end with themselves, for not only are they a tax upon their friends, lessening to some extent the meager income of those who give them temporary assistance, but their necessary and eager competition for the little work that offers, tends to reduce the compensation of those to whom they are thus indebted. Stores, workshops, and factories, unoccupied and unused, are found in every direction. Crime increases, bankruptcies multiply, and even though the aggregate of wealth augments, it is unjustly distributed, and consequently barren of beneficent results.

A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY OF MONEY.

The system of relying upon the precious metals as money has long been known as the Automatic system. Accurately, it should be called the Accidental system. It has been called "automatic" because, so long as money was made to depend solely upon the yield of the mines, the supply regulated itself by what was believed to be a natural method, namely, by the expenditure of labor in its production, and was limited only by the rude obstacles which nature opposes to the production of the metals. The necessity of expending this labor placed the money volume of any country beyond the control of the kings and conquerors who, in the primitive periods of society, exercised despotic sway over their subjects. It was undoubtedly better for the people of those early times to risk the accidents of production than the follies and sinister designs of rulers.

This automatic system grew out of barter. It is a survival from the period when articles were exchanged directly, not for gold and silver as money, but for gold and silver as commodities—on the basis of their cost of production—as in the case of the articles for which they were exchanged.

There have been the same evolutions of progress in money as in all other things. In the rude original of society no kind of money was possible. The first trade was by barter, after which, some one or more commodities attainable in the vicinage, and in general use and demand were selected as the common media through which all exchanges were filtered. The use for that purpose of various metals by weight followed next, and, at a succeeding stage, gold, silver, and copper by weight, and after this their use in the form of coins, the value of which coincided with the bullion-value, which must necessarily be the case when free coinage is permitted.

It may be not uninteresting in this connection to have a general view of the materials which, at different epochs of the world's history, have been used as money. I therefore present a tabular statement giving those particulars in chronological order.

Table showing some of the substances which have, at various periods and in various countries, been used as money.

Period following the failure of the ancient mines.