Extensive Spindling Operation.
--The moneyed portion of our community have received a severe shock within the past few days, from a Southern operator, of great business capacity, who has feathered his best and is now no doubt, safely ensconced within the Yankee lines. A man, called J P. Livingston, and claiming to be a member of the large and well known firm of J. J. North & Co., commission merchants, Savannah, Ga. arrived here a short time since, and professing to be largely engaged in the blockade business, set about buying gold. European exchange. Northern drafts, &c.; drawing, in payment of the same, either on Savannah, of Columbia, S. C., as preferred by our private bankers. His house having unlimited credit here, he very soon succeeded in negotiating for $150,000 with one firm, $75,000 with another, $37,000 with another, $32,000 with a fourth, $25,000 with a fifth, and so on, till getting as much as he wanted, and then decamped for parts unknown.--Some of the drafts, forwarded for Savannah and Columbia, have been professed, and the unwelcome news has been received that Livingston had closed out his effects before he left his former place of business.We understand that Livingston succeeded in procuring of the Secretary of War a pass through any portion of our lines, save that of Gen. Lee's, and that before he left here he telegraphed a gentleman in Staunton to purchase him a part of fast horses as speedily as possible.
In the course of a few days we may expect to see the arrival of Mr. Livingston announced in the Northern papers, with a grand flourish of trumpets over the important news he has been able to furnish to the Federal Government.
