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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013902899 
 
JUST OUT. 
 
 SAUNTERS IN SOCIAL BYWAYS. By Malcolm 
 DoHERTY, B.A. I vol., cloth, Crown 8vo., 7s. 6d. — At all 
 Libraries. 
 " Chatty, pleasant articles on subjects of a very varied character, from 
 the Grand Chartreuse to the prisons of Paris ; from the Sussex fig- 
 orchards to needle-making. . . AH instructive and well written." 
 
 — Examiner, 
 
 EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF AN OCTOGENARIAN. 
 
 By George Washington Abbott. • vol. Crown 8 vo., cloth, 
 7s. 6d. [This Day.'] At all Libraries. 
 
 A CHRONOLOGICAL GUIDE TO ENGLISH 
 LITERATURE. By E. Nicholson, i vol., cloth, Crown 
 8vo., 3s. 6d, [This Day.] 
 
 REMINfJTON & CO., 5, Arundel Street, Strand, W.C. 
 
AN EXPOSITION 
 
 01' 
 
 ECONOMIC & FINANCIAL 
 
 SCIENCE, 
 
 WILLIAM MORTON HALBERT. 
 
 Uoniion : 
 
 REMINGTON AND CO. 
 
 5, Arundei. Street, Strand, W.C. 
 
 1878. 
 
 \_All Rights Resej-veil.'] 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Among the Bumerous works that have been 
 published since the days of Adam Smith's 
 "Wealth of Nations," there are none, on- the 
 above subject, that have attempted to give 
 an exposition of the science based upon a 
 Cycle of Seasons, in each decade, beginning- 
 on a specific, and ending on a definite year, 
 making within, this period a full decade of 
 ten years, and thus, as it were, repeating the 
 same or nearly a similar course each decade, 
 thus forming a regular periodic Cycle of 
 Seasons. 
 
 In treating the above sciences upon this 
 principle, it tenders them much more prac- 
 tjcalj more closely applicable ■ to the real or 
 
U PEBFACB. 
 
 actual business of life ; their truths are more 
 readilj apprehended or understood; they 
 explain themselves under a more easily 
 remembered formula. 
 
 The subject of a " Cycle of Seasons " 
 has always been a trying if not a difficult 
 one to work out by a statistical evolution. I 
 am myself ashamed to acknowledge, after 
 more than twenty years of thought, of labour, 
 and almost endless correspondence upon this 
 question, it is so very moderately advanced 
 as yet in mj hands ; but upon it I could 
 gain little assistance from my predecessors, 
 nor much from my contemporaries. But 
 from many scientific friends and correspon- 
 dents I received an amount of encourage- 
 ment to persevere I acknowedge with sincere 
 gratitude, and tender to those of them now 
 living my best thanks. 
 
 The question is, under my exposition, at 
 
PREFACE. lU 
 
 best only in a tentative state, but capable 
 of being extended and turned to valuable 
 account in tbe future development of economic 
 and financial science. It may in time, in 
 more able bands tban mine, be tbe means of 
 greatly advancing what is now considered 
 the least progressive of all tbe sciences, 
 throwing back much of the opprobium, as 
 it were, under which it rests. 
 
 The leading reviewers of the day now 
 agree in calling it the "Dismal Science;" 
 a very apt and expressive term, showing that 
 some great factor, in its usual exposition, has 
 been overlooked, or long ere this its position 
 would have been far different. 
 
 This is now attempted to be supplied by 
 dealing with it upon a " Cycle of Seasons," 
 in each recurring decade, thus pointing 
 clearly to the ruling of a great astronomical 
 law in things mundane, whose ultimate dis- 
 
IV PEEPACE. 
 
 corery and exposition is as yet beset with, 
 great difficulties to tlie best scientific men, 
 but who' are now pressing for ward, in this 
 quest with an eager energy and zeal. 
 
EXTEACTS, 
 
 The following are Extracts of Letters received as 
 Remarks or Criticisms on short Preliminary Articles 
 published on the subject in, 1862, and also in 1866, 
 now out of print ; published in those yea/rs so a^s 
 to secure the priority of the eocposition of this 
 subject : — 
 
 (1) — Extract of Letter received from the late SiE WILLIAM 
 HAMILTON, Baht., Edinburgh University. 
 
 1 beg to return my best thanks for your able and only 
 too favourable review of Dr. Thomas Eeid's works, edited 
 by me. It is an additional gratification to find that you 
 
 are a friend of Mr. , for whom I have long felt a high 
 
 regard. Your separate article, just received, on the diffi- 
 cult question of a " Cycle of Seasons," &c., is most 
 creditable to you, and will be found fruitful of great results, 
 I trust, in your hands. 
 
 (Signed) ■ WILLIAM HAMILTON. 
 
 (2)— JEajii-oci/rom GEORGE PATERSON, 'Esq,., Advocate and 
 Author, Edinburgh. > 
 
 I note the .question of Price. You treat it under the 
 head of a " Cycle of Seasons ;" and I was greatly pleased 
 with the able and learned manner in which you deal with 
 
n EXTRACTS. 
 
 it. It is undoubtedly a problem of no easy solution in 
 Economic Science, and bas, now that I think of it, been 
 shamefully neglected. 1 hope you will go on and make it 
 your own, even at the cost of time and labour. 
 
 (Signed) GEORGE PATEESON. 
 
 (3)— Extract from Uwf.- J. ELDER GUMMING, D.D. 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 I have not the slightest doubt that were these gene- 
 ralisations of yours, viz., " Price versus a Cycle of Seasons," 
 to assume in your hands the complete form of scientific 
 research, there is almost no part of business which might 
 not derive more or less real benefit from them. 
 
 I think you should devote yoursp^f to this question, as 
 you have made a good commencement. ^ 
 
 (Signed) J. ELDER GUMMING. 
 
 (4) — Sutraci/rom Peofbssob, A. H. CHARTEEIS, D.D., 
 Ediribv/rgh University. 
 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 Thanks for your interesting article. I am not a 
 political economist myself, so I am not master of the im- 
 portant question you so ably discuss — so many cross and 
 perplexing currents have met in it of late year?. I hope 
 you will continue those keen and penetrating observations 
 of yours. 
 
EXTEACTS. VU 
 
 It is very likely all these things are under the rule of 
 , law, the discovery of which to you would be a great reward 
 and satisfaction. 
 
 (Signed) A. H. CHAETEEIS. 
 
 (5)—i;iDtractfrom the late Key. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D., 
 EcUniv/rgh. 
 Dear Sib, 
 
 I sent a note to my London friends, asking them to 
 look at your MS. You should send it along with the note 
 I enclose. The question is one of prime importance, and 
 has been quite overlooked. Persevere and make, it your 
 own, as we are all dreadfully ignorant as to a " Cycle of 
 Seasons," although we all of us talk about it. 
 
 (Signed) THOMAS GUTHEIE. 
 
 (6)— Extract /rom Eight Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 
 11, Carlton House Terrace, May 2l8t, 1867. 
 Mr. Gladstone desires me to acknowledge the favour 
 of your letter of the 18th instant. He is well aware of 
 the great interest which attaches to the subject of Averages, 
 upon which you are engaged, to solve the question of 
 " Price versus a Cycle of Seasons ;" but he regrets that he 
 is unable to take any active part himself in the prosecution 
 of it. 
 
 (Signed) W. H. GLADSTONE. 
 
VIU EXTRACTS. 
 
 (7)— £icfe-ac« /rom THOMAS GA.ELTLE, Esq. 
 
 5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, January 23rd, 1871. 
 Mr. Carlyle, my uncle, desires me to thank you for 
 jour note, which came to him to-day. Your subject may 
 be, he thinks, very interesting; but his time is so much 
 taken up otherwise, that he is quite unable to enter into it 
 at present. 
 
 I return you the printed article, and also the letter of 
 Mr. Gladstone's son, and with my uncle's best wishes for 
 your enterprise, 
 
 I am, yours very truly, - 
 (Signed) MARY CARLYLE AITKEN. 
 
 <8) — Copy of Letter from the Eight Hon. JOHN BEIGHT, M.P., 
 dated , 
 
 1 London, February 27th, 1875. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 I thank you for the printed letter you have sent me. 
 
 The subject is one of great interest, and a work upon it, 
 
 ■ based upon a careful collection of facts, cannot fail to be 
 
 of much value. 
 
 I am, truly yours, 
 
 (Signed) JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 To Mr. Morton Halbert. 
 
AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 ECONOMIC and.FINANCIAL SCIENCE 
 
 Based upon a Cycle of Seasons in each Decade. 
 
 INTEODUCTORY AND PRELIMINARY 
 REMARKS. 
 
 'The great difference that is found . to exist 
 in this country between practice on the one 
 hand, and theory on the other, cannot be 
 better illustrated in almost any department 
 of human knowledge than is displayed in the 
 .subject of political economy, and, collaterally, 
 in monetary science, when we consider them 
 under the two-fold aspects which we have 
 briefly indicated. In both walks of life — in 
 commerce and in banking — we have first-class 
 
AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 men of great general ability, tact, and com- 
 prehensive intelligence, daily conversant with 
 these vast outlying, subjects; practically di- 
 recting with success and prestige extensive 
 affairs ; almost never at a loss in the world of 
 movement, and of action, possessing, likewise, 
 great intuitive sagacity and shrewdness. Yet,, 
 inquire of these able and astute men of action 
 in their moments of leisure and retirement to- , 
 enter upon a discussion, either written or oral, 
 of the theory of what is now called the " Prin- 
 ciples of Political Economy," and not one in a 
 dozen will be able to offer a valid or Satisfac- 
 tory explanation of those abstract principles 
 of these very subjects that in practice they 
 are acknowledged on all hands to be such 
 masters and directors of in active life, or 
 otherwise. They are unable to offer a clear 
 and "sufficient reason " for the practical faitk 
 that is in them. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 3 
 
 The question may well be asked, how it is 
 that in a country devoting some of its best 
 talent and ability in such pursuits, that prac- 
 tice is held to be everything ; and that science, 
 as the generalised or systematised law of 
 such practice is held so loosely that few men 
 can give a clear and valid exiposition as to the 
 art they daily practice in the diurnal routine 
 of commercial or of banking affairs. 
 
 An explanation for such a state, of things 
 (in part at least) is not very far to seek. Let 
 us, in the first place, follow, the career of a 
 youth whose inclinations, parents or guardians, 
 propose devoting him to a commercial or 
 banking training, having acquired an educa- 
 tion of ordinary equipment, with a few years 
 at the classics, and one or two modern 
 languages. He is entered in a commercial 
 or banking office to learn the practical routine 
 of mere transactions, to seek out, as it were,. 
 
4 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 from sucli details, tiie overruliiig principles that 
 guide such business practically. He pursues 
 this avocation without any previous study 
 or training in the abstract principles of 
 political economics or monetary science. Once 
 this ideal youth is afloat in real work, his 
 taste, his inclination is more and more averse 
 to any dry and technical study or hard read- 
 ing upon the above subjects ; nay, even if he 
 enters upon them in his leisure the want of 
 apparent bearing upon commercial or banking 
 affairs seems so remote, so inapplicable, that 
 his interest flags in this pursuit, and loss of 
 perseverance for scientific or systematic study 
 is seldom. in after life made up to him. The 
 great inducement for "light reading" now held 
 out — reading for mere amusertient or relaxa- 
 tion — so incapacitates the mind usually for 
 severe, sober and continuous thought in 
 almost any science or- study which does not 
 
EOONOMIO AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 5 
 
 present absorbing attraction sin the way of vivid 
 illustrations or vital discoveries, that the sub- 
 -ject, as a course of private study, is abandoned 
 altogether; so much, then, speaking gene- 
 rally as regards our younger friends (of course 
 "with many individual exceptions). 
 
 Let us now turn to speak in general terms 
 of the authors of those authorities who pro- 
 pound the principles of the science in question. 
 The conception and subsequent development 
 of it as a distinct branch of abstract science 
 is of modem date, " but its subject (matter) 
 has, in all ages, of necessity constituted one 
 of the chief practical and absorbing interests 
 of mankind." That subject is w'eaUh. 
 "Writers' on this subject teach the laws, ab- 
 stractly considered, with concrete examples 
 or illustrations, how wealth is both individu- 
 ally and nationally produced or developed 
 with the collateral laws of its distribution. 
 
AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 as well as the laws under which at cer- 
 tain periods it is either destroyed, lost, or 
 placed beyond productive use, or average in- 
 creasement. 
 
 We shall now examine somewhat in detail as 
 to the method or modus operandi by which the 
 writers on political economy, speaking gene- 
 rally, have excogitated the results of their re- 
 searches and investigations, and given 
 them forth to the world, without almost an 
 exception. They have in general adopted the 
 deductive method for expounding their prin- 
 ciples, or by giving a general abstract theorem 
 (or proposition) to begin with ; they' proceed 
 to support this by ample concrete illustrations 
 or developments of what this general abstract 
 theorem contains or is contained under it in 
 their own view or opinion or borrowed from 
 some antecedent authority; or otherwise 
 they assume a theory as an expression for a 
 
ECONOMIC AKD FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 7 
 
 general law of nature, and in scientific nomen- 
 clature, they analyse (or resolve) this law, or 
 compounded theory or theorem into its elemen- 
 tary parts or details ; and so great are the 
 analytic powers of the most recent master of 
 this method that he analyzes some of his 
 theorems into vanishing fractions. This will 
 be found stated in James Stuart Mills' 
 sixth edition of his recent work, " Principles 
 of Political Economy," where under the 
 " Theorem of Labour as an Agent of Pro- 
 duction," he says (page 19) — " To estimate, 
 therefore, the labour of which any given com- 
 modity is the result, is far from a simple ope- 
 ration. The items in the calculation are very 
 numerous, as it may seem to some persons, 
 infinitely so ... . After mounting one ' or 
 two steps in this ascending scale, we come into 
 a region of fractions too minute for calcu- 
 lation." 
 
AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 In this method we have an explanation, in 
 part at least, as to the slow, tedious, and un- 
 certain growth of the science, and its great 
 want of interest as a systematic study by 
 minds of great mental power and activity ; so 
 much is this the actual case, that some of the 
 leading reviewers of the present day very aptly 
 and appropriately call it the Dismal Science; 
 and we must acknowledge it has done muck 
 to. attain to this melancholy pre-eminence. 
 The method of treating it deductively g^ppears- 
 to have been borrowed from the mathematical 
 sciences instead of attempting its exposition 
 by the rules of inductive reasoning, as laid 
 down by Lord Bacon — whose rules of in- 
 duction have been those employed in the suc- 
 cessful and progressive development of 
 modern science, and borne such vali^ls' and, 
 far-reaching practical results tber^in5| 
 
 For the purpose of explicitly illustraMng- 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 9 
 
 the different metliods of deductive and induc- 
 tive treatment and development of scientific 
 trutli, "we cannot do better than give a pretty 
 full quotation from the writings of the late 
 Sir William Hamilton, in his " Discussions 
 on the Higher Philosophy," where he con- 
 trasts the dissimilar niethods pursued in the 
 Mathematical versus the Philosophical 
 Sciences {i.e. the Mental Sciences). 
 
 From his work, first edition, pages 272 and 
 273, we quote as follows, viz., " Mathematical 
 Study as TJnimproving : " — " How opposite 
 are the habitudes of mind which the study of 
 the mathematical and the study of the philo- 
 sophical sciences require and cultivate, has 
 attracted the attention of observers from the 
 most ancient times. The principle of this contrast 
 lies in their different objects and their different 
 ends, and in thexlifferent modes of considering 
 their objects ; differences in the sciences them- 
 
10 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 selves •wMcli, calling forth in their cultivators, 
 different faculties, or the same faculty in 
 different ways and degrees, determine develop- 
 ments of thought so dissimilar that in the same 
 individual a capacity for the one class of 
 sciences has, not without reason, been con- 
 sidered as detracting from his qualification 
 for the other." 
 
 " As to their objects.- — In the first place, 
 mathematical sciences are limited to the re- 
 lations of quantity alone, or to speak more 
 correctly, to the one relation of quantities — 
 equahty and inequality ; the philosophical 
 sciences, on the contrary, are restricted to 
 none of the categories, are co-extensive with 
 existence and its modes, . and circumscribed 
 only by the capacity of the human intellect 
 itself. In the second place, mathematips 
 take no account of things, but are con- 
 versant solely about certain images, and 
 
BCONOMIO AND FINANCIAL SOIBNOB. 11 
 
 -their whole science is contained in the separ- 
 ation, conjunction, and comparison of these. 
 Philosophy, on the other hand, is mainly 
 occupied with realities ; it. is the science of 
 a real existence, not merely an imagined 
 existence. 
 
 "As to their ends, and their procedure to 
 these ends. — Truth or knowledge is, indeed, 
 the scope of both, but the kind of knowledge 
 proposed by the one is different from that 
 proposed by the other. In mathematics, the 
 whole principles are given; in philosophy, 
 the greater number are to be sought out and 
 established. In mathematics, the given 
 principles are both material and formal ; that 
 is, they afford at once the conditions of the 
 construction of the science, and of our know- 
 ledge of that construction. In philosophy, 
 the given are only formal — qnly the logical 
 conditions of the abstract possibility of 
 
12 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 knowledge. In mathematics, the whole scie^nce 
 is virtually contained in its data ; it is qnly 
 the evolution of a potential knowledge into 
 an actual, and its procedure is merely explica- 
 tive. In philosophy, the science- is not 
 contained in data ; its principles are merely 
 the rules of our conduct in the quest, in the 
 proof, in the arrangement of knowledge ; it 
 is a transition from absolute ignorance ta 
 science, and its procedure is, therefore, ampli- 
 ative. In mathematics we always depart 
 from the definition : in philosophy, with the 
 definition we usually end. Mathematics know 
 nothing of causes ; the .research of causes is 
 philosophy. The truth of mathematics is the 
 harmony of thought and thought ; the truth 
 of philosophy is the harmony of thought and 
 existence. Hence the absurdity of all appli- 
 cations of the ma,thematical method to 
 philosophy. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 13 
 
 " From this general contrast it will easily be 
 seen tow an excessive study of the mathe- 
 matical sciences not only does not prepare, 
 but absolutely incapacitates the mind for 
 those intellectual energies which philosophy 
 and life require. We are thus disqualified 
 for observation, either internal or external, 
 for abstraction and generalisation, and for 
 common reasoning ; nay, disposed to the 
 alternative of blind credulity, or of irrational 
 scepticism. Mathematical demonstration is 
 solely occupied in deducing conclusions in a 
 long chain of reasoning which descends 
 with adamantine necessity, link by link, in 
 one simple series from its original dependence. 
 In general inductive reasoning the capacities 
 mainly requisite and mainly cultivated are 
 the prompt acuteness which discovers what 
 materials are wanted for our premises, and 
 the activity, knowledge, sagacity and research 
 
14 ' AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 able competently to supply ttem. Of obser^- 
 vation, experiment, induction, analogy, tho- 
 rn atbematician knows notbing." 
 
 The above quotation, clear and explicit as- 
 it is, does not by any means exLaust tbe full 
 meaning of tbe terms Deductive versus 
 Inductive method of searching for truth 
 and seeking, when it is found, to expound 
 and establish it as a general law in the nature 
 of things. 
 
 Man is aptly termed, " in his highest 
 mental efforts, a hunter of truth" and know- 
 ledge. In this quest, it is of the utmost 
 importance that those who may have suc- 
 ceeded in satisfying themselves that they 
 have- laid hold of a truth in, any branch of 
 science, should adopt the best and most 
 interesting mode of expounding the same. 
 
 "We intend, therefore, so' far as possible, to 
 follow out in our exposition of the subject 
 
ECONOMIC AND PINANCUL SCIENCE. 15 
 
 tte inductive method of treatment wticli 
 may tlius be generally indicated, as that, 
 from a vast number of particular facts and 
 observations collected, arranged, and system- 
 atised upon a preconceived, theory, a general 
 law can by inductive generalisation be arrived 
 at that binds those facts and observations 
 together; or, under the condition of a 
 general principle, that can be easily appre- 
 hended and recalled by the memory. 
 
 It is well remarked, on a kindred subject, 
 by Sir William Hamilton, in a review of Dr. 
 OuUen's life and labours as a medical refor- 
 mationist : — 
 
 " Individual appearances are of interest 
 only as they represent a general law. "What 
 CuUen did it required individual ability and 
 genius to do. It required, in its highest in- 
 tensity, the highest faculty of mind, that 
 of tracing the analogy of unconnected obser- 
 
16 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 vations, of evolving from the multitude of 
 particular facts a common principle, tlie de- 
 tection of "whicli might recall them, from con- 
 fusion to system, from incomprehensibility to 
 science. 
 
 " The only speculation he recognised as 
 legitimate was induction. To him theory was 
 only the expression of a universal fact, and in 
 rising to this fact no one with equal con- 
 sciousness of power was ever more cautious of 
 the different steps of his generalisation." 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 17 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ECONOMISTS, THEIK WOEKS AND LABOUES. 
 
 The honour of being the real founder of the 
 modern system of political economy, at least 
 in ttis country, is undoubtedly due to Adam 
 Smith, who was born in Kirkaldy, on the 5th 
 of June, 1723. He was entered in the Glas- 
 gow University in 1737 ; three years after he 
 entered as an exhibitioner on Snell's founda- 
 tion (or scholarship), Baliol College, Oxford. 
 In 1751 he was elected Professor of Logic in 
 his Alma Mater, and in the following year to 
 the chair of Moral Philosophy. 
 
 After long thought and meditation, with a 
 vast accamulation of information, Dr. Adam 
 •Smith published his celebrated work "An 
 
18 AN • EXPOSITION OP 
 
 Enquiry into tlie Nature and Causes of the 
 Wealth of Nations." The first edition came 
 out in 1776; the fourth and last edition ap- 
 peared in 1780. The author died in Edin- 
 burgh in July, 1790. 
 
 This work, the " "Wealth of Nations," has 
 done for political economy what Dr. Thomas- 
 Reid's philosophic works have done for the 
 science of mind - and the modern develop- 
 ment of the higher philosophy, creating a 
 revolution therein. 
 
 To Adam Smith belongs the great merit of 
 being among the first to advocate the doctrine 
 of the freedom of trade, and the doing aiway 
 with all the restrictions that hampered com- 
 mercial intercourse between nations. 
 
 In this respect, and on this topic, the closdt 
 theories and speculations of this illustrious 
 thinker have had the rare merit of being the 
 battle-ground of rival and, contending parties 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 19' 
 
 in tlie councils of State, and are now happily 
 embodied in our legal enactments, declaring 
 a wide and lasting freedom of trade and com- 
 merce, whicli other nations are still slow to 
 follow and adopt. 
 
 The great merits of Adam Smith in this 
 respect should not blind us to certain defects 
 in his mode of expounding the general prin- 
 ciples of economic science, which are those of 
 deductive reasoning, very much borrowed 
 from a mathematical style of exposition, and 
 what is not to be much wondered at, is that 
 most of his followers, and many subsequent 
 authors on this subject, have followed the 
 'founder of this science; one example of 
 which is in John Stuart Mill's recent publi- 
 cation on the " Principles of Political 
 Economy," a very able, elaborate, and ex- 
 haustive work, which we shall refer to further 
 on. • 
 
"20 AN EXPOSITJON OF 
 
 For a general view of the principal merits 
 and defects of Smith's " "Wealth of Nations," 
 we refer to the introductory discourse of the 
 late Dr. J. E. McCuUoch. Among one of the 
 most learned and able of our recent econo- 
 mists, he has edited the works of Adam 
 Smith. He very justly, remarks, "that con- 
 siderable diversity of opinion has been ex- 
 pressed as to Smith's claim to originality." 
 There can be no doubt he made a free and a 
 valuable use of the previous labours and 
 works of the Italian, but more particularly 
 ,the French school of ecqnomists. While, 
 however, he did so, he gave the world the 
 result of his own opinions, making many of 
 their views and opinions his own, unexclu- 
 ;sively his own, by his profound and continu- 
 ous thought and labou;- upon them. 
 
 The great and signal characteristic of 
 Adam Smith's genius was that he was able 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 21 
 
 by its power to project himself into future 
 times — to live, as it were, far in advance of 
 his age — to shape a large share of the world's 
 future life and action by the silent, solitary 
 force of his own continuous thought upon 
 those problems that arise ever and anon for 
 discussion, elucidation, or compromise in all 
 stages and states of society. 
 
 Tried by the one test of being far in ad- 
 vance of the age he lived in, Adam 8mith 
 stands almost pre-eminent and alone among 
 all modern economists. The test is, indeed, 
 a valid one, for to few, alas ! too few, are 
 given that prophetic glance that scans the 
 future age, and determines by the energy of 
 solitary thought speculations that a future 
 generation will welcome " familiar as house- 
 hold words." Indeed to the possessor it is 
 generally a perilous gift ; for just in propor- 
 tion as a thinker and author is in advance of his 
 
22 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 age, is tis neglect, generally speaking, by his 
 contemporaries ; but tliis neglect is to minds 
 of a high order the bracing of a northern, 
 clime — it oft-times is the one thing needed to 
 bring out all their energies ; to it knd its 
 attendant adverse circumstances we owe 
 many of the greatest achievements of human 
 effort. Happily Adam Smith had not to 
 •suffer in his day this trying neglect— to be 
 known only when he was in his tomb. He, 
 fortunately, was greatly and thoroughly ap- 
 preciated by his eminent conteinporaries alike 
 in Scotland and in the literary and scientific 
 circles of London and Paris. He was no 
 scientific or philosophic recluse; he was 
 quite a man of the world and of society. 
 
 In his day, when he was in the full posses- 
 sion of his rare and distinguishing powers, 
 there occurred a great outcome and develop- 
 ment of brilliant philosophic and scientific 
 
ECONOMIC AND PINANOIAL SCIENCE. 23 
 
 energy and thouglit. Dr. Thomas Reid was 
 laying deep the foundations of that school of 
 the higher metaphysics (a recoil from Hume 
 and Kant's specious but sceptical doctrines) 
 that has borne such invaluable deTelopment 
 in the life and labours of Dugald Stewart and 
 Sir "William Hamilton. 
 
 Dr. Cullen was working out a revolution 
 and a reform in medicine equal to the one Dr. 
 Joseph Black was effecting in chemical science, 
 owing to his great discovery of latent heat, 
 which, in the hands of James "Watt, estab- 
 lished the steam engine as the greatest motive 
 power of modern times. 
 
 Such, then, in brief, were the days and 
 thinkers and men of science among whom 
 Adam Smith lived and died. He was truly 
 great among the greatest of them ; could 
 hold his own in all the discussions and confer- 
 ences of such brilliant men and scholars — 
 
24 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 himself an ornament to any such society. 
 Little wonder then that he has exercised', 
 such long-continued sway over the science he 
 so perseveringly cultivated. Truly of him we 
 may say — 
 
 " The great of old, they rule ns from their nrns ;'' 
 
 they teach us that the only immor- 
 tality man can know on earth is given to- 
 him who bequeaths to mankind the rich legacy 
 of imperishable thought and ideas. 
 
 The science thus' inaugurated by Adam. 
 Smith, we i^eed not repeat, has had, since his 
 day, numerous expositors, authors, and 
 others who have cultivated it with great- 
 industry and assiduity. If yfe pass- 
 over the many without further notice, 
 it is not because they have been unstudied.- 
 or unread ; but for the direct purpose we have- 
 in view it would lead us far beyond the scope= 
 
ECONOMIC AJSD PINANOIAL SCIENCE. 25 
 
 of our present enquiry to notice them in 
 detail. 
 
 Our numerous class of statesmen, legis- 
 lators and journalists, are many of them most 
 accomplished and deeply read political econo- 
 mists, and anaylse with keen and searching 
 criticism the various doctrines of the science 
 that from day to day come up for elucidation 
 and discussion. 
 
 Among the more recent works we require 
 to notice, and we regret briefly, is John 
 Stuart Mill's contribution, a work that 
 ^eeks to bring up the subject from the time 
 of Adam "Smith to the present day, as thus 
 stated. 
 
 Mr. Mill says : — "It appears to the present 
 writer, that a work similar in its object and 
 general conception to that of Adam Smith's, 
 but adapted to the more extended knowledge 
 and improved ideas of the present age, is the 
 
 D 
 
26 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 kind of contribution whicli Political Economy 
 at present requires. Tlie ' Wealth- of Nations' 
 is in many parts obsolete, and in all imperfect. 
 Political Economy, properly so called, bas 
 grown up almost from infancy since the time 
 of Adam Smith, and the philosophy of society, 
 from which practically that eminent thinke^, 
 nevet- separated his more peculiar theme, 
 though still in a very early stage of progress, 
 has advanced many steps beyond the point 
 at which he left it." 
 
 This then is the idea or plan upon which 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill has carried out his 
 celebrated work. He has sought as it were 
 " to complete the discussion of the many 
 complex problems " with which the science is 
 invested; to do this also with all the 
 light and aid shed upon them by modem 
 investigation and discussions into our social 
 science philosophy of the present day. No 
 
' ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 27 
 
 one can but admire the ability, skill, and rare 
 industry wliicli Mr. Mill brings to- bear upon 
 tbe task be has set himself to do ; bis 
 erudition on the subject is equally profound 
 and extensive. The principles are fairly stated, 
 are supported with numerous, nay exhaustive 
 deductions and illustrations ; but it is in this 
 very plan of treatment that we think Mr. 
 Mill has made a mistake : he has almost 
 everywhere treated it in a mathematical 
 style of reasoning, i.e., the deductive instead 
 of the inductive mode. He propounds his 
 leading principles under the different heads 
 of his subject, then analyses the abstract 
 proposition into its component pa,rts, or from 
 it makes the deductions in support of his 
 foregone proposition. 
 
 Admirable as the work is in many different 
 respects to spread abroad and extend a 
 knowledge'of the subject, we much question 
 
28 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 if it possesses that inherent power to advance- 
 the science by new and progressive truths ; 
 for in such branches of enquiry it is one 
 thing to extend, but quite a different, and far 
 more difficult thing to advance knowledge,, 
 which if not kept onward, in an advancing 
 state, ceases to yield improvement. 
 
 "While our author under review is eminent 
 as a writer, full up to the level qf his own 
 day, we fail to trace any indication of his 
 ideas being at all in advance . of his age in 
 which he lives, in this respect forming a 
 marked contrast to his great prototype 
 Adam Smith. 
 
 Mr. Mills' tendency in most of his reasoning 
 to ultimate his principles, even unto the 
 uttermost, gives an air of paradox to hi& 
 writings and orations which detracts much 
 from their validity ; moreover, instead of 
 fully stating his principles with a brief and 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 29 
 
 pertinent application — thereby suggesting 
 trains of thought to his more attentive and 
 -acute readers, teaching them to think out 
 the results for themselves — he overloads 
 them with illustrations, details, &c., that any- 
 one could apply for himself : thus he over- 
 powers the memory, confusing the under- 
 ■standing, if not indeed paralysing all free 
 and energetic thought itself on the part of 
 those who seek improvement and progress 
 from his teaching and writings. 
 
 Mr. Mill is a follower and great admirer 
 of Bentham and of the Utilitarian school ; he 
 is one, too, who holds by a mere philosophy 
 ■of experience, instead of the now well ascer- 
 tained and established fundamental truths of 
 the higher philosophy, held by the great 
 majority of scientific and philosophic thinkers 
 and writers. On this subject he has recently 
 made a fierce and vehement attack, which 
 
30 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 tas been ably and successfully answered by 
 those fully able and competent to do so. 
 
 That we have not overstated Mr.. Mill's 
 predilection for a deductive mode of treatment 
 generally of his subject, or his leaning to a 
 mathematical style ofreasoning, the following 
 extract will show : — 
 
 " The three preceding parts include as 
 detailed a view, as our limits permit, oi \hat 
 by a happy generalisation of a mathematical 
 phrase has been called the statics of the 
 subject : i.e. the economical laws of a 
 stationary and unchanging society. We 
 have to consider what these changes are,, 
 what are their laws and what their ultimate 
 tendencies, thereby adding a theory of motion 
 to our theory of equilibrium ; the dynamics 
 of Political Economy to the statics." (Book 
 lY. page 421, sixth edition.) 
 
 We consider these terms as inapplicable ta 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 31 
 
 the science as at present existing, as being 
 very far behind in its progress, before it ever 
 can enter upon a mathematical formula and 
 treatment. 
 
 The only mode in which it can enter upon 
 so advanced a stage of preci sion and certainty 
 would be the systematic arrangement of its 
 statistics as averages upon a preconceived plan 
 or theory, thus showing out a (mean) numerical 
 law, in its all embracing nature, in any one 
 branch of the subject ; were this successfully 
 done, then, and then only, could a mathematical 
 formula and reasoning become strictly appli- 
 cable. Strange as it may appear, this has 
 not been attempted for the more vital parts 
 of it. 
 
 It is to this task we intend to devote our 
 efforts in what follows, endeavouring to give 
 a general exposition of it rather than one 
 more technical, still as scientific as can be, 
 
32 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 because our aim will be to render it more 
 suitable and popular to the many than 
 appreciated only by the few ; for should we 
 succeed in this, it will be found we think to 
 have a direct and practical bearing on the 
 great business of life and action, in this 
 respect well deserving of a fair attention and 
 study. 
 
 In what follows, we have no intention of 
 keeping closely to the usual prescribed form 
 of tracing out " Political Economy " from its 
 early first dawn, or what may be called its 
 historical progress. This has been so amply 
 done by Adam Smith and many other writers, 
 that we would be only going over ground 
 well cultivated by others ; moreover, we 
 intend, so far as this can be done, to leave 
 out of view and consideration the " Politi- 
 cal Element," confining ourselves to the 
 " Monetary and Economic " branch alone, and 
 to such laws as we can trace therein. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 33 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SUMMAET OF DOCTRINES ON PRODUCTION, EX- 
 CHANGE, VALUE, AND PRICE. 
 
 As to production, the prime or principle 
 •Tequisities are two — labour and appropriate 
 natural objects, upon wbicli labour or human 
 exertion can be expended or invested therein. 
 " Labour is either bodily or mental, either 
 muscular or nervous," and is . more often 
 compounded of both ; labour in the physical 
 world is always, if not solely, employed in 
 putting objects in motion. Most natural 
 •objects have themselves been impressed with 
 the laws of motion or certain powers of 
 motion, either latent or visible; and man's 
 labour and skill is to take full and free ad- 
 
34 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 vantage of these by suitable and appropriate 
 adjustments, or what Dr. Chalmers calls "the 
 allocution of matter or material objects." 
 Thus man seeks or evokes their aid and con- 
 junction with, and by, his own efforts towards 
 production, either by moving material to 
 where a natural increase is given by the laws 
 of development, or giving the said object a 
 higher condition or value, either by a manu- 
 facturing, a purifying, or refining process^ 
 Nature gives us her general products in most 
 cases in a crude or impure state. Labour is 
 expended or invested productively in removing 
 these impurities, so that the foundation of 
 the value of a natural object, for which a 
 demand, exists, is the pure state in which ii-is 
 either found or produced, or converted and 
 raised by labour to this state of pureness, or 
 approaching thereto, rendering it fit for the 
 use,, the want, or the desires of man. So far 
 
ECOlfOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 35 
 
 as known to us, this doctrine of purity in 
 production is, for tte first time, stated here- 
 as a factor in the denomination of value. It 
 would require a treatise by itself for its full 
 elucidation, while we can only allude to it in 
 passing, and that very briefly. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that man's power 
 in production, though extensive and every- 
 where enlarging, is yet limited. He has no 
 power whatever to create in any sense a 
 material object, or any part thereof ; neither 
 can he' indeed destroy a single iota of matter, 
 which is indestructible by any of man's, efforts, 
 which are limited to an extractive and forma- 
 tive industry thereon. He can effect great and 
 valuable changes on it ; he can add to, com- 
 pound, or iabstract certain qualities, or mould 
 it into certain conditions or forms, always,, 
 however, of some pre-existing type or com- 
 bination of antecedent forms, as man cannot 
 
■36 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 create a new form or type iu material or 
 physjcal existence. He cannot even do this 
 in thought itself, even by the greatest effort 
 ■of imaginationj or any other faculty of mind. 
 The difference between what is produced 
 and what is consumed, provided a surplus is 
 set aside, or free for future use, this surplus, 
 when accumulated into stock, is justly called 
 capital. The past product of unconsumed 
 but' accumulated labour is fitted to aid a 
 present labour; available and active to set 
 up labour and industry in organised motion 
 upon natural and appropriate objects, with 
 the end in view of a, further accumulation of 
 capital, which has usually been divided into 
 circulating and fixed capital ; the former being 
 engaged in carrying on the motion and move- 
 ments of commercial exchange, the latter 
 fixed in the buildings, factories, docks, rail- 
 ways, &c., of our present developments. 
 
ECONOMIC AND MNANCIAO SCIENCE. 37 
 
 althougli even part of this re-appea.rs in time 
 as floating or circulating capital. 
 
 It is in this ceaseless motion, and these 
 perpetual movements of commercial exchange 
 — ^Nature and man being as it were in con- 
 junction to carry them on — that we have the 
 three great cognate branches of our subject — 
 the Science of- Exchange, the Theory of 
 Yalue, and the Theory of Price. 
 
 The word value always means value in 
 exchange, although there is a "value in use,'* 
 equally valid. Exchange value requires to be 
 distinguished from price, which has been, 
 employed to express the value of a thing or 
 commodity in relation to money. By the 
 price of a thing we shall understand its value 
 in a money denominator — value is a relative 
 term. The value of a thing means the 
 quantity of some other thing that exchanges 
 for it. 
 
38 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 The temporary or market value of a thing 
 or commodity is regulated according to the 
 supply and demand, or is thus styled the 
 " higgling of the market," to fix or find for 
 it a settling price. Besides this, most things 
 or staple commodities have a natural value, 
 or what we would call an average value, not 
 only annually, but extending over a series of 
 years, into which varied elements may or 
 may not enter — -such as wages, labour, rent, 
 profit— rin all costs of production. Or other- 
 wise, a capitalist, not using his own accumu- 
 lated or' inherited funds, may loan out his 
 money to others at a fixed on rate . of annual 
 interest, or at the market rate of the day. 
 
 This brings us to the consideration of the 
 subject, money, and the functions it performs 
 in our enquiry, which is indeed one of the 
 most vital parts of our exposition. All our 
 previous remarks, we regret very briefly and 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. '39 
 
 concisely given, are intended merely as some- 
 -what preliminary on this subject. 
 
 In aU civilised countries the mutual inter- 
 •ctange of commodities is carried on by the 
 use of what is usually termed a medium of 
 exchange, or a circulating medium, which may 
 "be considered as equivalent to the term 
 money ; while on the one hand it facilitates 
 exchange, inland and internationally, on the 
 other a permanent and fixed standard of 
 ordinary value to be a relative measure of 
 value to things or commodities of a different 
 kind. 
 
 By an almost universal concurrence, almost 
 all nations, from the earliest times even, fixed 
 upon certain metals, and especially gold and 
 silver, to serve the purpose of a circulating 
 medium, to be in a sense, a measure or 
 standard by which relatively to measure 
 other things provided for by an agreed upon 
 
40 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 standard of purity, and Value, at the par of 
 excliange, was fixed on and regulated by either 
 written or common law, or usage of trade. 
 
 When gold and silver had thus become 
 virtually a medium of exchange, the advan- 
 tage of coining easily suggested itself. " It 
 became the duty of every properly regulated 
 government to take the charge of coinage intO' 
 its own hands," to save the community the 
 trouble of weighing and assaying at every ex- 
 change or transaction. 
 
 Thus, although money, i.e. gold and silver 
 coins, are thas regulated as denoniinators of 
 a standard value by Government mark and 
 superscription, money is still a commodity.; 
 " Its value is therefore regulated like that of 
 all other general commodities, temporarily by 
 supply and demand;" permanently and on. 
 the average, by cost of production. This 
 brings us to consider the value of money; 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 41 
 
 for, while it acts as a standard of value to 
 compute other things by, it has a variable 
 and fluctuating value itself, which oscillates 
 between a maximum on the one hand and a 
 minimum on the other, determined, like other 
 things, by supply and demand ; or otherwise, 
 by the amount of money to lend, the num- 
 ber of lenders versus the number of borrowers, 
 amount required, the security offered, the 
 state generally of credit, &c. What is really 
 lent is capital, although the transfer of 
 this is effected by the instrumentality of 
 money. 
 
 " The amount of capital passes from the 
 lender by means of money or an order or 
 credit to receive money. It is in money value 
 the rate of payment, for its use is computed 
 at so much per centage per annum." , 
 
 In this manner capital is universally called 
 borrowing money. " This loan market is 
 
 E 
 
42 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 therefore called the Money Market." Those 
 ■who have their capital in hand disposable for 
 investment or loan are called the monied 
 class. " The equivalent given for the use of 
 capital is called the interest, but more fre- 
 quently, by a perversion of terms, is called 
 the value of money." 
 
 " The functions performed by credit have 
 been generally misunderstood." Although at 
 all times great and important in a commercial 
 trading community, they are not magical. 
 They cannot create, i.e. produce a something 
 out of nothing, although many individual 
 cases 6ccur of those who, commencing with 
 nothing but character and skill, have emerged 
 into the monied class after years of steady 
 toil. 
 
 Credit, in its simplest form, and ;in its 
 practical use, as applied to our present sub- 
 ject, is a transfer of capital from one disposed 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCIJ]. 43 
 
 tolendand to anotlier desirous of borrowing, for 
 a certain time and upon a certain percentage 
 for interest. But credit has many more 
 oomplex forms and conditions than the above 
 to prevent the transfer of bullion, or gold 
 and silver coin, from place to place, either 
 within a country or internationally. Bills of 
 Exchange is an extensive form credit has 
 assumed. Another form is the inland or 
 home bill or promissory note, to delay or ex- 
 tend the time of payment into future dates, 
 ranging from one or two up to six months. 
 A greatly increasing form is now cheques on 
 bankers, and the most important is the bank 
 note, payable on demand, and at the option 
 of the holder convertible into its equivalent 
 in gold coin, and in this form are most valid 
 instruments in a well-regulated currency, 
 saving the use, the tear, and wear, and risk ' 
 of transferring large sums in coin or bullion. 
 
44 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 All these and other forms of credit are- 
 based upon faith and confidence ; a tacit 
 but well-understood contract between the- 
 parties interested. 
 
 In all these forms of credit, multitudinous 
 as they may be, and howeyer secure they 
 seem, either for immediate or deferred pay- 
 ment, extending into future time, they are 
 subject to great and overpowering fluctua. 
 tions, working out more good, and, at times,, 
 more evil, in any commonwealth than almost 
 any other tangible cause that can be 
 named. 
 
 Complex as the enquiry into such a cause 
 or con-causes must necessarily be as the- 
 oscillations of so mutable a thing as credit 
 must be, ever oscillating between a positive 
 and a negative pole, or from a maximum to a 
 minimum state or condition ; still, it is 
 principally into this question we wish to enter 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 46 
 
 _ 
 
 upon, and, if it is possible, give an exposition 
 on this part of onr subject, endeavouring to 
 give an outline of those la^-s under which 
 these phases appear as applicable to all 
 .time. ( 
 
46 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE LAW OF PERIODICITY OP EVENTS IN EINAN- 
 CIAL AFPAIES. 
 
 The present time is, we ttink, favourable ta 
 enter upon the consideration of what is 
 usually called Monetary, or Financial Science 
 In r^gard to that part of it, banking and 
 currency, we have long held the opinion that 
 any enquiry into this branch of it should be 
 preceded by an enquiry pursued on scientific- 
 principles into the subject of financial crises 
 and panics. It has been usual to attribute 
 these monetary occurrfences to defective laws-- 
 and regulations on banking and currency, 
 and the endeavour has often been made to 
 account for them by tracing out such defects 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 47 
 
 as are most apparent in the laws and regula- 
 tions that control the currency of this or 
 other countries. "While we do not doubt this 
 may be true, in part at least, the causes 
 that produce monetary or financial crises 
 and panics lie far deeper in the nature of 
 things for to be explained by any such partial 
 views as have hitherto been put forth for their 
 explanation and solution. 
 
 What we propose, therefore, as our object, 
 is to first enquire into the question of mone- 
 tary crises and panics, and this upon what 
 may be deemed scientific grounds. By this 
 proceeding, we shall endeavour to trace out 
 from the nature of things those higher laws 
 that control and determine these disturbances 
 in the monetary markets of this and other 
 countries. 
 
 It is well known to those who have studied 
 this subject that a crisis may arise in monetary 
 
48 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 affairs withLOut producing a panic, while a 
 financial panic never occurs without develop- 
 ing a crisis. Panics are generally, if not 
 invariably, periodic, and recur at definite and 
 "well-marked intervals of time. In other words, 
 their appearance and powers are experienced 
 by us in a cycle of years. Thus, from past 
 experience, we may justly conclude that being 
 periodic in their nature, crises and panics 
 are natural phenomena. It becomes, there- 
 fore, all the more important for financial or 
 monetary science to explain and expound such, 
 on rational principles, applicable alike to this 
 and other subjects that fall within scientific 
 treatment. If we can succeed in this, there 
 arises the well-grounded hope that in evolving 
 the higher laws that control and determine 
 the occurrence of monetary painics, science 
 will be found to be true to her vocation in 
 being able to predict or forecast the on-com- 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 49 
 
 ing or advent of such dire financial disasters, 
 thus giving timely warning to those most ex- 
 posed to their consequence, and avert, in part 
 •at least, the ruin and disaster they occasion. 
 This hope in which we indulge would, we 
 ■fear, be vain if we did not enter upon this 
 part of the enquiry in the full confidence of 
 being able to bring the subject of which we 
 treat within the "reign of law." And here 
 we cannot do better than quote the words of 
 the Duke of Argyll, where he says : — " What, 
 then, is the reign of law ? "What is law ? and 
 in what sense can it be said to reign ? The 
 laws of nature are simply those facts of 
 nature which recur according to a rule, so as 
 to involve the idea of obedience to a force. 
 'This idea of force is essential to the true con- 
 -ception of law. The word is no doubt often 
 very loosely used, but it involves a great deal 
 more than merely ' an observed order of facts.' 
 
50 AN EXPOSITION ' OP 
 
 The order must be so constant and sa 
 uniform as to indicate' necessity, that is, the 
 action of a compelling force. When the 
 operations of such force can be reduced to a 
 rule, this rule is itself called the law; and 
 ■when such rules are so definite as to be cap- 
 able of mathematical expression and mathe- 
 matical proof they are in the nature of pure 
 truth. 
 
 " The discovery of them is the great quest 
 of science, and the finding of them is her great 
 reward. Such laws yield to the human mind 
 a peculiar delight from the satisfaction they 
 afford to those special faculties whose' func- 
 tion it is to recognise the beauty of nume- 
 rical relations. This satisfaction is so great, 
 and iji its own measure is so complete, that 
 the mind reposes on an ascertained law as on 
 an .ultimate truth." 
 
 It is, therefore, in the spirit and scope of 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 51 
 
 the above remarks tve pursue our enquiry, in 
 tlie first place, into tlie phenomenon of the 
 periodicity of financial crises and panics. 
 These events have hitherto been known 
 and experienced under such conditions 
 in the past, and there exists strong 
 evidence in our researches to anticipate 
 that in the future they will appear 
 under the same conditions of periodicity as 
 they have hitherto done. 'It is by giving this 
 fact its due prominence that we shall be the 
 better able to seize upon the general and 
 special conditions that determine this law of 
 periodicity. It is well known that by the 
 study of the periodical movements of the 
 solar system, and the laws deduced therefrom,, 
 that the science of astronomy has arrived at 
 such perfection, as not only to predict these 
 movements far in advance, but to be consi- 
 de'redas one of the most perfect of the sciences. 
 
52 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 Strange it is, that one of the most distant 
 •of our sciences should be the most advanced, 
 while the one that comes home the nearest to 
 man and his daily interests, viz., financial 
 :science, should be the most neglected, or the 
 worst understood or developed, although as 
 a practical art it flourishes in a high -state. 
 But such is the case, and it has its counter- 
 part or parallel in the science of physiology. 
 It is well remarked by the late Sir "William 
 Hamilton, in his review of Dr. CuUen's works, 
 " That of all subjects of . scientific interest, 
 men in general seem to have the weakest 
 •curiosity in regard to the functions of their 
 own minds and even bodies. So it is now, 
 and however marvellous, so has it always 
 been. For one amateur physiologist we 
 meet a hundred dilettanti chemists and 
 botanists, and mineralogists and geologists." 
 So likewise is it in the science we desire to 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 53' 
 
 treat. It has been studied not as a science, 
 but cultivated as an art, in many cases more 
 as a trade. It has, therefore, not been in- 
 vestigated upon the principles we deem 
 necessary for its true and full elucidation. 
 But nevertheless it has been assiduously 
 cultivated ' as an art and as a trade, and the 
 daily close observation of monetary affairs 
 by skilled and experienced financiers has 
 resulted in the ability and shrewdness to 
 read the future movements of our monetary 
 markets, somevrhafc in advance of the pros- 
 pective change ; in this respect these changes 
 may be looked upon as somewhat analogous 
 to the ebbing and flowing of the tides, having 
 their spring and their neap tides at regular 
 or irregular intervals of time. "While these 
 short-dated observations are truly invaluable 
 as a guide in all financial operations, they 
 fail to afford any real or tangible insight into 
 
54 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 the sweep and control of those higher laws 
 that rule the ebb and flow of those monetary 
 tides we have alluded to, or fail to throw 
 sufficient light on the law of periodicity in 
 financial affairs. 
 
 It may here be objected that the exceeding 
 complexity of the problem thus adopted for 
 solution will render a scientific treatment of 
 it nearly impossible, or any practical result 
 therefrom inoperative, if not otk^rwise un- 
 satisfactory, and, like meteorology, iticapable 
 of making any " forecasts" beyond a few days 
 in advance, an exceedingly problematical 
 matter. On this point we quote from Sir 
 John F. "W. Herschell's remarks on meteor- 
 ology ,: — " It is to be borne in mind, however, 
 most carefully, that all such indications are 
 to be received as valid {pro towto) only for a 
 very brief interval in advance, and that the 
 * weather prophet ' who ventures his pre- 
 
ECONOMIO AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 65 
 
 dictions on a great scale is altogether to be 
 ■distrusted. The physical laws that determine 
 the ' various and mutable things which we call 
 the weather,' are so numerous and complex, 
 and the results in consequence so mutually 
 interwoven, ,and the momentary conditions of 
 their action so dependent on the state of 
 things induced by their previous agency, that 
 it is no wonder it should be next to impossible 
 to trace each specific cause direct to its 
 present effect." 
 
 It is not very encouraging to our enquiry, 
 to read the above remarks on meteorology 
 and that branch of it " Weather and its Fore- 
 casts "—this, too, from one of its most dis- 
 tinguished . cultivators — for our subject 
 presents many analogous features, in "numer- 
 ous and complex results" in "momentary con- 
 ditions," and" their action so dependent on the 
 state of things, induced by previous agency," 
 
56 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 &c. Although we well know the subject is 
 beset with difficulties, still we are encouraged 
 to persevere, and the more so, from the- 
 remarks of the same distinguished philosopher, ' 
 where he elsewhere says: — "If we are ever 
 to make any material progress in the pre- 
 diction of the weather, beyond ' forecasts ' of a 
 few hours, or it may be a whole day in 
 advance,^ it can only be by the continued 
 study of such of its ' phases as recur peri- 
 odically,' or of such as manifest ' a periodicity 
 of event,' as distinct from that of times and 
 seasons, with a view to connecting them with, 
 their efficient physical causes. Of this latter 
 description we have an example of one, and 
 of its successful reduction under the domain, 
 of philosophical reajsoning in the law of the 
 rotation of the winds." 
 
 Likewise we have the observation on 
 periodicity made by Dr. James McCosh, 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 57 
 
 whicli we gladly quote : — " We find all 
 leading, events in the earth and heavens to 
 run in periods. Plants have their seasons 
 for budding, for growing, for bearing seed 
 and fruit, and their whole existence is for an 
 allotted time. The life of animals, and of, 
 man himself, is a period, and it has its 
 periodic developments of infancy, of youth, of 
 manhood, and old age. The very diseases of 
 the human frame have their periods and 
 crises. The events of history in respect of 
 politics, civilisation, science, literature and 
 religion can be arranged into cycles, and as 
 a whole, exhibit a regular, though a some- 
 what complex progression. The tides of the 
 ocean and, in many places, the currents flow 
 in periods, and in some countries the winds 
 blow and the rain falls at certain regular 
 seasons ; the variations of magnetism on the 
 earth's surface seem to be periodical. The 
 
 E 
 
58 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 year is a period, and it has its annual seasons 
 and tTiere are inagni anni (a great year) in 
 the movement of the planets round the sun." 
 
 It "would be easy to multiply quotations of 
 a similar or kindred nature from the most 
 eminent scientific writers, some of which 
 arise to our remembrance, where Alexander 
 Yon Humboldt says : — 
 
 " In reflecting upon physical phenomena 
 and events, and tracing their causes by the 
 process of reason, we become more and more 
 convinced of the truth of the ancient doctrine, 
 that the forces inherent in matter and those 
 which govern the moral world exercise their 
 action under the control of primordial 
 necessity, and in accordance with movements 
 occurring ' periodically,' after longer or shorter 
 intervals. It is this ' primordial necessity, . 
 this occult (hidden) but permanent connection, 
 this periodical recurrence in the progressive 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 59 
 
 development of forms, phenomena and events 
 "wHcli constitute nature, obedient to the 
 firstimpulse imparted to it. . . . The ultimate 
 object of the experimental sciences is there- 
 fore to discover laws and to trace their pro- 
 ^essive generalisation." 
 
 Lord Neaves in a recent lecture says hke- 
 wise : "I may express my belief that it 
 seems to be a part of the Divine plan not 
 altogether to trust for discovery to ordinary 
 or average men. But from time to time to 
 send into the world men of exceptional 
 powers, possessed of transcendant faculties 
 of observation, of inference, and of invention 
 who have been able, each of them, within the 
 limits of a short life, and in face of tremen- 
 dous and overwhelming difficulties, to make 
 advances in knowledge and scientific dis- 
 covery which ordinary men could not have 
 accomplished through many ages. But just 
 
60 , AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 as I consider our ordinary powers to be the 
 gift of God and to be exceedingly good, 
 I consider the ' periodical production' of great 
 philosophers and men of science to be the 
 gift of God also, and to be one which we 
 ought to receive with gratitude and reverence,, 
 and the men who are sent to teach us science, 
 a knowledge of physical laws, are apostles, of 
 truth in their own sphere." 
 
BOONOMIO AND HNANCIAL SCIENCE. 61 
 
 CHAPTER ly. 
 
 CAPITAL CUREENCY IN BANKING. 
 
 "When the late Sir Robert Peel introduced 
 and carried his celebrated English Bank Act 
 of 1844, it was -well known he was the only- 
 Minister capable of entering upon such dis- 
 cussions necessary to carry out such a mea- 
 sure. At that time the abstract principles of 
 currency and banking had not been studied 
 by any great number of individuals, and the 
 late distinguished Baronet was the greatest 
 living authority thereon. 
 
 The case is now different, and when the 
 subject of the Bank Act of 1844 comes again 
 before the country, if the abstract principles 
 are not yet sufliciently considered and studied 
 
62 . AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 a vast body of the practical experience of its 
 action has been accumulated, capable of being 
 embodied into sound and lasting working 
 principles of legislation. 
 
 The late Sir Eobert Peel "was, perhaps, one 
 of the greatest financialists that, as a Minister, 
 ' ever held the reins of power, and was a com- 
 plete master of the subject at that tinie in all 
 its bearings. Nor was this to be wondered 
 at. He was born to great advantages. His 
 father, a man of great shrewdness and 
 sagacity, had him carefully trained. Besides 
 being a fair classical and mathematical 
 scholar, he was early versed in commercial 
 and financial principles. Himself an exten- 
 sive capitalist by inheritance, he improved, 
 instead of wasting, his patrimony by judici- 
 ous investments. Taken as a whole, the late 
 Sir Robert was admirably qualified for the 
 part he was called on to fulfil. Of a gentle- 
 
ECONOMIC AND TINANCIAL SCIENCE. 63 
 
 manly and commanding presence, gifted with 
 a ready and powerful eloquence, equally at 
 tome in exposition, in attack, in argument, 
 and in debate, lie was a Statesman of no 
 ordinary qualifications, both natural and 
 acquired. 
 
 That he was wanting in -those elements of 
 thought that go to form a great and lofty 
 mind, was well known and apparent. He was 
 not much in advance of his age, and was 
 forced, in many cases, to carry out other 
 men's ideas rather than his own. In this way 
 his reputation for sincerity was always at 
 stake. A man of blameless moral life, he 
 was of too cold and phlegmatic a tempera- 
 ment ever to be kindled by the fire of genius : 
 into this divine region he was unfitted to 
 soar, because he was deficient in the force 
 and grandeur of a great moral purpose. 
 
 We find that we require to give a short 
 
■64 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 resume of a part of our past financial history 
 to explain the part Sir Robert took and car- 
 ried out in this most difficult subject. For 
 fuller details than we can afford to give, we 
 refer our readers to Doubleday's " Financial 
 History of England," and the late James 
 Wilson, M.P.'s writings, extracted from the 
 *' Economist," and published in 1847 sepa- 
 rately — both works well worthy of perusal. 
 
 The great continental wars this country 
 became engaged in led to a suspension of our 
 specie payments in the year 1796, which were 
 not resumed again until the year 1819. So 
 that for a period of about 23 years all specie 
 payments were legally suspended. During 
 all this time, or interval, the Bank of Eng- 
 land note was inconvertible, or rather more 
 correctly, non-convertible, into its equivalent 
 in gold ; gold coin and bullion being at a 
 premium ranging between 25 to 30 per cent.. 
 
EOONOMIO Aim FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 65 
 
 ^s compared with the same denominator of 
 value expressed in bank notes. The bank 
 note, although a representative instrument of 
 a certain expressed value, with a promise to 
 pay on demand, became a bill having the 
 legal privileges of deferring the actual pay- 
 ment to a future and indefinite date. The 
 premium given was a discount on it, varying 
 with the varying prospects or chances of ulti- 
 mately being redeemed in gold by the Bank, 
 whenever it resumed spqcie payments. And 
 this is, and ever will be, the case. When a 
 national suspension of specie payments takes 
 place in any civilised country having a mixed 
 ^currency, the standard value as such is entirely 
 altered, or ratlier there are two standards of 
 value — one in non-convertible paper, and 
 .another in gold or silver. 
 
 During the recent civil war in the United 
 States of America this was the case, where 
 
66 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 the range of fluctuations was from 20 to 100' 
 per cent. ; and now, owing to the great re- 
 sources and the able, acute, and talented 
 financialists of that great and flourishing- 
 country, the premium on gold is down to 5 
 to 7 per, cent., with every prospect in a year 
 or so of specie payments being again re- 
 sumed. 
 
 The case is different with Brazil, where for- 
 many years they have had a non-convertible 
 paper currency. The millrea in PortiigaV 
 where they have specie payments, is equal to 
 about 52 to 53 pence sterling. In Brazil it 
 was long at only 28 pence, and during the- 
 Paraguayan "War it was at onetime only worth 
 14 to 16 pence. ISTow, owing to peace, it has- 
 risen to 24 to 25 pence per millrea for English 
 Exchange, the premium on gold fluctuating 
 in a similar riatio. 
 
 So much, then, for a non-convertible paper 
 currency. 
 
ECONOMIC AND .FINANCIAL SCIENCE. &7 
 
 During all the time we had this in Eng- 
 land — for about 23 years — the usual periodic 
 revulsions, commonly called a crisis or a 
 panic, in the Money Market occurred. But 
 by the re-establishment of specie payments 
 in 1819 it was foolishly supposed that we 
 had got rid for ever of the advent of such 
 troublesome recurrences. But the oncoming 
 of a dire, dreadful, and disastrous crisis and 
 panic in 1825 and 1826 dispelled the baseless 
 and romantic dream of the great financialists 
 of that day. To effect a cure for this state 
 of things once and for ever, behold ! a bright 
 and original idea occurred to these regulators 
 of our currency : that was, at once and sud- 
 denly to interpose a law to abolish, within a 
 short and limited time, all notes below five 
 pounds of the Bank of England, which was 
 thought at that time to be a sure and safe- 
 cure for financial revulsions and crises. 
 
 This measure, it must be confessed, gives- 
 
68 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 a very wide and secure metallic basis to the 
 English, currency, keeping a large store of 
 gold within the country in active circulation. 
 But experience has from time to time proved 
 that the hopes founded on this measure were 
 fallacious. Hence it became necessary to re- 
 consider the whole question, and endeavour 
 to solve the problem de novo. 
 
 The result \yas, after extensive enquiry and 
 long meditation, the introduction of the late 
 Sir Robert Peel's great Bank Act of 1844. 
 Now, what were the objects he had in view, 
 and those who acted with him, in passing 
 this celebrated 'measure which remains active 
 law as he left it S 
 
 It was principally to prevent the Bank of 
 England from issuing notes in excess of her 
 ■capital and the necessary wants and demands 
 of trade and commerce. During the suspen- 
 .sion of cash payments by the Bank, in all, or 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 69 
 
 nearly all, tlie discussions on the subject of 
 currency from 1810 to 1819 it was taken for 
 granted, almost without any clear examina- 
 tion, that the principal cause of great jluctua- 
 tions in commerce and in financial affairs, pro- 
 ducing revulsions of credit (i.e. crises and 
 attendant panics) were due to the capricious 
 expansions and contractions of the circulation 
 of the Bank of England, whose action was 
 paramount, and is so from its long establish-, 
 ment and great prestige. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel's Bill provided that the 
 Bank shall circulate on fixed securities a sum 
 not exceeding fourteen millions (£14,000,000), 
 made up of eleven millions (£11,000,000) 
 of debt due by the Government, bearing 
 interest, and the balance, three up to four 
 millions (£3 up to £4,000,000), and that the 
 issues beyond that amount shall vary pre- 
 cisely as the amount of bullion varies. So 
 
70 AN, EXPOSITION OF 
 
 that with a stock of twenty-four millions 
 (£24,000,000) of gold coin and bullion the 
 bank of issue hands over to the banking de- 
 partment bank notes to the value of thirty- 
 seven to eight millions. As, however, the 
 active circulation of the country, on the 
 average, takes up no more than twenty-four 
 to twenty-seven millions, there is, on the 
 ' average, left in the banking department a 
 reserve of, say, ten to twelve millions of 
 notes. This reserve of notes, of course, 
 varies with the influx or efllux of bullion ; 
 and according to this import or export of 
 gold the rate of bank discount ranges from a 
 minimum of 2 up to a maximum of 10 per 
 cent., and this generally within an interval of 
 a decade. 
 
 This, then, is briefly the outline in its main 
 features of the Act of 1814, still in active and 
 daily existence, under which our currency is 
 sought to be regulated. 
 
ECONOMIC AND HNANCTAL SCIENCE. 71 
 
 The same principle has been, by an Act 
 1845 (in part, at least,) introduced into 
 Scotch and Irish banks. Their average cir- 
 culation, as it existed in 1845, became, as it 
 were, a fixed quantity; and for all above 
 this, they are obliged to hold in reserve gold 
 to the full value of their notes in excess, in 
 active circulation, and in the hands of the 
 Public. 
 
 After long consideration the standard 
 measure of gold was fixed at £3 17s. lO^-d. 
 sterling per ounce, or at £46 14s. 6d. per lb. 
 weight-, or £467 5s. per 101b. weight in gold, 
 and obliging the Bank of England by law to 
 exchange or convert its notes at the option 
 of the holder, and on demand, into gold of 
 equal or equivalent value. Sir Robert Peel 
 was under the impression, that when once 
 this act was law, that owing to its skilful 
 "contrivance with its autoniator, or self-acting 
 or self-regulating principles,' it would nearly. 
 
72 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 if not almost prevent, or greatly modify all 
 future commercial revulsions, i.e., crises or 
 panics in the Money Market. Bi^t these 
 hopes were vain and fallaciaus, for he lived. 
 to see the ruin, havoc, and disaster caused by 
 the great crisis of 1847, when the Bank Act 
 of 1844 had for a time to be suspended tO' 
 prevent the Bank stopping , payment of its 
 notes in gold, and thus involving not only the 
 Bank but the English Grovernment and the 
 country in failure and ruin ; and thus for a 
 brief time the principle of convertibility of 
 the bank note has been placed in abeyance : 
 the Bank was therefore allowed by a Govern- 
 ment Order in Council to issue notes, quite 
 irrespective of the amount of bullion held in 
 stock, not only for the crisis of 1847, but the- 
 precedent has been copied and repeated in the 
 panics of 1857 and 1866, showing that there 
 are higher laws in their recurrence, than what 
 
BCONOMIO AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 73 
 
 was taken into account by the late Sir Robert 
 Peelj or tbose who haye hitbeFto legislated 
 upon our currency regulations and laws. 
 That higher law that he so strangely over-, 
 looked, was 'the one of periodicity, and it is 
 to this important aspect of it we desire to 
 draw attention. It is then this periddical 
 recurrence of event that characterises a 
 general financial crisis that claims especially 
 our consideration. Its appearance is not 
 however to be confounded with a trade (or 
 even a Stock Exchange) pahic in a particular 
 staple article ; the temporary or daily market 
 price from a short supply ,or excessive demand 
 has risen pro. tern, above its average value (or 
 cost of! production) from all becoming buyers ; 
 soon a reaction ensues, prices are driven down 
 from a maximum to a minimum rate by all 
 becoming sellers, and a trade panic in that 
 special trade — stock, funds, or shares — ensues, 
 
 G 
 
74 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 confined to that particular branch of spe- 
 ciality. 
 
 With a financial crisis the conditions are 
 more complex, by no means so easy of expo- 
 sition or explanation, the antecedents of which 
 may extend over a number of previous years, 
 without giving much apparent warning of its 
 advent, except to those who from long ex- 
 perience or shrewd and earnest study become 
 aware that a financial storm or hurricane is 
 about to burst upon the affrighted commercial 
 classes ; this too without any definite warning, 
 which renders its incoming all the more 
 dangerous and ruinous to those engaged in 
 commerce. Sufficient attention and prominence 
 has not been given previously to the periodi- 
 city with which such crises in the Money 
 Market recur, pointing clearly to their latent 
 or visible connection with a cycle of seasons, 
 which apparently run their course within 
 every decade, winding up every tenth year 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 75 
 
 or thereby, clearing tlie commercial atmo- 
 sphere by a financial storm or hurricane that 
 sweeps almost everything before it, expending 
 its fierceness and its fury upon the fortunes, 
 the affairs, and wellbeing of mankind, pro- 
 ducing a revulsion, in credit, in faith, and in 
 confidence, which takes a considerable time 
 afterwards to re-establish, to build up, and 
 consolidate. 
 
 We think it is now time this subject was 
 considered more deeply, , treated of more in 
 detailed facts, boldly and courageously faced, 
 and a solution found if possible for a highly 
 important question, whose recurrence exercises 
 such extensive influence on man and his 
 actions and wellbeing. 
 
 This only can be done, we think, by en- 
 deavouring to arrive at some general principle 
 which acts as an over-ruling law, as a cyclical 
 recurrence of seasons in the nature of things 
 mundane. 
 
76 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE LAW OF MEAN AVERAGES IN THE MONEY 
 MARKET, 
 
 The periodical revulsions that almost invari- 
 ably occur in the Money Market, known ^as 
 financial crises, are brought about by a variety 
 of proximate causes, and it is in these near 
 and apparent causes that are held generally 
 as the one efficient cause of the ruin and 
 disaster which 'take place within certain 
 definite times. But as we go deeper into the 
 matter, it will be found, we think, that it is 
 owing to a cycle of seasons having run 
 their course, that there is brought round a 
 state of affairs which culminate in one of those 
 periodical revulsions known as a financial 
 
BCONQMIO AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 77 
 
 crisis, with, its attendant panic ; thus arising 
 from a higher law than has hitherto been 
 fully taken into account, which the more 
 yisible and apparent features of each crisis 
 cannot explain, far less elucidate the patent 
 and prominent fact, that they now recur at 
 definite periodic times, and this usually 
 within a decade or every tenth or eleventh 
 year or thereby. 
 
 This points to the conclusion that we have 
 to seek for the real cause in a regular recur- 
 rence of a cycle of seasons, repeating as it 
 were their course every tenth year or thereby, 
 or within that decade of time. 
 
 "We are strongly supported in this view of 
 it, that each decade in its parallel years pre- 
 sents many commercial phases almost alike, if 
 not, indeed, identical ; this too, even although, 
 commerce has made such gigantic strides and 
 progress during the last fifty years, and. 
 
78 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 financial science has grown up as a great and 
 vital system. 
 
 Let us, therefore, analyse these last fifty 
 years, taking the undernoted years as 
 follows : — 
 
 Teaes, viz. : 
 
 Each of these years respectively were 
 nearly, or in a great measure, marked 
 by a general recovery from a stagna- 
 tion of commercial operations,- super- 
 induced by the undernoted years : — 
 
 Tbabs, Viz. : 
 
 Each of these years respectively 
 were marked by dire and disas- 
 trous crises in the financial or 
 money market, leading to panics, 
 and ruin to bankers, merchants, manu- 
 facturers and others engaged in commerce. 
 
 All confidence and credit in men and things 
 was so severely shaken and destroyed in these 
 
 1820 
 1830 
 1840 
 1850 
 1860 
 1870 
 
 1817 
 
 1826 
 
 1837 &38 
 
 1847 
 
 1857 
 
 1866 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 79 
 
 previous panic years, that during the under- 
 noted years it may be said it did not exist : — • 
 
 Teaks, viz.: 
 
 1818 & 1819 
 
 1827 to 1829 
 
 1839 
 
 1848 & 1849 
 
 1858 & 1859 
 
 1867-8 & 1869 
 
 Each of these years respec- 
 tively were characterised by a 
 slow driech, and protracted re- 
 -^ covery to a convalescent state of 
 soundness, after the previous years of crises 
 as noted above. 
 
 Teaks, viz. : 
 
 These years were characterised re- 
 spectively by a more marked and de- 
 cided progress to a sound and whole- 
 some state. The effects of the pre- 
 vious panics were wearing away with the 
 accompanying distrust and want of confidence. 
 They were years of revival in which commer- 
 cial stagnation begins to give way to a re- 
 commencement of business enterprise. 
 
 We have in the following undernoted years 
 
 1821 
 1831 
 1841 
 1851 
 1861 
 1871 
 
80 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 three of the most prosperous years in each 
 decade : — 
 
 YeAES, viz.; 
 
 nooo'f Jif!t"l -^s here noted, we have a 
 
 J.O0Z-O & iOQ* J 
 
 iltl'-l & 1854 I range of three full years in each 
 
 1862-3 &1864J j . t t, • i j. , 
 
 ■^ decade when commercial enter- 
 prise was in vigorous and healthy action ; and 
 as we have had this in the past, we are safe 
 to assume that we shall experience the same 
 likewise in 1872-3 & 1874*; at least, we 
 venture this as a scientific prediction, as 
 being one of the results of our investiga- 
 tion. 
 
 Again, in the undernoted years following 
 those above mentioned :— ' 
 
 Teaes, Viz. : 
 
 We have years of decided over- 
 trading and great commercial re- 
 action arising from the three pre- 
 
 * The above was written during the years 1872 and 1873. 
 
 1825 
 1835&36 
 1845 & 46 
 1855 & 56 
 1865 'J 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 81 
 
 •ceding years having been, or supposed to 
 have been, prosperous and favourable 
 to commercial progress and enterprise, 
 the result of vhich overtrading and great 
 ■extension of speculation — tending to press 
 upon the financial resources of the country, 
 already strained to the uttermost — ^raises the 
 price and value of loanable capital; along 
 with this, about these very years, we have the 
 advent of a cycle of bad seasons, turning the 
 foreign exchanges against this country, with a 
 somewhat sudden drain or efflux from the 
 :stock of gold coin and bullion held by the 
 Bank of England, as in the years under- 
 noted : — 
 
 Tears, tiz. : , 
 
 It is during these years the 
 above causes operate in an accu- 
 mulative manner, and produce an 
 overwhelming financial crisis, accompanied 
 
 1826 
 
 1837 & 1838 
 
 1847 
 
 1857 
 
 1866 & 1867 
 
82 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 with a commercial panic and collapse. It has- 
 been usual to note these years, as thus : — 
 1826, &c., as a crisis brought about by Foreign 
 
 Loans and Mining Speculations, &c. 
 1837 & 1838, ditto, called the great American; 
 
 Panic, &c. 
 1847, as the great Railway Panic and Irish 
 
 Potato failure. 
 1857, as the great "Western Scottish Bank 
 
 failure, &c. 
 1866, as the Overend, Gurney, & Co. failure,. 
 
 &c., 
 with hundreds of Limited Liability Com- 
 panies, and newly-started Banking Com- 
 panies, &c. — bankers and speculators going": 
 down in one " grand melee " of ruin and. 
 disaster. 
 
 We shall now arrange and systematise these 
 years, in a tabular review of periodic event- 
 or occurrences, as noted on next page : — 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 83 
 
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 mmerci 
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■84 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 As ttus displayed in the above tabular 
 form, this periodicity of similar events, 
 occurring at almost regular intervals of 
 time, deserve more enquiry and attention 
 than has hitherto been bestowed upon them. 
 "When at all noticed, they have been generally 
 dismissed with the superficial remark that 
 they are mere coincidences or concurrences in 
 our financial, commercial, and social system, 
 ■working out their results under the law of 
 action and reaction. 
 
 We have already seen in our short sum- 
 mary that' it was the opinion of the late Sir 
 Robert Peel and those who acted with him, 
 .that these dire and disastrous disturbances in 
 the Money Market were due to improper or 
 imperfect legislation in- regard to the laws in 
 currency and banking, or in the regulations 
 thereof. But the last Act of 1844 for Eng- 
 land was supposed to embody a scheme so 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 85 
 
 skilfully contrived as almost • to be self- 
 acting in its main principles, tending greatly, 
 if not altogether, to overcome the effects of 
 these crises and panics in financial affairs ; 
 but alas ! in its action it has not proved so, 
 for the Act has been found — and this, too, 
 quite by accident — to mitigate the intensity of 
 these periodical crises by being for a time 
 suspended, as it was in 1847, 1857, and in 
 1866 by a special Order in Council. 
 
 We think, if a cause was sought for in 
 tracing out an almost regular recurrence of a 
 "cycle of seasons" in each decade we have 
 indicated, we consider this would throw con- 
 siderable light on those hitherto unexplained 
 phenomena that have been a puzzle to many 
 financialists and other enquirers into this 
 subject^this complex one. 
 
 As we have said, this cyclical recurrence 
 of seasons appears to have a ra^ge between 
 each decade of ten or eleven years or thereby ; 
 
86 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 if, therefore, this is the case, we ought to be 
 , capable of tracing out this as a law in the 
 value of loanable capital in the Money 
 Market, as represented by the current rates 
 of interest, or, rather, rates of discount 
 charged by the Bank of England. This we 
 find to be the case, as, however much the 
 rate may vary from day to day, we have an 
 almost invariable average rate within each 
 decade as specified, as the following table will 
 show. We convert the fluctuating daily rate 
 into an average rate for each year, as averages 
 are alone of value in scientific enquiries ; and_ 
 it is owing to so very little being done in the 
 collection and verification of averages, that, 
 as a science, our subject is in so backward a 
 state: 
 
 For the purpose we have in view, we 
 borrow from the Bank of tlnglaijd upon 
 Government Securities the sum of ten thou- 
 sand pounds at the daily current Bank of 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIBNCB. 
 
 87 
 
 England minimum rate, as published by tbe 
 Directors, and in an account current which 
 will be found herewith we arrive at the 
 following results as the annual average 
 amount of interest due as under : — 
 
 INTEREST TABLE NO. 1. 
 
 AMOUNT or INTEREST ON ^10,0C0 STEELING FOK 20 TEAES, 1848 
 
 TO 1867 INCLUSIVE, AT THE CURRENT BANK OP ENSLAND 
 
 BATES. 
 
 Average 
 Amt. of In- 
 terest due 
 
 for year... 1848 
 
 Ditto 1849 
 
 Ditto 1850 
 
 Ditto 1851 
 
 Ditto 1852 
 
 Ditto 1853 
 
 Ditto' 1854 
 
 Ditto 1855 
 
 Ditto 1856 
 
 Ditto 1857 
 
 Firflt Decade 4014 15 
 
 Amount. 
 
 £ 
 
 8. 
 
 d. 
 
 372 
 
 1 
 
 0* 
 
 294 13 
 
 If 
 
 250 
 
 13 
 
 8* 
 
 301) 
 
 
 
 
 
 215 
 
 6 10i| 
 
 369 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 512 17 
 
 6i 
 
 474 
 
 4 lOi 
 
 558 15 
 
 H 
 
 666 14 
 
 H 
 
 1014 
 
 15 
 
 .61 
 
 Average 
 
 
 
 Amt. of lu- 
 
 
 Amount. 
 
 tereet due 
 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 for year... 
 
 1858 
 
 322 17 6 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1859 
 
 281 1 lOi 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1860 
 
 446 11 5^ 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1861 
 
 522 6 Sf 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1862 
 
 258 9 9i 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1863 
 
 440 10 9i 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1864 
 
 735 12 Oi 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1865 
 
 477 7 9 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1866 
 
 696 8 8i 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1867 
 
 229 9 
 
 Second Decade... 
 
 4410 7 14 
 
 First ditto .... 
 
 
 4014 15 6i 
 
 
 £ 
 
 
 
 8425 2 8 
 
 If we take the preceding Interest Table No. 
 1, and reduce these annual average amounts 
 of interest to their per centum amounts (per 
 £100 sterling) per annum, we arrive at the 
 following results : — 
 
88 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 INTEREST TABLE NO. 2. 
 
 ANNUAL AVBRAaB AMonNT OP INTEREST PER CENTUM (PBB- 
 £100), BEING THE AVERAGES OF BANK OF ENGLAND RATES." 
 
 Average 
 Amount ' 
 per ^100 
 
 due 
 for 
 
 1848 
 1849 
 1850 
 1851 
 1852 
 1853 
 1854 
 1855 
 1856 
 1867 
 
 for this 
 cent.... 
 
 Amount. 
 
 £ s. d.. 
 3 14 5 
 2 18 11 
 
 2 10 
 
 3 
 
 2 3 
 
 3 14 
 5 2 7 
 
 4 14 6 
 
 5 11 9 
 
 6 13 4 
 
 Average 
 Amount due 
 per cent, for 
 
 1858 
 1859 
 I860 
 1861 
 1862 
 1863 
 1864 
 1865 
 1866 
 1867 
 
 for 
 rs... 
 
 Amount. 
 £ s. d. 
 3 4 7 
 
 Ditto .... 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto ., 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 2 16 2 
 
 Ditto ... 
 Ditto .... 
 Ditto ... 
 Ditto .... 
 Ditto .... 
 Ditto .... 
 
 
 4. 9 2 
 5 4 4 
 2 11 7 
 4 8 2 
 7 7 2 
 4 15 4 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Average rate 
 above lOjea 
 
 6 19 3 
 
 Ditto .... 
 
 •ate 
 per 
 
 2 5 9 
 
 
 40 2 
 
 6 
 
 44 1 6 
 
 Average i 
 Decade 
 
 .£4 
 
 3 
 
 .£4 8 1 
 
 If we take the firs.t dpcade from 1848 to 
 1867, we have a general average for these ten 
 years of about 4 per cent, for Bank of Eng- 
 land rate of interest, and for the following or 
 second decade, 1858 to 1867, we have like-- 
 wise an average rate of interest of £4 8s. per 
 cent., being an exceedingly small increase 
 considering the great derangement of our 
 foreign exchanges during the Civil "War in 
 the United States, which is very ably ex- 
 pounded by the Eight Honble. Gr. J. GroscheUi, 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 89 
 
 M.P., in a "work on the Foreign Bxcbanges — 
 a work well worthy an attentive perusal. 
 
 If we make a careful comparison between 
 these two decades, we see very striking 
 features of a similar kind. It must be borne 
 in mind that these tables are framed upon 
 averages, made up from the daily current 
 rates ; the calculations are all made up on a 
 sum of ten thousand pounds, so as to bring 
 out an accurate result. 
 
 In the first decade we have six years below 
 the general average rate and four years above 
 it, viz., a minimum average of £2 3s. per 
 cent, for the year 1852, and a maximum 
 average of £6 13s. 4d. for the year 1867 ; 
 while the current rate ranged from 2 per 
 cent, in 1852 up to 10 per cent, in 1857. 
 
 We have here an interval of five years 
 between the lowest and highest rate. 
 
 Again, if we take the second decade from 
 
 H 
 
90 ' AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 the year 1858 to 1867 we have five years 
 below tlie general average rate and five years 
 above it ; the minimum average is £2 lis. 7d. 
 per cent, in 1862, while the maximum average 
 is £6 19s. 2d. per cent, in 1866 ; while the 
 current rate ranged from the lowest, viz.j 2 
 per cent, in 1862 up to 10 per cent, in 1866. 
 We have here an interval of four years ; no 
 doubt the rate was a fraction higher in 1864, 
 but this was owing to the very high price of 
 cotton, acting, as we have said, upon the 
 foreign exchange ; but this high rate did not 
 produce a crisis in the Money Market, because 
 the cycle of seasons had not run their course 
 by that year, nor had it done so- indeed in 
 1866 ; but qwing to the unfortunate failure 
 of Overend, Grurney & Co., and many other 
 limited liability companies, the crisis and 
 panic wrought itself out in 1866, although^ 
 not due by our calculations until 1867. 
 
BCONOMIO AND FINANOIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 91 
 
 Table of Minirmim and Maximum Years 
 of Average Rates of Bank of England In- 
 terest, as under : — 
 
 FIRST DECADE. 
 1848 TO 1857. — 10 tears inclusive. 
 
 Minimum Years, 
 £ s. d. 
 
 1848 3 14 5 percent. 
 
 1849 2 18 11 
 
 1850 2 10 „ 
 
 1851 3 „ 
 
 1852 2 3 „ 
 
 5) 14 6 4 
 
 Min. Avr.... £2 17 3 for 5 years 
 
 Mazimam Years. 
 £ a. d. 
 
 1853 3 14 per Cent. 
 
 1854 5 2 7 „ 
 
 1855 4 14 6 „ 
 
 1856 5 11 9 „ 
 
 1857 6 13 4 ,, 
 
 5) 25 16 2 
 
 Max. Avr. ... 5 3 3 for 6 years. 
 Min. Avr. ... 2 17 3 for 5 years. 
 
 8 6 
 
 Gen. Avr. ... 4 3 for 10 years 
 
 SECOND DECADE. 
 1858 TO 1866.— 10 ^ears inclusive. 
 
 1858 
 1859 
 1860 
 1862 
 1867 
 
 Minimam Years, as nnder. 
 £ B. d. 
 .347 per Cent. 
 . 2 16 2 „ 
 .492 „ , 
 . .2 11 7 ,. 
 .269 ,, 
 
 5) 15 7 3 
 
 Min. Avr. ... 3 1 4 for 5 years 
 
 Maximum Years, as under. 
 
 1861 
 1863 
 1864 
 1865 
 1866 
 
 £ 
 
 5 4 
 4- 8 
 7 7 
 4 15 
 
 6 19 
 
 4 per Cent. 
 
 a » 
 
 2 „ 
 
 4 „ 
 
 2 „ 
 
 5) 28 14 2 
 
 Max. Avr. ... S 14 10 for 5 years. 
 Min. do 3 14 for 5 years. 
 
 2) 8 16 2 
 Gen. Avr. ... 4 8 1 for lOyeari. 
 
92 AN EXPOSITION OE 
 
 A comparison of ttese two decades brings 
 into prominent notice the working power of 
 that higher law of an almost invariable 
 average, occnrring within each decade as 
 specified, and thus, as it were, overruling the ' 
 cu:rrenCy arrangement or Bank Act of 1844 
 by an Imperial control, the full sway of which 
 is alone to be found in a cyclical recurrence 
 of seasons, whose periodic times upon further- 
 investigation, we apprehend, will yield a 
 satisfactory solution to many hitherto unex- 
 plained problems in financial and economic 
 science. 
 
ECONOMIC AJSD FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 93 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE LAW OP MEAN AVERAGES IN THE CORN 
 MAEEJIT. 
 
 There are none of the great staple articles in 
 commerce whicli exercise a more decided and 
 prominent effect on the well-being of ' any- 
 European country than corn ; when the sup- 
 ply is abundant and prices are moderate, its 
 effect in stimulating industry and production 
 are two well known to be here repeated ; when 
 it and of course other kinds of grain are in 
 scarce and short supply and prices high, its 
 power to arrest industry and check develop- 
 ments of well-being are equally well known 
 and understood ; moreover, one of its best 
 known effects is the manner it acts upon the 
 
94 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 Money Market. It is in this aspect that 
 it has to us a most important bearing ; it has 
 generally been a moot point with many econo- 
 mists whether the price of money {i.e. the value 
 of loanable capital) controls the price of 
 wheat, or that the price of wheat controls the 
 price of money {i.e. rate of Bank discount). 
 
 Practical men — bankers, merchants, and 
 others — wellknowtheclose relations that exist 
 between the two ; at times, when things are 
 quiescent, they are overlooked, at others, and 
 when financial troubles loom in the distance, 
 they become vital and all absorbing questions, 
 not only in the attention they receive, but the 
 anxiety with which they are studied becomes 
 quite intense and overpowering. The relation- 
 ship' between the two has, speaking in com- 
 mercial parlance, been called action and re- 
 action; these phrases, good in themselves, 
 explain little in a satisfactory way to those 
 
BOONOMiO AND. FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 95 
 
 who wish to make a closer study of their 
 interconnection and to arrive at more definite 
 views thereon. 
 
 The mere current rate of grain, fluctuating 
 from day to day, is usually taken in times of 
 extreme pressure upon the Money Market into 
 account, and attention is fixed on it and it alone ; 
 while it is the general average price which has 
 for us and our inquiry a full and true scien- 
 tific value. It is not a httle strange that in 
 this respect averages have been so greatly 
 overlooked by nearly all economists. 
 
 We have great public departments of State 
 to collect and publish statistics in great pro- 
 fusion, but look over them for averages and 
 you are bitterly disappointed. This is owing 
 to the heads of these departments being men 
 of little scientific acquirements or philosophic 
 culture, or the results would be very different 
 in many points of view. 
 
96 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 The under-noted Table gives the oJEcial 
 General Annual Average Price of Wheat for 
 Four Decades, that is forty years inclusive : 
 
 Ist Decade 
 
 
 2nd Decade. 
 
 3rd Decade. 
 
 
 Price 
 
 Price 
 
 
 Price, 
 
 Yeare 
 
 . prqr. 
 
 TearB. per qr. 
 
 Years. 
 
 perqr 
 
 
 H. d. 
 
 8. d. 
 
 
 8. d. 
 
 1828.. 
 
 60 5 
 
 1838...64 4 
 
 1848. 
 
 .50 6 
 
 1829.. 
 
 66 3 
 
 1839.. .70 6 
 
 1849. 
 
 .44 6 
 
 lt-30.. 
 
 64 3 
 
 1840...66 4 
 
 18,50. 
 
 .40 4 
 
 1831.. 
 
 66 4 
 
 1841. ..64 5 
 
 1851. 
 
 .38 7 
 
 1832.. 
 
 ^8 8 
 
 1842.. .57 6 
 
 1852. 
 
 .41 
 
 1833.. 
 
 63 1 
 
 1843.. .50 2 
 
 1863. 
 
 .53 
 
 1834.. 
 
 46 2 
 
 1M4...51 3 
 
 1854. 
 
 72 7 
 
 18;h5.. 
 
 39 4 
 
 1845.. ..50 9 
 
 1855. 
 
 .74 9 
 
 1836.. 
 
 48 9 
 
 I846...54 9 
 
 18.i6. 
 
 .69 2 
 
 18j7.. 
 
 55 10 
 
 1847... 69 5 
 
 1857. 
 
 ,66 5 
 
 
 559 1 
 
 599 4 
 
 540 10 
 
 
 or 
 
 or 
 Mean 
 
 Mean 
 
 or 
 
 Annnaj Average 
 
 
 of 10 
 
 of 10 
 
 
 for ist Decade. 
 
 55 10 
 
 years.., 59 11 
 
 jears. 
 
 .54 1 
 
 2nd ditto ... 
 
 59 11 
 
 
 
 
 3rd ditto ... 
 
 64 1 
 
 
 
 
 4th ditto ... 
 
 49 4 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 4) 219 2 
 
 
 4th Decade, 
 
 Tears, 
 
 1858. 
 1859. 
 1860. 
 1861. 
 1862. 
 1863. 
 1864. 
 1865. 
 1866. 
 1867. 
 
 Price 
 . per qr 
 B d. 
 ..44 4 
 ..43 9 
 ..53 1 
 .55 6 
 ..55 5 
 ..44 9 
 ..40 4 
 ..41 10 
 ..49 11 
 ..64, 5 
 
 493 4 
 or 
 Mean 
 of 10 
 years, ..49 4 
 
 Mean average 54 9i of 40 years as above. 
 
 These averages being the mean average for 
 each, decade, are not very mucli different from 
 
ECONOMIC ASJ) FINANCIAL SOIENGB. 97 
 
 ^ach otlier, when the whole range of 40 years- 
 is taken into account with the great and 
 extensive alteration introduced by legislative 
 -enactment into the laws affecting the impor- 
 tation of corn and grain into this country ; 
 great as these changes have been, we still 
 ■have here sufficient evidence to prove that a 
 law exists tending to produce a mean, or 
 almost invariable average in each decade; so 
 far proving that here we have an outcome of 
 that greater law of a cyclical recurrence of 
 seasons which controls the average price of 
 wheat and other grain, within every tenth 
 year, showing, too, a maximum and a mini- 
 mum return. Moreover, we have, within 
 each decade five years below the mean aver- 
 age and five years above it, not altogether in 
 consecutive years, as the following tables will 
 £how. 
 
98 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 Table of Five Years Above and Five Years- 
 Below tbe mean average in each decade, a^ 
 under : — 
 
 FIEST DECADE. 
 1828 TO 1837, 10 Teaes Inclusive. 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Mazimum. 
 Price per qr. 
 -s. d. 
 
 1828 60 5 
 
 1829. 66 3 
 
 1330 64 3 
 
 1831 66 4 
 
 1832... 58 8 
 
 5) 315 11 
 Mean... 63 2 of 5 years. 
 
 Hinimnm, 
 Tears. Price per qr. 
 
 1833 53 i 
 
 1834 46 2 
 
 1835 39 4 
 
 1136 48 9 
 
 1837 65 10 
 
 5)243 2 
 
 48 7')Mn. avr.. 
 63 2) 55s. lOd. 
 
 ' per qr. 
 
 2) 111 9 of 10 yrs. 
 
 SECOND DECADE. 
 1838 to 1847, 10 Teaes Inclusive. 
 
 1838 64 4 
 
 1839 7l» 6 
 
 1840 66 4 
 
 1841 64 5 
 
 1847 69 5 
 
 years. 
 
 1842 
 
 1843 
 
 1844 
 
 1845 
 
 1846 .. 
 
 57 5 
 
 50 2 
 
 51 3 
 
 BO 9 
 
 54 9 
 
 
 
 
 , 5)335 
 Mean... 67 of 5 
 
 5) 261 4 Mean of 5- 
 
 years. 
 
 52 10 
 67 
 
 2) 119 10 
 
 Mean... 59 11 of 10 years.. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 99 
 
 Years. 
 
 THIRD DECADE. 
 1848 TO 1857, 10 Teaes Inclusitb. 
 
 Maximum. 
 Price per qr. 
 B. d. 
 
 1853 63 
 
 1854 72 7 
 
 1855 74 9 
 
 1856 69 2 
 
 1857 56 5 
 
 5) 325 11 
 
 Mean... 65 3 of 5 years. 
 
 Minimum. 
 Tears. '^'^'"^1^" t 
 
 1848 
 
 1849 
 
 .... 50 6 
 .... 44, 6 
 
 1850 
 
 1851 .... 
 
 .... 40 4 
 .... 38 7 
 
 1852 
 
 .... 41 
 
 5) 214 U 
 
 42 11 of 5 years. 
 65 3 
 
 2)108 2 
 
 Mean... 54 1 Average of 
 10 years. 
 
 FOURTH DECADE. 
 1858 TO 1867, 10 'Seabs Inclusive. 
 
 1860 63 1 
 
 1861 65 6 
 
 1862 55 5 
 
 1866 49 11 
 
 1867 64 5 
 
 5) 278 4 
 
 Mean... 65 8 of 5 years. 
 
 1P58 44 4 
 
 1869 43 9 
 
 1863 44 9 
 
 1864 40 4 
 
 1865 41 10 
 
 5)215 
 
 43 of 5 years. 
 55 8 
 
 2)98 8 
 
 Mean average... 49 4 of 10year» 
 
100 an; exposition of 
 
 SUMMAEY OF THE FOUR DECADBS. 
 
 Five Yeaes 
 
 Five 
 
 Years 
 
 Mean 
 
 Maximum. 
 
 Minimum. 
 
 DaFEEENCEB, 
 
 B. d. 
 
 
 8 a. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Ist Decade... 63 2 
 
 lstIllBcade...48 7 
 
 14 7 
 
 Sod „ 67 
 
 2Dd 
 
 „ 52 10 
 
 14 2 
 
 3rd „ 65 3 
 
 3rd 
 
 42 11 
 
 22 4 
 
 4th „ 55 8 
 
 4th 
 
 „ 43 
 
 12 8 
 
 4)251 1 
 
 4)187 4 
 
 4)63 9 
 
 62 9 
 
 
 46 10 
 
 15 10 
 
 62 9 
 
 109 7 
 Mean Average 64 9^ of 4 Decades. 
 
 EXTBEME Maximum. Extreme Minimum. ■^d^peekence^" 
 
 Tififlftflfl T)pnBiHp 
 
 1st ' Year 1831...66 4 Ist ' Year 1835...39 4 2? 
 
 2nd „ 1839...70 6 2nd „ 1843...50 2 20 4 
 
 3rd > „ 1855.. .74 9 3rd „ 1851...38 7 36 2 
 
 4th „ 1867...64 5 4th ,, 1864...40 4 24 1 
 
 4) 276 4) 168 5 4)107 7 
 
 Jjxtreme Maximum 
 
 Mean Average... 69 Extreme Minimum... 42 1 26 10 
 
 69 
 
 111 1 
 Mean Average... . 55' 6 of 4 decades. 
 
 We therefore see ttat, amid all the fluctua- 
 tions, tlie price constantly tends towards a 
 mean or general average rate — ^this, too, 
 witHin each decade we have specified, as the 
 
ECONOMIC AND ■FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 101 
 
 preceding tables will sho-w — and in this re- 
 spect is acted on by a cyclical law of seasons, 
 recurring, as far as we can as yet investigate, 
 within every tenth year or thereby, which is 
 the same law which tends to determine the 
 mean average value of loanable capital in all 
 Money Markets, as we have seen by the pre- 
 ceding section on this subject. 
 
 When prices of corn are at moderate figures 
 in this country, there is little or no induce- 
 ^ment for the merchants to import the article, 
 nor are they much guided in their views and 
 operations by any consideration as to the 
 mean general average, which for our purpose 
 is all in all in a scientific point of view. No, 
 the daily market rate fluctuating from day to 
 day is to them the guide of their operations, 
 along with the prospects of out-turn of the 
 home crops. 
 
 By the abolition of the Corn Laws, and the 
 
102 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 rescinding of all duties thereon, it was fully 
 expected that by a steady and regular im- 
 portation of, corn, we would be able to get 
 rid of, or greatly mitigalte, tlie tendency to a 
 catastrophe and crisis in the Mdney Market. 
 But these hopes and expectations, held 
 out by the members of the late Corn Law 
 League, have by no means been realised. The 
 great power an unexpected and sudden de- 
 mand for an extensive importation of corn, 
 consequent upon the failure of our home crops, 
 generally exerts upon the Money Market is 
 almost too well known to be here again re- 
 peated, disturbing as they do the international 
 foreign exchanges, causing a large exporta- 
 tion of gold coin and bullion to be transmitted 
 abroad in payment, which almost immediately 
 raises the Bank of England minimum rate of 
 discount under the operation of the Bank 
 Act of 1844. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 103 
 
 It is owing to the restrictive character of 
 this measure that an importation of corn, 
 under the circumstances as detailed above, 
 h.as such an effect of producing a catastrophe 
 or crisis, bringing the whole fabric of credit 
 into a collapse and universal disaster, as it 
 almost generally occurs that this extensive 
 importation of corn is required towards the 
 ■end of those years we have specified in our 
 table of decades, or otherwise in those years 
 when great and extensive schemes of over- 
 trading and speculation are afloat, when every 
 shilling of the spare capital of the country 
 for these engagements is fully mortgaged and 
 forestalled. It is under these unforeseen 
 circumstances that the foreign exchanges turn 
 against us ; gold coin and bullion flow out ; 
 the Bank, as bound by law, finding its re- 
 serve of spare notes rapidly diminishing^ 
 raises its rate of discount, until it tends up- 
 
104 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 wards to the highest point — viz., 10 per cent^ 
 
 It is well remarked by Mr. Goschen, in 
 his work on the " Foreign Exchanges," as 
 follows : — 
 
 " It may be said that an advance in the 
 rate of interest has been spoken of as if 
 money could artificially be inade dear. But 
 the fact is that where a considerable efflus of 
 specie is taking place, the rate of interest 
 will rise in the natural Course of things. 
 
 "At the same time the actual export of 
 bullion is a loss to the money of the country, 
 and the import of gold from abroad replaces 
 that which has been lost. In both cases that 
 which will efiectually bring /the gold from 
 abroad, in the most general and practical 
 sense, will be the opportunities offered by a 
 high rate of interest to effect profitable and 
 attractive investments. 
 
 " For this reason foreign capitalists rightly 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIBI^OE. 105 
 
 attacli great importance to tlie variations of 
 the Bank of England minimum, regarding 
 them correctly rather as indications of the 
 changing value of money than as the results 
 of an attempt to control its price." 
 
 " Being acquainted with the influences 
 which are proved to determine the fluctua- 
 tions, in question in the ' Foreign Exchanges,' 
 we are enabled by a reverse process to argue 
 back from them to the existence of their de- 
 termining cause, and to consider them in 
 their peculiarly valuable character as an un- 
 erring mercantile and monetary barometer. 
 But they are more than this. Not only do 
 they offer to the trading community the 
 means of ascertaining the state of the com- 
 mercial atmosphere, indicating when^ the air 
 is charged with a storm, or when fair weather 
 is likely to set in ; they so clearly point to the 
 
 I 
 
106 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 disturbing currents ttat their study and due 
 compreliension suggests the course by which 
 danger can be avoided, and moderate the 
 precipitate action of panic." 
 
 It is therefore generally in this state of 
 things that the mercantile community are 
 caught at, or towards the end of our, specified 
 decades ; when their heaviest liabilities are 
 outstanding they endeavour to cover them at 
 all hazards by forced sales of funded pro- 
 perty, both home and foreign, shares, securi- 
 ties, goods, or other property, or borrowing 
 capital at enhanced rates of interest, and soon ' 
 find almost all things unsaleable and incon- 
 vertible into money. Collapse and revulsion 
 to all kinds iand forms of credit sets in ; con- 
 fidence and faith in liien and things is entirely 
 shaken — 
 
 " Hope for a seaeon bids the world farewell j " 
 
ECONOMIC AND TINANCIAJi SCIENCE. 107 
 
 and all things mundane suffer alike in one 
 widespread scene of ruin and disaster, 
 
 " Ciroling round the globe from pole to pole." 
 
 Slowly but surely time works out her cure 
 for this melancholy state of things. Com- 
 merce, although ofttimes sick, never dies. 
 Time, Nature's best restorer, brings round a 
 more healthy state of affairs. The vis medi- 
 catrix naturce, the curative powers ever in- 
 herent in Nature, come into full play, not 
 only in a physical sense, but truly in a moral 
 one. Thrift, industry, economy, self-denial, 
 take the place of previous waste, idleness, 
 extravagance, and commercial pride. 
 
 It is the same process that so soon restores 
 a country devastated by ruthless war. It 
 may be apparently ruined and destroyed by 
 a fearfully destructive and widespread war, 
 and seem hopelessly sunk, never to rise again ; 
 
108 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 but man's powers of destruction are, even in 
 war's most cruel and fiendisla form, ever 
 limited ones. Nature's recuperative powers- 
 put forth their never-failing energy, and soon 
 a restoration ensues, as we have seen in the 
 civil war in the United States of America,, 
 and will, doubtless, see in Trance, as she 
 emerges from her unparalleled disasters in her 
 late Grermanic war. 
 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill has sopie very good 
 and excellent remarks on the great rapidity, 
 of countries recovering from a state of devas- 
 tation, and the disappearance in a short time 
 of all traces of mischief done by earthquakes, 
 floods, hurricanes, and the ravages of war, 
 and alludes to " the vis medicatrix natures"' 
 a valuable term used in physiology, expressive 
 of the curative powers inherent in human 
 nature, but was first applied to economic- 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 109 
 
 science by the celebrated Dr. Thomas Chal- 
 mers, as remarked by Mr. Mill, who very 
 " justly speaks of him, " as one who has always 
 the ilierit of studying phenomena at first hand, 
 and expressing them in language of his 
 •own, which often uncovers aspects of truth 
 that the received phraseologies only tend to 
 hide." 
 
 The restorative process of which we speak 
 is generally a slow and tedious one, appa- 
 rently testing and trying to man's patience 
 and powers of human endurance, and be- 
 comes a moral probation of the most valuable 
 description, teaching to many moral lessons 
 which out last a lifetime. 
 
 The restoration is aided by a moderate rate 
 of bank interest, and generally the prices of 
 com are much below their average, as the 
 following tables will show : — 
 
110 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 Table of Annual Average of Bank of 
 England Discount, and same for price of 
 wheat as under : — . 
 
 
 Wheat 
 
 
 
 Price 
 
 per qr. 
 
 year 
 
 
 8. d. 
 
 1848 
 
 
 50 6 
 
 1849 
 
 
 44 6 
 
 1850 
 
 
 40 4 
 
 1851 
 
 
 38 7 
 
 1852 
 
 
 41 
 
 1853 
 
 ji 
 
 53 
 
 1854 
 
 ,j 
 
 72 7 
 
 1855 
 
 
 74 9 
 
 1856 
 
 
 69 2 
 
 1857 
 
 It 
 
 56 5 
 
 FIRST DECADE. 
 
 Bate of Discount per cent. 
 
 
 10) 540 10 
 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 54 1 
 
 
 
 
 Price 
 
 per qr. 
 
 Tear 
 
 
 B. d. 
 
 1858 
 
 
 44 4 
 
 1869 
 
 ,j 
 
 43 9 
 
 1860 
 
 jj 
 
 63 1 
 
 1861 
 
 
 55 6 
 
 1862 
 
 
 55 '5 
 
 1863 
 
 
 44 9 
 
 1864 
 
 
 40 4 
 
 186- 
 
 
 41 10 
 
 1866 
 
 
 49 11 
 
 1867 
 
 10) 
 
 64 5 
 
 , 
 
 493 4 
 
 
 
 49 4 
 
 £ B. 
 
 d. 
 
 3 14 
 
 5 
 
 2 18 U 
 
 2 10 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 * 
 
 2 3 
 
 
 
 3 14 
 
 
 
 5 2 
 
 7 
 
 4 14 
 
 6 
 
 5 11 
 
 9 
 
 6 13 
 
 4 
 
 10)40 2 
 
 6 
 
 4 3 
 
 Rate of Discount per cent. 
 
 £ a. 
 
 a. 
 
 3 4 
 
 7 
 
 2 16 
 
 2 
 
 4 9 
 
 2 
 
 5 4 
 
 4 
 
 2 11 
 
 7 
 
 4 8 
 
 2 
 
 7 7 
 
 2 
 
 4 15 
 
 4 
 
 6 19 
 
 3 
 
 2 5 
 
 9 
 
 10)44 1 6 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. Ill 
 
 These tables and tlie preceding ones, con- 
 vey an amount of information "which, has not 
 hitherto been collected and arranged arid 
 made use of (so far as known) by previous 
 writers on this subject. They are of far 
 more value than appears at first sight, as they 
 are alone capable of yielding a solution of the 
 question, or allow us to lay hold of a great 
 general law at work in the nature of 
 things. 
 
 Dr. Adam Smith, justly called the founder 
 of our science, was too acute and profound a 
 thinker not to have got a sort of prophetic 
 insight into the play and operation of this 
 law, for in a remarkable passage, which is the 
 key-stone to much of his and subsequent 
 writing, he remarks as folows : — 
 
 " The quantity of every commodity brought 
 to market naturally suits itself to the effec- 
 tual demand. 
 
112 , AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 " The natural price (as distinguislied from 
 the market price), therefore, is, as it were, 
 the ceptral price, to which. th.e prices of all 
 commodities are continually gravitating. 
 Different accidents may sometimes keep them 
 suspended a good deal above it, and some- 
 imes force ttem down even somewhat below 
 t. But whatever may be the obstacleswhich 
 jinder ttem settling in this centre of repose 
 md continuance, they are constantly tending 
 towards it." 
 
 Dr. J. R. McOulloch,- commeuting on the 
 ibove, remarks as follows : — 
 
 " The principle laid down as to the natural 
 Drice of commodities, and that the market 
 srice is perpetually gravitating towards it, 
 md cannot, generally speaking, ever diverge 
 !onsiderab]y from the natural price or cost of 
 jroduction, is equally true and important." _ 
 
 In " The Philosophy of Trade," a work by 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCSENCE. 113 
 
 Mr. Patrick J. Stirling, he makes on this 
 topic the following remarks : — 
 
 " Corn, as we have already said, has a 
 market as well as a natural price. So like- 
 wise in the law which regulates the natural 
 and ordinary rate of interest. But the^ 
 market and actual rate is sometimes higher, 
 sometimes lower, than the natural or ordinary 
 rate." 
 
 The last author we shall quote from is Mr. 
 James Stuart Mill on this subject. In his 
 " Principles of Political Economy " he 
 says : — 
 
 " Adam Smith and Eicardo have called 
 that value of a thing which is proportional to 
 its cost of production its natural value (or 
 its natural price). They meant by this 
 the point about which the value oscillates 
 and to which it always tends to re- 
 "turn. The centre value towards which, as 
 Adam Smith expresses it, the market value of 
 
114 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 a thing is constantly gravitating ; and any 
 deviation from whicli is bnt a temporary 
 irregularity, which the moment it exists sets 
 forces in motion tending to correct. On an 
 average of years sufficient to enable the oscil- 
 lations on one side of the centre line to be 
 compensated by those on the other, thd market 
 value agrees with the natural price, but it very 
 seldom coincides Qxactly with it at any par- 
 ticular time. . . 
 
 "While thus ruling the oscillations of value,, 
 they themselves obey a superior force, 
 which makes value gravitate towards cost of 
 production, and which would settle it and 
 keep it there, if fresh disturbing influences 
 were not continually arising to make it 
 deviate therefrom." 
 
 So far as we can raake out (or known to 
 us) the above doctrine was not altogether 
 original. Traces of it will be found in the' 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 115 
 
 previous schools both of the Italian and 
 • Frenclt economists. 
 
 To Adam Smith, however, belongs the rare 
 merit of enouncing it in clear and unam- 
 biguous language, such only as a man of his 
 profound and far-seeing genius eould do ; 
 giving it, at the same time, a prominent place 
 in his work, which it well deserved from its 
 great importance. But, while he did this, 
 and did it well, as an abstract proposition, he 
 stopped short of any formal or practical, or 
 concrete exposition of the same. He brought 
 it not to the test of any actual experience.. 
 What he has thus left undone has been left 
 likewise by his eminent disciples, expositors 
 and commentators. One and all of them, 
 almost without exception, repeat much in the 
 same strain his powerful remarks thereon ; 
 but seeming content with this, or little more, 
 no attempt is made to bring it to the test of 
 
116 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 a practical scientific exposition, ■wMch we 
 have long known it to be capable of, and been 
 .much surprised at the subject in this aspect 
 of it being so long overlooked and undeveloped 
 by those far more competent to deal with it 
 than ourselves. 
 
 For it holds, we think, the same place and 
 rank in economic and financial science as the ' 
 Newtonian law of gravitation does in physical 
 astronomy. It is the great central truth 
 which binds the whole as a science together 
 into a consistent and harmonious system. 
 
 It may yet be the means of establishing it 
 in certain departments; as one of the exact 
 sciences, thus raising, it from the vague and 
 abstract into one more practical and certain 
 than has hitherto been done or attempted. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 117' 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BULLION AND GOLD COIN AVERAGES IN THE' 
 BANK OP ENGLAND. 
 
 It was our full intention to liave compiled 
 tables of the annual mean averages of the gold 
 coin and bullion held in store by the Bank of 
 England for the two decades (1848 to 1867)-; 
 corresponding with those which we have done 
 for bank rate of discount {i.e. interest), but 
 we now prefer to wait until this is done by 
 the bank of&cials themselves ; for to under- 
 take this- ourselves the cost in time and 
 trouble would by no means be small; still as- 
 it would be a very interesting labour we 
 would not unwillingly undertake it, but the 
 difficulty of getting the returns in a workable 
 
118 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 shape obliges us to postpone this task. More- 
 over, we prefer rather to infer and assume 
 that it will present the following features 
 when it is compiled, viz., that each of the 
 two decades in question will respectively show 
 an almost identical average when made up — 
 that five years or thereby in each decade 
 will be above the mean average and five years 
 below it, that is, five years will be a maximum 
 and five years a minimum return — being 
 based on the same' general law as we have 
 shown to be at work in over-ruling and 
 determining the rate of bank discount; for as 
 the rate of interest {i.e. discount) is based 
 upon and alters with the fluctuations re- 
 corded in the stock of gold coin and bullion, 
 so, likewise the stock of gold coin and bullion 
 will conform to the law of averages which has 
 been exhibited in our preceding] tables of 
 bank rates of interest. 
 
ECONOMIC AND riNANCIA.L SCIENCE. 119 
 
 It may here be noted that the efflux and in- 
 'B.ux of gold coin and bullion is more strictly 
 acted on whether the foreign exchanges are 
 favourabl-e or unfavourable to this country, 
 and fluctuate accordingly ; this, no doubt, is 
 the case, and if the variations in our foreign 
 exchanges were duly recorded, and a mean 
 annual average struck, the financial informa- 
 tion they would give would be most in- 
 valuable. 
 
 The weekly returns of gold, as published by 
 the Bank, only require to be added up for the 
 whole year and divided by the number of the 
 weeks given; this would give the average 
 held during the year, and the ten years as 
 specified would give the average for each 
 decade, and we infer that the two decades 
 will show a very close approximation to one 
 another ; when this is done they will doubt- 
 less yield another proof in support of our ex- 
 
120 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 position. Moreover, we tave been surprised 
 that such a return lias not been long ere this- 
 published, either by the Bank oJ05cials or 
 others, adding another example how much in, 
 this mercantile country the subject of 
 averages have been so long neglected and 
 overlooked. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 121 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A CYCLE OP SEASONS AS INDICATED 
 BY THE RAINFALL. 
 
 Few or none can plead ignorance as to the 
 oft-repeated phrase of a " cycle of seasons," as 
 heard in common parlance, but few if any 
 have sufficiently pondered on its deep signi- 
 ficance, or of its latent meaning, of the great 
 importance to arrive at what the celebrated 
 Master of Trinity College, the late WiUiam 
 Whewell would call " true and appropriate 
 ideas, so as to come to clear, concise 
 notions thereon." This then is what we shall 
 . endeavour to do in this chapter. 
 
 Although a cycle of seasons is so frequently 
 assumed either in writing or conversation, 
 
 K 
 
122 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 it is not a little strange that witli so general 
 a presumption in its favour, no effort worthy ■ 
 of name has been made — so far as known 
 to us — to give it a true and satisfactory- 
 basis. 
 
 The subject in this aspect is by no means 
 free of difficulties, the data to establish it 
 upon such a- foundation is not easy to be 
 laid hold of. 
 
 It is vague in general, so scattered here 
 and there, that to collect, to systematize, and 
 to generalize from it the necessary law of a 
 periodicity in the outcome of a cycle of 
 seasons, is indeed a problem of very diflBcult 
 solution. 
 
 We have made an attempt in our section 
 on the mean annual prices of wheat for four 
 decades {i.e. forty years) to show that we 
 have a periodical recurrence of a similarity of 
 season within every decade {i.e. ten years) ; 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SGIBNCB. 123 
 
 to some, tlie proof here offered may seem 
 suflB.cieiit, wHle to many the conclusion 
 drawn may not rise to a full demonstration 
 of the law we seek bo confirm and establish 
 beyond a cavil or a doubt thereon. 
 
 Were we merely to depend on the exposi- 
 tion we have given in a previous chapter we 
 -would candidly admit we were ourselves dis- 
 -satisfied with the proof thereanent offered. 
 
 Under these circumstances then, we are 
 glad to be able to offer a much stronger body 
 ■of evidence in support of the proposition, 
 which to our subject is of a vital and all 
 embracing importance; this then we pro- 
 ceed to do by showing that a- recurring cycle 
 •of seasons is indicated by the rainfall, which, 
 when fully investigated, shows that we have 
 in each decade {i.e. every 10 years) an almost 
 invariable average of rainfall in each locality 
 or district. 
 
124 "^ AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 We have as it were a decennial law of 
 rainfall, that is the rainfall for any given 
 place repeats itself every decade, or every ten 
 years, in almost invariable averages, having 
 a higher or lower range of average, whether 
 on the East or West sides of Britain, begin- 
 ning and ending within certain periods, thus- 
 clearly defining as with a sunbeam, the law 
 of periodicity in the rainfall. 
 
 To make much progress in this branch of 
 our enquiry, the collected returns of the 
 rainfall must extend over a long series of, 
 years unbroken ; few are the rainfall stations 
 where such returns can be procured, and of 
 such accuracy as can be depended on. 
 
 Fortunately the returns of rainfall at the 
 Royal Observatory, Greenwich, extend 
 over upwards of fifty years unbroken, and 
 they are invaluable to illustrate the ground-.^ 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 125 
 
 work of tliat general law whicli underlies, if 
 it does not control a great deal of the pheno- 
 mena otherwise inexplicable which we are 
 giving an exposition of. 
 
 The returns of the rainfall at the G-reenwich 
 B-oyal Observatory, kindly communicated by 
 the Astronomer Royal, we give in a table 
 as under, arranged in specific decades : — 
 
 TABLE OF KAINPALL, AS UNDEE.— No. 1. 
 
 1st Decade. 
 
 2nd Decade. 
 
 3rd I 
 
 )eca< 
 
 le. 
 
 4th] 
 
 Decade. 
 
 
 . 
 
 • 
 
 , 
 
 
 GQ 
 
 . 
 
 n 
 
 m 
 
 , 
 
 m m 
 
 1 
 
 lU 
 
 •3 
 
 1 
 
 tS 
 
 OD 
 
 1 
 
 S 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 Inche 
 Tenth 
 
 1828 
 
 31 
 
 6 
 
 1838 
 
 23 
 
 •8 
 
 1848 
 
 30 
 
 •2 
 
 1858 
 
 17 '8 
 
 1829 
 
 25 
 
 2 
 
 1839 
 
 29 
 
 6 
 
 1849 
 
 23 
 
 9 
 
 1859 
 
 25 9 
 
 1830 
 
 27 
 
 2 
 
 1841) 
 
 18 
 
 3 
 
 1850 
 
 19 
 
 7 
 
 1860 
 
 32 
 
 1831 
 
 3U 
 
 8 
 
 1841 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 1851 
 
 21 
 
 6 
 
 1861 
 
 20 3 
 
 1832 
 
 19 
 
 3 
 
 1842 
 
 22 
 
 6 
 
 1852 
 
 34 
 
 2 
 
 186 i 
 
 26 5 
 
 1833 
 
 23 
 
 
 
 1^43 
 
 24 
 
 6 
 
 1853 
 
 29 
 
 
 
 1863 
 
 19 8 
 
 1834 
 
 19 
 
 6 
 
 1844 
 
 24 
 
 9 
 
 1854, 
 
 18 
 
 7 
 
 1864 
 
 16 8 
 
 1835 
 
 24 
 
 9 
 
 1845 
 
 22 
 
 4. 
 
 1855 
 
 21 
 
 1 
 
 1865 
 
 28 6 
 
 lb36 
 
 37 
 
 1 
 
 1846 
 
 25 
 
 3 
 
 1856 
 
 22 
 
 2 
 
 1866 
 
 30 1 
 
 1837 
 
 21 
 249 
 
 
 
 1847 
 
 17 
 242 
 
 8 
 '6 
 
 1857 
 
 21 
 242 
 
 4 
 '0 
 
 1867 
 
 28 5 
 
 
 246 '8 
 
 llean Animal 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Aveiage ... 
 
 24 
 
 •9 
 
 
 24 
 
 •2 
 
 
 24 
 
 '2 
 
 
 24 '6 
 
126 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 Table oi, Five Years Above and Five Years 
 Below the Mean Average in each Decade, as , 
 under : — 
 
 FIRST DECADE. 
 1828 TO 1837.— 10 tears inclusive. 
 
 MiDimam. 
 
 Maximam. 
 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 I 
 
 1828 
 
 31 
 
 '5 
 
 1829 
 
 25 
 
 •2 
 
 1830 
 
 27 
 
 •2 
 
 1831 
 
 30 
 
 •s 
 
 1836 
 
 27 
 
 '1 
 
 6) 141 '8 
 Mean Maximum 28 '3 of 6 Yrs. 
 
 ed 
 
 ■S 
 
 "a 
 
 t^ 
 
 1— ( 
 
 e5 
 
 1832 
 
 19 
 
 '3 
 
 1833 
 
 23 
 
 '0 
 
 1834 
 
 19 
 
 '6 
 
 1835 
 
 24 
 
 ■9 
 
 1837 
 
 21 
 
 '0 
 
 5) 107 '8 
 
 Mean Minimum 21 '5 forS Yrs, 
 28 '3 
 
 2) 49 '8 
 
 Mean Averag e... 24 '9 for 10 Ta 
 SECOND DECADE. 
 
 1838 TO 1847.— TEN TEAES INCLUSIVE. 
 Mazimum, Minimum. 
 
 1839 29 
 1841 33 
 
 1843 24 
 
 1844 24 
 1846 25 
 
 1 
 '6 
 '3 
 '6 
 '9 
 •3 
 
 5) 137 
 
 ~7 
 
 Mean Maximum 
 of 6 Tears 27 
 
 '6 
 
 1838 23 
 1840 18 
 1842 22 
 1845 22 
 1847 17 
 
 '8 
 '3 
 ■6 
 '5 
 '8 
 
 6) 105 
 
 '0 
 
 Mean Minimum 21 
 27 
 
 '0 for S Yrs 
 '5 
 
 2) 48, 
 
 Mean Aveiage 24 '2 for 10 Yg. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SOIENOE. 
 
 127 
 
 RAINFALL TABLE, Continued— No. 2 
 
 THIRD DECADE. 
 
 1848 TO 1857.— 10 teaes inclusive. 
 
 Minimam . 
 
 Mazimam. 
 
 . 
 
 
 m 
 
 S 
 
 0) 
 
 .a 
 
 
 ■a 
 
 I 
 
 1848 
 
 30 
 
 •2 
 
 1849 
 
 23 
 
 '9 
 
 1852 
 
 34 
 
 ■2 
 
 1853 
 
 29 
 
 '0 
 
 1856 
 
 22 
 
 •2 
 
 5) 139 
 
 '5 
 
 Mean Maximam 
 
 
 
 for 5 Years ., 
 
 27 
 
 '11 
 
 1850 19 7 
 
 1851 21 '6 
 
 1854 18 ,7 
 
 1855 21 '1 
 1857 21 '4 
 
 5) 102 '5 
 
 Mean Minimam 20 'SforSYra. 
 
 27 '11 
 
 2) 48 
 
 1 Mean Average... 24 '2 for 10 Tg. 
 FOURTH DECADE. 
 
 1858 TO 1867.— TEN YEAKS INCLUSIVE. 
 Maximum. Minimum. 
 
 
 a 
 
 1 
 
 1860 
 
 32 
 
 '0 
 
 1862 
 
 26 
 
 •5 
 
 1865 
 
 28 
 
 '6 
 
 186fi 
 
 30 
 
 '1 
 
 1867 
 
 28 
 
 '5 
 
 5) 145 
 
 7 
 
 Mean Maximum 
 
 
 
 for 5 Tears ... 
 
 29 
 
 '1 
 
 
 a 
 
 M 
 
 g 
 
 1858 
 18.59 
 1861 
 1663 
 1864 
 
 17 
 25 
 20 
 19 
 16 
 
 '8 
 '9 
 •3 
 '8 
 '8 
 
 5) 100 
 
 '6 
 
 Mean Maximum 20 
 29 
 
 '1 for 5 Trs 
 '1 
 
 8) 
 
 49 
 
 '2 
 
 Mean Average 24 '6 for 10 Yg. 
 
128 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 RAINFALL TABLE, Continued.— No. 3. 
 
 Extreme Maximum. 
 
 Inches. 
 1st Decade. Year... 1828 31 '5 
 
 2nd „ 1841 33 '3 
 
 3rd „ 1852 34 '2 
 
 4th 1860 32 '0 
 
 4) 131 '0 
 
 Extreme Maximum., 
 
 Exti:eme Minimum. 
 
 Dif 
 
 _ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ferpnce. 
 
 
 
 
 In. 
 
 In. 
 
 
 Ist D. 
 
 Tear 1832 
 
 19 '3 
 
 12 
 
 '2 
 
 2nd „ 
 
 II 
 
 1847 
 
 17 -8 
 
 15 
 
 ■5 
 
 3rd „ 
 
 
 1854 
 
 18 7 
 
 15 
 
 '5 
 
 4th „ 
 
 »f 
 
 1S64 
 
 16 '8 
 
 16 
 
 '2 
 
 4) 72 '6 (4) 58 '4 
 Extreme Minimum 18 '1 14 '6 
 
 32 7 
 18 '1 
 
 2) 50 '8 
 
 25 '4 
 
 When we carefully, examine the preceding 
 table of the rainfall, No. 1, we find very im- 
 portant and interesting results,-^ showing the 
 law to he an almost invariable mean average 
 within each decade, as specified. .Again,' 
 when we turn to table No. 2, we find we hav^^ 
 in each decade five years as much above the 
 mean annual average, as we have five years 
 below the same, in almost a like proportion ; 
 while, if we take the extreme maximum and 
 extreme minimum, years in each decade, 
 we have what we m,ay term a minor law of 
 almost invariable difference. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SOIENOB. 129 
 
 The following will show the difference, 
 computed in tons, of rain per acre; each inch 
 of rainfall near to, or about the sea level is 
 nearly equal to 102 tons of water in weight 
 per English acre, so that the 
 
 Average maximum would be equal to 3,264 tons per acre ; 
 Average mimmum „ ), 1,836 „ 
 
 Average difference „ „ 1,428 „ 
 
 These figures wiU better convey to our 
 re'aders a clearer idea of the great and im- 
 portant difference between a year's rainfall 
 above the mean annual average of about 
 2,448 tons, per English acre, and below it. 
 Of course it is the rainfall that causes us to 
 have a wet or dry season, which has such a 
 ^eat effect on the out-turn of our home 
 crops of grain, which in a great measure 
 determines the current price of wheat, and 
 ultimately the general mean average price for 
 the year. 
 
130 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 In this manner the rainfall controls the 
 price of wheat and other grain to a very 
 great extent. Moreover, we have seen that 
 the same great law of periodicity applies to 
 both, in the mean general average result that 
 each respectively works out within specific 
 decades. 
 
 Of course in the full establishment of this 
 law of rainfall there emerges the almost 
 similar correlative law of barometrical pres- 
 sure and its enumeration of atmospheric 
 disturbance and change, with its periodic 
 recurrence of winds, storms, and hurricanes,, 
 the scientific results of which, when collected 
 and verified, will, doubtless, show us the 
 existence of suchsalaw, as there is inductively 
 analogical proof that the one proves the ex- 
 istence of the other as a natural consequent. 
 
 It is to these natural laws to which Job 
 alludes in a remarkable passage : " God looketk 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 131 
 
 to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the 
 whole heaven ; to make the weight for the 
 winds ; andHe weigheth the waters by measure. 
 When He made a decree for the rain, and a 
 way for the lightning of the thunder, then 
 did He see it, and declare it : He prepared it, 
 yea, and searched it out." 
 
132 AN EXPOSITlbN OF 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 VITAL STATISTICS, INDICATING A CYCLE OP 
 • _ SEASONS. 
 
 The state of the general liealtli, normal and 
 abnormal, as is generally summarised , under 
 vital statistics, is, as is w^U known, greatly 
 acted on for better or for worse by the rain- 
 fall, or by wet or dry seasons. It is only 
 within the last fifteen years, however, since 
 "the new Act to collect and verify such statis- 
 tics has come into full force, that it is 
 beginning to yield invaluable results in 'tracing 
 -the causes^ of disease, thus guiding and 
 directing the efforts to counteract the same. ' 
 But the period has been as yet of too short 
 & duration to give us a comparison of one 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 133- 
 
 decade witli anotlier in, this respect; were we 
 in possession of this, we should find the cycle 
 of seasons give out, doubtless, almost similar 
 results or ratios of nearly identical enumera- 
 tions. 
 
 It would thus in time yield us a vast in- 
 sight into one of the most interesting 
 questions in practical philosophy, viz., the 
 difference between contingent and necessary 
 truth, what more contingent to each indi- 
 vidual than disease and death, and at what 
 age death may take place in each separate 
 case. No human provision can so forecast 
 these events as to arrive at any certainty in 
 regard to them in this respect ; but take these 
 events' in the mags as recorded in well 
 ascertained statistics, group them under their, 
 proper headings, and their total particulars, 
 when summed up, give out almost invariable, 
 similar results, specific ratios of certain 
 
134 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 definite proportions from year to year; they 
 have, when taken as a whole, passed entirely 
 from the contingent, the accidental, the un- 
 certain and vague, into the region of the 
 positive, the fixed, the almost immutable, 
 and much of the present apparent discrepancy 
 that so mysteriously puzzles our Eegistrars 
 General in reporting on our annual vital 
 statistics would, we are confident, nearly dis- 
 appear if each decade could be brought into 
 a scientific comparison with the preceding 
 one. 
 
 So well aware are these accomplished com- 
 pilers of statistics of the state of the season 
 on the general and special conditions of 
 health that now they invariably accompany 
 their reports with a statement of the rainfall, 
 and the indication of the temperature, as 
 registered by the thermometer, and the 
 atmospheric weight or pressure registered by 
 
ECONOMIC AND MNANOIAL SCIENCE. 135 
 
 the barometer, showing in their view and 
 opinion how close and paramount is the con- 
 nection between these conditions as acting 
 on the districts over which their reports ex- 
 tend. 
 
 But how interesting, important, nay, in- 
 valuable, would it be if two or three recurring 
 cycles of seasons could be compared with one 
 another ; what great insight would be gained 
 into what at present we can only perceive is 
 the strong, nay, almost ' invariable, tendency 
 of these and many kindred subjects to rise 
 from the contingent into necessary and 
 invariable ratio of mean averages or re- 
 sults. 
 
 Thus it has been, and ever may be, the 
 individual is environed with the contingent, 
 the uncertain, the mutable ; they are in all 
 cases the surroundings of our personal lot in 
 life, be our educational adjustments what 
 
136 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 they, may be, either natural or acquired, or 
 both combined. Still no forecast can validly 
 be made of our future, our destiny, our fate 
 in life. 
 
 Dr. James McCosh remarks, " This un- 
 certainty, meeting us everywhere, appears 
 more especially in those departments of God's 
 works with which man is intimately connected. 
 As we come closer to man, the elements of 
 ungertainty become more numerous. How 
 uncertain are all the events on which man's 
 bodily and external welfare depends ! ' He i& 
 dependent on the weather, and it is so vari- 
 able that its changes cannot be anticipated. 
 And yet is it scarcely more capricious than 
 the whole course of events, prosperous or 
 adverse, arising from his fellow-man, or from 
 Nature, on which his whole earthly destiny 
 depends." 
 
 Bishop Butler was wont to say, " That pro- 
 bability was the guide of life." But rising 
 
EOONOMIO AND FINANCIAL SOIEXOE. 137 
 
 in our view from the individual to the 
 mass, from the atom of humanity to its 
 collected and generalised aggregate, we 
 leave the contingent behind us, and ascend 
 into a region of necessary truth, nay, almost 
 mathematical truth and certainty in the 
 recorded vital statistics of a country or a 
 nation. 
 
 Bearing the tenor, then, of these remarks 
 closely in mind, they have an important bear- 
 ing on our exposition ,of the averageological 
 law of interest, of grain, and of the rainfall, 
 which we have endeavoured to give. ' It is 
 only by treating them in the form and under 
 the conditions we have there exhibited, that 
 out of them we can ever arrive at such re- 
 sults as can be truly called scientific ; this 
 tel'ra we use in the sense of being the expres- 
 sion of a generalised experience of the past, 
 .capable of being used as the exposition 
 
138 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 -^ 
 
 of a law on the nature of things, con- 
 cisely summed up in a short, terse, but 
 expressive aphorism, easily retained by the 
 mind as a key to knowledge, capable, too, of 
 being exhibited in a scheme or table of con- 
 tents and numbers, upon which the mathema- 
 tician may deduce such formula as raises the 
 problem from contingent into necessary truth. 
 But science does more than this^if she cor- 
 rectly generalises the past, she can_ truly 
 predict the future, for like conditions give like 
 results. 
 
 It is thus, and thus only, science is true to 
 her avocation. Her temple is indeed the 
 Temple of Truth ; upon her shrine her 
 votaries must lay no oblation that is not con- 
 secrated to the true ; otherwise it will yield 
 no blessing to the mass of humankind. It 
 will cease to be to them " a guide, philoso- 
 pher and friend ; " for as a great thinker has 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 139 
 
 finely said, " Truth, like a torcli, the more its 
 shook it shines." 
 
 It is surprising how deeply a belief in a 
 cjcle of seasons has run through almost all 
 ages and nations, and yet no modern deter- 
 mined effort has been made 'to get to the 
 bottom of this belief, or the foundation on 
 which it rests. The Chinese cycle extended 
 over sixty years, &c. 
 
 The Registrar- General for Scotland, in his 
 Annual Report for 1861, published in 1865, 
 makes the following weighty remarks : — 
 
 " It has been found when investigating the 
 phenomena of the natural world, that most 
 things have a tendency to return in cycles of 
 longer or shorter periods. The above facts 
 would seem to show that the same is probably 
 true of disease. When the phenomena of 
 disease shall be more carefully studied, it will' 
 probably be also at the, same time found that 
 
140 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 diseases spread like -wiaves, gradually creep- 
 ing over tte country, exactly as storms do. 
 This fact has been distinctly traced with re» 
 gard to epidemic cHolera, and is probably 
 true, more or less, of all epidemic diseases.. 
 For instance, the epidemic class of diseases- 
 attained their maximum mortality in England , 
 in 1858, while in Scotland the maximum was 
 not attaiiied till the following year, as if the 
 epidemic wave took nearly a year to travel 
 northwards from tlie south of England to the 
 north of Scotland. 
 
 "Medical observation lias to a large extent 
 confirmed the truth of the results which hiave 
 been deduced from the facts above referred 
 to ; for it has been often observed that the 
 diseases termed epidemic, of whose propaga- 
 tion by contagion not a trace appears for a 
 considerable period, seem in other years to 
 change their nature, so that they not only 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. ' 141 
 
 spread by reason of their unkDOwn. epidemic 
 agency, whatever that may be, but also to a 
 ■considerable extent by contagion." 
 
 So far as we have as yet been able to col- 
 lect observations on this medical question of 
 disease, it seems to appear that within every 
 decade we have epidemics ranging over a 
 three years course of duration or thereby, 
 such as are classed under the category of 
 zymotic disease. They usually present the 
 general feature that on the first year of their 
 outbreak they are very virulent, often very 
 malignant, on the second year much less 
 so, and on the third year they decline 
 and gradually disappear and die ont ; this was 
 the case with small pox in 1851 and 2, 1861 
 and 2, and now, 1870 and 71 ; and so with 
 other classes of zymotic disease having a like 
 course of t)iree years or so duration, such as 
 xneasles, scarlatina, typhus fever, influenza, &c.. 
 
142 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 having, however, different years of com- 
 mencement, crisis, and decline, showing thus 
 clearly a periodicity of recurrence within 
 every ten years or thereby. It is in this way, 
 we apprehend, that we may Ije able to get a 
 clue to the somewhat obscure phenomena of 
 epidemic disease, and when it alters from this 
 and developes into a contagious character, or 
 becomes localised as of an epidemic type. To 
 do this effectually and lay the foundation of 
 epidemiology as a science, would require a 
 medical philosopher with the mental power 
 and genius of a Dr. CuUen ; however, a com- 
 mencement has been made by Professor 
 Tyndall's experiments and researches into the 
 germ theory of , organisms in the air which 
 bids fair' to lead to impt)rtant results in this 
 respect. 
 
 It is somewhat in like manner that we have' 
 in each decade three years of excessively cold 
 
ECONOMIC AND PINANCIAD SOtENCE. 143 
 
 winters, often accompanied witli excessive 
 fogs, three years of very hot summers, three 
 years of excessive storms andhurricanes during 
 the equinoctial changes of the seasons ; while 
 in the East Indies a cyclone bursts forth 
 withiQ every ten or twelve years' interval. 
 
 " The periodical recurrence of famines may 
 ' be regarded as established, so far as the 
 Madras Presidency is concerned, beyond all 
 reasonable doubt. The statistical depart- 
 ment which Lord Mayo called into existence 
 some years ago has been laudably active in 
 the matter; and the officer who presides 
 over it, Mr. W. Hunter, has lost no time in 
 collecting and tabulating the available figures 
 which throw light on the laws that appear 
 to govern the rainfall, and consequently the 
 harvests, in that part of the world. The 
 Government Astronomer at Madras is a 
 strong adherent of the theory, propounded 
 
144 AN EXPOSITION OJ" 
 
 I 
 
 at the beginning . of the century by Sir 
 W. Herschel, that some correspondence 
 exists between the phases of solar macula- 
 tion and terrestrial phenomena such as rain- 
 fall, heat, prevalence of cyclones, terrestrial 
 magnetism, -unusual displays of the aurora 
 borealis, &c. The same view is taken by the 
 (jrovernment Astronomer at Mauritius ; and, 
 the fact of cyclones being especially prevalent 
 at the maximum period of sun spots, and 
 especially rare at the minimum period, is now, 
 we understand, fully recognized loj under- 
 writers in undertaking risks in Indian. Seas." 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 145 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "CONTINGENT VERSUS NECESSARY TRUTH REVIEWED 
 AND CONTRASTED. 
 
 As it has an important bearing on the scope 
 and tendency of our exposition to convey to 
 the general reader not fully conversant with 
 the distinction we have noted above, a few 
 remarks further thereon may render our mean- 
 ing all the more clear and unambiguous. 
 
 Speaking generally, the leading abstract 
 propositions of what are called Political 
 Economy may be said to belong to the domain 
 ■of contingent truth ; that is, they may, or 
 may not, be a correct exposition of the truth 
 they profess to give ; in point of fact, the 
 latest modern writerof note confesses as much. 
 
146 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 Somewliere in his writings, John Stuart 
 Mill calls them " truths in the rough," and 
 a more apt, correct, or expressive phrase h& 
 could not have adopted ; for however true 
 they may be, and rendered so after an endless 
 amount of discussion, they are still left, in a 
 measure, open to dispute; they lack the great 
 elements of a clear, consistent certainty ; they 
 afford no valid denonstration of the truth 
 they profess to contain ; hence, as a science 
 its slow, uncertain progress — the great dis- 
 , satisfaction felt that it has not kept pace with 
 the advancement of kindred sciences. In this, 
 respect it presents an exceedingly poor ap- 
 pearance with modern science generally. This 
 has not arisen from it having been neglected ; 
 quite otherwise, for great attention has been, 
 devoted to its cultivation since the days of 
 Adam Smith until the. present ; even now 
 there are greater signs of its more extensive 
 culture by the rising generation. 
 
ECONOMIO AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 147 
 
 Neglected or overlooked by some of the 
 Universities, they are now making arrange- 
 ments to establish chairs and professorships 
 to provide regular lectures and prelections to 
 their students on this subject, along with 
 mercantile law, customs, and usages. 
 
 Prom these and other signs we consider it 
 is now full time an effort was made to raise 
 it from the position of the contingent into 
 the domain of necessary truth. It is for this 
 purpose we have endeavoured to frame the 
 exposition we now give : here, however, let 
 us not be misunderstood. It is only to 
 certain vital points we have made the appli- 
 cation — a vast field of the subject, from want 
 of properly compiled data or statistics, can- 
 not be thus treated. Upon it we have no wish 
 at all at present to enter, having quite suffi- 
 cient on hand to deal with. "We have thus 
 ' confined ourselves to the averageological law 
 
148 AN EXPOSITION 01 
 
 of bank discount or rates on loanable 
 capital, of grain, and of the rainfall — aU 
 subjects, wbose data, if taken from day to 
 -day, are environed with the contingent, the 
 accidental, the uncertain ; but if throated 
 under the law of averages, they all alike 
 rise from this class into the category or 
 ■domain of necessary truth, capable of ex- 
 hibiting their past results in a table of 
 -contents, which show a great similarity in 
 their main features, as if the. same general 
 law was at work to produce these nearly 
 identical results. 
 
 " As if through all thiugs one great purpose runs, 
 Widening with the circle of the sons.'' 
 
 As we have attached much importance to 
 averages in our discussion as to the accuracy' 
 they afford us in our investigation, a few 
 words here upon averages will not be out of 
 place. They are of the utmost scientific 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 149 
 
 value, wlien properly given and framed ; 
 they embrace the numerical expression of 
 both the positive and negative poles ; they 
 give the mean of the fluctuation occurring 
 between a minimum on the one side, and a 
 maximum on the other. They are more than 
 this, for they quantify on the one hand and 
 they qualify on the other. It is well known 
 how rapid has been the progress of chemical 
 science under the twofold conditions of a 
 quantifying analysis and, at the same time, a 
 qualifying one of the various products sub- 
 mitted to its investigations and researches. 
 
 Nor has the practical common sense of 
 mankind been slow to take advantage of 
 working out results in action by means of 
 averages. As, for instance, what more diffi- 
 cult or dangerous undertaking could be gone 
 :into than that of sea insurance by those who, 
 as underwriters, take upon themselves such 
 
150 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 hazardous, such dangerous risks as insuring 
 the safety of ships or their cargoes, afloat or 
 at sea. This, too, is quite safely and profit- 
 ably done, by doing it upon a uniform 
 average of a fixed sum upon each individual 
 risk — ^neither less or more. 
 
 "We remember well some years ago, when 
 some neW| Marine Insurance Companies 
 commenced they, in their gross ignorance of 
 the law of averages, took indiscriminately 
 risks ranging from £300 up to £4,000, with- 
 out ever attempting to equalise them by any 
 re-insurances with other offices. These false, 
 and foolish modes of carrying on their busi- 
 ness operations, in a very few years involved 
 the concerns in ruin and disaster, winding up 
 with, great loss to the shareholders and 
 directors. 
 
 It is upon the principle of averages that 
 the great and important transactions of life 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 151 
 
 insurance are carried on so safely, so bene- 
 ficially to all concerned. "What more uncer- 
 tain or mutable than any one sole individual 
 life? yet when aggregated together, or grouped 
 under the general number within specific 
 ages, tables are framed of the relative value 
 of life at all stages, which form a sound, solid, 
 scientific basis, upon which life insurance 
 rears its beneficent altar for the best interests 
 of a suffering humanity. 
 
 To the agriculturist who cultivates the 
 soil, what can be more uncertain than the 
 seasons in their changeableness, upon which 
 he depends for the outcome of his crop^ for 
 a return for his invested capital, time and toil. 
 If he has been wise, and been able to get the 
 usual long lea'se of his farm, generally granted 
 in Scotland, of nineteen years, variable 
 as the Scotch climate is, he can calculate 
 with much safety upon a profitable return, 
 
152 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 both -upon his crops as well as his improve- 
 ments made in the soil and its cultivation. 
 It is owing greatly to these long leases that 
 Scottish agriculture is in so advanced a state- 
 It is difficult to saj- how so beneficial a custom 
 arose of granting a lease of land to the 
 Scottish farmer of nineteen years ; but this 
 is the exact term of a lunar cycle,* that is, the 
 moon during one-half of this time is in the- 
 ascending node, and for the ' Other is in the 
 descending node. Here w;e. have nearly a 
 course of two decades, over which the law of 
 averages has sufficient time to work out its- 
 beneficial results for both landowner and 
 tenant. 
 
 Strange to say, d,uring all the vast body of 
 information and disc^assion on the Irish Land 
 
 * The celebrated Meteorologist Luke, Howard, attempted to 
 fonnd a Cycle of Seasons upon the " Lunar Cycle " of nineteen 
 years, as stated ahove, but this was fonnd to be a mistake, and 
 2iot a snccess. 
 
EOONOMIO AMD FINANCIAL SCIBNCB. 153 
 
 Bill in 1870, hardly anyone threw any new 
 light on this question from the above point 
 of view. The system of tenant at will, or 
 yearly tenant in Ireland, has always been a 
 gross injustice, and led the way to tenant 
 right in the soil for unexhausted improve- 
 ments ; and will do so likewise in England at 
 no distant day, owing to the short term for 
 which' land is let for in that country. It does 
 not permit the tenant to receive the due ad- 
 vantages he is entitled to receive from the 
 working out of the law of averages within 
 each recurring decade. 
 
 One of the most successful of all the finan- 
 cial companies lately incorporated under the 
 Limited Liability Companies Act, has been 
 one where the funds have been invested in 
 the purchase of foreign government bonds of 
 good dividend paying stocks, founded upon 
 an average of the different stocks they pur- 
 
 M 
 
154 AN exposition' OF 
 
 chase. Tlie company having adopted this' 
 sound, safe principle, is paying a good divi- 
 dend, and in time coming is likely to con- 
 tinue to do so. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 155 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 METBOEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 In the course of this exposition, we have had 
 to briefly consider this branch of our subject 
 therein. We have had to restrict our remarks 
 to the rainfall with its bearings on the other 
 parts of our enquiry ; this, too, without 
 branching into other aspects of a science 
 still in its infancy, seeking amid the most 
 mutable, unstable, or variable of all elements 
 for laws to forecast the weather. Much has 
 been done to popularise the forecasts of 
 winds and storms by the late lamented 
 Admiral Fitzroy. Much more requires to be 
 done before any amount of certainty can , be 
 attained therein. The rainfall is receiving 
 
166 Ajsr EXPOSITION or 
 
 considerable attention, but the data or returns 
 are seldom to be met with spread over 
 lengthened periods ; or if so, are either de- 
 fective or cannot be relied on for the pur- 
 pose we have in view. But the returns of 
 the rainfall kept at the Ebyal Observatory at 
 Greenwich are and have been admirably kept, 
 thus they are all that could be wanted or 
 desired. 
 
 By the kindness and the courtesy of the 
 Asti;onomer Royal, Sir George B. Airey, O.B., 
 we have from time to time been supplied 
 with these invaluable returns. Having in 
 1866 published a . short preliminary article 
 thereon. Professor Sir George Airey had the 
 goodness to favour us with the following 
 communication : — 
 
 " Your letter of the 12th instant, with 
 your article, were both received. It appears 
 to me that the recurrence of averages of 10 
 
ECONOMIO AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 157 
 
 years proves little. If you had used 12 or 15 
 years, I do not doubt that the averages would 
 have been found very accordant. What we 
 want is the succession of large and small 
 numbers in each period. If you can show 
 that, that the succession is the same in the 
 different periods, you will have made a good 
 point." 
 
 These remarks deserve attention from the 
 eminent position of the writer, who is one of 
 the very first astronomers in Europe, having 
 devoted a long and honourable life to the pro- 
 secution and advancement of this noble 
 science. He is somewhat correct in saying 
 that if we had used 12 or 15 years he does 
 not doubt the averages would have been 
 found very accordant, but this is to press 
 against us the very strength of that law-— 
 that the rainfall for longer or shorter periods 
 tends towards invariable averages. Moreover, 
 
158 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 it is only in averages of ten years that each 
 decennial average agrees "with the mean 
 average for 40 years ; adopt 12 or 15 years, 
 and their mean are either above or below the 
 general mean of 40 years. This we have 
 tried, to satisfy ourselves — according to the 
 second paragraph of his communication ; we 
 have since its receipt supplied a succession of 
 large and small numbers in each period — 
 that this is the same in each decade. We 
 have thus made good the point he requires, 
 but as yet this has not been submitted to 
 him. 
 
 "We are thus particular in noticing the 
 •strongest argument that can be brought 
 against the positions we have been at some 
 pains to establish. Our best thanks are due 
 to so eminent an authority as the Astronomer 
 Royal for so kindly pointing it out to us. We 
 were, however, aware of it as a weak point; 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 159 
 
 and were somewhat prepared for its being 
 pressed against us by scientific writers of the 
 present day. 
 
 It has been fally noticed that where ex- 
 tensive alterations in the surface of the land 
 had been going on for a series of years by 
 man's action or interference — such as renewed 
 cultivation, drainage, cutting down timber,, 
 &c. — the usual rainfall has a tendency greatly 
 to alterinits character. This is what we might 
 naturally expect. 
 
 We are well aware our efforts in this 
 division of our subject are merely tentative, 
 requiring more prolonged and deeper re- 
 searches than we have as yet given to 
 this part thereof ; still, we offer it as 
 a contribution towards a more exhaus- 
 tive investigation, which we hope to 
 overtake upon some subsequent opportunity. 
 We much regret that nothing has as yet been 
 
160 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 done towards a collection; of the returns of 
 the rainfall in other countries than our own. 
 Internationally, this enquiry is full of scien- 
 tific interest ; in time, too, it must yield the 
 most valuable results. 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 161. 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 METEOEOLOGT AND ITS - CONNECTION WITH OTHER 
 SCIENCES. 
 
 We have thus endeayoured in the preceding 
 sections of our subject to expound as it 
 were a new system upon which we think 
 financial and economic science can be more 
 readily, more practically, more clearly appre- 
 hended than in the Yarious works which 
 treat upon these subjects ; not, indeed, do 
 we suppose we can ever displace or super- 
 sede those various works, marked with so 
 much acuteness, information, and historical 
 research. But we consider every aid or 
 light is necessary, not only to advance these 
 sciences but to extend a knowledge of them 
 
162 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 among all engaged in the mercantile careers 
 of the present age. 
 
 The effort has been made to bring it more 
 into harmony with the inductive method of 
 treatment, thus seeking by this process to 
 arrive at some understood, some well-defined 
 law; or principle in the nature of things, 
 which, if accurately developed, should enable 
 us to sum up by generalisation our past ex- 
 perience ; tabulating the same in annual 
 mean numerical values, which the celebrated 
 Alexander Yon Humboldt thus considers as 
 the ultimateresults of all the higher scientific 
 investigations. 
 
 In the " Cosmos," he says — " In all that is 
 subject to motion and change in space, 
 the ultimate aim, the very expression of 
 physical laws depend upon mean numerical 
 values, which show us the constant, amid 
 change, and the stable amid apparent flue- 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SGIENOB. 163 
 
 tuations of phenomena. Thus the progress 
 of modern physical science is especially 
 characterised by the attainment and rectifica- 
 tion of the mean values of certain quantities. 
 And it may be truly said that the only re- 
 maining and widely- diffused hieroglyphic 
 characters still in our "writing — numbers — 
 appear to us again as powers of the Cosmos, 
 although in a wider sense than applied to 
 them by the Italian school." 
 
 So likewise we have the deliverance of an 
 equally great authority on this very subject. 
 " It is the character," says Herschel, " of all 
 the higher laws of nature, when scientifically 
 developed, to assume the form of a precise 
 quantitative statement and form." 
 
 So much, then, for the past. If we have 
 arrived at a true principle — ^the detection of 
 which we are fully warranted in applying, 
 without any charge of prophetic presumption 
 
164 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 upon, the same or similar basis, to hazard as 
 a scientific prediction the probable course of 
 the present decade from 1868 to 1877 inclu- 
 sive — which, so far as it has run, has in a 
 great measure presented almost similar 
 features to preceding, decades, showing a 
 system of parallelism running through 
 nearly all of them that we have endeavoured 
 to exhibit in a table previously given — 
 we are thus saved makmg a repetition of 
 our views in, this part of our subject ; our 
 readers are, therefore, fully taught what in 
 our opinion will be the likely course of 
 events. Nor, indeed, on general grounds,' is 
 the doctrine altogether new to those versed 
 in these subjects, and practically acquainted 
 therewith;' the more experienced, the more 
 shrewd, and far seeing have for themselves, 
 and themselves alone, in many cases gener- 
 alised this as a rule or law, upon which they: 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 165 
 
 act and carry ou their operations. Hence it 
 is we have in these walks of life men com- 
 mencing from small beginnings, in time 
 becoming merchant princes, capitalists, or 
 millionaires. To them, and others like them, 
 the knowledge of this law of parallelism 
 running through each decade is, when acted 
 upon, the real philosopher's stone at last 
 found — like Midas of the ancients, whose 
 touch turned everything to gold : while to 
 the many — also too many young and inex- 
 perienced — the want of this knowledge and 
 shrewdness is a mean, or one of the means, of 
 landing them in ruin and misfortune — or, as 
 the word truly means, fortune missed. So 
 well did the Eomans know this, that they 
 always represented Fortune as a blind god- 
 dess — a word that means ignorance as well. 
 
 IVhUe therefore in the above sense, the 
 doctrine is thus partially and practically 
 
166 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 known in a vague and misty way, strange to 
 say no persistent attempt has been madeto 
 find for it a true scientific basis, which, 
 although generally held to be in accord£|,nce 
 with the nature of things, has not met with 
 the attention or investigation its importance 
 demands. 
 
 This general presentiment of knowledge 
 thus vaguely held, is by no manner of means 
 to be confounded with such embodiment of 
 knowledge when clearly and systematically 
 laid down. 
 
 Hitherto we have treated our complex 
 subject in a plain and prosaic manner, so 
 as to make it easily to be understood by those 
 who may even for the first time give their 
 attention to such a theme ; for this purpose 
 we have kept clear of much of, that technical 
 language which lends so much force and 
 precision to scientific exposition. Moreover 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 167 
 
 we liave confined it exclusively to its bearings 
 on a mundane view of things as being so far 
 confined to our globe or earth; a"s a law, 
 having its existence or rule here and here 
 alone, rather than emanating from a higher 
 source, or traceable to a loftier source; here 
 we might be content to leave it to work out 
 its own redemption, to vindicate its own 
 reality, to stand the test of discussion and cri- 
 ticism if favoured with such ; or the best of all 
 tests — ^the test of time. But, alas, the enigma 
 of a decadal or decennial law, working out in 
 things mundane a parallelism of events or 
 effects, every recurring decade would still be" 
 an unsolved problem, although they could 
 not contradict or controvert it as a fact, or 
 withdraw in actuality themselves ^ or their 
 affairs from its iron grasp, and its inevitable 
 results. 
 
 To such a question, which very naturally 
 
168 AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 arises, we answer in the affirmative ; a very 
 distinct trace of it can be fpund, we think, 
 and have* long thought so, in the phenomena 
 of the stellar and solar systems ; the data or 
 observations for this are so incomplete as yet 
 that they do not allow of ns dealing with 
 them as certain and positive. 
 
 Among the ancients a strong presentiment 
 existed amounting to a belief in such a 
 docti^ine, and was known under the name of 
 Magnus Anni, or the great year or cycle. , It 
 was likewise held during the middle ages by 
 many of the schoolmen ; traces of it stUl exist 
 in India, China, Japan, and even Peru to this 
 
 day. 
 
 Never, perhaps, in the world's history, were 
 seen such brilliant discoveries made in these 
 lofty and ennobling sciences^the astronomical, 
 and mathematical — as during the seventeenth 
 century in the time of Kepler, Galileo, of 
 
EOONOMIO AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 169 
 
 Tyclio Brahe, Copernicus, Hiiggens, Newton, 
 and Leibnitz. These great and gifted men lived 
 in an age of intellectual giants ; each and all 
 of them strove with might and main to 
 represent by their respective labours the 
 whole of physical astronomy into the true 
 mechanism of the heavens. From their age 
 to the present, the efforts of succeeding 
 astronomers, while greatly extending the 
 boundaries of our knowledge, have likewise 
 confirmed all the leading doctrines taught by 
 these seers and sages of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 The greatest attention has been given, and 
 never more so than at present, to arrive at 
 correct ideas of the' physical constitution of 
 the sun, the centre of our solar system, and 
 above all as to the nature of the sun-spots, 
 which were first discovered in the seventeenth 
 ■Q^vturj.' 
 
170 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SUN SPOTS AND THEIE CONNECTION WITH 
 A CYCLE OP SEASONS. 
 
 The most important step in connection 
 with sun spots, was taken by Dr. "Wilson, the 
 first Professor of Astronomy in the Uni- 
 versity of Glasgow. By a series of attentive 
 observations made on a large sun spot which 
 appeared towards the close of the year 1769, 
 he was led to the important conclusion that 
 the spots are cavities on the sun's photosphere, 
 and that the penumbra, or perfectly luminous 
 border of the spot, represents in each case, 
 the shelving sides of the cavity. This theory 
 of the sun spots has since been generally 
 adopted by astronomers. According to Sir 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 171 
 
 William Herschel, the sun is an opaque 
 nucleus, encompassed by two nebulous 
 envelopes : the lower envelope being im- 
 perfectly luminous, but capable in a high 
 degree of reflecting the solar light ; the 
 upper envelope on the other hand, or photo- 
 sphere, being the source of the sun's light 
 and heat. Sir William Herschel shows how 
 the varying phenomena of the spots may be 
 accounted for by rents in these two envelopes. 
 The next advance in this question was 
 made by Schwabe, a Grerman astronomer, 
 who, by a persevering course of observations 
 of the sun spots, discovered that their 
 frequency on the solar disc recurs in 
 successive cycles of about ll'l years. Gen- 
 eral Sabine about the same time, found that 
 the diurnal variations of the magnetic needle 
 are characterised by a period of equal duration. 
 We thus find what we are in search of, 
 
172 AN EXPOSITION 01" 
 
 viz : — a periodical cycle ranging from 10 to 
 11 years, witli a recurrence of equal duration' 
 between. 
 
 It is now fully known tliat the sun spots 
 have a very marked influence on our seasons ; 
 they are known to oscillate between a min- 
 imum on tlie one hand and, a maximum on 
 the other. 
 
 According to recent and careful obser- 
 vations, the following years were those when 
 the sun spots were at a minimum, viz : — 
 
 Years, 1833 
 
 „ 1843 interval of 10 years'^ 
 
 ' f Average' 
 
 „ 1855 „ 12 „ > '^terval of- 
 
 " " V ^ years. 
 
 „ 1867 „ 12 „ ; 
 
 Thus showing a periodical recurrence of 
 the same, or nearly the same interval or 
 space of time, while on the other'hand the 
 maximum years were 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 173 
 
 Years 1836 
 „ 1847 interval of ll years ^ , 
 
 I Average 
 
 » 1859 „ 12 „ V inf;^t:' 
 
 „ 1869 „ 10 „ ; 
 
 Thus likewise showmg a periodical recur- 
 rence or cycle of an average of about 11 
 years or thereby. So far as observations go, 
 these sun spots appear to pass from a min- 
 imum to a maximum, within the space of 
 three years upon an average, while conversely 
 they pass from a maximum to a minimum 
 within or about a period of eight years, thus 
 showing out clearly a periodic cycle of about 
 11 years or thereby. 
 
 It was the opinion of the celebrated astro- 
 nomer. Sir William Herschel, that these sun- 
 spots had a decided effect on the changing 
 variety of our seasons, and he made the 
 greatest efforts to connect this with the price 
 of corn, but after great labour, he did not 
 
174 AN EXPOSITION OP 
 
 succeed for want of sufficient observations. 
 This part of the question has been 
 only recently revived by both Professors 
 Balfour and Jevons, in papers on this 
 very subject read before the British Associ- 
 ation of Science at Bristol. It will yet 
 require much more to be done and accom- 
 plished, before it can be established as a 
 great astronomical law. It is as yet beset 
 with great difficulties to the best scientific, 
 men, but who are now pressing forward in 
 this quest with an earnest energy and zeal. 
 It is, however, in this direction that we must 
 look for discoveries that may yield us 
 valuable results, not alone in the distant 
 regions of celestial space, but in affairs 
 mundane. 
 
 The action of the stars within our own 
 system, such as Jupiter acting on or causing, 
 the sun spots, is still a disputed question among 
 
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SCIENCE. 175 
 
 the astronomers, but these again, becoming 
 efficient or known causes, within the domain 
 of meteorology, which we have fully shown, 
 play a very important part in the econ- 
 omic condition of the great commonwealth 
 of nations. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
[^Circulated throughout the United Kingdom and Abroad^ 
 JANUARY, 1878. ' 
 
 REMINGTONS' 
 
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 STRAND, W.C. 
 
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 by her woman's wit, raised her lover to his proper height, etc. 
 It has already been said that Mr. Curwen's style is good ; indeed 
 it is exceptionally so. Since he published ' Sorrow and Soijg,' 
 he has improved to an extent which leaves little or nothing to 
 be desired. Much of his English would gladden the heart of 
 Dr. Freeman' himself. He is heartily \o be congratulated." — 
 Morning Post. 
 
 "In anew work, published by Remington & Co., entitled 
 'Within Bohemia: or. Love in London,' a series of seven 
 stories, there is a curious prevision of the Bravo case. The story 
 is called ' Aunt Margery's Sweetheart and Mine,' and is from 
 the pen of Henry Curwen. Mr. Curwen writes well ,and inci- 
 sively. He has originality, and that is more than the literature 
 of the Queen of England can spare to the Empress of Hindostan." 
 — World. 
 
 " He has tried, then, to look into the mystery, poetry, and 
 ■ glamour of life in London ; and being full of enthusiasm for his 
 subject, and possessed of much imaginitive power, he has pro- 
 duced a volume of exceptionally interesting stories. The seven, 
 stories i^ this book show Mr. Curwen to have lost none of his' 
 literary cunning; and as specimens of thoroughly interesting 
 and cultivated writing, these tales should have a wide circle of 
 readers." — Court Circular. 
 
 "Mr. Gurwen is right. Romance is not dead: it has only 
 changed, . . . , and after Bohemia in Paris. Bohemia in 
 London is the richest' mine in which the seekers for romance can 
 speculate. Mr. Curwen tells us that when he wrote these, tales 
 he was under the influence of Balzac and Foe. We like him 
 better when under the- influence of the great Frenchman than 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 6 ' • ZTovels and Tales — Contimeed. 
 
 under that of the wild American. 'Bought and Sold' is a 
 pretty tale, and prettily told. ' A Plain Woman ' is based on a 
 ■very ingenious' conceit. ' Hard Up ' reminds us of some of 
 Paul de Kock's scenes of student life; and 'The Mystery of 
 Malcolm Mackinnon ' must be written under the influence of 
 
 Poe, or, ; well, we will use the Author's own words. 
 
 ' How do you learn to be a poet ?' I asked. ' Why, on 
 pipes and beer and disappointment.' We do not think that Mr. 
 Curwen is fated to disappointment. "^ga^OT. 
 
 " This is a collection of seven stories, all of which present 
 features of great power. All his stories ■have a tinge of pathos, 
 some are pathos itself. - The Author has a great power of des- 
 cription — a few lines and a picture is before us, which we can see 
 bears the impress of nature hsx^Ai." ^-Tablet. 
 
 *^* A cheap Edition of the above Book in Railway boards, 
 is now ready, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 distress Haselwode ; a Tale of the Reformation 
 Oak. Two Vols., crown 8vo. By Frederick 
 H. Moore. Cloth, 15s. — At all Libraries. 
 
 "There is good material for a story, for the most ■ part well 
 used . . . . , It is an .episode, quite worth lighting up by. th(i 
 torch of fiction for those who will not find it in history for them- 
 selves. . . . It is a wholesome, pleasant story, and gives a Vivid 
 and fairly true picture of the time." — Guardian. 
 
 " He has chosen a good subject and hit upon a happy plot; 
 the period -rtrhich he portrays is that of Ket's rising in Norfolk 
 in 1549 — an event, so far as we know, which no English 
 novelist has yet treated. . . . There are some stirring scenes in the 
 book, and much vigorous writing." — World. 
 
 "A creditable piece of workmanship." — Spectator. 
 
 " This is a novel rather put, of the common run of the world 
 of fiction of the present day. The author has 'given us a capital 
 picture of life in the time of the Reformation. ... we think - 
 Mistress Haselwode, on the whole, a successftil novel. The 
 publishers deserve credit for the admirable manner in which the 
 book is produced. Paper, print, and style are all very good 
 indeed." — Public Opinion. ' 
 
 " There is a good deal of life-like portraiture in the tale." — 
 Nonconformist. 
 
 Isabel St. Clair ; a Romance of the 17th Centilry. 
 By Julia Addison, Author of " EiSe Vernon ; 
 or. Life and its Lessons," " The Molyneux 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W. C 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 Novels and Tales— Continuetf. 7 
 
 Family," "Sister Kate," "The Two Half-Crowns," 
 &c., &c., &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 5 s. — Af all 
 Libraries. 
 
 " It is quite pleasing to come across a story of this kind, otie 
 which adds the charm of reality to the delightful surprises of a ■ 
 fairy tale. Miss Addison writes in a lady-like manner, and we 
 cannot imagine a book better suited for reading." — Alhenceum. 
 
 "This is the sort of story to read round the winter fire j the 
 schoolboys will be quiet while they listen to it, the little ones 
 will hardly venture to breathe. No one will be satisfied until 
 the end is known." — Academy. 
 
 "A well- written and very stirring narrative of the strange ad- 
 ventures of a Royalist family who suddenly found themselves 
 homeless in the reign of Charles II. It is at once the romance 
 of history and the history of a romance, and will be devoured 
 with delight by all the young persons at home for the holidays." 
 — World. 
 
 "The heroine goes through a series of the most thrilling 
 adventures, and one near the close wiU be read with breathless 
 anxiety. It is a refreshing tale." — Standard. 
 
 At Dusk. A Series of Four Stories in One Vol. By 
 Adrien de Valvedre. Crown 8vo., cloth, 5 s. — 
 At all Libraries. 
 
 "The stories are written with freshness and good feeling, 
 and will be pleasant to read," — Daily News. 
 
 " ' At Dusk ' is the work of an able man, cultured, imagina- 
 tive, gifted vrith strong feeling and keen human sympathies. 
 His style is terse and lucid." — Morning Post. 
 
 Nameless ; A Novel. By F. A. Newbould, Author 
 of " The Christmas Compact ; or. Then and 
 Now." " Sheka," &c., &c. Crown 8vo., 'cloth, 
 los. 6d. — At all Libraries. 
 
 "Admirable in itself and is drawn from life." — Academy. 
 
 "A novel above the average. 'Nameless' will bear a most 
 favourable comparison with most of the fiction which is published 
 at the present day. The description of places and pepple are 
 life-like and good. As a whole the tale is a most readable one." 
 : — Whitehall Review. 
 
 Ida Dalton and Other Stories. By Parker W. 
 — "Freeland. A Gift Book lor Children Young 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 8 Novels and Tales — Continued. 
 
 and Old. Frontispiece and Vignette by Wallis 
 Mackay. .Large Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt edges. 
 SEtoNif Edition, now reacfy, 3s. 6d. 
 
 " The whole series are exceedingly entertaining and instructive. 
 We can heartily commend these fairy tales." — Court Jcmmal: 
 
 " This attractively got-up little book which is aptly designated 
 a gift-book,' is judiciously adapted for that purpose." — Brighton 
 Examiner, , ^ , 
 
 " Will be read with pleasure by young. folks kt all seasons of 
 the year. The first story appears to us not so Well suited for 
 juvenile readers as some of the others. ' The Magic Ring' has 
 much of the wonderful element in it. . . . The -remaining 
 stories are full of pretty fancies, and are likely to interest most 
 children." — Literary Viorld. '. 
 
 Gwynedd : A Novel. By Frances Geraldine 
 Southern. 2 Vols. Crown 8vo, cloth, 21s. — 
 At' all Libraries. 
 
 " The authoress deserves credit for her ingenuity. .... The 
 book is on the whole refreshing. Prettinesa of expres- 
 sion and a naive freshness 6f sentiment."— /"»// Mall Gazette. 
 
 " The plot is sufficiently full of incident. .... In delinea- 
 tion of chatacter we have remarkable clearness combined with 
 brevity. " — Queen. 
 
 ' " There is no lack of story in the book Miss 
 
 Southern has a fluent pen and a lively imagination. " — Examiner. 
 
 " 'Gwynedd' opens in a very pretty idyllic way . . .... 
 
 ' Gwynedd ' deserves to take its/place in a very good rank of the 
 novels of the present day." — Civil Service Gazette. 
 
 ' ' There is refinement and good English ; and the tone of the 
 book is as far from the coarseness of some popular novels 
 
 as it is from the sensationalism o^ others, Where 
 
 family union anii affection are touched there is unaffected but 
 true sentiment, and it is in this vein that we recommend this new 
 miner in literature to drive her future levels.". — Spectator. 
 
 "Of lack of sensational incidents we connot complain."— 
 Vanity Fair. ' 
 
 " There are about half-a-dozen couples all madeliappy in two 
 volumes, but, one feels a sense of disappointment that poor 
 Reggie, oiie of the most pleasant of Miss Southern's creations, 
 should have been the only one left out in the cold of celibacy." — 
 Academy. 
 
 S, ARUNDEL St., STRAND.W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 Hovels and lales— Continued. 9 
 
 Kismet : A Novel. By Mrs. Newton Sears, Au- 
 thor of " Blonde and Brunette," " My Wedding 
 Dress," &c. 2 vols.. Crown 8vo., cloth, 21s. — 
 At all Libraries. Second Edition ready. 
 
 " This enthralling novel The two volumes teem 
 
 with vivid pictures of life and manners imparted with a free and 
 sparkling pen, some of the scenes reaching a profound interest." 
 — Queen. 
 
 " This is a novel of considerable power. . . . Decidedly 
 above the average of circulating library novels. "—May fair. 
 
 "The interest is well sustained tliroughout, and the plot is 
 skilfully woven and elaborated."- — Civil Service Gazette. 
 
 " The plot is worked out very cleverly, each piece fitting with 
 the other at the end with perfect exactness. . . . The novel 
 shows freshness, power, and cleverness in construction."— 
 Nonconjonnist. 
 
 " It is fuU of startling and melo-dramatic incidents." — White- 
 hall Review. 
 
 ' ' This novel will not be fotmd wantiijg in interest, by sensation 
 lovers. It has certain merits of skilful plot and fluent style. " 
 — Christian World. 
 
 " The work is commendably free from objectionable incidents. " 
 — Daily News. 
 
 "This book will be welcomed as no mean contribution to the 
 mental and moral education, afforded by high-class fiction. 
 There is nothing forced or unnatural in any of the characters or 
 events depicted, and there are some exquisite touches of humour." 
 — Loath Times. 
 
 "'Kismet' will exactly meet the wants of that section of 
 readers which likes its literature rather gushing, and demands no 
 
 subtleties, either of matter or form There is plenty 
 
 of sensational matter in the story. " — Athenceum. 
 
 " Abounds in stirring incident, and is skilfully elaborated. . . . 
 There is a graceful elegance^-a simple but earnest eloquence, 
 about Mrs. Sears'- writing, which is peculiarly fascinating to the 
 reader, and promises much for the future career of this' gifted 
 authoress." — Ameiican Register. 
 
 Archie's Sweetheart and Other Stories. By 
 
 ELI.EN MuLLEY. I Vol. Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. 
 At all Libraries. 
 " The stories are all well told. The tale from which the book 
 takes its title is to our mind the best." — May/air. 
 
 " The prose tales are not without humour, and ' Check to a 
 Ghost ' is very fairly written." — Athenceum. 
 
 " The tales have one characteristic besides a pleasant freshness 
 —a masculine freedom of strength and style."— JVohcon/ormist. 
 
 S, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 10 Ifovels and Tsl^S—ConHnued. , 
 
 " Miss MuUey often inspires a Wain of thought by what in a 
 
 happy pleasant vein she infers, and her personal descriptions are 
 
 so vivid that the portraituire is complete."— IVesiern Dailj/ 
 . Mercury', 
 
 " It is rarely that a collection of short stories possesses so much 
 
 power to charm. .Few more charming tales than 'Three' were 
 
 ever written. Miss MuUey writes freshly and to the point." — 
 
 Court Circular. 
 
 " The collection dis'pla5rs considerable merit. "— Court Journal. 
 
 , " A pretty story. Very well written. The gossip of the village 
 
 is admirably rendered."— ^C^a'CTi. 
 
 Matriage and Married Life : A novel for girls 
 about to marry. By Isha. ?. Vols. Crown 
 8vo, cloth, I OS. — At all Libraries. 
 
 '' The book Is a kind of key to , the matrimonial wreck chai;t. 
 There are throughout it reflections of an original turn. . . . Has 
 the interest of a novel, yet imparts salutary lessons to those who, 
 while thinking often enough of matrimony, yet fhink insufficiently 
 about \X."— Public Opinion. 
 
 "This is a novel of a demure and didactic tone, from which 
 young ladies about to marry may derive as much instruction as 
 amusement." — Tablet. , ' - 
 
 " Contains in reality some power qf thought. -. . The love 
 stories of the .three girls, to whom we are introduced in the first 
 chapter, arp managed with some skill, and these love stories do 
 not, as is usual, end with the marriage-day. It is the author's 
 object to show, that the greater interests of a woman's life begin 
 ralher than end with this. The three have very different expe- , 
 riences — that of Eleanor, who marries' a man without loving him, 
 and is finally brought, after a short discipline of sorrow and ; 
 suiferijig to h^-ppier things, is the best of the three. But really^ 
 the cleverest thing in the book is Mrs. Martin's description of 
 how she escaped matrimony." — Spectator. 
 
 "Its aim being to set forth that marriage, instead of being the 
 end of a woman's life, after which she has nothing to do but rest 
 and be thankful, is in truth but the threshold to all its deeper 
 interests. The moral is not unskilfully illustrated in the stories 
 of matrimonial experiences of the three heroines of the tale, all 
 of whom suffer, more or less, either from their own fault or the 
 fault of their spouses, i . . . Written in English, easy and 
 forcible." — Graphic. 
 
 Was he really Mad? and other Sketches : being 
 Incidents in the Life of a Curate. By the, Rev. 
 , ]Vf ABERLEY Walker, late Curate of Park Green. 
 I vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. — At all Libraries. 
 
 " Will doubtless have their own special attraction for the class 
 of readers who enjoyed Warren's 'Diary of a Late Physician.' " 
 — Court Circular. 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 IToyels and Tales— Continued. n 
 
 "A more than ordinarily interesting collection of tales and' 
 sketches. ... One of the most pathetic of the sketches is 
 entitled 'Annie Watson's Wedding Day.' . . . Nothing could 
 be more startling or tragic than the circumstances under which 
 .the marriage service was performed. . . , We can safely re- 
 commend this volume of sketches." — Civil Service Gazette. 
 
 " , . . . Mr. Walker's experience as a curate seems to have 
 been altogether a sad one. He writes easily and well. "—Standard. 
 
 " Mr. Walker tells us of human frailty and wickedness with a 
 feeling becoming to his cloth. . . . The best story is his own 
 escape from ruin. It is the tale of thousands." — Queen. 
 
 "Affects to be a collectionof tales founded on incidents in the 
 life of a curate at an imaginary Rectory of Park Green ; the 
 harmless fraud is carried out with considerable circumstance. . . . 
 Incidents in the life of a curate are not, as a rule, such as to 
 suggest much novelty or interest ; and the stories in this case 
 would in fact, with very little alteration, have passed better as 
 incidents in the life of a village doctor or a country detective." 
 — Athenaum. 
 
 " His stories are very much of the Johnny Ludlow oWer. . . . 
 'Park Green Post OfSce' bears the strongest resemblance." — 
 Academy. 
 
 ' " Some of these -experiences are certainly out of the common 
 way, the tale of the man who was driven mad by business 
 anxieties . . . and the spectacle of whose madness drives his 
 wife into insanity reads like a true story, so much so that if it is 
 a stroke of fancy the author must be credited with considerable 
 realistic powers. The story of the post office robberies . . . 
 told in the 'Park Green tost Office' is also decidedly good." — 
 
 The Moonraker: A Story of Australian Life. By 
 
 Richard Dumbledore. Dedicated by permission 
 
 to the Right Honourable the Baroness Burdett 
 
 CouTTS. I vol., crovirn 8vo., cloth, los. 6d. — 
 
 At all Libraries. 
 
 " The life in the bush "with its adventtjres and the sport and 
 
 natural history incident to it is well described. . . ; There.is 
 
 considerable picturesqueness in the account of a bush-fire. . . . 
 
 It is a wholesome story and would please boys."— 7X^ Queen. 
 
 " The portrait of the kindly Vicar of Uphill, with his broad, 
 human sympathies, and .general regard for birds and beasts, as 
 well as men, is exceedingly pleasing, and wiU be the better liked 
 the more it is looked at. . . . The tale is healthy in its tone, 
 and likely to stimulate boys to be honest, persevering, and 
 mdnstnous."— Literary World.- 
 
 " As soon as the two boys set sail from Blackwall, the narrative 
 becomes really lively, and we can readily believe the author when 
 
 5, AilUNDEL ST., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 12 Ifovels and Tales — Continued. 
 
 he tells us that; it is a tale of real life. ... The boys go through 
 a sufficient number of adventures with snakes, kangaroos, and 
 natives, while the daily life of an Australian shepherd is well set 
 forth. . . . The story will be, we have no doubt, greatly liked 
 by boys." — Saturday Review. 
 
 "Deserves to be classed amongst the most realistic of the 
 Australiaji novels which have hitherto been published." — Civil 
 Service Gazette. 
 
 " Few readers will fail to be attracted by the freshness of tone 
 and by the author's evident appreciation of a rural life. " — Morning 
 Advertiser. 
 
 "Fairly correct and graphic pictures; some of which, notably 
 the beating out of a bush-fire, will remind readers of Mr. Anthony 
 Tjollope's Harry Heathcote of Gangoil." — Academy. 
 
 Edgar and I. The Story of a Home. By Jessie 
 P. MoNCRiEFF. I vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 
 los. 6A.^At all Libraries. 
 
 ' ' The most interesting chapters in the book are those describing 
 his being summoned to take temporary charge of a fever-stricken 
 parish. . . . The story is well written and the high • tone of 
 feeling which is shovro in Edgar's devout and self-sacrificing 
 spirit has to some extent our sympathy and admiration. . . . 
 The story will, however, be read with interest as illustrative of 
 the home life of .the earnest clergy of the High Church School." 
 — TJ-terary World. ' ' 
 
 " Her Majesty the Queen having recommended ' Edgar and 
 I ' for perusal to the Empress of Russia, the latter has accordingly 
 sent to this country for the book." — AthencEum. 
 
 In the Spring-time. A Novel. By Helen 
 GabrieLle. I vol., crown 8vo., cloth, los. 6d. - 
 — At all Libraries. 
 
 " ' In the Springtime ' is one of the best of the shorter novels 
 of the season. The plot, while involved enough to excite curi- 
 osity, is not too intricate to develop itself easily and naturally 
 within the narrow compass allowed, and although the heroine of 
 the tale dies of the sorrows growing out of a guilty attachment, 
 not a line sinning against good taste and right feeling is to be 
 found in the narrative of her temptations and sufferings." — 
 Ti-uth. 
 
 "Tender and touching enough to make us wish that it were 
 longer. . . . Pretty and graceful everyone must acknowledge it 
 to be, and what is better, it is pure and high in tone." — Morning' 
 Post. 
 
 The Parsonage Well: a tale of Real Life. By J. 
 B. L., author of "Daunton Manor House," "Lotty 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 Novels and Tales— Continued. 13 
 
 Wilson," " My Dear Old' Home," &c., &c. i 
 vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 " Acertain homeliness of material, and religiousness of tone, that 
 may make it acceptable to some who may like to spend not alto- 
 gether unprofitably that rare thing with many, an idle hour." — 
 jVoneon/ormisi. 
 
 Darkness— Dawn— Day ; or, the Battle of Life; 
 A Story by M. E. L. i vol., fcap. 8vo., cloth, 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 "A good story, dedicated to those who are called early to 
 fight the battle of life amid discouragement and difficulty." — 
 iiheffield Post. 
 
 Avondale of Avondale. A Political Romance. 
 In 3 Vols. By Uttere Barre. Crown 8vo. 
 cloth, 3 IS. dd^.—^At all Libraries. 
 
 " A political novel in the style of ' Vivian Grey.' The hero is 
 adroit in his handling of individuals, and far more cynical in the 
 sportsfnaolike view he takes of the game of politics than any of 
 Lord Beaconsfield's heroes, and combines with it a personal 
 prowess which recommends him to the more sentimental sex, - 
 and equals anything to be found in the pages of ' Guy Living- 
 stone.' " — Athenaum. 
 
 " It is very fairly written, and the part describing Waterbridge 
 election is really clever. " — Academy. 
 
 " Those who take an interest in modem politics, as well as 
 those who are on the search for an amusing story, will like 
 ' Avondale of Avondale. ' " — Whitehall Review. 
 
 " There are life-like sketches in its pages which make the book 
 very pleasant reading. ITie book shows evidence of much 
 thought." — Vanity Fair. 
 
 "Though we were prepared to find in ' Avondale of Avondale ' 
 a fresh failure to reach the high intellectual standard of ' Con- 
 ingsby 'and ' Sybil,' we are bound to acknowledge that of all the 
 attempts that have come under our observation it appears to be 
 'the most deserving of commendation. This is really saying a 
 great deal. ... In short, it is not given to every man, or^o 
 every novelist, to walk in tlje path which Lord Beaconsfield 
 opened up, and if the author of this novel has stumbled here and 
 there, it is nevertheless true that he has succeeded to a certain, 
 and not inconsiderable extent, and that, on the whole, the result ' 
 we have before us is creditable to him in the highest and best 
 sense of the v/ord."— Oxford University Herald. 
 
 . 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS^ 
 
 14 ITovels and Tales— Continued. 
 
 Lady Helena. A Novel. By S. Vere. i Vol., 
 crown 8vo., cloth, los. 6d. — At all Libraries. 
 
 "The story is carefully and tastefully written, and the cha^ 
 racter of, the proud, wayward, but noble-hearted Lady Helena, 
 is well drawn." — Academy. 
 
 " A Well-written story."— Trutk. 
 
 " The plain common-sense of Lady Helena contrasts strongly 
 with the iirtificial gloss thrown over the majority of tales upon the 
 same subject. The author has done wisely and well in putting a 
 disagreement between husband and wife in a contemptible light, . 
 she just shows us two self-willed fools." — Queen. 
 
 I " ' Lady Helena ' may be fairly termed a novel of sotjety,. as it 
 deals with some of the evils of social life and the exceeding love 
 of gaiety. The pleasantest and best drawn character in the'book 
 is that of a middle-aged lady, mother-in-law to Lady Heleila." — 
 Court Circular. 
 
 ' ' The story is an exceedingly pretty one, and is very pleasantly 
 told. To future \vorks of Miss Vere's we shall in all probability 
 be able to give higher praise." — Morning Advertiser.' - 
 
 Severed by a Ring. A Novel in 2 Vols. By 
 Frances Geraldine Southern, Author of 
 "Gwynedd." Crown 8vo., cloth, 2xs. — At all 
 , Libraries. 
 
 " Much power in the delineation of the passipns of jealousy and 
 love, and of the struggles between them and conscience. The 
 book abounds in cleverly conceived but most unlikely coinci- 
 ' dences and contretemps. Her knowledge of the human heai^t and 
 of the motives of action is very considerable. "^-.S^ar&j^ffn 
 
 " ' Severed by a Ring' -is a modern version oY 'Much Ado 
 about Nothing.' The story is told with some degree of ability, , 
 andiit cannot fail to interest." — Court yournal. 
 , ' ' The authoress of this book may be congratulated upon having 
 written a most admirable tale, the plpt being well sustained 
 throughout, and the characters life-like." — Court Circular. 
 
 Shamrock and Rose. A Novel. By Ernle Ariel 
 Wolfe, i Vol., crown 8vo., cloth, los. 6d. — At 
 all. Libraries. 
 
 " The manner in which the relations of the girl to her friendly 
 employers and of the relation of the man-servant to his master, 
 are sketched, are the finest characteristics of this brief novel. 
 It indicates not merely the presence of a very subtle sympathy in 
 the author, but the presence also of true art. The tale itself, as a 
 
 S, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 Novels and Hales— ConHnued.' 15 
 
 tale, is told with delicacy, and sometimes with power, and there 
 is a sketch of the death-bed of a little boy, which rivals in tender- 
 ness that world-quoted death-bed scene of little Paul." — Noncon- 
 formist. 
 
 " Slight, but decidedly pretty story. We can heartily recom- 
 mend it." — Graphic. 
 
 "Shamrock, and Rose" is a lively, ' rattling story, with a 
 charming heroine. It is just the sort of book to drive away dull 
 care, and make a long winter evening pass pleasantly." — Oxford 
 Guardian. 
 
 " Very readable." — Morning Post. 
 
 Alone; or "Saved by Fire." A Novel. By 
 William Browne, Author of " A Few Thoughts 
 about Sacred Things." i vol., cloth, 6s. — At all 
 Libraries. 
 
 " The incidents of this tale date back as far as 1834, and are 
 ' forcibly described by the author. The story ends in happiness 
 and peace, and is well worth reading," — Court Circular. 
 
 "The ghost, and other stories introduced, are well told,^ while 
 the descriptions of scenery, and of gipsy life, have a charming 
 freshness about them, reminding one mdre of the green hillside 
 than those artificialities of the drawing-room so frequently to be 
 met vrith in thfe novels of the present day." — Sheffield Post. 
 
 Cleansing Fires. A Novel. By Mrs. Newton 
 Sears, Author of " Kismet," &c. 3 vols., crown 
 8vo., cloth, 3 IS. 6d. At all Libraries. 
 
 " Mrs. Sears draws, we think, her women better than her 
 men. The two characters, Nesta Mordaunt, the actress, and 
 Monica Hazeltine, are elaborated with skill and precision. 
 Lastly, the scene of the fire at the theatre, deserves a special 
 wprd of commendation. "— Westminster Review. 
 
 "No one can complain that this book fails in interest. — 
 Saturday Review. ., 
 
 "A work greatly in advance of her earlier productions. . . . 
 Original conceptions well worked out." — Truth. 
 
 " ' Cleansing Fires ' may be read with amusement." — Standard. 
 
 " An interesting and well--nyitten novel, sound both in execu- 
 tion and design."— vl/aji/fezn , ,_ V 1 
 
 " An unusually good novel, sure to "be read with both pleasure 
 and appreciation."- Whitehall Review. 
 
 "A well worked out piece oi fiction."— Court Circular. 
 
 " A sentimental but well-intentioned book." — Athenceum. 
 
 "Mrs. Sears' book is simple and excellent. . . . Really effec- 
 tive." — Queen. 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
K.EMINGTONS' 
 
 i6 ^ n'ovels and 'Sales—ConOf.ied. 
 
 " ' Cleansing Fires,' by Mrs. Newton Sears, author of ' Kismet;' 
 is an interesting story, fully deserving success. . . . There are 
 virtually four love stories intermingled, and an analysis within, a 
 limited space is simply iinpossible." — Court ymr^al. 
 ^ "The tale has none of those peculiar faults of construction 
 and developement which too often belong to the novel with a 
 purpose. The author's design is so worked out that it forms an 
 essential part ' of the web of her narrative ; the moral, though 
 always present, is never obtruded. , Mrs. Sears writes with 
 earnestness, and occasionally with a passion that enables her- 
 successfuUy to carry off situations which, if less powerfully 
 treated, would be. theatrical. In short, ' Cleansing Fires ' is a ~ 
 wholesome, well-Written, and really interesting novel." — Scotsman. 
 
 The Powerless Damsel. An Autobiography. By ' 
 A. Dorset, i vol., crown 8vo., cloth, los. 6d. 
 — At all Libraries. 
 
 " Pleasantly written. . . . The author, we should fancy, lijke 
 toost of us, not having in her experience come across anything 
 lilie what is called a plot, does not care,' after the fashion of so 
 many writers, to go, against all nature in inventing one. She has 
 however, seen not a little of life that is worth describing, and she, 
 happily possesses in no small degree the art of description," — 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 " The sketches of life and scenery are sufficiently spirited, and 
 show some faqulty of observation." — Spectator. 
 
 ■ ' Well worth reading. Its merit consists chiefly in the quick- 
 ness of observation shown in the vnriter's .... clever account 
 of her travels, and in the description of an Egyptian Pasha's 
 household, and a lady artist's life in Italy. . . . The blemishes 
 are not of a nature to detract seriously from the great promise 
 displayed by this young writer. "-^7?7<^;4. 
 
 "Displays accuracy and vivacity .... and is accordingly 
 very pleasant reading." — Advertiser. 
 
 " The notes of foreign travel are goodj and the description of, 
 Egyptian life is more than good." — -Nonconformist. ' 
 
 ' ' Knowledge of the world is a valuable possession in the hands 
 of persons who use it, as the writer does, vrith judgment and dis- 
 cretion ; and'the rapidity of observation, and observation to the 
 point, which is displayed in the sketches of scenery and society 
 in Egypt, is also noteworthy. In short, the volume, which is 
 published in a style that leaves nothing to be desired, is full of 
 promise which we hope to see iblfilled." — Oxford University • 
 Herald. 
 
 " The description of scenery are firm and powerful, . . ; 
 The description and general account of Egypt will be read with 
 much interest at the present crisis by many who are not pro- 
 fessed novel-readers. The book is not of an ordinary kind." — 
 Westminster Review. 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 Novels and TisXes— Continued. 17 
 
 Marley Castle. A Novel. Edited by Sir Garnet 
 WoLSELEY, 'G.C.M.G., K.C.B. 2 vols., crown 
 8vo., cloth, 2 IS. At all Libraries. 
 Second Edition ready. 
 
 "It deals with groves rather than with camps, and the only 
 battles are the old ones between love and beauty. Of course, all 
 the hard and disagreeable parts of life are heaped on the heads of 
 the excellent people, while the unprincipled ones have everything 
 made smooth for them. But that has grownto be a not uncom- 
 mon practice in fiction, if not in fact, for some modem novel- 
 virriters appear to be all unconscious of the existence of that 
 
 Nemesis which dogs our steps even in this world ' Marley 
 
 Castle ' is no exception to this pleasant rule. The good people 
 are attracted to the bad, whom they instantly convert to better 
 things, and the superfluous husband' dies out of the way in the 
 nick of time. His appearance at all on the scene wUl be rather 
 a surprise to most readers, who will be by no means prepared to 
 dethrone their favourite heroine Alison from her pedestal, even in 
 favour of the more sentimental Aimee. .... The gentlemen 
 are well .contrasted, and Major Veye is really a tangible indi- 
 vidual, but has a very hard fate dealt to him in return for his many 
 excellent qualities." — Times. 
 
 " Sp extremely agreeable a novel as ' Marley Castle ' proves to 
 be requires no adventitious aid to success. . . . The various 
 scenes are marked with a touch which shows either great experi- 
 ence in fiction or an unusual amount of fitness for that depart- 
 ment of literature. . . . The style is worthy of the best modem 
 writers, and the conception is novel both as regards the plot and 
 the characters involved. . . . The scene of the race is almost 
 beyond the bounds of probability ; but then it must be owned that ' 
 it is such an admirable piece of spirited description that it could 
 not be spared. The best thing in the book, however, is .the pas- 
 sage where Major Vere and AUson discover their mutual attach- 
 ment on board his yacht, with the dead woman lying in the cabin 
 below. This is reaUy dramatic without any straining after effect. 
 ... It would be unfair to close a notice of this, pretty story 
 vidthout a word of admiration for the manner in which it is pro- 
 duced, and above all for the plan, which seemsto be a spkialiti of 
 this firm of publishers, of having all the leaves ready cut. This 
 is one of the most sensible innovations upon traditional use that 
 has ever been madq, aad must greatly aid the claances of a book. 
 Why should we have the trouble of cutting all the pages before 
 we can sit down to enjoy a novel ?" — Morning Post. 
 
 "The distinguished name attached to the title page of this 
 novel will doubtless attract many readers, and we can assure them 
 they will not regret the time spent upon the book. . . . ' Marley 
 Castle^ is a decided success. "— Whitehall Review. 
 
 ;, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 1 8 MTovels and 'Sales— Continued.- 
 
 "The story is full of interest. . i . A remarkably pleasant 
 style." — Examiner. 
 
 "A well-written and interesting novel. The style of the author 
 is in all cases graceful arid dignified. It is a novel Vhich will 
 amply repay the time spent in the perusal." — Cou/rt Circular. ' 
 
 "The story is one of such peciiliar merit that it is evident a 
 new novelist of great power and most unusual capabilities, has' 
 risen up among v&."— Hampshire Herald. 
 
 Reediford Holm. By Thomas Rowland Skemp, . 
 Author of " The D'Eyncourt's of Fairleigh." i 
 vol., cloth, crown 8vo., los. 6d. At all Libraries. 
 
 "There is a degree of freshness and vigour about this story 
 which makes it very pleasant reading. . . . Its interest depend- ■ 
 ing mainly upon some pretty love -passages between the heroine, . 
 May Hardman, and her two admirersj George ■ Barnton and 
 'Stephen Henley, whose characters arewell drawn, and afford an 
 admirable contrast." — Pictorial World. ' , 
 
 "'Reediford- Holm', is a pleasantly told story."— Court 
 Circular. i ," 
 
 "He has a fair appreciation of the pathetic and humorous, as 
 well as of the proportions in which '.these, ought to be combined. 
 . . . Mr. Skemp is evidently a disciple of George ,EUot."—' 
 Athenisum. ' 
 
 "The struggles of the girl between her feelings for the two men 
 are-prettily told, and some of the minor characters proved not 
 unintei-esting." — Sunday Times. ' ' 
 
 "^The author of 'Reediford Holm' deserves some credit for 
 his courage in laying the scene of his story in the reign of King 
 William I'M ."—Daily News, 
 
 " It is a sound, healthy, love-story, , without adventitious or 
 sensational element's. The style is, unusually good; there is a 
 happy combination of humour and pathos, which sometimes 
 reminds us of Dickens. " — Rochdale Observer. 
 
 Never Despair. A Tale of Clerical Life. By H. 
 Richardson Clerk, i vol., cloth, crown 8vo., 
 Ids. 6d. At all Libraries. 
 
 " A quiet and pleasant story.''— Court Circular. 
 
 " Is a story with a good moral and religious tendency." — John 
 Bull. 
 
 " This novel will find favour with many readers in circles which 
 are closed against works of iiction that make no profession of a 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 ITovels and Tales—Cofitmued. 
 
 19 
 
 religious or theological purpose. . . . We believe it will be 
 read with interest by hundreds of persons who will be glad to find 
 a reflection of their own thoughts and feelings in its pages."— 
 Oxford Guardian. 
 
 The Snowdrop Papers. By Messrs. Tit, Tinkle, 
 Pippin, Pop, Perry, Winkle, and Cherry- 
 blossom. Edited by Sir Florizel Bluebell, 
 Knight of the Southern Cross, and Beanstalk-in' 
 waiting to King Oberon. Illustrated by Wallis 
 Mackay. Fcap. 4to., handsomely bound, cloth 
 extra^gilt edges, ss. 
 
 "Written by the Literary Committee of the Fairies' Par- 
 liament, whose chief business would seem to be the preparation 
 of stories for little mortal^. If all the stories were as good as 
 these, King Oberon's Parliament would do its work with a com- 
 • pleteness to be envied and imitated by many of the grosser 
 councils of common earth." — Times. 
 
 " This bright little book of faerie. — Fanciful tales edited 
 by 'Sir Florizel Bluebell,', and charmingly written. — The 
 angel bearing the two children through the snow ; the seagull on 
 the wave ; the little boy with the big black dog ; the bear in the 
 moonlight, with Mr. Pop listening to his story ; the humanized 
 iceberg ; and . the desolate children in the garret are delightful 
 bits of dainty design ; and all who see them will turn to Mr. 
 Wallis Mackay with eager demand for more."— Z>aiiy Telegraph. 
 
 "We think, indeed, only one 'real live member of Parlia- 
 ment ' is capable of telling them [the stories] so well. ; , . . 
 They are expressed in the graceful, ecstatic language used by> 
 good mothers and nurses to their infant listeners." — Public Opinion. 
 
 " Messrs. Remington and Co. bid fair to challenge attention 
 by their publications. 'The Snowdrop Papers, ' by an anony- 
 mous author, is dedicated, by especial permission, to her Majesty, 
 and really deserves the honour. It consists of some stories sup- 
 posed to be written by fairies for children ; and these are vastly 
 above the average. Pop's account of what the bear at the ' Zoo' 
 told him one moolight night is so good that it could only have 
 been improved by Mr. Wallis Mackay's admirable illustration. 
 Pippin's story is, as the book says, 'a dreadfully sad story,' but 
 very pathetic. The elvish frontispiece, and indeed all the 
 pictures, which are by the same artist, are fanciful and charming : 
 about the best is the little child kneeling by the chest in prayer." 
 — Morning Post. ' , 
 
 " The little folks will enjoy this collection of tales, especially 
 written for them ; and even the iiny children, who can hardly 
 appreciate the stories, will be pleased with Mr. WalHs Mackay's 
 vigorous sketches. .... The boqk should be a popular , 
 one in the nursery." — Court Circular. 
 
 S, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 ,20 Novels and Tales— Contmued. 
 
 " This attractive little volume, with its pretty illustrations, is 
 sure to take with children." — Tablet. 
 
 " ' The same publishers have given us a little collection of short 
 and really graceful fairy tales under the title of ' Ida Dalton,' 
 and the ' Snowdrop Papers,' which deserves somewhat higher 
 praise for the beauty of- some of" its fancies, and the easily- 
 sustained elevation of its tone."^ World. 
 
 " Edited by ' Sir Florizel Bluebell,' and most elaborately got 
 up and illustrated."— C^m&« World, \ 
 
 " A pretty little book, tastefully illustrated, .... Fairy 
 stories of the kind in which children may be expected todfelight." 
 — Inverness Courier. 
 
 . ' ' Stories from Messrs. Tit, Tinkle, Pippin, Pop, Perry, 
 Winkle, ?,nd Cherryblossom, which are bright with fancy and 
 pleasant in tone, whilst breathing that simple reverence which 
 we are all so anxious to, cultivate in our children!" — Literary 
 World. 
 
 ' ' The stories are simple, pretty little affairs, with a vein of 
 
 tenderness running through them Cherryblossom's 
 
 "story strikes us as the best. " — Bazaar. 
 
 " '.The Snowdrop Papers ' are splendidly got up 
 
 Indeed, in this little book, we have a bright exemplification of 
 the excellent taste and superior judgment which its enterprising 
 ,publishers have exercised in supplying the demands of the cir- 
 culating libraries. It would be too much to say that they have 
 saved us from a famine in the land of fiction, but they certainly 
 have met requirements which other publishing firms hesitated to 
 recognise, and the result so far is satisfactory to the public, — and, 
 we hope, to themselves. ' Tlie Snowdrop Papers ' are dedi- 
 cated by permission to the Queen, and it is not the first time 
 that her Majesty has deigned to notice Messrs. Remington's 
 publications." — Oxford University Herald. 
 
 Through the Breakers. By the Rev, Richard 
 BuLKELEY, Vicar of St. John's, Dukeiifield. 3 vols, 
 crown 8vo., cloth, 31s. 6d. At all Libraries. 
 
 " The Crimean episodes are treated with a good deal of 
 spmt."-^A//ienceum. , 
 
 ' ' The reverend Author has produced a novel of a readable 
 character, in the conventional three-volume form and type. 
 . . . The subordinate characters are well drawn, and the 
 story will repay perusal .' ' — Broad A rrow. 
 
 "Mr. Bulkeley has produced a book which will be perused 
 with pleasure and profit. — Manchester Courier. 
 
 "The prettiest part of the story relates to the brief love affair 
 of sweet little -Lucy Adams, the heiress of the Bear- Croft estates. 
 . . . ' Through the Breakers' is pretty tolerably life-like, and 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St.,STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 ITovels and HsXea— Continued. 21 
 
 fairly well written. . . . It is always an advantage to get 
 hold of works of a superior tone, and this is one of them, and 
 for that reason alone would deserve to be recommended ; even 
 had it, which we are far from asserting, no other merit. "^' 
 Morning Post. 
 
 " Of the novel as a whole we must say it is one of the best of 
 the year now drawing to a close." — Norwich Ar^us. 
 
 Heir to Two Fortunes. By the author of " The Life 
 . of the Moselle." 3 vols, crown 8vo, cloth, 3is.;6d. 
 At all Libraries. 
 
 " May be most readily described as a story modelled on the 
 lines of the late Mr. Smedley's tales, notably 'Frank Fairleigh,' 
 to which it bears no inconsiderable resemblance in style, and 
 even at times in diction, though not in such a fashion as to jus- 
 tify any charge of plagiarism. There is promise in it. . . . 
 a superabundance of incident and episode, errors on the right 
 side. ' — Academy. 
 
 " It has dash and go and promise." — World. 
 
 " The hero of the t^le is Seton Herold, his school-days are 
 described in lively colours, and a great deal of genuine humour 
 , is displayed." — Tablet. 
 
 "'Heir to two Fortunes' is unquestionably a comedy, 
 amusing. " — Spectator. 
 
 " A really good novel, considerably above the average, well 
 imagined, and written with a certain nicety of detail which ratlier 
 arrests than hinders the breadth of general eifect ; the characters 
 are naturally and distinctly drawn, and the dialogue easy." — " It 
 has all the marks of genuine talfnt. " — Morning Post. 
 
 " The boyish part of Seton's career is humorous ; the history' 
 of the chancery suit recall us to the days of 'Bleak House.' 
 One of the best hits of character may be found in the letters." — 
 AtheniBum. 
 
 " Other types are drawn with equal skill. A clever and a 
 decidedly superior book." — Mayfair. ' 
 
 " It is a novel which will make a long winter evening pass 
 quickly. "^0;c/orfl? Guardian. 
 
 " No vulgarities of thought or diction to annoy the reader." — 
 Daily News. ■ ' . . 
 
 ," This pretty story. . . . There is a freshness and viva- 
 city about the style. . . . The evidence of a genuine, comic 
 talent is borne out. . . . Certainly the novel deserves to 
 succeed. " — Whitehall Review. 
 
 " It is full of a delicate humour and pleasing irony, and takes 
 up the one and leaves the other with rare ease and grace. ' . . 
 It is most interesting. . . '. The sadness which predomi- 
 nates over all is far too deep to be perpetually on the surface ; 
 it is more heard in undertones all along, and the writer manages 
 to show us in a most pleasant and inoffensive manner fliat he 
 
 S, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 22 XTovels and Tales— Coniimted. 
 
 does not, hold, with the celebrated Panglos?, that everything is 
 fot the best in this best of all possible worlds." — Zondan. 
 - " There is a good deal of amusement to be found. ... .• 
 The complicated lawsuit which Seton, unfortunately for himself, 
 is led to engage in, is by no means badly told, and gives occasion 
 for some humorous sketches of members of the legal profession." 
 — Grajihic. 
 
 Disappeared from Her Home. By Mrs. Fred. 
 E. PiRKis. I vol., cloth, crown 8vo., los. 6d- 
 At all Libraries. 
 
 "Mrs. Pirkis has succeeded in telling a very improbable story 
 in a very plausible manner. .... The vis.y in which the 
 interest in the mysterious disappearance of Amy Warden is kept 
 up during the earlier portions of the stoiy betrays considerable 
 skill, and the apparent tragic solution of the mystery might 
 throw the most experienced novel-rqader off his guard. The 
 characters, also, are, upon the whole, well drawn. . . . . 
 Mrs. Pirkis is evidently a novice in the lapd of fiction, ' but her 
 decided talent for inventing an interesting plot is equally unmis- 
 takable."— j!)faj//o»-. . , - 
 
 " Lord Hardcastle is a very nice impersonation, and his belief 
 in the goodness and purity of the girl he loves is so strong that 
 he determines to rescue her character, when he believes her dead, 
 from scorn and dishonour, as he would have rescued her living 
 from any sorrow or misery. .... We have some nice, 
 but brief descriptions of the wonderful scenery of that region of 
 
 extinct volcanoes — the wild, fantastic Cevennes A , 
 
 tale, thus wild and improbable in every part, but not lacking a 
 certain grace, and if sufficiently full of sensational incident to 
 satisfy the strongest craving for excitement, having, at least, the 
 merit of being pure in tone." — Morning' Post. 
 
 " This is the story of the sudden disappearance from her home 
 of one Miss Amy Warden, a beautiful damsel of' seventeen, the 
 only child of a gentleman of fortune and position, who vanishes 
 one fine August morning, without a single, assignable cause, arid 
 without leaving a trace behind her.. The tale is 'a slight one, but 
 really very ingenious, and very well put together, all things con- 
 . sidered, and shows that Mrs. Pirkis has a decided turn for the 
 novel of mystery. We can recommend the story to any one in 
 search of materials for an hour's gentle excitement, and all the 
 more readily because the clouds clear away 'satisfactorily at the 
 last." — Graphic. 
 
 " This is a tale of mystery of the good old-fashioned school, 
 the chief interest of which consists in exciting curiosity, leading 
 the reader up and down through a maze, and bringing him at last 
 to a destination, gliiripses of which have from time to time been 
 
 5jAKUNJjEL6T., 6TKAISD, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 Novels and Isles— Continued. 
 
 23 
 
 indistinctly shown. The author means setting a puzzle, and, after 
 some tantalising, giving the solution and nothing more. The tale 
 is one entirely of action, and has the merit of being rapidly told. 
 
 . . . . Mrs. Piricis has the good taste not to intrude her- 
 self on her readeirs."— Queen. 
 
 " An old story, told once more, and told well, with new names 
 and new incidents supplied from the pages of our modern life, 
 that only too often has the same sad 'fact to record. Mrs. Pirkis 
 tells the facts of the disappearance with vigour, and her charac- 
 ters speak and act like men and women of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. — Echo. 
 
 Falae or True. By Alice de Thoren. t vol., cloth, 
 crown 8vo., los. 6d. At all Libraries. 
 
 " ' False or True ' contains four yery pretty ^stories, of which, 
 that which names the book, is perhaps the best. ... In 
 short, all four of the little novelettes are admirable, fresh in con- 
 ception,- and admirably carried out." — Whitehall Review. 
 
 " The first of these stories is exceedingly pleasing." — Rock. 
 
 "This is a collection of pretty little stories, representing 
 various phases of affection of the heart, the fortunes and mis- 
 fortunes of very love-sick swains. The authoress has evidently a 
 strong belief that ' the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft ' looks 
 after lovers as well as sailors, for, ^except in the last story, the 
 prince always get over his difficulties with wondrous good luck 
 and marries the princess in triumph. We may perhaps hint that 
 the characters kiss a little too much and too frequently. The 
 two last stories are the best, but all arereadable." — Vanity Fair, 
 
 " Interesting and readable. " — Sunday Times. 
 
 The Last Grave of the Nibescos. By E. Wilhel- 
 MiNA Spencer, i vol., cloth, crown 8vo., 6s. At 
 all Libraries. 
 
 "Brisk and exciting." — Truth. 
 
 "The character of the Princess-Mother is finely drawn and 
 her attempted crime comes in well." — Academy. 
 
 "The story deals mainly with life ■ in Roumania, which, is 
 brought before the reader with considerable skill. Some of the 
 descriptions and the historical details have been added by the 
 translator, who ha.s accomplished her task in a satisfactory 
 manner." — Pictorial World. 
 
 Breccia. ivol.,cloth,crown8vo.,3S.6d. At allLibraries. 
 
 "Breccia, a simply-told tale of Rome and Roman art, calcu- 
 lated to occupy pleasantly and not uninstructi'vely a spare hour." 
 — World. 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 24 ITovelS and l^es— Continued. 
 
 Perils. By the Author of " Reminiscences of a 
 Lawyer," 2 vols., clpth, crown 8vo., 21s. At all 
 Libraries. 
 
 " These volumeshave been constructed to serve a great and 
 good purpose. . . . We regard ' Perils ' as a step in the"" 
 right direction ; and apart from its purpose, purely and simply 
 as a novel it is deserving of very high praise.- The descriptive 
 passages more especially are fine specimens of word-painting 
 pictures in prose, remarkable as well for the rhetorical skill 
 which th6y display as for the exactitude which in some instances' 
 makes them painfully striking." — Oxford Guardian. 
 
 Love, Strong as Death. By Rose Burrqwes. i 
 vol., cloth, crown 8vo., los. 6d. At all Libraries. 
 "'Love Strong as Death.' A novel, in one volume. By 
 Rose Burrowes. The novels in one volume published by Messrs. 
 Remington and Co. have achieved a very remarkable popularity. 
 This is due, we believe, almost equally to the enterprise of the 
 publishers and the excellence of the works in question. They 
 are good all-round novels, and they have been issued one after 
 a.nother with, the courage inspired by success. Those now before 
 us are written by ladies who will no doubtiefore long visit us in 
 three volumes, and we shall be glad to see them however they 
 come ; but, as the condensation of a plot is more difficult than its 
 expansion, so it will not be easy to afford us greater pleasure than 
 we have had in reading these short and well-told stories." — 
 Oxford University Herald. 
 
 Every Day: A Story. By Margaret Lawrence 
 Jones. " New edition, i vol., cloth, 3s. At all 
 Libraries. 
 
 " A tale of unmistakable power .... It is difficult to 
 analyse the mixed impressions which it leaves . . . The 
 interest of the book lies in the strange, glancing lights of 
 character, with which it tantalises us . . . This is not 
 ordinary writing. There are many signs of rate gifts in this 
 little book."— /"a// Mali Gazette. 
 
 "Vigour in style-dialogue' always easy, and often brilliant — 
 indications of wide reading and no little culture — ^abundance of 
 good reading in the book." — Spectator, 
 
 Just Out. 
 
 Riven Bonds. By E. Werner, author of " Success, 
 
 and How He Won It ;" " Under a Charm," &c. 
 
 Translated from the German, by Bertha Ness. 
 
 2 vols., crown 8vo., cloth, 21s. At all Libraries . 
 
 5, ARUNDEL iiT., 6 1 KAND, W.C. 
 
KKMINGTONS' 
 
 ITovels and Isles— Continued. 25 
 
 Just Out. 
 Sauntera in Social Byways . By Malcolm Do- 
 HERTY, B.A. I vol., cloth, trown 8vo., 7s. 6d. 
 At all Libraries. 
 
 Just Out. 
 A False Step ; o r, Real Life in Australia. By Marc. 
 I vol., cloth, crown 8vo. los. 6d. At all 
 Libraries. 
 
 Just out. 
 
 Her Father's Child. By Mrs. W. R. Snow. i. 
 vol., cloth, crown 8vo., 10s. 6d. At all Libraries. 
 
 Just Out. 
 Happy with Either. By A.L.O.S. 2 vols., cloth, 
 crown Svo., 21s. At all Libraries. 
 
 Just Out. 
 Love and Art. By Sophia Houson, Author of 
 " Thd Gitana." i vol., cloth, cro*n 8vo., los. 6d. 
 At allLibrariis. 
 
 Shortly. 
 
 Events, Anecdotical. Historical, and Biogra- 
 phical, in the Life of an Octogenarian. Be- 
 tween the years 1796 and 1815. By George 
 Washington Abbott, i vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 
 7 s. 6d. 
 
 Shortly. • 
 
 A Woman's Shadow. By Selwyn Eyre, author of 
 "The Artists' Picture," " Sketches of Russian 
 Life and Customs made during a Visit in 1876-7," 
 &c. 2 vols., cloth, crown 8vo., 21s. 
 Shortly. 
 
 Ashford, By Anne Blount, i vol., cloth, crown 
 8vo., I OS. 6d. 
 
 ?. ARUNDEL St.. STRAND. W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 26 Novels and Tales— Continued. 
 
 Shortly. 
 
 The Lawyer's Nose: Translated from the French 
 of Edmund About by J. E. Maitland. i vol., 
 cloth, crown 8vo., los. 6d. 
 
 ' Shortly. 
 
 At the Altar. By E. Werner, author of " Success , 
 and How He Won It," "Under a Charm," 
 " Riven Bonds," &c., translated by Bertha Ness. 
 2 vols., cloth, crown 8vo., 21s. 
 
 Shortly. 
 
 Each Other; or, Wh3.t. We've to Answer For.., A 
 Tale. By H. A. Darlington, i vol., cloth, 
 crown 8vo., 5s. > 
 
 Shortly. 
 
 Irene's Dower. Translated from the French, of' 
 Charles Deslys by Mrs. George Henry, i 
 vol., crown Svo., cloth^ los,. 6d. 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C 
 
REMINGTONS" 
 
 . POETRY. 
 
 Shall He Live Again? A Poem. By J. Globe 
 Stapelton. Foolscap 4to, cloth, price 7s. 6d. 
 
 " The words have a sweet and touching pathos which 
 leave a strong impression on the reader." — Court Journal. 
 , "The author has gieat gifts' as a poet. His language teems 
 with elegant passages and poetic imagery. Few books of poetry 
 published at the present season deserve to be read more than 
 this little volume. It has been produced with great care."— .S^. 
 james' Magazine. 
 
 The Legend of S. Eolinde : A Poem. By R. L. 
 In bevelled boards and gilt edges, crown 8vo, 70 
 pages, 4S. 
 
 "A volume of poetry not unworthy of the name." — The 
 World. 
 
 " Many passages are full of force and passion."— 7"^ Scots- 
 man. 
 
 " There is an amount of talent exhibited, both in descriptive 
 power and elegance of diction, which serves to raise the work 
 rather above the average of such compositions in generd. The 
 printing and binding both deserve a word of praise. —The Edin- 
 burgh Courant. 
 
 Llewelyn. A Tragedy in Five Acts. By A. E. 
 Carteret. Price ^s. 
 
 " The noble patriotism and loftiness of purpose pervading the 
 main characters, Llewelyn, Gladis, and Ivor, are here illustrated 
 
 t;. ARUNDELST..STRAND, W.C. 
 
REMINGTONS' 
 
 28 
 
 Poetry — Continued. 
 
 with poetic expression and artistic ddicacy seldotn observed. 
 The scenes between Gladis and- her soldier lover, Ivor, are de- 
 picted with the tenderness and grace of a true artist. This tira- 
 gedy is one which could hardly fail to create an impression upon 
 the public mind, now so appreciative of Shakesperian plays." — 
 Morning Advertiser. ^ 
 
 "It. possesses unquestionable merits, of which the chief is one 
 ■ of high order, namely, that of being in all its parts thoroughly 
 well-proportioned." — 7 ablet. 
 
 "The author of ' Llewelyn ' proves himself above the average 
 writers of verse .... His poetical instincts are highly 
 imaginative, and there are no servile ' imitations of established 
 forms, while tl\e blank verse in which the play is written is fairly 
 good throughout. The several songs introduced are harmonious ' 
 and appropriate." — Public Opinion. 
 
 Pictures in Verse. By Thomas J. May. Crown 
 8vo, cloth, red edges, 2s. 6d. 
 
 " The author may be fiirly congratulated." — OxfoM Guardian, 
 " There is a sweet simplicity and freedom from all convention- ' 
 
 ality that is sure to win for it mariy friends." — Oxford University 
 
 Hevald. 
 
 " True religious feeling pervading all the poems, that is most 
 
 refreshing. — Swrrey Advertiser. 
 
 Just Out. 
 
 Scenes from the Life of the First Benedictines. 
 
 Dedicated to Dr. Pusey, D.D. i vol., cloth, 
 crown 8vo., 5s. 
 
 Just Out. ' 
 
 The Lover's Curl, and other Verses. By Edwin 
 Stickwood. Cloth, crown 8vo., red edges, 
 2S. 6d. 
 
 Just Out. 
 
 The Nuns of Minsk; or, Russian Atrocities in 
 
 Poland. A Drama in 3 acts. By Robert 
 
 Blake, author of " Joan of Arc." Cloth, crown 
 8vo., ss. ' 
 
 5, ARUNDEL St., STRAND, W.C- 
 
EDUCATIONAL AND 
 PHILOLOGICAL. 
 
 The SmiVival. With an Apology for Scepticism. 
 I vol., demy 8vo., cloth, los. 6d. 
 
 "'The Survival' is a curious revelation of the spiritual his- 
 tory of one who seems to unite the tendencies of a mystic and a 
 rationalist. ' 
 
 " The author has been accustomed to make tninutes of charac- 
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