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CONFIDENCE RETURNING. s MORNING OF AGITATION AND DEPRESSION FOLLOWED BY AN EVENING FULL OF HOPE AND ENCOURAGEMENT-A BETTER PROSPECT AHEADTHE EVENTS OF YESTERDAY CALCULATED TO ALLAY THE EXCITEMENT. The depression which settled down on the city on Tuesday evening, continued yesterday morning at the opening of business. It was generally recognized that the depression was warranted, and that the excitement consequent on the failure of so prominent a house as that of Henry Clews & Co. caused the actual disasters to be exaggerated and augmented the panic unnecessarily. Superficial and panic-stricken thinkers had gone to rest on Tuesday demoralized, while the substantial and conservative financiers had retired serious and a little apprehensive, but still strong in the belief that the panic was practically ended, and that the banks could sustain themselves. Both parties rose in the same `humor on Wednesday, and, with the same impulses guiding both, they crowded into Wall-st. at an early hour of the morning, the former and more numerous class excited and noisy. the latter few but influential serious and predisposed to be gruff. The crowd on the street was not so large as on previous days, but it was more impressive. In front of the Stock Exchange, in Broad-st., there was gathered, earliest of all the groups, a large number of brokers, who discussed the probabilities of the re-opening of the Exchange. For a time they blockaded the street, and their noisy discussion of the advisability of opening the Exchange so disturbed the peace that the apprehensive police caused large trucks to be repeatedly driven through the street in order to disperse the crowds. This plan, however, proved as futile as the precaution was needless. As soon as the wagons had passed the gaps which they had made in the crowd rapidly closed up and the noise and confusion of excited discussion continued unabated. Finally, when it was announced that the Stock Exchange would not open during the day this group of regular brokers gave way to an equally large gatherin of curbstone operators, who by their loud vociferation and ticulation made the street even more hideous that had their predecessors. On the sidewalks were thousands of men who cared nothing for the Stock Board for the street speculators, but who were anxious about their bank balances, and who dreaded to learn what they expected every moment to hear, that their private banks had succumbed to that pressure which has thus far involved only private bankers and one or two mismanaged, rotten banks. The first startling event of the morning was the announcement thateHowes & Macy, who have been considered as strong a firm of private bankers as there in the city, had declined to open their doors. Instantly it was misinterpreted a failure it was hours before it became understood that these bankers had taken this step solely as a precautionary measure, believing that in the excited state of the market and the general inability to realize on any class of securities, they must eventually run short of greenbacks. There bad been on Tuesday an indication of a run on this house, consequent on the fact that it was in the saine building with Clews & Co. Of course the newly-announced suspension had a very depressing effect: but it was nothing like that which ensued on the closing Clews & Co. on Tuesday. It started a run on Vermilye & Co., renewed that on George Opdyke & Co., and there was a show of depositors asking for their money at the windows of August Belmont & Co. But none of these houses showed the slightest indications of weakness. , Upon the heels of the suspension of Howes & Macy came the news that Clews & Co. had swamped their London house of Clews, Habicht & Co. Their overdrafts on their London house were estimated at $1,200,000, or about the amount which they are said to have paid out previous to their suspension. The information, yesterday, leads to the supposition that Henry Clews & Co.'s suspension is permanent, certainly as complete as that of Jay Cooke & Co. Howes & Macy are likely to resume shortly, when matters are quieted. These two events were really the only disastrous ones of yesterday, and yet actions by stock brokers and by bank presidents were misconstrued by the general public, and helped to increase for the time being the general depression. In the first place, a number of owners of various stocks which could not be bypothecated were forced to place them in the hands of auctioneers at the Real Estate Exchange, and they were sold to the highest bidder. a proceeding unknown heretofore in New-York finances. was looked upon at first as an indication of the worthlessness of the securities, but it was soon found that the stocks brought their current value on the street. The buyers were fortunate men, with plenty of greenbacks to invest, who were loading up" with stocks at the present low rates with the design of taking them out of market altogether. As of course they left their greenbacks in the market, this unusual process of sellingstocks was practically
