may within three calendar months thereafter redeem said real estate, by paying to the plaintiff in execution the amount for which said land was sold, and ten per cent added thereto. The following property is exempt from sale under execution:-One cow, one calf, one horse, or yoke of cattle, five sheep, five head of hogs, household and kitchen furniture not to exceed in value thirty dollars, one stove fixed up in the house, one bed and the necessary bedding therefor for every two in the family, farming utensils not exceeding in value fifty dollars, one months' provisions for the support of the family, all mechanics' necessary tools, and all private libraries. CONVEYANCES. All deeds and conveyances of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, situate, lying, and being within the territory, which shall hereafter be made and executed in any other territory, state, or country, may be acknow. ledged, proved and certified according to, and in conformity with the laws and usages of the territory, state, and country in which such deeds or conveyances were acknowledged or proved, and they shall be as effectual and valid in law, as though the same acknowledgment had been taken, or proof made within the territory, or in pursuance of the laws thereof. The execution and delivery of all deeds and conveyances in the territory are considered prima facie evidence of their execution and delivery, and the party denying the same must do it under oath. ART. VI.-LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF MERCANTILE LIFE. III. THE MERCHANT IN HIS STUDY. "Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, By sometimes showing a more swelling port MERCHANT OF VENICE. COLONEL BEERS retired to his study, where, indeed, for more than a week he had spent the greater part of every night. Here he resolved to obtain, if possible, a calm and dispassionate view of his situation, and to seek whatever of fortitude or hope might yet be within his reach. The fearful anxieties with which his spirit had wrestled ever since the cheerless dawn, breaking tardily and heavily upon his sleepless pillow, were for the most part silenced, if not subdued. The overburdened spiritual energies had well-nigh exhausted themselves. The severe mental conflict of the evening, heightened, as we have seen, to almost insufferable intensity by the remorse engendered by the scene around him, was over for the present; for the voice of love, mild and full of hope, had mingled in the wild uproar, and the strong spirit of the man within him, started up at the unwonted call, and, feeling that there was yet something in lite worth struggling for, had conquered. Poor man!-in what a sea of ago ny had he been swimming, and with what stern energy had he been buffeting with its waves of fire, for weary days and wearier nights, with no mild guiding-star to beam upon the almost shoreless despair, while the winds, prophetic of ruin, were moaning and howling in the distance! But now, whether it was the natural calm which sometimes follows intense excitement, or whether the influence, the words, the prayers of his daughter had opened to him an avenue of comfort amid the gloom, he felt strangely tranquil in mind ;-nay, strong enough to look the many-headed fiend that haunted him in the face, and ask what his real power over him might be. He sat down, without agitation, before his writing-desk, and applied himself steadily to the study of a schedule of liabilities and assets which he had drawn up with his own hand not many days before. While thus employed, we may be fairly justified in saying a few words to our readers concerning his character and situation. Julian Beers was a proud man ; but his pride, in the best sense in which the world employs the designation, was an honorable emotion. It was, indeed, the pride of station, of reputation, of wealth; but it was based, in intention at least, upon strict integrity of character. He would have shrunk from the thought of a mean and dishonorable action, as from the touch of a serpent. He knew no softer name for dishonesty, and he would have scorned the wealth which is to be won in doubtful or base courses of business. As a merchant, therefore, he was a man of principle, not surely of the highest and noblest sort, but still a man of principle. For years he had toiled manfully in his profession, and had won a considerable fortune as fortunes go-and an enviable name. He at length found himself in the first class of his order, and his pride was abundantly gratified, by the respect and confidence which everywhere greeted him. The pride of wealth, as wealth increased, grew upon him, and assailed him with many temptations, from which the man of an humbler sphere is exempt. That exorbitant thirst for splendor, luxury, and display, which characterizes communities like ours, in times of great zeal, or fancied prosperity, had led him to aspire to the distinction which his family now occupied in the fashionable world. The gayest season might have been dull if the popular family of Colonel Beers had not been among the first to lead and to sustain it. It is true, that misgivings sometimes haunted his breast, that the fortune invested in enterprises which fire and flood, the hazards of trade, the prostration of confidence, or a reckless touch upon the springs of the political machine, might at any time seriously impair, if not destroy, ought not to be lavished as freely upon the baubles of worldly show and pleasure as if it were the income of a millionaire. But the tide rolled on, glittering, swelling, ever higher, ever stronger; and once on, it requires a stouter heart and rougher hand than his to get out. Much, indeed, was sacrificed to mere vulgar glitter, much to the veriest puppetry of gilt and pasteboard-much to a despicable sort of vanity which oftentimes brings its own sting along with it. Yet, although Colonel Beers felt this to be the case, he excused himself with the thought that it was a state of things which he had no concern in causing, which he could not mend, and which must be tolerated with the greatest share of complacency at command. But this was not the most dangerous rock, which threatened to make shipwreck of his safety. There was another far more fatal, because wholly unseen, in the bosom of that wide whirlpool of reckless adventure, into which society had been drawn almost beyond recall. The old, cautious, regular movements of trade, had given place to a novel and more enticing system. The spirit of speculation was abroad, and its influence was felt in every department of the business world. An inflated currency gave encouragement to every kind of scheme for making haste to be rich -ruinous importations to supply fancied demands, which even the extreme of extravagance could not render real, successive creations of imaginary wealth by means of bubbles, which, though of air, became enormous ere they burst; these, and a thousand features of the times like them, which will suggest themselves to the recollection of every reader, were too truly prophetic of the future. But the spirit of bold enterprise entered the minds of even the wisest and most cautious, and amidst the universal ferment caused by the simultaneous operation of so many puffing machines, stoical, indeed, was the mind, and cold the heart, which could refuse to hazard something. Along with an undue expansion of his regular business, Colonel Beers had ventured largely in one of the most brilliant and promising specula. tions of the day. These were the foundations on which he had latterly essayed to build the temple of his fortune, and he now felt them swelling and sinking beneath his feet, while the edifice itself, tottering to its fall, threatened every moment to crush him. Far and wide over land and wave, to the east and west, to the north and south, the chain of his correspondence extended, and his semi-annual importations flew from his warehouses, as it were, on the wings of the wind. Heavy discounts, and long credits, rendered easy and general by the fatal facilities which the banks afforded everywhere to everybody, sustained for a long time the bright delusion, and all hearts beat high, and all tongues waxed eloquent with the hope of splendid fortunes, realized almost by the toss of a copper. But by and by, alas! the sober certainty of protested notes, and extensive country failures, startled men into suspicion and reflection. In proportion as facilities were withdrawn, the fall of the million jobbers, scattered "thick as leaves" everywhere over the land, became accelerated. Then commenced the crash in the distant cities; then in those more near; then the metropolis itself began to ring with harsh iron-tongued rumors of her proudest houses; confidence gave place to universal caution and distrust, and the dark leaden clouds rolled heavily over the firmanent, charged with the black and sulphurous artillery of the tempest. Black, indeed, almost rayless was the firmament, which, for a short period, had hung over Julian Beers. A bolt or two had already scathed the green. ness of his fortune; every moment might bring the unmitigated fury and the overthrow. Had his adventures run only in the regular channel of his business, he might, perhaps, have defied the storm-he now felt, at least, that in that case there was a possibility that all his engagements might have been protected. But that speculation! The originators of it, many of them at least, had saved themselves; some of them had realized fortunes by it. But Colonel Beers, deceived by its unusual popularity, had entered into it as it approached the crisis. That crisis soon came. It was as destructive as it was unlooked for in its movements, and he now stood among the vanishing bubbles of the exploded air castle. To him this was the finishing blow, and he felt it to be So. In the pressure of his difficulties, before he could realize the probability of others still more severe, he had been led to adopt expedients which in the ordinary course of business he would have repudiated. But a desperate man of the world, who, in his selfishness, can scarcely realize the sacredness of his trusteeship-the man of the world, who is not sus tained by those highest and truest principles which nerve the mind enlightened by religion, and quickened by religious feeling, will oftentimes clutch with eagerness after the very phantoms which are luring him to his ruin. In the protracted agony of his situation, he went on, day after day, making the most serious sacrifices in order to sustain himself. But such sacrifices generally render the eventual ruin only the more certain and deadly. And such the sacrifice proved to be in his case. His daughter, the mild, meek, beautiful Emily, had read much of what was in his heart on that fearful night, but she had not read the whole. There was one purpose there, not suddenly inspired, but the result of many, many hours of agony, of which he dared not even then be fully conscious himself. It had floated in ghastly indistinctness through his mind, and the effort to drive it away, though strong at first, had become feeble with every visitation, until at last he almost hugged it to his heart as his speediest refuge. What that purpose was, it matters not now. Suffice it to say that in those still and lonely morning hours, it came not back, for the holiness of prayer had laid the fiend to rest. He sat for a long time absorbed in the study of the documents before him, and when he arose, it was with a cheek and brow of deadly paleness. He paced the floor, at first with a step somewhat languid, then rapidly and with some show of agitation. He sat down again and smote the paper with his open hand, and exclaimed, " All, ALL Scattered to the winds of heaven! Great God! can I be calm-can I live under a state of things so dreadful-I, Julian Beers, with the cold civility, with the sneer of the world upon me? And for this I have toiled-for this-poverty, want, and wretchedness with my helpless, miserable family!" His feelings became too strong for words. He leaned upon his clenched hands, and—we will not say wept, for the manhood of Julian Beers was strong-but the convulsive movement of the chest and the workings of the countenance told that even tears might be a relief. But there was no help for it. Ruin was upon him "as a strong man armed," and his spirit must bend before it, or break. The proud, fallen merchant was alone with his own heart, and with his God. The world, as yet, knew not of his overthrow; but the next morning, or, perhaps, the next, would ring it into the greedy ears of the great idol he had worshipped. He felt the terrible agony under which he had almost sank once that night, rolling in upon his soul. He feared to remain any longer alone. With a confused brain and tottering step he sought his bed-chamber, and lay down, hopeless of sleep, by the side of one whose dreams were scarcely less dreadful than his waking thoughts. In the mean time, how fares it with Mr. Ockham? We shall glance at his situation in our next number. Commerce, as well as life, has its auspicious ebbs and flows that baffle human sagacity, and defeat the most rational arrangement of systems, and all the calculations of ordinary prudence. Be prepared, therefore, at all times, for commercial revulsions and financial difficulties, by which thousands have been reduced to beggary, who before had rioted in opulence, and thought they might bid defiance to misfortune. MONTHLY COMMERCIAL CHRONICLE. Perhaps there never was a time in our commercial history when so great an amount of capital remained unemployed in the busy season of the year, as during the past few weeks. Great difficulty has been experienced in placing money so as to yield any in. come whatever. It has been offered by capitalists to those large moneyed houses in Wall-street, accustomed to receive deposites on interest, or rather, as it is expressed, to take in money "at call," at reasonable rates of interest, at 5 per cent per annum; and but small quantities have been used at that rate, from the impossibility of employing it in a manner that would yield a profit greater than that. This arises from many causes, the most prominent of which are-1st, the want of confidence in stocks even of those states in which hitherto the greatest reliance has been placed; and, 2d, of the greatly diminished demand for money in mercantile operations. The discredit of stock securi. ties grows mostly out of political causes. Contending parties have of late years made financial and commercial legislation an instrument of furthering their own views, by making large promises of relief and protection to the people on the one hand, and of throwing discredit on their opponents on the other. This disposition has been gradually developed in the progress of events, until either party has become radical in its views of fiscal affairs. The one has been driven back upon direct taxation, rigid economy, and a specie currency; while the other avows a policy of almost unlimited indirect taxation, liberal expenditure, and that worst of all currencies, a government paper currency. The line between these parties has been more distinctly drawn in New York, than elsewhere; but may give a true indication of the general position of affairs, because it is from New York that the whole Union takes its cue. From New York emanated the bank mania, which spread over the Union with such rapidity, in the few years preceding the disasters of 1836-7. The success of the Erie canal was made, in all other states, the argument for immense public works, which have plunged many of the states in debt, defalcation, and dishonor. The same fever reacting upon New York, caused the projection of many new public works of vast magnitude, as well as the enlargement of the Erie canal, at a cost far above what any reasonable trade on its bosom can or ought to be burdened with. All these undertakings pushed the debt of the state, in 1841, to an extent at which it became evident that to complete existing works, on the plan on which they were com menced, would carry it to an amount greater than could be met by the avails of any reasonable increase of business on the works in progress of improvement and construction. Here a line was drawn. One party were in favor of prosecuting the works at any and every hazard, and to depend upon the income to be derived from them for the payment of the interest and the gradual extinguishment of the principal. This policy, however, appeared so hazardous, especially when the trade of the whole union was laboring under depression, and other states had been forced even to the verge of repudiation by the embarrassments created by following a similar course, that a prominent member of the party, avowing it in the legislature, seceded from it, and professed him. self unwilling to increase the debt. The opposite party, being in the ascendancy, not only decided not to increase the debt, but to levy a tax of one mill on every $100 of valuation, to raise $600,000 in order to meet any possible contingency that might arise to jeopardize the prompt fulfilment of the faith of the state. They then authorized the borrowing of $3,000,000, at 7 per cent interest, to pay all floating claims, and to prevent any dilapidation of the unfinished works. The proceeds of the tax were sacredly pledged to the payment of the interest on this debt, and the redemption of its principal. On these terms the money was obtained at par, when no other state, not even the federal |