The Portland daily press., 1878-09-07
SERAPHINA SMITHS OBSERVA-
TION,S,
Financial Discussion in a BARRIERS shop.

JONES' COURT, Aug. 80, 1878.
Mr.. EDITOR: L took Johnny down
yesterday to Mr.. Todd's to get his
hair cut, and, while waiting for that
gentleman to sell bottle of his "patent
legal tender hair restorer' to gentleman he
had just shaved heard discussed that little
matter which old Mr.. Bright, whom you will
remember mentioned in former letter as
supplying me with garden sass" denominated
STAT money" and the inquity of the banking
system. Besides Todd, there were present
blacksmith, who had evidently become affected
by the financial craze, and long.haired, wild
eyed individual of mediumistic proolivities
whom Todd called Professor. Said the
blacksmith: "What this country needs
is fat money Che said 'fat," as most
of the greenback men say, msanIng, as 1
have since learned, fat, Why the villains
take the most costlest thing they can get
to make money out of, when they ought
to take the cheapest. This fat money
can be made to cost nothing at all.
Suppose ream of paper costs twenty dollars,
and it costs ten dollars to print it into bills, it
can be paid for with one bill out of the rim
stamped thirty dollars 1t won't cost any
thing. But just look at the cost of a twenty
dollar gold piece. There amt no profit in it,"
Said Todd, "The banks are run by ring. A
man can't get his note discounted at them un-
less he's got property. don't believe there's
one of them would take my mote to-day, nor
the professors here; and yet the professor
has got more intellect than any bank president
in the city, I'll be bound to say" Now what
1 want is, that any man shall be able to take
his note and get his money on it at any time and
in any place. We shan't never have the mil
lennium till that can be DONE" The professor
who had been looking up to an imaginary sky,
apparently communing with kindred spirits in
whose calm ey es only eternal truths of heaven
are mirrored, now spake oracularly. "Banks are
q Jewish institution. Every thing Jewish
should be rooted out. The Bbls is the book
of the Jews. Enlightened America wants
none of it nor anything of Jewish origin.
Men and women must be freed from the
shackles of the Jewish marriages which hold
them in adamantine servitude. They must eat,
drink and do whatsoever they please, guided
only by the inner CONSCIOUSNESS evolved from
the primordial germ of truth. All the envi-
ronment an American citizen should have is
the free, blue ether, to develop into being
grander than an archangels was ever imag-
ined to be-" This was followed by pause
unbroken save by sigh of ecstacy emanating
from one of the more impressionable hearers of
the rhapsodist. l looked at Todd and even the
sparse hairs on his magnificent craniu m
seemed agtated with delight. His face beamed
approval. "As in this new era," continued
the professor, ''ths golden age of freedom
everything is to be as free as the air, so money
must be free. Abolish banks: let the nation
print money and distribute it through the
post office, a thousand dol rs to every man,
woman and child in the Union. That's what
want" "Them's my views" said the black
smith. "What would you do professor said
Todd encouragingly, ''if some shark after
while got more than his share and some poor
brother found himself after time without
red" .'Id make it an offense for anyone to have
more than the amount fixed upon," said the
professor triumphantly. Zone man should
always be as rich as another" "Them's the
new financial ideas that's going to rule this
country" exclaimed the blacksmith. heard
no more as Johnny's hair was finished, and I
started for home, thinking if this were so had
better sell my bank stock and put my money
where? But the minister came in just as L
reached home and comforted me considerably
by his views. 'Wby," said he, "the American
these crazy looms. The public school has
not been all these years for nought.
This Green back party is made up principally
of crazy creatures like this self-syed professor;
men incapable of any clear thought; mere
imbeciles, worthy only of pity, and few
think the times are hard, and the people, for
change, will vote for anything without stop
ping to ask the why or the wherefore. They
will of course draw in by their falsehoods and
of the question at issue, and have no inclina-
ton to investigate for themselves; but these,
when they hear the solid facts which public
speakers and the press will give them, will
change their views. Don't trouble yourself Mrs.
Smith, about your bank stock. 1t may pay a
smaller percentage than other securities, but it
is safe for it is managed by honest men," Sim
nous came in in the evening, aud fully agreed
with the parsons views. He said we couldn't
do business without the banks. That they were
an outgrowth of civilization, and to attempt
to do without them would be to take step
back towards barbarism. He asked me to read
what an eminent fnancier had said on the
subject, and it is such nice reading that l tran
scribe it.
'sIf the weight of all the produce which has
been purchased in the last sixteen years had
been determined by "a standard pound which
varied in weight from six to sixteen ounces or
if the measure of all fabrics had been ascer-
tanned by yard.stick, the length OF which at
teen to thirty-six inches, the evil resulting from
the use of such false and varying standards of
weight and measure could not have been greater
than that which has followed the use, during
the same periOu, OF so IaiS6 SGauuaru OI value
as the paper dollar has been.
Not many years ago it required one hundred
large and heavy weights to balance one him.
dred bushels of wheat. To-day, by the advance
in mechanical science, five pound weight will
balance much larger amount of produce,
while the actual use of the pound weight is
confined to the small transactions of the retail
trade. 1t would now be impracticable to weigh
the products OF the country with the old fash.
Toned balances; but by the aid of the modern
platform-scales, the weight of carloads of coal,
and of canal boats of grain are quickly and
accurately determined in pounds, every one of
which is exactly sixteen ounces avordupois.
There is not sufficient gold or silver coin in the
country with which to pay for the one-twenti-
eth part of tho products of the present year;
but the machinery of the bank, with its syftem
of checks, and bills of exchange, and clearing
bouses can psy for it all in dollars, everyone Of
which will be an equivalent of the true stan-S
dard dollar of twenty-five and eght-tenths
grains Of gold, nne-tenths fine.
Resumption does not mean ths actual use
and handling of the gold dollar in every tran
saction. Coin and currency are but the small
change used in trade. Bank checks and bills
of exchange are the instruments employed in
all large transactions. A single check pays
for a whole invoice of goods, for carloads of
COAL and for houses and lands. Resumption
means only that the dollar represented by the
check shall be equivalent to twenty-five and
eight-tenths grains Of gold, as the pound repre-
sented upon the beam of the platform scale
shall be equivalent to sixteen ounces avoirdu-
pois. 1t means that the millions and billions
of business transactions OF single year shall
each be measured by fixed and true. and not