REVIEW OF THE HIDE TRADE OF NEW-YORK, FOR THE YEAR 1893. THE stock of foreign hides at the beginning of the year was 255,700. The price of Buenos Ayres was 13 cents a pound. There were a good many hides being imported from Europe. In one cargo were 35,000 from Antwerp. There were 570,706 afloat from Buenos Ayres and Montevideo. Heavy green hides were brought in from France and sold for 12 cents a pound. A great many calf skins were sold at 13 cents a pound. Curriers bought them to finish into colored leather. There were more common hides sold in January than in any previous January in twelve years. The price of them advanced half a cent a pound during the month. The receipts had been large, but they were mostly bought up before they arrived. Almost all the hides "afloat" from the River Plate were sold "to arrive "" up to April 1st. As tanners were pretty well supplied, they stopped purchasing in March. Many of them were occupied with the creation of the corporation which came into operation on the 1st of May, under the title of the "United States Leather Company." Prices dropped a fraction. Montevideo's were sold for 12 cents in small parcels. When the new Company commenced business a Committee on buying hides was formed, and thereafter the bulk of the purchases in this market were made by them. In May the financial disturbances had exercised a paralyzing influence upon all industries, and the demand for hides was reduced to such a degree that it amounted to nothing. The stock accumulated. It was 317,000 in first hands the first week and 376,900 the last week in May. The Company began at the outset to import hides from the River Plate, and have been the principal receivers of them ever since. Montevideos declined to 11 cents a pound. The prices attracted the attention of European buyers, and during the last half of the year considerable quantities were sent abroad. The labor of converting this raw material into leather was thus lost to our artizans. Still the demand, both domestic and foreign, was not sufficient to consume the receipts. There were 397,600 hides here in first hands. Prices from then to the end of the year changed but little, but the change was in a downward direction. The organizers of the Leather Company had so eliminated the element of competition in the buying that it was easier than ever before to purchase on favorable terms. As That, indeed, was the most important and fortunate consequence of the coalition of the tanners. Aforetime they had been so numerous and so widely scattered that, by antagonizing each other, they had kept prices of raw material above the normal rates. soon as they were united, they found it practicable to buy all the hides they could use, at all the way from ten to twenty per cent. below former rates. Receipts of Foreign and Domestic Hides at New York during the Years 1893 and 1892. 48,961 41,072 39,386 66,289 72,686 65,988 778,484 665,232 44,331 37,173 430 430 2,374 * Under this heading are included principally hides formerly classed as coming from the "Spanish Main," the bulk of them being from the United States of Colombia, Venezuela (except Orinoco) and Guiana. + The table includes as from Central America all hides which come from the Isthmus; although it is well understood that a proportion of the California hides California hides come by rail, or by the Isthmus of Panama, so the bulk of these hides coming to New-York appear under other headings. REVIEW OF THE BOOT AND SHOE TRADE OF NEW-YORK, FOR THE YEAR 1893. WHILE the shoe industry shared in the depression that overtook business interests during 1893, it did not suffer to a very great extent. The Americans are a shoe-wearing people. The consumption is estimated at something like 200,000,000 pairs a year. It varies somewhat, being susceptible of considerable diminution in times of adversity. New-York is a great distributing point. Dealers from all sections, wholesale and retail, buy here. There were brought hither 307,424 cases from Boston last year of the value of about $9,000,000. There are 112 manufacturers in the two cities, New-York and Brooklyn. Their production is not less than $20,000,000 annually. Several firms whose factories are in the interior, or in adjacent States, have their stores here. There are about 1,500 retail dealers in New-York and Brooklyn. The business, in its various ramifications, must amount to $35,000,000 at least, even at the prices of to-day, which are the lowest ever known. The sales of the wholesale dealers to the Southern States are extensive. Buyers in that region began to purchase early in the year. Their spring season commences in February. They were free consumers up to the beginning of summer, and bought more in proportion all through the year than people elsewhere. In the deepest of the depression the manufacturers who had a "Southern trade" were fairly busy. The Southerners bought early large quantities of tan-colored shoes for women and men's wear. Later the near-by and Western buyers came. The spring season was backward, wet and cold, and warm goods sold until well into April. Then the demand changed suddenly, and was for low-cuts for summer wear. During the last six months of the year dealers were very conservative, credits were rigidly scanned-stocks were sold down closely. The rubber companies did a large and lucrative business. They established a higher price list on the 1st of April, and, as the manufacturing business came under the control of a corporation, the "United States Rubber Company," there was no difficulty in sustaining their valuations. One company, the Woonsocket, opened a trade with Europe, and shipped goods steadily from here during the year. They, and one other company, sent about $250,000 worth of long-legged boots and Arctic gaiters abroad, mostly to Scandinavia. The factories throughout the country, with one important excep. tion, were grouped together under one administration. The establishment which was not included in the organization is the Boston Rubber Shoe Company; the standing of this concern is high, and the business done by it is of immense volume. It has proved, so far, a coadjutor rather than a rival of the association with which, for some reason or other, it did not form an alliance. The two companies have prospered greatly since the new arrangement was perfected. Consumers have been obliged to pay more for rubbers, but the prices are still far from exorbitant, and the goods are of improved quality. Taking the twelve months together the sales of shoes and of rubbers were about up to the average. The increased production from January to July made up for the decrease from July to January. EXPORTS OF BOOTS AND SHOES FROM THE UNITED STATES AND THE REVIEW OF THE DRUG TRADE OF NEW-YORK, FOR THE YEAR 1893. THE drug trade, like all others, was affected by the revolution in politics and finance, but probably not to the same extent as other lines. During the financial upheaval, manufacturing and jobbing houses stood the strain, although collections during the last half of the year were very difficult, more pronounced in the Northwest. The suspension of manufacturing, during the latter part of the year, throughout New-England especially, throwing out of employment large numbers, caused the severest economy to be practiced, and purchasing was confined to direst necessities. Owing to the bad condition of affairs at the close of the year, prices were quoted below the average of the past five years at the same period. Those articles which closed higher than the average were so only from scarcity, or were held up by combination amongst manufac turers. The drug trade did not make much of a figure at the Chicago Exhibition, although the exhibits made by some manufacturers of chemicals and pharmaceuticals were interesting and instructive. The WILSON Tariff Bill, now under consideration, proposes some radical reductions in the chemical list, but takes Opium off the free list and puts it on the dutiable list at $1 per pound. The decline in silver has had its effect on the prices of articles from South America and the East Indies. During the year under review two men once prominent in drug circles have passed away. JOHN MCKESSON, long an associate of many of New-York's old-time merchants, closed a long and honorable career last October, in the eighty seventh year of his age. His father was a lawyer in good standing in New-York, and his grandfather, likewise, practiced law here, and during the Revolution was a man of influence in the legal profession. JAMES RICHARDSON died on March 1, 1893, at his home in St. Louis, being nearly seventy-six years old. He retired from the drug business eight years ago. He had long been prominent in the trade, and served two terms as President of the Western Wholesale Druggists' Association. The National Wholesale Druggists' Association held their annual meeting in October, in Detroit, and Mr. FRANK A. FAXON, of Kansas City, was chosen president. The total import of chemicals, drugs and dyes entered free of duty for the year ending December 31, 1893, was $33,018,108, against $32,506,877 for the year previous. The value of similar goods, dutiable, was $13,250,912 in 1893, against $15,019,423 in 1892. The falling off was entirely in dutiable goods, which reduces the total of all imports in this class for the year, in spite of |