Robinson Crusoe's Money;

Invente

w, Twist, Needum, Pecks, Diggs, Friday, Friday's father, Will Atkins, and every body else, by common consent, agreed to select and adopt some single commodity which all should agree to take in exchange for whatever of products or services they might have to dispose of; so that whenever any one had any thing to exchange, he might first exchange it for this commodity, whatever it might be, and then with such intermediate object purchase at such times and places, and in such proportions as he might desire, whatever he might need. And the moment this was done, civilization on the island t

able commodity or service; and in precisely the same manner as the length or weight of any thing is ascertained, i.e., by comparing it with some other thing which the community have universally agreed to recognize as a standard of length or weight-as, for example, the rod of wood which we call a yard-stick, or a pie

different countries universally accept in exchange, as the equivalent for

natives of West Africa, money consists of small shells called "cowries;" in Abyssinia, the common money of to-day is salt; in Chinese Tartary, it is cubes of pressed tea; and within a comparatively recent period small cakes of soap have been used as money on the west coast of Mexico. Among pastoral people of antiquity, cattle and sheep were so ex

d exists and is used to-day among nations who

e community products which represented the expenditure of time and labor, without giving in return any equivalent. Thus, for example, if dried leaves, or pieces of paper with such marks as any might choose to stamp or scrawl upon them, had been invested with a universal purchasing power, the primary practical result of the use of such money would have been to enable somebody to obtain something for nothing, or to permit those who would not work or save, to rob those who did. The people on the island, being uneducated, never did any such foolish thing; but when they came to study history, they found out, to their great surprise, that the people of other countries had repeatedly used things worthless in themselves as money; and many years afterward a man who aspired to be a great teacher even came to

rrations which the children found

young children to California. In July, 1864, when gold stood at two hundred and eighty, she sent for her money. In return, she

, blood, gratitude, humanity, and justice were dissolved. Old debts were paid when the paper money was worth no more than seventy for one. Brothers defrauded brother

nds of wretches, even before the final collapse of the assignats, were committing suicide to escape starvation, war was a blessing; and Napoleon was the instrument by means of w

"My six months' earnings will scarce defray the most indispensable outlay of a single day. * * * For a bed, supper, and grog for myself, my three compan

rich, the Texans ought to have been the richest people in the universe. In January, 1839, Texas treasury-notes were worth no more than forty cents on the dollar; in the spring of 1839, they were worth thirty-seven and a half cents; in 1841, from twelve to fifteen cents; and in 1842 it required, in the characteristic language of the times, 'fifteen dollars in treasury-notes to buy

lecting an article to measure values which in itself possesses no value, or costs no labor to produce, any more than he would select as a standard for measuring length something which had no length, or as a standard for measuring weight something which had no weight. The peop

stimony of Barth, Burton, and other recent travelers in Eastern Africa. Thus Barth, for example, says (see "Travels," vol. i., p. 568; vol. iii., p. 203) that he was repeatedly prevented from buying what he absolutely needed-corn, rice, etc.-because he did not have, and could not get, what the people wanted in exch

ey. Their defects are their weight, their intrinsic value as commodities."-

nd products of labor will perform the proper functions of money without regard to the material of which it is made; and that the less costly the mat