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President is called upon to convene an extra session of Congress, the effect of which must, necessarily, have been to prolong the period of the panic, further depress values, unsettle business, destroy, rather than restore confidence, and end in smoke after all. It is difficult to see what Congress could have done, even if in session, but an extra session could not have been convened for weeks, and the fact of its having been called would have been taken by the majority as an evidence that the situation was, even, more grave than they had imagined in their wildest vagaries of thought, when under the most intense and unreasoning excitement and panic. Then they are importuned to again violate the laws by anticipating the payment of government bonds not yet due, notwithstanding such a procedure is absolutely forbidden by special enactment. Akin to this was the request that the treasury would buy of banks, savings banks and bankers, all and every specic of government bonds, no matter in what amounts offered, under the understanding or agreement, on the part of the banks and others, that they would buy them back when the crisis was over. Of all the absurd and ridiculous propositions ever made, this, it seems to us, caps the climax. Yet it was soberly, honestly made by the leading financiers of New York city. So much for the attempts to place the government in a ridiculous and absurd position, for it would have so resulted, even if the projectors and urgers of these several schemes had no such intention, and, probably, they had not. The government, we are glad to say, passed through the panic without compromising itself or the country. We will now turn to another ridiculous phase. Nothing need be said about the astute conclusion to which these metropolitan financiers arrived that they were the "universe," and that the outside barbarians, scattered through the several states in the Union, didn't amount to anything and, therefore, did not need, and must not have, money, any further than to note the additional fact that Chicago has come to the same conclusion. Two years ago, her business men bankers included were frantically calling upon the country to aid them in their distress. Nobly did the country respond, and with a generosity theretofore unparalleled in the history of the world, poured in contributions of money, provisions and materials that enabled Chicago to escape much of suffering, to rebuild her desolated streets, and to resume her commercial and financial importance almost at a bound. When, now, the country, which is tributary thereto, has occasion to use the money there deposited by them, and which is still in the hands of her banks and bankers, they are informed that money will not be paid to be taken out of Chicago. This, perhaps, should be classed as financial meanness rather than as ridiculous and absurd, although it partakes of all, but more largely of meanness. It must have presented something of a farcical, as well as depressing, appearance to see staid, sober, respectable and, at most times, unapproachable financiers and bankers rushing frantically about the streets of New York with a fist full of first-class, prime securities, imploring everyone whom they met, who were supposed to have a discount or buy at an interest of seven hundred and thirty per cent per annum. In cooler moments, such things would not have been attempted, because its absurdity would have been apparent at once. The very fact of such men offering securities at such a fearful discount would demonstrate that the securities were not what they purported to be, or that the houses represented by the individuals making the offer, were in a tottering, if not failing, condition. Its tendency at any time, but more particularly in a panic, would be to bring on, or intensify, the very condition they were seeking to avoid. Let us pass to the still greater absurdities of the telegraph, or rather of the correspondents and reporters who furnish the matter to be telegraphed, over the country. Jay Cooke & Co. suspended last week, being among the earliest houses to succumb, yet a special dispatch was telegraphed from Washington, Thursday-and it was deemed of sufficient importance to be re-telegraphed over the country-that "government business with Jay Cooke, McCulloch & Co. has been stopped." The suspension of Jay Cooke & Co's. several banking houses throughout the country has been understood, for some days, to be an absolute failure, but whether this is true or not, the government would be worse than idiotic to continue business with the parent house or any of its branches. Of course, "government business" with these houses has been "stopped," and the whole country has known it for over a week, yet reporters are found, at this late day, to telegraph the fact as news. A dispatch from the west, however, more than meets it in idiocy and freshness, when it announces, under date of Thursday, that "the banks of Nashville have suspended specie payment." This in new and startling, indeed, and we dread to hear of its effect upon excited New York. A review of the panic, we think, will disclose about as much absurdity and nonsensical action as was ever brought to the surface in the same space of time. Brandon Farmers' and Mechanics' Club
