BANKRUPTS IN THE UNITED STATES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 139, 3 September 1853, Page 8

BANKRUPTS IN THE UNITED STATES.

An American writer of some repute remarks that almost every mercantile man in America lias been at some time or other a bankrupt. The statistics of some of the American cities confirm* ing this view present a sorrowful picture of the result of American trading. In Boston, the most sedate and least speculative of American cities, according to General Dearborn, who was collector of customs at that port for -nearly 20. years, not more than three merchants out of one hundred ever acquire independence. Other persons.,of equal authority say thnt between 1800 and 1840 only five*in a hundred of all the mercantile classes of Boston remained. _ In that time they had all failed, or died destitute of property. The bankers of Boston assert that of I,OOQ accounts opened in 1798 only six. remained'at the end of 40 years, and that the

bulk of the persons who kept the other had died destitute of property or had failed. Above ninety per cent, of all the estates which passed through the office of that city were insolvent. — Bank directors are among the most substantial urien in the community, and in the old bank of Boston, says the Farmers' Library, one-third had failed in 40 years, and in the new bank' a much larger proportion. The Editor of the Massachusetts States Record gives, as the result of laborious inquiries, that in Philadelphia not more than one per cent, of the best class of merchants succeed without failing, and that not more than two percent of the merchants of New York ultimately retire on an independence after having submitted to the usual ordeal of failure. A contributor to the New York Merchants' Magazine, a well-known authority, states that but one eminent merchant—and his death is still recent—has ever continued in active business in that city to the close of a long life without undergoing bankruptcy or a suspension of payments. In New York not two per cent, of the mercantile classes ultimately acquire wealth, after passing through bankruptcy, and in Philadelphia the proportion is still smaller. According to Palmer's Almanack for 1849 there was in 1841— Bankrupts 33,739 Creditors 1,049,603 Amount of debts 440,934,615 dols Property surrendered ... 43,697,307 But on the property being realized, instead of a dividend of 10 cents, per dollar being paid, which this valuation would show, the proportion varied from 1 cent, in the southern district of New York, to 13^ in the Northern, being by far the largest dividend. In Connecticut the average dividend was something above half a cent, each dollar ; in Maine, to JOO dols. it was half a cent. ; in Michigan and lowa, quarter of a cent. ; in New Jersey, 4 cents. ; in Tennessee, 4§ cents ; in Maryland 1 cent. In Mississippi it was 6 cents, to 1,000 dollars ; in Kentucky, 8 dollars to 1,000 ; in Illinois, 1 dol. to ),500 ; in Pennsylvania, East Virginia, South Alabama, and Washington, nothing at all. In Cincinnati, a most flourishing town, of the active men of business existing there twenty years ago according to Ait's Cincinnati Advertiser, not five out of 400 remained in business, or had done well. With such facts to guide us as to the general condition of the mercantile classes in the United States, who seem to go a-head much too fast; and knowing that their condition in respect to England is that of great indebtedness, we cannot but feel some little apprehension at the first symptom of a general tottering after the rapid development of commercial prosperity in the last few years.— Daily News.