The daily gazette., 1875-04-16

defective timber in friends house, has
| tens to point out the same, while it may
| easily be corrected.
| The Ne,vs says: "For the question of
what should be the standard of value
and legalized medium of trade has been
fixed and decreed by the customs, COM
merce and the thought of six thousand
years"
Appleton's Encyclopedia article on
Money" tells us that for several centu-
ries the "money of account" of Venice
was simply credits which could be trans
ferred, but not withdrawn. and were
standard of payment.
Holland, in 1855, made silver the only
legal tender, and gold was subject to
daily fluctuations.
Cattle were money, or the standard
of value" in Greece and Rome; the By
zantines used iron; Dionysius l., Of Sy-
racuse, coined tin; leaden money was
used by the ancient Britons, and is now
current in the Russian Empire. Plati-
mum was coined in Russia from 1928 to
1845. Numa Pompilius, 700 years before
Christ, made money of wood and leath-
er. The Caesars used lands, and the
Carthagenians leather for money. In
the thirteenth century the Polo Broth
ers found in China the stamped-coined
book of the mulberry tree, and our
British ancestors as late as the Norman
conquest had two kinds, viz: the civ
ing" which consisted of slaves and cat
tie, and the dead" which was coins.
In Africa the sign of value was a
"Mdc0u6e." a money of account" as
imponderable, tangible and invisible
as mathematical point, or more near
ly analogous to ankee shilling which
nobody now living ever saw, and in
the South Sea Islands axes, and in
some parts of Africa cowrie shells
were the currency and measure Of 0ul.
ue. Ia Indian, cakes of tea, and in
China pieces of silk pass for money.
In the latter country the tdeI is, we
think, the standard or factor for emu
meration of values; and If we mistake
not, as purely an ideal creation as the
credits of the Bank of Venice, the
Macoube of Africa, the Yankee shil-
ling, or the Chinese tael.
We could continue this enumeration
to three times the extent we have; but
the above is sufficient to show that
Aristotle was right when he said
money "exists not by nature, but by
law" and that the NeaCs errs in ascrib
ing fixedness to the standard of value
for "the last six thousand years"
The Ners, criticising a late writer
remaks: "He thinks we can have no
specie resumption in reality, Very
true, but we can have what we call
specie resumption, and that will suit
the people"
A good enough maxim till after elec-
ton" A vailed prophet of Khorassan
a national patent safe; a thimble rig
ging-now you see and now you don't
operation. Well enough for the days
of our grandmothers, when bugs
swallowed before breakfastweredeem-
epa sure cure for dyspepsia; or for the
interior times when it was thought
the earth was supported by an elephant
but in these davs of matter of fact,it
is "too thin" The Neacs strikes noble
blows straight between the eyes of the
advocates of
AN tRREDEEMABLE CURRENCY,
and trust that they will continue to
fall so fast and SO heavy that the in
crustations of ignorance, accumulated
through centuries of darkness, will fall
from the eyes of its readers, and that
we shall have, once more, the feature
of redeemability. which characterized
our first Notwithstanding gre for
the first time known in this nation
redeemability, which, in less than
month carried the gold price of our
bonds from 80 to 10S, and pulled down
the premium on gold two thirds-a
redeemability, which, If it had not
been stupidity, not criminally, ,rcpudia-
t ed, would now hold our greenbacks
uo to six per cent. premium, as com
pared with gold.-ZFe South.