lies every development of mercantile life; and every variation in its quantity or quality makes itself instantly felt, for good or evil, through every part of the commercial structure. But it is as subtle in its operation as it is wide in its effects. Hurt a limb, or any particular organ of the body, and any one sees at a glance what is the matter; but vitiate or diminish the blood, and the symptoms, while becoming universal through the frame, give less certain indication of the precise origin of the evil. So it proves with variations in the currency. Merchants and tradesmen experience every now and then grievous shocks to their prosperity or solvency; for the last forty years commercial earthquakes have recurred at nearly regular intervals; yet the greater part of the sufferers are still in ignorance of the primary cause of these shocks, or of the only preventive against their recurrence. In last Number we observed that is to our physical frame. It underwar was teaching us many lessons, which would fully compensate the present inconveniences, if we do but lay those lessons to heart. We then pointed out the baneful revolution taking place in the character of our population, and the prospective dangers arising from the purely urban character which our civilization is assuming. This month we desire to direct attention to another lesson of the war, relating to a matter of still more direct interest than the former, and one which, fortunately, can be very much more easily remedied. We allude to our Currency-system,-one of the most artificial fabrics that the ingenuity of false statesmanship ever devised for the torture of a community. The subject is one which can hardly fail to secure for itself consideration, for it is one which affects the community in all its branches, and in its tenderest point-the pocket. No class is so poor, no district so isolated, as to escape. Every measure affecting the currency of a country, affects the condition of every man in it, from highest to lowest. The employment of labour, the rates of wages, the weight of taxes and the National Debt, the prices of food and of everything else, are directly influenced by every ebb or flow of the circulating medium -which is, in truth, to the body mercantile precisely what the life-blood It is not diffcult to account for this bewilderment. Part of it, doubtless, is due to culpable apathy on the part of our trading classes, in not inquiring into a matter which so immediately affects them; but the much larger portion of the bewilderment is owing to the mixed nature of the phenomena to be investigated. A disease with many symptoms is the most difficult to understand; and of all |