How To Make The Bad Times Worse

There is no tact more generally or more thoroughly appreciated than that the times are hard and there is need ot piudence and economy, but there could be nothing more inischievous than the disposition to exaggerate the oondition of things, or to dostroy confidence in our powers of reouperation. There is dangerthat tho public mind will be come morbid on tho subject of hard times and suspicious of the stability of all business. Let thoro be a general feeling of hopolessness or distrust and tho chief sources of recuperative energy will be dried up. There have been inany failurea and one of the natural effects is to shake the confiience of business men and of the community at largo, but this stress is aggravated beyond all rational limita by the stress that is laid on each failure and the rumora and suspicions that are set on foot regarding others that uiay follow. We all kuow the propensity of rumor and gossip to become magnified as they travel, until thcir proportions are alarming. Many a house tbat uiight have weathered the storm if leniently dealt with, has been torced to suspend by the domands precipitated upon it by an idle rumor that it was in astraightenud condition. The practico oí paradme weekly a long list of failures, great and small, so as to uiake the most itupressive show of business distress, produces an impression that is essentially false and altogether mischievous. fStill worse is the propensity to spread rumora and unauthenticated reports regarding the unpromising condition of special linos of business, and tho unstability of certain concerns. The eflect is to produce despondency to a degree wholly unjustifiable by the actual state of affairs. Another mischievous tendency is that produced by instances of forgory or other criminal conduct in business circles. There is too ready a dispositien to suspect, because here and there appoar jonBpicuous cases of rascality, that all men are rascáis or Hable to become so any day. The distrust that is thereby created has a most depressing effect. And yet we all know, when we consider hi' matter soberly, that because one man has proverl a villain is no valid reaion for distrusting another. It still j] ft i ii m tiue that most business men reuiain honorable and worthy of trust, and thero is no excuse for accepting nspicion as a principie of actiou. ïo i o so wou ld be to dcstroy the very 'uunilittion of commercial operntions, br without contidence and trust in oiich )tht;r wc eau do nothing. And it is a 'act that thero is just as tnuuh ground 'or confidenee in tho character of men as there ever was. The faüures reportad ïavn, in niany cases, been of unstable coucerns which an unusiial stress of any kind would havo overtlirown. Thero have been conspicuous instonoes of rascality, but these appear in all times, though when Ibero is lcss dupression thny are not so much noted, and tbey do not affect tho general integrity of business men. What we neod most is coufidonce and hopo, and we have ground ouough for them, but there are busybodios whose ocoupation is to spread distrust and dismay. By giving them countenance we only make the bad times worse and the procesa of recovery more difficult. By prudent and careful niauagument and pushing with the spirit of logitimate enterprise wherevor au opportunity presents, we steadily rebuild tho fabric of our shattered prosperity. The lessons of adversity will be of priceless value to us in tho future, and we must not fold our handg and moan, or listen to the forebodings of croakers, but stand up manfully, put confidence in our fellow-mon - except those whora wo have some snfficient reason to distrust - and work on with a will, " Ileart within and God o'erhead."