J831.] Affairs in General 437 



does not some true philosopher assist the multitude in their progress to 

 the true principles of acquiring individual ease of circumstances ? A 

 single practical maxim for the conduct of the individual, in his way to 

 wealth, would be worth all the sweeping fooleries that take mankind in 

 the mass, and settle our destinies by a million at a time. He would find 

 some very striking and curious documents on this most important subject 

 in the reports of the Society for bettering (barbarism as the word is; the 

 Condition of the Poor ; or let him ask how the accumulation of the 

 savings-banks has occurred : 



" According- to a Parliamentary return just printed, the gross amount of 

 sums received on account of savings-banks is, since their establishment in 

 1817, 20,760,228; amount of sums'paid, 5,648,338; thebalance therefore is, 

 15,111,890. It also states the gross amount of interest paid and credited to 

 savings-banks by the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt is 

 5,141,410 8s. 7 d. 



This is astonishing ; and we should vainly demand credence for it on less 

 authority than the parliamentary document. Here is a sum of twenty 

 millions gathered, in shillings and pence, from the humblest ranks, in 

 about a dozen years ; or upwards of a million and a half a year, saved 

 out of the superfluity of the labouring people and lower order of shop- 

 keepers ? The loftiest theory of political economy all the free-trade 

 flourishes, and figuranti exhibitions of unrestrained" imports and exports, 

 could not have accumulated a tenth of the money in the time if, indeed, 

 they had not rather plunged the nation into bankruptcy. The secret, in 

 this instance, was practical economy ; individual abstinence from those 

 gross excesses which make the fortunes of the dram- distiller and the ale- 

 brewer ; virtue and decency, which are at once the cheapest and the 

 surest ways to wealth. The nonsense that private vices may be public 

 benefits, has been long exploded. But the success of the savings-banks; 

 offers an irresistible proof that the true source of the national wealth 

 is the national practice of integrity, manly self-denial, and quiet virtue. 



There are still some curious rumours flying as to the state of the late 

 king's financial matters. That for the last dozen years he had saved 

 vast sums of money seems to be conceded on all hands ; and that for the 

 last half dozen he spent nothing in comparison of his income, seems to 

 be equally ascertained. What has become of the money is the question. 

 The story of the pearls demanded from the royal favourite, and the sap- 

 phire sent from hand to hand of the magnificent personages implicated, 

 is well-enough known already. The papers tell us that 



" George the Fourth's tradesmen's bills are to undergo a strict scrutiny by 

 a Select Committee. The amount of some of them is almost incredible. There 

 are various extraordinary rumours afloat, and some official persons are in a 

 very uneasy situation." 



If all that is said upon the subject be proved, we should like to see those 

 official persons put into a much more uneasy situation. 



If those rumours are untrue, why not bring the business to the test? 

 Let the . report of the Committee be public, and then justice and the 

 people together will be satisfied, but not till then. Nothing can be more 

 absurd than to say that the nation have not a right to inquire into the 

 mode in which the money which it gives to its public functionaries is 

 expended. If it can be shewn that the enormous sums given by the 



