The Spirit of speculation.
The speculation and extortion now so shamelessly rife bode more evil to the
Southern cause than all the armies of the enemy.
We will not ask how the poor are to live if the present prices of articles essential to life continue; for that, unless the
Government and community step in to their support, as is done in
England, will be an impossibility.
But now those in moderate circumstances, and who, in ordinary times, are comparatively comfortable — a class which comprises the majority of the
Southern people — how they will manage to keep soul and body together, if articles of vital necessity continue as high through the winter as they are now, is more than we can imagine.
We should like to see some measure adopted by the
Government, no matter how arbitrary, which would save the country from the most formidable of all the perits by which it is surrounded.