The Ring has been at work again in America, locking
up currency for its own purposes, till the "tightness" of money brought down many firms who had been " financing " new Rail- roads till their own resources' were expended, and they had to borrow from banks, which for the same reason often could not lend. The Government at once interfered as usual, offering to buy their own bonds for currency ; but their offer was not sufficient to break up the Ring, and up to Friday night there was still dullness and a partial inability in the West to forward the crops. The panic has not yet been very serious, but it has led to a raising of the Bank rate, in anticipation of the American demand for gold, from 3 per cent. to 4, and may not be over yet. Of course when the mail arrives the fault will be all Jay Gould's, but there is no more reason why he should not lock up currency if he can, than why he should not buy up coals. The real evils are clearly the Banking system, which is neither free, as it was once in America, nor rigidly controlled, as it is in England,—and the state of public opinion, which allows reckless speculators to break, and go on again as comfortably as ever.
