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ber of any preceding year, and almost entirely by the smaller class of tradespeople. In the same place pauperism has declined four-fifths, while artizans alone have invested £70,000 in freehold land societies. Similar facts might be recorded of other towns. In pauper maintenance there has been a diminution of eleven per cent. throughout the country in the latter half of 1851 as compared with 1850. The creation of mills, factories, docks, wharfs, and warehouses goes on apace. Since 1848, our mercantile shipping has increased by two hundred and fifty thousand tons, and taken into employ three thousand additional men. These are cheering facts. We have cause, it is true, in many respects, for national humiliation, especially in the insane and wicked excesses of a speculating mania, which subjects us to a periodical panic, and in the condition of our sister island. Still even here cheering signs of improvement are visible. The unforgotten calamities which happened six years ago are teaching us to unite wisdom and moderation with commercial enterprise, and prefer safe profits to brilliant but hazardous measures; while the social and religious movements now going on in Ireland are full of happy auguries for the future, as Popery apparently is losing its ascendency over the popular mind. In these and other causes of the present day we discern, we trust, a renewing of our youth; the beginning, not the end of our career. We have only, under God's blessing, to proceed with

intelligence and firmness in order to place our prosperity on an infrangible basis. Nothing can ruin, no earthly power can subdue, a patriotic and industrious people, whose institutions are based on justice, and pervaded by a spirit of true religion. Such, we trust, is our true prospect. Every lover of his country must rejoice at it, while the Christian citizen will "thank God, and take courage."

CHAPTER IV.

MONEY CURRENT: A FEW WORDS ABOUT GOLD,
SILVER, AND BANK NOTES.

GOLD and silver are the most remarkable con-
stituents of wealth. They are so not only
because they have a greater value in proportion
to their bulk than most other commodities, but
because the value of all other commodities is
referred to them as its measure and symbol.
If we want to ascertain the wealth of a person,
we ask, How much money is he worth? If he
is anxious to grow rich, we say he is eager to
make money.
A thousand other articles may
be refused as part of a bargain, but no one
thinks of refusing money. Gold and silver
resemble the hero of romance, at whose
approach the strongest bolts fly back, and the
heaviest doors swing open.

Let us briefly consider the nature and origin of money. We have mentioned the division of labour as one of the sources of wealth. This principle, when once thoroughly adopted, not only tends to increase the aggregate riches of the community, but to change the whole aspect of its affairs. At first each man worked for

himself, supplying his wants as best he could without the help of his neighbour. This phase of society, if it was ever anything more than theoretic, soon vanished. Mankind found it mutually advantageous to work for each other. Instead of bewildering themselves with a Babel of conflicting occupations, the farmer kept to his plough, the smith to his forge, and the cobbler to his last. But here a new process commenced. Of the numerous wants the farmer experienced, his home-grown wheat would supply only one. He would therefore have to divide the remainder of his wheat into so many lots, and carry them where they could be exchanged for other commodities. This process was a new era in civilization-it inaugurated the principle of exchange.

But the process did not stop here; it soon led to another phenomenon. The function of exchanging was soon assigned to one commodity in preference to others, and this commodity was called money. The convenience of this change would soon be found very great. The farmer now, instead of dividing his wheat into as many different lots as he had wants to provide for, might, if he so chose, sell all the produce of his farm to one person, who would pay him for it in gold or silver, with which he might at any moment purchase the articles he might require. He would thus obtain an imperishable article in the place of a perishable one. Should he, owing to a favourable season, obtain more wheat than was requisite to meet his immediate wants,

He

he would be able to turn it into something which damp could not spoil, nor mice devour. Moreover, he would be able to use money with more facility than the produce of his farm. He could carry two pieces of gold or silver to the smith, or the tailor, much more easily than a sack of corn. Agricultural produce, it is true, being generally capable of minute subdivision, might be used in purchasing small quantities of other commodities, but all would not be equally successful with the farmer in this respect. The grazier, for example, whose property consisted of so many head of oxen, would often be unable, if confined to the method of barter, to purchase the exact quantity of salt or flour which he might have occasion for. would evidently be obliged to buy as much as would be an equivalent for a single ox, or some multiple of that value; he could not buy a quantity equal in value to half an ox, or an ox and a half. But the adoption of money as an instrument of exchange would put all such inconveniences aside. The grazier might sell his oxen, and with the proceeds purchase any amount of whatever he might require. For these and similar reasons money must soon have come into general use. So early as the time of Abraham, it was the common medium of exchange. The silver which he weighed to the children of Heth for the field and cave of Machpelah, was "current money with the merchants."

Some writers have thrown considerable

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