The condition of the North.
A shrewed and observant gentleman of
Charleston, who has just returned from a Some what extended trip through the
North, given its some interesting and reliable accounts of the state of affairs in that section.--When he left New York (on the 11th inst.) the war feeling had not abated a whit in bitterness, and the sentiment general among the masses was, that the
South must be brought into submission to the
Lincoln Government, at whatever cost of men or money.
There was but little talk of politics, and the universal topic of conversation was the terrible condition of the
United States.
The prostration of Northern commerce is complete.
The flow of money from the
South has sensed.--The grain markets of
New England and
Europe are already glutted, and the
West, cut off from the
Southern market and unable to dispose of its immense surplus stocks of grain and provision, is, in turn, unable to buy goods in New York.
Failures all over the North and West are multiplying to a frightful extent, and, dark as is the present, the future seems even more dismal.
It has come to be an admitted fact that the commercial crash will soon be universal.
The depreciation of
real estate in New York is appalling.
Leading firms, which have heretofore paid many thousands annually as rent for their offices, now occupy the same buildings free of charge — the landlords being anxious to keep up appearances, and unable to retain their tenants upon any other terms.
The state of affairs is even worse in
Philadelphia, where, in the most fashionable quarters, whole blocks of elegant residences are tenantless and go a begging at less than a third of the rents they readily drew a twelvemonth ago.
In the midst of the wide-spread ruin of the
North's commercial grandeur, the war spirit seems to gather new strength and ferocity.--At the bidding of the
Lincoln Government, the starving sculpt of the great cities are enlisting by tens of thousands, and are armed, equipped and dispatched to the border with surprising rapidity.
The material of these city battalions is the poorest that can be imagined.
Not so, however, with the regiments and brigades from the interior, which, in many instances, are composed of men who would do credit to any army.
The Rhode Island regiments, particularly, are noticeable for their stalwart appearance, and for the excellence and completeness of their organization.
On the whole, our informant is of opinion that our enemies are, to a certain extent, underrated by public opinion throughout the
South.
There are signs of discontent among the foreign elements in New York, especially the Germans.
A leading German paper has roundly declared that the military power of the
North rests upon the arms of the adopted citizens, and that the puling boys of the famous 7th Regiment are ‘"fit only to wait upon the hysterical women of New York."’
Everything in the march of events at the
North betokens the early recognition of the fact that the non slaveholding States can cohere, only by establishing
de jure, that which already exists among them
de facto--a consolidated, centralized, ‘"strong"’ government, differing from a military despotism (if it differ at all) only in the name.--
Charleston Mercury. 
