arge of more than a thousand men
from the locomotive works at Paterson, N.J., showed that the crisis
had already affected labor. On all sides an anxiety to retrench
was shown, and large numbers, in the aggregate, were thrown out of
employment all over the country. The retail trade was very unfavorably
affected, the losses sustained by the crisis, combined with the
scarcity of currency, causing people to expend as little as possible;
and this feature, resulting from the crisis, is likely to be a marked
one for a considerable time to come.

During the previous week bills on Europe had been, as a rule,
unsalable, and rates of exchange were depressed to a very low point,
bankers' sterling at sixty days being quoted on Friday at 103 @ 105,
and merchants' bills at 101 @ 102-1/2. The difficulty or impossibility
of selling exchange greatly embarrassed shippers and retarded the
movement of produce from the West; but owing to a heavy reduction
by the steamship lines of the rates of freight to induce shipments,
strenuous efforts were made to take advantage of it, and the exports
from New York for each of the two weeks noticed were valued at about
six millions and a half, while for the week ending October 4 the
valuation was unusually large--namely, $8,378,130. This was the most
encouraging feature of the time, especially in view of the previous
heavy preponderance of the exports over the imports at New York, the
value of the former having increased forty-eight millions during the
first nine months of 1873, as compared with the corresponding period
in 1872, while the latter were twenty-seven millions less, and while
our exports of specie were also seventeen and a half millions smaller.
The receipts for customs duties, however, fell far short of the usual
amount, and the movement of goods out of bond was correspondingly
light. Under the improved feeling visible on Monday, the 29th, the
foreign exchange market became less unsettled, and rates began to
improve rapidly; so that on Tuesday bankers' bills on England at
sixty days had risen to 106-1/2 @ 106-3/4, and mercantile to 104-1/2
@ 105-1/2. Before this, however, the Bank of England had advanced its
rate of discount from three to four per cent., and again from four to
five per cent., and we had received cable advices of the shipment of
about eight millions of gold from England for the United States, with
further shipments in anticipation, partly the proceeds of American
negotiatio