THE PAST AND FUTURE OF GOLD. 39 



trouble. Cleanliness of habit and tborougb disinfection of spu- 

 tum must largely depend upon the conscientiousness of consump- 

 tives themselves. All these precautions involve a great amount of 

 self-sacrifice on the part of those affected with this terrible dis- 

 ease ; they necessitate the realization of certain facts which we 

 would gladly keep from the sufferer ; they demand a sacrifice of 

 sentiment on the part of those near and dear to the patient. To 

 this extent the attempt to exterminate the greatest plague of 

 civilization is cold-blooded. But a worse alternative confronts 

 us. So long as we neglect to consider tuberculosis as a contagious 

 disease, though not so conspicuously so as the eruptive fevers; 

 so long as we occupy homes in which the germs of this disease 

 linger, neglecting to disinfect, repaint, and repaper ; so long as sick 

 and well mingle without an effort to destroy the virus, so long 

 will the great white scourge shorten valuable lives and bring 

 mourning on millions. Because its foulness is concealed, because 

 it strikes painlessly and its wound is not felt for weeks or months, 

 because it does not mark its victims in letters of red or choke them 

 in a week with a visible mass of poison, shall we ignore the fact 

 that this insidious, relentless foe is the chief lieutenant of Death ? 



THE PAST AND FUTURE OF GOLD. 



By CHAELES S. ASHLEY. 



IT is, I think, universally claimed by advocates of the free 

 coinage of silver that the so-called demonetization of silver 

 has led to an appreciation in the value of gold; and that this 

 appreciation has worked grievous hardship to the debtor, or, what 

 is largely the same, the producing classes, who are thus obliged 

 to pay in a more valuable currency than that in which their 

 debts were contracted. The claim is that, by an artificial change 

 in the value of the dollar, the farmer has to produce twice or 

 three times as many bushels of wheat as formerly to pay off his 

 mortgage. The resulting embarrassment of the debtor classes 

 has, in this view, spread among other classes, and has led to 

 panics and long-continued depression in business. Aside from 

 the natural desire of the silver miners to have their product 

 doubled in debt-paying power, this is the whole basis of the silver 

 agitation. 



If one were to say that for this theory, upon which an interna- 

 tional agitation has been built, and which is countenanced by a 

 large number who have given the matter considerable investiga- 

 tion, some of whom are generally reputed to be competent for the 

 purpose, there is absolutely no foundation in fact, and that, so 



