curing loans that the system will break up. On the contrary, it、 is the facility with which loans can be procured, that hastens that event. The loans are altogether paper transactions, and it is the excess of them that bring on, with accelerating speed, that progressive depreciation of funded paper money that will dissolve the funding system." How very characteristic of the present year? Though our own government has not been borrowing money, the loans to foreign governments and the various Joint Stock Companies are similar indications.

It was observed by Mr. Paine and followed by Mr. Cobbett, as a certainty, that an abundant issue of paper money lessened the relative value of gold and silver with the necessaries of life and produced a general impoverishment among the mass of the people. Which is to be explained by saying, that, in consequence of the issue of paper money in abundance, the journeyman, whose nominal wages are twenty shillings per week, procures less and less of food and clothing with that twenty shillings, in proportion with the abundance of the issues of paper money. This is a matter in which it is somewhat difficult to shew the why and the wherefore, as the markets for such commodities, as are called the necessaries of life, are influenced by so many causes; but there has been an effect uniformly visible from the issues of paper money, and that effect has been to lessen the value of the wages of the labouring

man.

"Public credit," has been well remarked by Mr. Paine to be "suspicion asleep.". Of this we have a proof, whenever there is a run upon the banks, whenever gold is asked in exchange for bank notes. While bank notes were a legal tender, banks were not so liable to be pressed, as the Bank of England or any other bank will issue its notes with more facility, and upon a different species of credit, than it will issue gold. Let the suspicion of the public be once fairly awaked, and away go all the banks, all the stocks, and all that wretched system of finance, by which knaves profit and by which the honest man is pillaged. There is no proportion between the gold and the paper money of the country, and our best political economists deprecate all issues of paper money that are not to be paid in gold with facility. Mr. Paine has a pretty illustration of this matter, he says:-" One of the amusements that has kept up the force of the funding system is, that the interest is regularly paid. But as the interest is always paid in Bank Notes, and as Bank Notes can always be coined for the purpose, this mode of payment proves nothing. The point of proof is--can the Bank give cash for Bank Notes on which the interest is paid? If it cannot, and it is evident it cannot, some millions of Bank Notes must go without payment, and those holders of Bank Notes who apply last will be worst off. When the present quantity of cash in the Bank shall be paid away, it is next to impossible to see how any new quantity is to arrive. None will arrive

from taxes, for the taxes will all be paid in Bank Notes; and should the government refuse Bank Notes in payment of taxes, the credit of Bank Notes will be gone at once. No cash will arrive from the business of discounting merchants' bills; for every merchant will pay off those bills in Bank Notes and not in cash. There is therefore no means left for the Bank to obtain a new supply of cash, after the present quantity be paid away."-This is clear at the present day, wherever the notes of a bank are brought in in quantities sufficient to exhaust the gold of the bank, it breaks, or in common phrase, stops its payments, and for the best of all reasons-it has nothing left wherewith to pay. The facility of issuing Bank Notes has made the managers of the Bank to feel themselves weighty men. They speculate beyond their real means, and, when pressed, feel the arrival of a time which they have not anticipated and which they scarcely thought possible.

The political changes produced by a failure in a system of finance are not the least important part of the matter, and, on this head, Mr. Paine narrates his experience thus:-"It is worthy of observation, that every case of a failure in finances, since the system of paper money began, has produced a revolution in government, either total or partial. A failure in the finances of France produced the French Revolution. A failure in the finance of the assignats broke up the Revolutionary Government, and produced the présent French constitution. A failure in the finances of the old congress of America and the embarrassments it brought upon commerce, broke up the system of the old confederation and produced the present federal constitution. If, then, we admit of reasoning by comparison of causes and events, a failure in the English finance will produce some change in the government of that country." There is not a question but it will do so: and the sooner the better; for it is much wanted.

The Sinking Fund Bubble, for paying off the debt of the government, was thus aptly illustrated by Mr. Paine, in 1796. We have seen the effect as here stated: -"As to Mr. Pitt's project of paying off the national debt by applying a million a year for that purpose, while he continues adding more than twenty millions ayear to it, it is like setting a man with a wooden leg to run after a hare. The longer he runs the farther he is off," And yet, what solemn saws have we heard from our legislature about this ridiculous sinking fund! Where is it now? The very name was a pun upon the reality of the thing-a sinking fund! All government funds are sinking funds.

I never before read Almost every para

This little pamphlet of Mr. Paine's is quite sufficient to communicate a full knowledge upon its subject. it with the same effect as at this moment. graph has its peculiar beauty and force. In proceeding, he observes: "Though all the approaches to bankruptcy may actually exist in circumstances, they admit of being concealed by appear

ances. Nothing is more common than to see the bankrupt of today a man of credit but the day before; yet no sooner is the real state of his affairs known, than every body can see he had been insolvent long before. In London, the greatest theatre of bankruptcy in Europe, this part of the subject will be well and feelingly understood." Particularly at this moment.

The following paragraph is beautifully illustrative of the subject: "Do we not see that nature, in all her operations, disowns the visionary basis upon which the funding system is built? She acts always by renewed successions, and never by accumulating additions perpetually progressing, Animals and vegetables, men and trees have existed ever since the world began; but, that existence has been carried on by succession of generations, and not by continuing the same men and the same trees in existence that existed first; and to make room for the new she removes the old. Every natural idiot can see this. It is the stock-jobbing idiot only that mistakes. He has conceived that art can do what nature cannot. He is teaching her a new systemthat there is no occasion for man to die-that the scheme of creation can be carried on upon the plan of the funding system-that it can proceed by continual additions of new beings, like new loans, and all live together in eternal youth. Go, count the graves, thou idiot, and learn the folly of thy arithmetic!"

My last extract is made to show how strongly it was corroborated in the last week, by the connection of the Ministers with the Bank Directors. We are told, that they were in consultation by night and day, and the result we find to be an issue of papermoney. Mr. Paine has the following remark:-"There has always existed, and still exists, a mysterious, suspicious connection, between the Minister and the Directors of the Bank, and which explains itself no otherwise than by a continual increase of Bank Notes." This is their panacea; but still their patient must die and their medical applications go on to be less and less availing. RICHARD CARLILE.

DIALOGUE

BETWEEN THE GREEK PHILOSOPHER EPICTETUS AND HIS SON. 1

Epictetus. I feel death fast approaching, I have not many minutes to live. You may retain a pleasing remembrance of me my son, for I have employed my time and all the talents I possessed in trying to improve the world and in endeavouring to diminish the extent of human suffering. I expect, however, that you will not dishonour my memory by giving vent to useless tears and lamentations-I expect you will follow the path I have traced out, and lend your assistance towards banishing vice and misery from the world by enlightening the multitude. I die con

tented and with feelings of satisfaction, when I think my means of doing good will not be ended by my death; as I shall leave behind me in the person of my son, a willing and sincere agent in the great and good cause of exterminating ignorance; and in teaching people to exert their understanding; and to think and judge for themselves. Let me hear you declare that your sole aim will be to ameliorate, by dispelling ignorance, the condition of mankind.

Son. You may die happy my honoured father, for rest assured after the noble example you have given me, I shall think no other pursuit worthy of my attention and time. But you seem to have no apprehensions at the approach of death, do you feel no regret at quitting all sensation?

E. Wherefore should I feel regret at a circumstance beyond all human control. Could I avert it by regret, there would be some reason for regretting, and I should make no scruple to use those means of prolonging my stay here, since I can still employ myself usefully for my fellow creatures. But as I have no control over the event, I suffer no whining to disturb my last few hours of existence-But let me ask you, wherefore should I feel any apprehensions at dying?

Son. Because it appears to me, that you are on the brink either of total annihilation, and that sensation shrinks from; or you are on the eve of a new state of existence. It is the total ignorance of what is going to happen to you, that should raise the feelings of apprehension.

E. If I am, as you say, in total ignorance upon the subject there is not the shadow of a reason for alarm, for no alarm will dispel that ignorance-What is death, my son? wherefore should the death of a man cause more anxiety than the death of any of the other more intelligent animals? All the knowledge that we can gather from experience, regarding death, is, that we are deprived of all sensation. Now without sensation what have we to fear? Death can only act in three different ways. I must either have a continuation of the sensation which I have already experienced in this life, or, I must be deprived of sensation altogether; or lastly, I must have other and new sensations. Now, if I have a continuation of the sensations of this life, I am not in ignorance by being able toappreciate them, cannot possibly have any alarm, since by possessing such sensations my life will be merely in a state of prolongation. If, as in the second case, I am totally deprived of sensation, what have I to apprehend? Nothing can happen to me, that can be of any consequence, since, I shall no longer possess the capability of feeling, and therefore pleasure or pain will be equally negative in their efforts upon me. If, as in the last case, I have other sensations given to me, perfectly different from any of those I have hitherto experienced, I am again relieved from all apprehensions; because to feel those new sensa

tions, I must be remodelled, must become a different creature altogether. Why then should I feel any apprehensions for entering into a state of which I cannot have the remotest idea?

Son. Your reasons are unanswerable. To the philosopher, death has no more terror, than his nightly slumbers. But this new sect who have come out of Palestine, and who preach a continuation of existence after death, seem to think that the present sensations will also continue, and it is through these means that punishment will be inflicted for bad conduct here.

E. What! is there any sect of people from Judea reviving the superstitions and fables of the poets? I thought it belonged exclusively to the poets to wander beyond the limits of real knowledge.

Son. You have always taught me that the word virtue had no meaning attached to it, without it meant a course of actions beneficial to mankind, in extending the general happiness, by pointing out the paths that lead to the pleasurable sensations, and by teaching others to avoid the roads that conduct to the painful sensations. But this new sect from Palestine makes virtue to consist in very useless and I might add mischievous actions. In fact it is quite of a new species that I never have heard of before.

E. Do these people inculcate doctrines that do not tend to promote human happiness? What is this new sect?

Son. It is composed of Jews who sell rags and love charms, and who were notorious at Rome for passing bad and false money.

E. Do they teach virtue by the same rule, as they weigh their money?

Son. They do not make virtue to consist in a train of actions useful to promote human happiness, they place it in circumcising themselves; and they say you cannot be a good man unless you are dipped in or sprinkled with water, by one of their priests, who repeats certain magical words over you, as I put you in the water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." But even upon this point they are not agreed. They have partly divided into Circumcisers, and water sprinklers: some say cutting off the foreskin makes the party a virtuous character, others say, there is no need to perform this operation. One party affirms water to be absolutely spiritual to form the good man; the others ridicule this, and say it is of no consequence. But they all agree upon one point, they unanimously preach that we must give them money.

E. The ceremonies you have been telling me, only merit laughter and contempt. But wherefore do they require money? Do they perform any labours that merit the reward? Do they ask for money in order to employ it in acts useful to society?

Son. Ah! my father, this sect makes a very different applica