Robinson Crusoe's Money;

r th

rded by almost every body as money; and if money, then, of course, as every body knew, they were wealth, and wealth so great and superabundant that the one thing especially necessary to do was to devise plans for using it. Every body, therefore, devised plans; those who had no money more especially devising plans for those who had. All sorts of schemes were accordingly entered upon; railroads to carry people to the isothermals and ev

lessing, seriously thought of proposing another war as a means of increasing national prosperity.1 The large and constant investment of the results of labor and economy in enterprises which never could by any possibility give back any adequate return, was, as every body saw, the next best thing to war; and on the advice of the most Christian newspape

o notably helped to this result was, that the necessity of insuring all exchanges made through the medium of the unstable currency of the island caused all the island products to cost from five to ten or fifteen per cent. more than they otherwise would, and more than they would cost the foreigners to buy elsewhere.2 But as every industrious community (especially if it calls in the aid of the forces of nature through machinery) produces more than it consumes; and as the islanders were both industrious and ingenious, it oddly enough happened that the community became sorely trouble

t, if it were carried out, it would deprive them of money, an

s rapidly as possible; that where they had borrowed a canoe of one man, cloth of another, spears of a third, or money of a fourth, they should return them, and not keep promising and never doing. But even these did not agree as to the manner of thus paying. Some thought it was best to return the canoes, the iron, the cloth, and the money from day to day as the Government gradually acquired them. Others thought that a better way would be to accumulate each separate thing in a separate warehouse, and then when the warehouses had, after some years, become full, open the doors, and return every man what had been borrowed of him all at once. But, as before pointed out, the Government never had, or could have, any canoes, cloth,

ary. When, however, the cannibals were driven away, these "friends of peace in time of war" at once changed their Quaker garb; became "friends of war in time of peace;" declared earnestly for the enlarged issue and continued use of the bluebacks, and, as a pretext for so doing, were willing, if necessary, to have another war, or, at least, an annual scare. During the war, these friends of peace were called "copper-heads;" and after the war, their copper-headism, although disguised, was substantially the same thing. For it was apparent that opposition to the issue of the bluebacks, as manifested by the advocates of

as sick, the devi

t well, the devil

e bluebacks, as inflated, or elongated, copper-heads

ves, and letting the whole volume of gas escape at once. Some proposed to imitate the example of "Peter the Headstrong" in fighting the Yankees, and bring down the balloon by proclamation; while others professed to have great faith in family prayer. Eminent patriotic constitutional lawyers maintained that the military necessity that authorized and created the bluebacks must necessarily limit their duration solely to the period of their military necessity; and that their continued re-issue and use after the repulse of the cannibals was but a prolongation of the war-not against the enemy, but against their own people. The astute elongated copper-head lawyers held, on the other hand, that an instrument of military necessity, once created, remains such an instrumentality for continued use for all time;

erience; and, among various things which profited them greatly, they found, among the chronicles of the learned Spanish historian, Fray Antonio Agapida, the following account of what

ase, and signs me them with his own hand and name. These did he give to the soldiery, in earnest of their pay. 'How!' you will say, 'are soldiers to be paid with scraps of paper?' 'Even so,' I answer, 'and well paid, too, as I will presently make manifest; for the good count issued a proclamation ordering the inhabitants of Alhama to take these morsels of paper for the full amount thereon inscribed, promising to redeem them at a future time with silver and gold, a

a redeemed his promises, like a loyal knight; and this miracle, as it appear

s such an instrumentality for continued use for all time;

lla in issuing "little morsels of paper" to serve as money, and subsequently did not imitate him in promptly redeeming his promi

usly advised to create, by some means, a national debt as soon as they return

hing could more readily destroy his laws than the admixture of new inhabitants, did every thing possible to deter strangers from flocking thither. Besides denying them intermarriage, citizenship, and all other companionships (conversationi) that bring men toge

re, there is no good reason for supposing that the country is to be any more exempt from the vicissitudes of nations than it has been in the past. With i

ded that "United States notes are engagements to pay dollars; and the dollars intended are coined

Conquest o

oins struck in besieged places to supply the place of coined money. These coins appear, in all instances, to have be