IMPERIAL LEDGERS AND PROVINCIAL TARIFFS: The Gazettes of the Twenty-Seventh of September, 1841

VIENNA, 27th September 1841. — The morning fog over the Danube has scarcely lifted, yet the exchange arcades of the Upper Ward are already astir with the rustle of gazettes fresh from the imperial presses. The official chancery edicts, published this day across the Austrian Crownlands, confirm a modest reduction in the tariff upon Transylvanian timber floated down the Maros, a measure long petitioned by the Saxon merchants of Hermannstadt. The price of fir and oak, per Vienna quotation, stands at four florins and thirty kreutzers the Klafter—a decline of some nine kreutzers since the Feast of St. Michael, owing to the mild autumn and the consequent slackening of demand for fuel.

In Pest, the commercial bulletin records a steady traffic in copper ingots from the Upper Hungarian mines, with the smelters of Neusohl reporting a weekly yield of two hundred and forty centners. The metal is much sought by the bell-founders of Vienna and the wire-drawers of Styria, and the price has firmed to twenty-two florins the centner, a rise of one florin since the middle of the month. Yet the silver thalers of the imperial mint remain the true barometer of confidence, and it is here that the auditor's hand trembles. For the past three days, the premium upon silver coin in the Pest bourse has crept upward, a sure sign that certain houses are hoarding against an uncertain winter.

I confess, as I record these figures, that my own pocket bears a worn thaler of Maria Theresa, which I have polished with my thumb until its relief is nearly smooth. It is a childish habit, born of a childhood terror I shall not name, but it soothes the mind when the ledgers refuse to balance. The grain markets of the Banat, meanwhile, report a plentiful harvest, and the price of wheat at Temesvár has fallen to three florins the Metzen, bringing some relief to the bakers of the border regiments.

Let the reader therefore note: timber weak, copper strong, silver anxious, and grain abundant. Such is the ledger of the twenty-seventh of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-one, as set down by the Exchange Arcade for the Transylvania Gazette.