The manufacturers of Massachusetts were to be broken down: but the
woollen trade and the shoe-trade have received a new impetus,--are
highly prosperous; and the cotton-spinners, with more than a year's
supply of cotton, have by the rise of prices enjoyed a profit
unprecedented. Having used their cotton with moderation, they have at
the close of each six months seen their stocks of raw material and
goods, by the rise of prices, undiminished in value, and blessed like
the widow's cruse of oil. Nearly all have paid large dividends, many
have earned dividends for the year to come, and are now sending their
male operatives to the war, and their females to their rural homes,
where they expect to perform some of the duties of brothers who have
volunteered for the war. The ruin predicted falls not upon the spinner,
but upon the authors of Secession.
Let us glance for a moment at the present condition of the South.
General Butler found at New Orleans proof of its exhaustion in the
prices of food,--with corn, for instance, at three dollars per bushel,
flour twenty to thirty dollars per barrel, and hay at one hundred
dollars per ton.
If we pass on to Mobile, we hear of similar prices, and learn that not a
carpet can be found on the floor of any resident: they have all been cut
into blankets for the army.
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