The Sun.
London, England, 1825-12-19 00:00:00

[MORNING HERALD.]

There are few evils in this life out of which
good may not ultimately arise ; and therefore, though the pre-
sent panic in the Money Market has been, and, we fear, instill
destined to be fraught with awful distress to many who are de-
serving of every degree of commiseration, the result will
scarcely fail to be of some advantage to the country at large.._
Any thing which establishes truth for fiction, and that trans-
forms moonshine into daylight, must be a change for the better.
We have all heard of instances in which inveterate diseases have
been cured by sudden, and, for the time, painful accidents to
the body, and that remedies which reduce men apparently to
the verge of the grave, have in the end re-established health,
and prolonged existence. Among the many causes which have
contributed to the present state of things, the spirit of gambling,
which has so long prevailed in the Stock Exchange, is one of
the most obnoxious and conspicuous. It is a monstrous evil,
and a most unnatural state of things, that a few individuals of
enormous wealth and habitual dishonesty (for so we esteem all
gamblers to be), can influence the public credit of the country
to such an extent as to render even the Government, in some
degree, subservient to their manceuvres. It is well known that
not one half the transactions which take place in the public
funds consist of bona fide sales or purchases of stock, but are ,
the gambling acts of persons who live by perpetual tricks
and schemes alternately to raise and depress the market. It
may be very
,true, that without this kind of fictitious aid
the public funds would, in all probability, never have attained
the prices they have arrived at; but a fictitious value in the
funds is no more an advantage to the bona fide holder or pur-
chaser of stock, or to the country at large, than a high price of
tea, sugar, cotton, hops, or tobacco, brought about by a mono..
poly in either. The evil, too, is not confined to the immediate
actors in the scene, but spreads its influence far and wide._
Little fishes follow the track of the great leviathans; and the
true spirit of trade is lost and swallowed up in the thirst for
speculation, which the too successful plunder of these enormous
gamesters engenders. It will be one of the results, we hope
and believe, of the fearful crisis through which the country is
now passing, to draw men's eyes to the weakness, ,the folly,
and the sandy, unsubstantial basis of such proceedings, and as
nothing brings back reasonable men to habits of sobriety more
certainly than the effects which theyexperience from a temporary
debauch, so we trust that the calamities which are now the result
of this moral intoxication, will be to teach those who have escaped
it, as well as those who are suffering from it, the wisdom of adopt-
ing a better line of conduct for the future. The rage for schemes
and speculations has, we believe, already cured itself; and
there is no great danger that we (of the present age at least)
shall again witness any tiling like the mania of the past year.—
But th grand hazard.table in Capel-court will not be so readily
deserted. The dealers, the croupiers, the markers, and the
dupes, still remain upon the spot, and something beyond mere
caution and experience may be wanting to rescue the unwary
from. the fangs of the harpies who hang about this hell to
compass their destruction, as well as that of each other. We
do not pretend to say in what way so salutary an improve-
ment might best be brought about ; but we do not hesi-
tate to affirm that it would be a great blessing to the com-
munity if any plan could be devised to prevent any but
real bona fide transactions taking place in the Funds. Few
real buyers purchase their stock to-day, and want their
money again to-morrow; and we see no great harm or incon-
venience that could arise from some regulation which should
prevent the re-transfer of the same stock within a given period.
We know that some great capitalists, as they are called, and
those who live in the way we have described, would exclaim
against any thing of the kind—and there may be objections
to it : but the question is, whether they are of weight, sufficient
to counterbalance the evident advantages that would arise from
getting rid of a system which converts the market of the publie
debt of the country into an arena where experienced gamblers
prey upon the unwary, and who, though hitherto honest, are
too often, we fear, induced to gamble with'property not their
own,