The Dry Goods Trade

The sugar and grocery trade, the spirit trade, and nutably the iron and metal trade are.one and all much depressed at the present time. But the dry goods, clothing, and boot and shoe trade are rathermore than usually livoly, the stagnation in all other interests seetn to be overlooked, and the fact of a lively and profitable fall trade is perfectly patent. Although the domand for dry goods is pretty geueral, yet thero aro even in this business great degrees of differenco. - Plain worsted and stuff dresa goods are not only in great domand, but are so scarce that country merchants have to buy f rom samples, wlule tb e bulk of the goods is either on tho steamers orosssng the ocean or in process of being paekod and shipped iuto England and Franco.- Scratch a Russian and you flnd a Tartar. Scratch any difficulty in our trade, whoth er tsmporary or permanent, and our abominable tarift' laws will be found at the bottoru of it. Thus it should bo remembered that worstod dress goods being subject to duty averaging fully lia per cent. have of late years been ordered and iinported cautiously. This is perfectly natural, inasmuch as every $1.65 value representa 65 cents tax. Any remaining surplus entails a heavy loss, as the goods in question are arbitrarily subject to the caprice of style and fashiou. Consignments have also been much reduced frorn the other side, and commission nierohants being loath to advance on goods that aro subject to a 65 per cent, duty, henee it has come to pass that this class of goods has run down very low indeed, and has been sparingly ordered abroad. Country merchants, too, seem to be bare of goods, and the chief run of tho season has been on worsted and other stuff dress goods, such as empresa cloth, sateen cloth, cashtnere delaines, epignol, &c. It would be not a little aetonishing to know the immense amounts of this kind of goods sold during the last two or three weeks. Some of the large importing houses of lees magnitude have sold many hundred cases of goods by samples, thu goods still being t sea or on the other side. No doubt this branch wil prove the most lucrativa of the whole dry goods trade this fall. Another rather healthy sign is in tho woolen and cloth trade. Both in doinestio and foreign fabrics the inovemont has set in very steadily indeed. The fact is whatever may have been the local faults of the West and South, overstocking themselves with unsalable goods has nol been one of their mistakes. For at leasi three years - ever since the outbreaking of the Franco-German war - the buyer and seller seein to have been cautious. - At first gooda were dear and scarce, so that a morbid sort of feeling throughout the land in the trading population suco.eeded. This is inTgeneral the casa during a Presidontial election year, anc both in the fall of lust year aud in the spring of this year vpry Hght stocks were purchased. It is, therefore, perfectlj natural that a wholesouie demand slioulr spring up now witli a erop of 4,500,00 bales of ootton in prospect in the South, a most proliflc cereal erop in the West, and -prices as high and higher for both these staples than during the last flve year9. Another great feature in the dry goods fall trade this year is that our importations havo been unusually light, and we actually re-exported during April, May, June, something like $6,000,000 worth of dry goods, which were lying here in bond, while the home milis for woolens have been producing very sparingly during the suicmer. lt is, at all events, much better to have a brisk demand for goods and have rather a light stock than to see a glut. The consumer in the end hardly ever profits by a glut in the great entrepots, and it seems a remarkable fatality that a glut and depressed prices for goods in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other seaports are invariably the forerunners of the most depressing prices of cotton and breadstuffs, while a healthy trade in the great seaports seems to augur good prices for cereals and cotton. Thus far, then, the dry goods, clothing, and boot and shoe trade may fairly be called both lirely and healthy. The season is now fairly under way. - N. T. World.