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New Orleans Daily Crescent. FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL DEPARTMENT. # New Orleans Money Market. CRESCENT OFFICE, No. 70 Camp street, Monday Evening, Oct. 15, 1860. As usual on Monday, the Money market to-day offered very little for remark; in fact, hardly an item could be raised, if the calls for discounts at the Ajax had not been three times the income. This leads to the supposition that applicants offer about triple the amount they expect to receive, giving mandators a liberal supply from which to make selections. On the street there were no negotiations worthy of notice. True, there were some tonsorial transactions at the rate of 18@24 ct. It is manifest, however, that a preparation for the worst is in course of progress by those who have large figures in their bills payable. We observe that the money article of one of the NewYork papers of the 10th (the Evening Post, an old federal paper from the time of its first itsue in 1804,) brings the result of the election of Tuesday last into its columns. It says, on the 10th instant, "that the decisive result of the Pennsylvania election was the leading topic at the stock market that day." Of course, the Black Republican Post has no scruples about saying this, that and the other. The Post would like to create the belief that the NewYork stock market had improved after the result of the Pennsylvania election was known, which is all bosh. If some of these New York writers would inform the public of the recent great bamboozling and swindling in the Rock Island and Chicago Railroad they would confer a benefit on the poor unfortunates who bought in at 80@82, under the expectation of a 34 ct. dividend on the 1st instant, and passing the dividend forced the stock down to 70@71. Such a bamboozling transaction in this city (New Orleans) would cause something of a commotion, and render our flags rather too warm for such barefaced and bamboozling operations. Wall street is a great place for trickery and chicanery. It is not of much use to go further back than the bursting up of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, down to the more recent failure of the Artisans' Bank. It is no more than expected that politics would be brought in the financial arena, and New Yorkers may as well commence with the result of the Pennsylvania election as any other, but if they do not feel it for their own woe, then we mistake the signs of the times. The Exchange market opened, as it has for many Mondays heretofore, very quiet. Operators hardly get to work before Tuesday. The counter rate for checks on NewYork was steady at par; though an effort was made for an advance, it could not be carried through. Outside of bank there were some sales at par@dis.; sixty days sight 1@2 and 2½ dis. Sterling clear bills 108@108½ and 108¾; document bills 106¾@107 up to 107½. Three hundred bales were taken at the latter figure. In francs there were no changes. We quote from 5.30@ 5.25 to 5.23¾, though 5.22½ is the rate with some drawers. There was no movement in stocks to-day-not a sale to our knowledge, nor no prospects of any large sales for the present. It is now only two and a half months to the dividend season. In bonds we have not a sale to quote. We learn that a new tariff of rates of freight has been agreed on between the Pontchartrain and Jefferson Railroad. If the increase in rates will aid the Carrollton and Jefferson Railroad to remunerate its stockholders, they, of course, will be satisfied, as it is so long since they have received a dividend, it has been forgotten. As for the old Pontchartrain, it will pay 4½ or 5 pct. in December. The Mexican Gulf and Southeastern Railroad is progressing. The repairs on the road towards Proctorville are in course of completion. But our railroad managers do not bamboozle the public as the managers and controllers of railroads do in Northern States. The great thunderer, (the London Times) in its monetary of the 25th September, is down tolerably hard upon the manner of conducting business in that metropolis. From the following article the course of Messrs. Overend, Gurney & Co., the distinguished bankers, is greatly censured. If this firm continues to move, as they have for the past three years, they will become eminent for being concerned in many bankrupt concerns. Whether they will in the end lose anything by the gigantic discounts they make to these insolvent concerns, which have been in failing circumstances for years past, we are not informed. The house has a little business, or a few transactions with New Orleans, though they hate the institutions, one in particular, as much as a distinguished personage often alluded to does holy water. But read here what the great Thunderer says: There could, of course, be little dishonesty in trade if banks and discount-houses were always vigilant. Supposing that every transaction were conducted in cash, the only dangers to be encountered would be those of direct fraud or forgery, such as come within the province of the police and criminal law. But the system of bills of exchange on which all our commerce is based admits of peculiar deceptions. Against these it is the special duty of discounters to guard the community by the exercise of extreme watchfulness and an adherence to the strictest principles. A bill of exchange is different only from a bank-note from the circumstances that, instead of representing a definite deposit in specie, it represents a certain amount of merchantable goods. It ought to be as good as cash, but that it is supposed to await the realization of property at 30, 60 or 90 days, as the case may be. The discounters who advance money in the interval are bound to satisfy themselves, not only for heir own protection, but to avoid becoming assistants in fraud, that these documents are in reality what they purport to be. And this duty has always been considered so simple that any old-fashioned banker would pronounce the business to be safer than any other. Under such circumstances the features of a majority of the leading failures that have occurred of late years, down to the most recent cases of Streatfield, Laurence & Co., and smith, Sinclair & Co., call for express consideration. Spurious bills-that is, bills drawn by one firm worth little, upon another worthless, and put into cirenlation with the pretence that the represent value received-are found to be the main instruments in the career of such establishments; and the question arises whether the means of distinguishing a sound trade bill from a false one no longer exist, or whether the discounters, whose business it is to determine such points, are less sagacious or scrupulous than their predecessors. It is to be feared that the latter is the true solution. It is just as easy at the present day to purge the trade of the country from these fraudulent contrivances as at any former period, Indeed, the facilities of commercial communication render it much more easy, and, althouga the introduction of lax practice by a portion of the banks or discount houses necessarily imperils even the sound banker by imparting a false credit to untrustworthy names, it is found that the Bank of England and some of the largest private establishments in London can still carry on their operations with perfect safety to themselves and the community. The conclusion, then, is that the parties by whom the enormous "facilities" are furnished in these cases are deficient either in discernment or in a rigid desire to uphold the inflexible rules essential for the protection of the legitimate merchant. All the devolopments of the year 1857 pointed in that direction-there has been little alteration since. Of the instances yet presented of a want of shrewduess there has been none to exceed those exhibited by the Streatfeild case, We thère ses the most experienced discounters in London not only totally unsuspicious of anything wrong in the affairs of a firm that was just about to stop with lisbilities of more than three quarters of a milion, but absolutely without the gleam of Pan idea that this firm might be in au unsound position after one of its partners had arrived in secret haste to announce that its bills were regarded with "hesitation" in the discount market, and that it could not go on on without assistance." According to every understanding among men of business, the advice, under the faintest fancy that the house was insolvent, would have been, "Ascertain instantly your exact posi ion, and, in justice to all your creditors, suspend at once if there appears to be a deficiency." Instead of this, so complete and unhesitating was the confidence that the prompt exclamation was, "Oh, you must not stop!" Of course, if one tim likes to advise another not to stop, becanse it is prepared, at its own risk, to make advances to avert the necessity there can be no objection to such a proceeding, whether there are suspicions of insolvency or otherwise. But the affair here was directly different. The discounters in question already held the paper of the firm to the amount of about $180,000, and apparently would not advance more except upon good security. The insolvents accordingly brought £20.000 of their assets, and obtained a loan to that amount They stopped three days afterward, and the general creditors were proportionately damaged, wh le the few among whom the £20.00 was distributed obtained an exceptional escape. The London Joint-stoc Bank got £13,009, the Liverpool house £2,000, Herbert, Smith & Co. £2,00, Smith, Patient & Co., who had been known to be insolvent since 1858, £2,000, and Thomas Mortimer £1,000. Anything less scrupulous than such a distribution out of the small assets available for the general body of creditors could hardly be conceived. The danger of preferences of this kind being made is always one of the contingencies against which it is important to guard. No establishment, careful of its standing, would lend itself voluntarily to such a possibility, and the blindness under which the £20.000 wes granted must therefore be regarded as having been complete. We rany accept this blindness as exempting the transaction from moral censure, but what is to be thought of the pros-