214 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



j\n. ir, 1818 



AND gardener's JOURNAL. 



Boston, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 1S38. 



DOMESTIC MEMORANDA. 



The Commonwealth Bnnlc in Bdsioii lias failed ; or 

 that the fanners may understand, we should say is 

 swamped. Its cajiilal was 500,000 dolLars. lis legal 

 ri.'ht extended to incurring debts to the amount of 

 $1,000,000. Its liabilities are reported to amount to 

 $1,400,000. There arc few farmers, we apprehend, who 

 even with spectacles of the highest magnifying power, 

 can read these sums ; or con prehend them after they 

 are enumerated. It is rernark;ib!e that Banks, which 

 have not even professed, nay, wliich have refused ever 

 since last May to pay their h(mest debts, and do not re- 

 deem their own paper, can fail : but there is nothing too 

 extraordinary to iuippen in these days of Animal Mag- 

 netism. For a non-specie-paying Bank to fail means 

 that its condition has become too bad even for its asso- 

 ciates any longer to trnsl it. Disorders in the currency 

 are like disorders in the stomach, which affect at once 

 the whole system A man may have a pain in his foot, 

 and still walk. He may even lose an arm or an eye, 

 and have a pretty useful, trunk remaining. He may 

 submit to the amputation of all his limbs ; and yet re- 

 tain his mind and perform meny a valuable service. But 

 when the stomach is disordered, tortured with dyspepsia 

 or agonized with the colic ; or ils functions in any way 

 cease to be properly performed, the whole system is af- 

 fected in every part ; and unless a remedy is found, the 

 condition of the digestive powers renovated, and the 

 secretions made to proceed in their appointed channels, 

 the last consequences are at hand. The currency of our 

 community is in a m csdisordered and diseased condi- 

 tion. A specie dollar now is an affair only to grace the 

 cabinets and museums of the virtuosi ; and there it 

 will soon require to be numbered and labelled thai the 

 rising generation may know what was the use of this 

 round while thing with such strange letters and hiero- 

 glvphieal characters upon it. And as to what is called 

 money in the form of Bank notes a strange revolution 

 has come over us and the order of human di^^positions 

 is completely reversed. Instead of seeking to accumu- 

 late these beautiful pictures with richiy ornamented 

 vignettes and all sorts of illustrations about agriculture, 

 commerce, and manufactures, men holding ploughs, 

 women leaning upon anchors, spinning jennies Iwirling 

 round, steamboats sailing up canals and other charming 

 illustrations; now no sooner dous a man get one of 

 these raga in his possession than he shrinks from its touch 

 as if it were a piece of some poor Scotchman's shirt,or torn 

 from the back of soma miserable beggar in the Lazaretto 

 of Naples. But he goes bustling about with a good deal 

 of self complacency pretending a very anxious aolici- 

 tude like an honest man to |iay all his debts at once, to 

 palm it off upon his unsuspecting neighbor, perhaps his 

 butcher, his servant, or his washerwoman, but in truth 

 lest the brat should die in his own arms. Every one per- 

 ceives what a disagreeable inconvenience such a demise 

 would be to a gentleman with a clean thirl on; but as 

 to these poor ignorant creatures, who do not know a 

 good from a bad hill, a genuine from a counterfeit, nor 

 the bill of a solvent from the bill of a bankrupt corpora- 

 tion ; they ought to lose for being so ignorant ; it is good 

 enough for them ; besides ihey have no business to com- 

 plain ; cannot they work or lieg for more? Now it not so 

 with the speculator, the gambler,the man who lives upon 

 the manufacture of mem promises to pay. If you will not 

 labor for him he cannot labor for himself; .f you do not 



support him he caiinol live at all ; " he cannot dig ; to 

 beg he is ashamed." He iniist therefore live by plun- 

 der, or in commercial language by shaving. Farmers, 

 independent, honest, and contented farmers ; tho' a log 

 house is your only palace, and a bundle of straw your 

 pillow, Jhoiigh you have no astral lamps to reflect their 

 s..a lustre from your stuccoed ceilings, nor velvet sofas, 

 nor turkey carpels to rest your weary limbs upon ; nor 

 the sweetest tones of the rosewood piano, and the be- 

 witching airs of an Italian minstrel to chant your lullaby 

 and siiollic your shimbeis ; yet thank God every day 

 and hour of your lives lor your freedom; thank him 

 that he keeps you back from the boiling and overpow- 

 ering vortex of speculation. When you sit down to your 

 humble meal with an appel sharpened by toil, and 

 rise from your couch of straw with invigorated strength 

 to enter upon your humble but healthful and honest 

 labors, adore him for the sentence, which some men 

 will have it is a curse, that you must cat your bread by 

 the sweat of your brow. 



But we will end this long chapter with a few instruc- 

 tive facts, which have come under our own knowledge. 

 When the failure of the Commonwealth Bank was 

 announced, a servant man, who had carefully laid up 

 his wages, found himself in possession of one hundred 

 dollars in its notes. 



A driver of one of the Hackney Coaches, temperate, 

 and assiduous in his duties, when he hears the annun- 

 ciuticm of this bankruptcy, discovers that he has fifiy 

 dollars of this precious currency, it may be some of it 

 received for his attention perhaps after midnight in cold 

 and storms, upon the pleasures of some of the officers or 

 directors of this very institution at some brilliant enter- 

 tainment. 



A journeyman printer received for his wages but a 

 short time before the failuie one hundred and sixty dol- 

 lars of this currency. 



A butcher in one of the markets hearing of the failure 

 of the bank, of which he is admonished by an honest 

 customer, upon opening his pocket is met by the sight 

 of one of these promises to pay in the sliape of a five 

 hundred dollar note. 



A sailor returned from a long voyage received his 

 wawes amounting to two hundred and twenty dollars in 

 this paper two days befo'-e the closing of its doors ; and 

 tho money was given to him as being the money of one 

 of the best banks in the city. Where are this poor fel- 

 low's family to get bread and fuel for the winter ? 



A woman in Marblehead who had saved of her hus- 

 band's pension money by extreme frugnllty and self- 

 denial fifteen hundred dollars, which had been paid her 

 in this very money by the Government's agent and of 

 which she had made a special deposit in the .Marble- 

 head Bank for the purpose of paying for a house, which 

 she is building, is called upon to pay her bills, and has 

 been compelled in order to meet these demands to sell 

 her Commonwealth money at filly per cent, loss, and to 

 receive seven hundred and fifty dollars for her fifteen 

 hundred. 



But all these are mere drops in the bucket compared 

 to the losses and distress and general alarm and dis- 

 trust of tho honest and solvent banks, occasioned 

 throughout the community by such enormous and un- 

 mitig;iled defalcations. 



We should like to understand what we are to infer 

 from the reports of the Committee of the Associated 

 Banks, who undertake weekly to inform the public of 

 condition, that this sime public may he secure. They 

 gave currency to the bills of this bankrupt institution 

 until the day before ils failure. This institution has 

 been rotten to the core for a long lime. Was not their 

 report or rather their support of this bank an implied 



guarantee for i's soundness > We say these things wit! 

 no feelings of disrespect, but with a sincere desire ti 

 understand, what is the object of this Committee, if i 

 is nut to nsierlain the condition of the Banks by aclua 

 examination. We should be glad to know whether 

 Bank with half a million capital can become insolvent il 

 a day or a v : ? 



There is not a man or woman in the community whi 

 has not a concern in these matters. There is not ai 

 honest citizen of Boston, who does not feel humbled ani 

 ashamed at the disgrace brought upon his own city, b 

 the corrupliori of one of its public moneyed institutions 

 a city which his hilherto been so justly proud of its big, 

 and honorable s:ai ding. The credit system is the lift 

 blood of our comnunity ; the foundation of private en 

 tcrprise and the great instrunicnt of all public improve 

 ments. Let its true friends now come forward to reCovt 

 it from abuse, to show ils value, and to purify its honoi 

 Will honest bankers and honest merchants consent I 

 rest under the suspicions which must adhere to tliem,, 

 they do not demand an investigation of the condition ( 

 these public institutions ; such a sifting as shall separil. 

 thechaff from the wheat.' Will the people ofMassachlf 

 sells consent to such wholesale plunder .' Iflheywii 

 then must it be admitted they have longer ears thf 

 any quadruped that walks the earth ; and are welconW 

 like Issachar, to lie down under their burdens. 



SUMMARY OF NEWS. 

 MASsAcimshTTS. — Since our last, the election of Ell 

 ward Everett as governor of Massachusetts for a thiM 

 lime and that by a greatly increased vote, has been a^ 

 nounced. No State has ever been honored with a mo 

 assiduous, intelligent, conscientious and impartial d: 

 charge of duty, tlian has marked this gentleman's admi 

 istration. He delivered his annual message, to which « 

 hope for an opportunity of recurring at some other tin 

 The "real topic is the currency and the condition of ti 

 Banks ; and the sound views which he gives, nuisU 

 gage the profound attention of the community. The le 

 islature having completed their preliminary organizatic 

 have just entered upon business ; but as yet have a 

 preached no important measure. The friends of humai 

 ly are anxious to find some efficient substitute for tile ti 

 rible penalty of death in the prevention of crime. T 

 friends of honest trade and a sound currency, are sceki 

 some otherhelp for a diseased com iiunity, than this Sa 

 orado quackery of almost daily bleeding in the lower e 

 tremities. The remedies should be early and powerfi 

 or the patient may have passed beyond even the hope 

 cure, or become stark mad. The friends of univen 

 freedom are pouring in their memorials and petitio 

 from various quarters, that Massachusetts may do wl 

 she can for the abolition of slavery in the District 

 Columbia; and that the meeting-ground of the avow 

 friends of liberty, the only spot in the whole coun^ 

 which can properly be called a national domain, tlie^ 

 where the stars glilter, and the stripes of our repiibliq 

 banner wave in all iheir glory, may no limger be s< 

 tie market for the sale of liuman flesh. 



CoHGRESs. — The Senate are still engaged in the, 

 cussion of southern resolutions respecting slavery 

 abolition. The House of Representalives refused 

 reading of any petition or memorial on the subjed 

 slaverv, come (rom where it may; and the soulbt 

 members left the House in a body, in the midst ofas 

 sion, because Ihey would net hear even the subject 

 slavery discussed. The subject has been urged upon t 

 discussion of the Senate, by the southern genllem 

 themselves. All this may be explained by one of No 

 Webster's fables, in which the great result turns up 

 the point whether it be your ox that gored my cow; ^ 



