hat
does this amount to? What a contrast this trade presents to the millions
of tons which used to reach the South from the Free States and Europe
before it was crushed by the rebellion! And what a contrast does it
present to-day to the commerce of the North,--to the barks and
propellers which float down the Lakes deeply laden with grain,--to the
weekly exports of New York, (twelve millions for the last three
weeks,)--to its vast income from duties,--to the ships of the North
visiting every ocean, earning more freight than for years past, although
deprived of the carrying-trade of the South, and contending successfully
with the marine of Great Britain for the supremacy on the ocean! How
signal has thus far been the failure of the Southern prophecies made
before the outbreak!

New York, we were told, was dependent on Southern commerce, and was to
be ruined by the war; there were to be riots in the streets, and its
palaces were to fall in ruins: but the riots and the ruins are to be
found only in Southern latitudes.

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. White curtains and drapery have been
converted into shirts; for cotton cloth cannot be had for a dollar a
yar