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88
MUNERA PULVERIS.

spelling) instead of Toil, visit no dishonesty with chastisement, that each may with impunity take his dishonest turn;—there are no tricks of financial terminology that will save them; all signature and mintage do but magnify the ruin they retard; and even the riches that remain, stagnant or current, change only from the slime of Avernus to the sand of Phlegethon—quicksand at the embouchure;—land fluently recommended by recent auctioneers as "eligible for building leases."

80. Finally, then, the power of true currency is four-fold.

(1.) Credit power. Its worth in exchange, dependent on public opinion of the stability and honesty of the issuer.

(2.) Real worth. Supposing the gold, or whatever else the currency expressly promises, to be required from the issuer, for all his notes; and that the call cannot be met in full. Then the actual worth of the document would be, and its actual worth at any moment is, therefore to be defined as, what the division of the assets of the issuer would produce for it.

(3.) The exchange power of its base. Granting that we can get five pounds in gold for our