Robinson Crusoe's Money;

annibals, and

was subsequently also Friday's father and others of his countrymen. But the cannibals, although then repulsed, did not at the same time lose their appetites, or the remembrance of the good cheer that had escaped them; and meat becoming scarce in their own country, they projected a grand invasion of the island, with the

odities or money to buy commodities with, other than what it obtained through loans and taxes, the people, one and all, were called upon to help. There was, however, some fear that if the calls for help were put in the fo

of two kinds. In one the promise was made definite as to the time of its fulfillment, and the amount or value of the promise carried interest. These were called bonds. In the other, the promise, although definite, specified no particular time for making it good, and its amount or value was not subject to interest. These latter, from the circumstance that they were written on blue paper, were popularly termed "bluebacks." When the people got the bonds, they put them carefully away, for the sake of the interest that would accumulate upon them; but when they got the bl

lace of accumulation. The people, however, did not see this; and by reason of not seeing it they continued to accept and regard the promises to pay, which represented loss and destruction, as the same thing as money, and naturally also as wealth; and as the creation and issue of this sort of money or wealth increased as destruction increased, they finally, one and all, came to the conclusion that the more and faster they destroyed, the richer they should all be; and that, by a happy series of accidents, they had at last solved tha

of representing a means of paying a debt, the new currency lost at once the really most important quality of good money; inasmuch as it ceased to be a common equivalent, or in itself an object of value in exchange, and therefore became incapable of properly discharging the function of a standard, or measure, for estimating the comparative value of other things; resembling, in this deficiency, a ship without a rudder, or a locomotive without a track to run on. The removal of a rudder from a ship, or the taking up the track in front of a locomotive does not impair the capacity of the one for cargo, or the power of t

in other words, to make sure that what he received should remain, for a greater or less length of time, the equivalent of what he gave. But as no one could tell what the cannibals were likely to do from day to day, and therefore what were to be the fluctuations in the purchasing power of the currency, every body in selling any thing felt that he incurred a risk, in addition to the risks usually attendant upon ordinary buying and selling. And as the data for estimating these risks were just as uncertain as the data for estimating the results of dice-throwing, every body guessed at the amount of insurance needed, or, what is th

ch he was to be paid, three, six, or nine months afterward, would have the same value or purchasing power that it had on the day the debt was contracted. He might have doubted whether his customer would pay him at all, but he never would as to the quality of that which he was entitled to receive as payment. But as the currency involved in so much of the transaction as occurred after the cloth was made into clothing was neither gold nor any thing which represented gold, nor any other valuable commodity, and therefore, like a ship without a rudder, or a locomotive without a track, was sure to be unreliable as an exchanging instrumentality, the seller knew to a certainty that what he was to receive in payment of his goods, three, six, or nine months afterward, would not have the same value or purchasing power that it had on the day the debt was contracted. It might be greater, it might be less; but the seller n

d in gold, he made ten per cent. over and above his ordinary and legitimate profit, while an equivalent burden or loss fell on the consumers.1 As the dealers were shrewd, the result of this betting and insurance was rarely loss, and so constantly profit, that some dealers after a while came to regard the obtaining of this species of profit as the main thing for which all business was instituted; while others, more clear-headed and discerning, concluded that the wisest and easiest way to get rich was to bet directly on the varying quantity of currency which it would take from day to day to buy the same quantity of gold, or other valuable commodities, instead of attempting to do the same thing indirectly, through the agency of stores, stocks of goods, clerks, books, credits, and the like. The last, accordingly, wound up their business, and, in the language of the day, "went on to the street," and made their living by selling on time what they did not possess, and buying on time what they never expected to receive, and reckoning profit or loss according to the difference in prices growing out of the fluctuatio

a dissatisfied part

laries, and wages, it has, nevertheless, always been a somewhat difficult matter to find illustrations of the fact so clear and simple as carry conviction by presentation that it does thus act to the classes most interested. With a view of

price, in the way of insurance, that the currency received will be sufficient-plus pro

le of that now; hardly

currency fluctuations an item in your

ly; it won't do to o

ctions, please tell me what you do

y way into these transactions. But how is it with my customers? I allow them some credit; and the amount involved being often very large, I, of course, must know something of the way in which they manage their business. They transform the cloth, purchased with gold, into clothing; and then sell the clothing, in turn, to their customers-jobbers and retailers-all over the country, for currency, on a much longer average credit than they obtain from me for their raw material. As a matter of safety and necessity, these wholesale dealers and manufacturers must add to their selling prices a sufficient percentage to make sure that the currency they are to receive at the end of three, six, or nine months will be sufficient to buy them as much gold as they have paid to me, or as much as will buy them another lot of cloth to meet the further demands of their business and their customers. How much they thus add I can not definitely say. There is no regular rule. Every man doubtless adds all that competition will permit; and every circumstance

vances for cheating the laboring classes, none has been more effectual than that which deludes

the inevitable consequence of using as a medium

ce of being imaginary, is based on the actual condi

ship was built in the same place and on the same model-like the former in every particular. It was expected that, as wages and the cost of materials w