THE CRISIS IN AMERICA

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 326, 31 January 1874, Page 3

THE CRISIS IN AMERICA

STAGNATION OV TEADE — GffiEAT DISTEESS,

The New York papers to hand, per the Scotia, anticipate that the coming winter will be one of the hardest the United States have ever experienced. Retrenchment in personal expenditure is the watchword of the entire country, and., as usual, women are the greatest sufferers by this state of affairs. Household expenses are being curtailed everywhere, and as a consequence thousands of, seamstresses and domestic servants have been thrown out of employment. The moral flffect of this state of affairs is perceptible in the addition within the past few weeks to the ranks of the unfortunates on the streets of New York. Well-to-do people were putting by their carriages, the consequence being that a large number of coachmen and coachbuilders were being discharged from their situations. In almost all trades, but especially in those connected with the production of articles of luxury, the same depression prevailed. The iron-masters of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, one of tho leading iron districts of the country, had decided upon reducing the wages of the employees by ten per cent. Great stagnation prevailed in the building trade of New Yo«k. The masters had Tesolved to cut down the wages of the bricklayers, of whom there arc 3500 in the city, from 4£ dols. to 3fc dols. a day. The two thousand carpenters in the city would, it was expected, be also subjected to diminution of wagoo. The DOOMtfta shoe trade was also depressed, and a considerable proportion of ttu> three thousand persons employed in this trade had been discharged. The coopers were the only working men on strike in New York. Domestic servants who had been discharged from situations they had held for 5, 10, and 15 years, because their employers could uo longer afford to keep them, were crowding employment agency offices, and masters and mistresses were expecting that the dearth of employment would have the effect of restoring the rate of wages for domestic servants to the point at which it stood before the war. In Philadelphia 3500 men had been thrown out of employment when the mail left, and between 300 and 400 mechanics and about 1000 labourers had been discharged from the Washington Navy yard.