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Show PRIVATE AND PUBLIC DE3IS. Tiio Tiiiladelphia Times in diaeus-sins diaeus-sins tho business disasters of the past year, preucnU tiio following sij;iiifi-cunt sij;iiifi-cunt tacts: "Wo ie thn ?to t v( thfi JSTi;w Jcrwy Central fall from $10 to $i:; tlmt of thu Itoadnig fr.mi $A) t" $11: h-. 0( ihu Lrttitgti alley from to Sl'J; that of the t onnjylvania lVuni $o7 to all in tho Ep.u'u of a sinelo twelveruontn. V hat does it mwin? It is not an aeci-dout. aeci-dout. nor ia i; tho work of gambline eouibuiations. It is beiiuio oyer Sl -:V, 000,000 ot thn railroad stock . tliU country p;vid no diriiiond l-ist yar: bo-chuio bo-chuio intorot was ik'fuu'.ltd on over iHW.0U0,uwi of our railroad bend-- ba-cauioovcr ba-cauioovcr Slsr,(XW,W0 of b mdvd debt have been wiprd ,mt by ti-recloure, and probably $.Ju, 000,000 more ia the course ot'eiLiaclin by.lyal proems. Xot only tho bankrupt cotnpanie: luttliesouud dividend paying cor porationsare affected by theuuiveraai depression. The Times thinks thai tho ot.ly euro ia "in wiping out the inflated capital upon which legitimate legiti-mate business cannot pay dividends," which in the coal business amouuta to abot onhalf of the amount employed: There is not enough of business for cnoofthe great railway lints, and two havo atu-n-plL-dto live atul tnitmlt'd to thrive oq it. It waj a ten of otiuuninco-atnAlofdnar.ei.il otiuuninco-atnAlofdnar.ei.il miul. Tho Lohi-b alley w.n tho tronSjr, and it survives wlulo tho Jersey (Jeulra.1 is binkrupt. Another problem of a similar character char-acter ia creating a great deal of attention. atten-tion. Nearly every large city is burdened with a public debt beyond ita ability to meet ita accruing inter-cot. inter-cot. Tiio liabilities ot New York and 1'hiladelphift have reached a point ' which has become unbearable, and j the ciii.xns are beginning to also an ' active interest in the matter. Philadelphia's Phila-delphia's indebtedness has reached the enormous eutu of $7C,S00 o72.7S oi wmeu U',o:;,ot)U.y has been " added during the last live year-. New York is taied to death; Chicago : cannot collect one-half the taxes on its real estate, a majority of whi:u is mortgaged buyoud hope of redemp-' tiou. In nearly all municipal gov-j ernmeuts the rule is an over-abund-! ance Ot indebtcvluess and a scantiness 1 ot cash tcceipu to meet the anuuall demands. f . Bankruptcy hna wiped out a laro 1 proportion of individual and corpora- 1 1 tiou indebtedness during the past j three or four years, and tho 1 work of liquidation is still pro- 13 gressing, while a great number of j. strusgiinj; crcslitjrs are aniiousty : ,: awaitiuR a revival of business rhich w;Il enable tliim to escape bankruptcy. bank-ruptcy. This revival b.-va been sus ponded by thepresidenti.il Jipu'.e,aLd it is not yet very clear that the settle-ureut settle-ureut will bo Oi such a character as to1 inspire confidence, restore credit and ' revive business interests. Tue political politi-cal fraud by which it is expected, to ; inaugurate Mr. Hayis as president ' will neither inspire te contidccce of ! business men nor sircngtiicn public, -(aitii in eur Eational seourisi.s. A'r blow will have been struck at the I i:ovenmieiit'd crodit wulch cannot 'J ''ail to work diju3truua!y upon ail iu-' iu-' 'eresta. If private credit cannot . ! tnd tne hc verity of the panic, if in-' in-' dividual indebtedness is gwt-pt away , r'ifn necfeaaity or convenience, what ' -irnier baei.i h- our v.i.it national uperatructure of debt, wiien the con-ddence con-ddence of over half the voteru of tho country in the legitimacy of the federal fed-eral government has been withdrawn by the mo.it tUgrant acts of fraud and rascality ? K'jpudutiou of private debts is the order of the day; dots public in., debtedneaa stand upon a firmer foundation ? Our revolutionary debt, through means of which tho United ritalea was eaUbluhed, waa in great part repudiated; U the tremendous lej-acy of paper promisea left ua by a political party, tho result of a war which more than one half of the people peo-ple regarded as unconstitutional and wicked in its origin, to be sacredly maintained whilo the verdict of the people in the ciioice of their rulers is reversed and a fraudulent president set up in iho chair of Washington ? Tho If rkald opposes all repudiation, repudia-tion, individual and national. All just debts should bo sacredly paid. Wo havo always hold that national repudiation would come from tho acts of the narlv which fri! t,n nr..- debt, and thia theory we fear will be-comoH be-comoH fact. Tho attempt to inaugurate inaug-urate a president not elected goes far in this direction. The public credit ia largely dependent upon the legitimacy legiti-macy and good faith of the government. |