted to a total loss of the cargo. Or the 

 boat sunk on its voyage, and not merely were the boat and 

 cargo lost, but every man on board it perished. If those who 

 left their property for sale in New Orleans, lost only all they 

 thus stored in the agent's warehouse, and were not called on 

 for a considerable amount, as the difference of value between 

 the expenses of selling and what the sale produced to the own- 

 er he was truly fortunate, in those times. Or if a man, who 

 had purchased and paid for twenty thousand dollars' worth of 

 produce in Ohio, and had succeeded in making what was then 

 considered a good sale of his property, in New Orleans — we 

 say if such a man should have been taken sick at an inn, 

 where he lodged, (and he was sure to be, if he put up at one of 

 them) and should die there, among strangers, with his twenty - 

 five thousand dollars, about his person, not a dollar was ever 

 returned to his family, but in its stead a bill of several hun- 

 dred dollars for funeral expenses, was forwarded to his widow, 

 parents, relatives or friends, who generally paid the host all 

 he demanded. Numerous cases of this sort, fell out within 

 our entire recollection of them, and all their attendant cif^ 

 cumstances. 



Although taxes were levied on lands, for the support of the 

 state government yet they were but poorly paid. And the 

 sales, for taxes were so loosely, carelessly made, by the col- 

 lectors, that a tax title to land was good for nothing. The 

 more of them one had, the poorer he would be, in the same 

 pr(^rtion. 



At an early date of the state government, all the lands iii 

 the state, which had been sold by the United States over five 

 years w'ere divided, into three rates, first, second and third 

 rates, and taxed accordingly, without any reference to their 

 rdal vahie. Bottom lartds, ak>ng the streams, and I'ich prairte 



