Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/397

Rh that, a rather mean one, that they are ready to discard what is old, and good, and tried, for mere pretentious novelty. The accent with which the line should be read is not that which is always given to it:

but this:

This has been the reading, as it inevitably must have been the reading, and this the punctuation of the passage, by all editors for generations; notwithstanding which, the perversion holds its ground, because the people who use it do not read the play, and accept a poetic generalization which serves a purpose, as it passes from mouth to mouth.

, our delegate in the International Monetary Conference at Paris, 1867, has transmitted to Congress, through the Department of State, a report which is deserving of an attention seldom accorded to such documents. Although Mr. Ruggles deals with the unpromising subject of national coinage, his report is full of material for philosophical deduction. It shows, for one thing, how complete is the control exercised by our modern Christian nations over those material forces which are everywhere found to have some subtle and undefined association with the moral influences which control the world. The Christian nations are the mining and the coining nations, and, through their control of the means by which the exchanges of industry are made, they are more and more extending their influence over that vast majority of the human race which lies outside of the immediate influence of Christian civilization. "Within the last fifteen years," says Mr. Ruggles, "only the dawn of the opening auriferous era, we discern a mass of gold, in the aggregate exceeding $500,000,000, moving across the Atlantic from the United States; another and still larger volume of $833,000,000 pouring out from Australia upon the surrounding Oriental waters, and at least one-half finding its way to London over the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; another golden mass of $620,000,000 crossing the British Channel into France, while the great counter current of $565,000,000 of silver, largely derived from France, is seen flowing out of England and up the Mediterranean on its way to the ever-absorbing East." Our own rate of production for the next fifteen years can hardly diminish, and there is every prospect of a large advance, with the increased facilities our Pacific Railroads will afford for developing our mining resources. At the average rate of production for the last fifteen years $900,000,000 will be added to the gold resources of the world, as the product of the American mines alone. The vast addition to the amount of the precious metals has resulted in a corresponding increase in coinage, and, from the mints of France, the United States and Great Britain this wealth has been distributed over the world, giving a new impulse to all activities, and radically changing the relations of labor and capital. The total coinage of the United States previous to 1851 was $180,184,268; since 1851 it has been $665,352,323. Great Britain previous to 1851 showed an aggregate coinage of $480,105,755; the amount distributed by her mint since then has been $455,225,695, while the coinage of France has risen from $324,492,516 previous to 1851 to $987,728,298 since then. Thus the total coinage of these three great coin-distributing nations for these two periods stands as $984,782,639 to $2,108,356,316. Here