they must be tempered, and this is done by rolling them backward and forward on a hot metal plate. The polishing still remains to be done. On a very coarse cloth needles are spread to the number of forty or fifty thousand. Emery dust is strewed over them, oil is sprinkled and soft soap is daubed over; the cloth is rolled hard up, and with several others of the same kind thrown into a sort of wash pot to roll to and fro twelve hours or more. They come out dirty enough, but after rinsing in clean het water, and tossing in sawdust, they become bright and are ready to be sorted and put up for sale. PAPER STOCK FROM WOOD. An old paper manufacturer writes with great confidence and enthusiasm of a new process for reducing wood to paper pulp, which has been discovered by Prof. CHADBOURNE, of Williams and Bowdoin colleges. It depends upon a combination of chemical and mechanical principles, by which the woody fibres are alike strengthened and separated from each other. The process is pronounced by practical paper makers and patent examiners as entirely unique, and quite certain in results. It involves no change of machinery, and no additional expense, except for the pulp machine, which will cost from fifty to one hundred dollars. If no unforseen difficulty arises in working in on a large scale, it will reduce the cost of paper pulp to less than one-half its present value, or to some forty or fifty dollars a ton. The invention is now in the hands of one of the largest and most energetic paper manufacturers in the country, a patent has been applied for, and in due time the full value of the process will be tested on a large scale. The Boston Journal is printed on paper made of wood, but whether the process of manufacture is the one above referred to, we cannot say. The paper presents a clear surface, is of soft and firm texture, and admirably adapted for newspaper purposes. The Journal states, that the specimens it has thus far used, is not a fair test of what the manufacturers propose to do. All who have to use paper, (and who does not?) will wish the manufacturers abundant success. POPULATION OF CHICAGO, The Controller took the census of Chicago during the month of October last, and ascertained the population to be as follows: The census of 1860 was taken for June. The increase has therefore been 10,000 inhabitants a year. COTTON PLANTING UNDER GOVERNMENT A FAILUre. An important fact appears in the Port Royal correspondence of the New York Tribune, which is, that the effort of the government to cultivate cotton, under military direction, is a failure. The correspondent says: It is understood that General HUNTER will direct the suspension of the cultivation of cotton on the plantations worked under the auspices of the government during the coming season. He proposes to have all the soil devoted to the raising of corn, in order to afford some direct relief to the Subsistence Department, and decrease as much as possible the drafts of this department upon the Federal Treasury. One of the reasons for the change is the discrepancy between the financial profits of last year's cotton crop and the government capital invested in it. It is true, uncontrollable meteorological causes had most to do with the unsatisfactory crop; but in the present straitened condition of the national finances, it is well argued, similar investments of uncertain promise must be discountenanced. Another reason is the desire of General HUNTER to make as many of the able bodied plantation hands available for service in the army and fatigue duty as possible. Corn, potatoes, etc., can be well raised by the women. If the cotton culture cannot be prosecuted with a financial profit at Port Royal, we may reasonably doubt whether it can anywhere. From that qua ter in fewer years have come the most abundant crops; the soil is prolific; the climate is the most favorable. Everything favored success; but where fortunes have been made heretofore, we now see fortunes lost in futile experiments. LIVING AND MEANS The world is full of people who can't imagine why they don't prosper like their neighbors, when the real obstacle is not in banks or tariffs, in bad public policy or hard times, but in their own extravagance and heedless ostentation. The young clerk marries and takes a house, which he proceeds to furnish twice as expensively as he can afford, and then his wife, instead of taking hold to help him earn a livelihood by doing her own work, must have a hired servant to help spend his limited earnings. Ten years afterwards you will find him struggling on under a load of debts and children, wondering why luck was always against him, while his friends regret his unhappy destitution and financial ability. Had they from the first been frank and honest, he need not have been so unlucky. The single man "hired out" in the country at ten to fifteen dollars per month, who contrives to dissolve his year's earnings in frolic's and fine clothes; the clerk who has five hundred a year, and melts fifty of it into liquor and cigars, are paralleled by the young merchant who fills a house with costly furniture, gives dinners, and drives a fast horse on the strength of the profits he expects to realize when his goods are all sold and his notes all paid. Let a man have a genius for spending, and whether his income be a dollar a day or a dollar a minute, it is equally certain to prove inadequate. The man who (being single) does not save money on six dollars a week, will not be apt to on sixty; and he who does not lay up something in his first year of independent exertion, will be pretty apt to wear a poor man's hair into his grave. CONTENTS OF No. II., VOL. XLVIII. Condition of Treasury-Official Views-Appropriations-Effect of Depreciation -Rise in Prices-Table of 55 Articles-Deficits-Capital in the Country- Invested-Proportion Demanded-Danger of Panic-Debt Paid in Gold- Amount of Debt-Mode of Borrowing--Prices of Stocks-Gold Investments -Rate of Borrowing-Mr. Hooper's Bill-New Currency Proposed-Move- ment of Specie-Rates of Exchange-Imports at the Port-Duties Per Cent -Cost of Import-Uncertainty of Prices-Exports-Specie Abroad....... 128 Decisions by the Secretary of the Treasury.-Ginghams-Salt-Silk and Cotton .... 176 Revenue Stamps-Brokers' Contracts with Buyer and Seller each to be Stamped 182 Foreigners and the Rights of Property in Turkey The French Treaty with Madagascar.. 184 185 MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES. What a Pond Freshet Is....... 186 Drive Your Business, but Never Permit Your Business to Drive You.... 188 188 THE MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. MARCH, 1863. LOTTERY, OR BONUS LOANS. SHOWING THEIR USE IN EUROPE, AND THE FEASIBILITY OF THEIR ADOPTION IN THE UNITED STATES. COMMUNICATED TO THE MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE BY JOHN F. ENTZ. AMONG the various means employed by European governments for raising money, Lottery Loans have played a conspicuous part. Not only Austria, who has developed the system to a larger extent than any other State, but several of the smaller principalities have from time to time come into the market, and have thereby conquered many difficulties which they might have encountered unsuccessfully if they had applied for means by the usual mode. As it may prove interesting for those unacquainted with this description of loans, I have extracted from the latest edition of NELKENBRECHER'S Taschenbuch, published in 1858, and from other commercial German works, a list of all the latest Lottery Loans, with all the information on the subject that I have been able to gather. The adopted title of Lottery Loan is an unfortunate and scarcely an appropriate one, as the word conveys an idea of a certain gambling system, which, notwithstanding all the statutory enactments of nearly all the States of the Union, had not been entirely extirpated. Lotteries, as known in this country, extract the hard earnings of the poor to enrich the managers, and to distribute a few prizes among a small number whom Dame Fortune may favor. Thousands lose all; while a few are receiving an uncertain return, only to nurse the passion for continued gambling, and to go into it still more extensively. But Lottery Loans are very different. Nobody loses what he has staked, but receives it back some time or other with interest, though the latter at a moderate rate, the excess being divided in prizes of various dimensions to a number of the bondholders. |