1824.} 
lations from which a still higher interest 
may be expected; and are entitled, 
undoubtedly, to the same commiseration 
and lenity, when their ventures fail, as 
dealers of any other description. But the 
banker who proffers no interest for the 
money entrusted to his care, stands in 
a very different point of view. He has 
no right to speculate with a capital 
which is not his own, and was never 
lent to him for the purpose of specu- 
lation: nay, to speak with due cor- 
rectness, was never /enf at all. It is 
merely put into his hands upon an 
implied stipulation that it shall be forth- 
coming, whenever occasion shall call for 
it. The only profit, therefore, which he 
has any right to make from it, for the 
support of his establishment, and the 
remuneration of his care and trouble, is 
that which may be derived from the dis- 
count of short bills, with good and safe 
endorsements, and other like securities, 
that can be available on brief notice, in 
such proportions as to answer all pro- 
bable demands. And is not this enough? 
—to make that legal interest, upon the 
capital of others, which the fair-dealing 
capitalist (for we say nothing of the 
gamblers in stocks and loans) is content 
to make of his own. If they confined 
themselves to this honest and implied 
use of the money trusted to their care, 
and were content to live, as other deal- 
ers who have common prudence and 
honesty do, within the compass of their 
regular incomes and profits; a hard run, 
from panic or other exigence, might 
sometimes, indeed, occasion a tempo- 
rary stoppage; but absolute default and 
bankruptcy never could ensue, But if, 
on the contrary, they launch into ex- 
trayagant and hazardous speculations, 
or live in a style of expensive prodi- 
gality, as if the capital they are en- 
trusted with was their own, are they 
not swindling adventurers, and violators 
of their trust? and ought they not, 
when failure consequently results, to be 
treated as other swindlers and violators 
of trusts are treated ?—to be punished 
as criminals, instead of being protected 
and commiserated as victims of mistaken 
calculation and the vicissitudes of for- 
tune ? 
{Such are Such were (we 
change the tense with a trembling and re- 
gretful hand) Such were some of the 
considerations which appeared to belong to 
the leading topic of the month: for we had 
little apprehension of an immediate execu- 
tion—at any rate before the final examina- 
tions under the bankruptcy had taken place ; 
Spirit and Mercurial Thermometers compared. 
389 
and we stop the press to crowd in our 
apology, when it is impossible to withdraw 
or replace the article. ] ers 
Se. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
Sir: 
4 ica appearance in that interesting 
department of your Magazine, the 
“© Spirit of Philosophical Discovery,’’ 
p. 339, of the results of a series of ex- 
periments made by M. Flanguergues, 
and published by M. Zach, for com- 
paring the simultaneous indications of 
a spirit and a mercurial thermometer, 
when alike exposed to different tempe- 
ratures, induces me to request to recall 
the recollection of your early readers to 
your seventeenth volume, p. 313; 
wherein is recorded the chief results of 
a series of experiments for a similar pur- 
pose, which I caused to be made in the 
open air, in the sun, during the forenoon, 
ranging from 12° to 853° of Farenheit, 
at Woburn, Bedfordshire, between the 
13th of February 1801 and Ist of March 
1802 (the day preceding the loss of the 
great Duke of Bedford); during which 
period, 1,152 comparative observations 
were very carefully registered, viz. at 
9h. a.m., 12h, and at 3h, 6h, and 9h, 
p.M.; but with occasional omissions, 
on Sundays, and some other occasions : 
—from whence it appeared, that, on 
only 197 occasions, or 17 per cent. of 
the whole, were the two thermometers 
found exactly coinciding, At 262 other 
times, or near 23 per cent. of the whole, 
the spirit stood higher than the mercury, 
but very rarely to the extent of 3°; 
and on 693 others of these occasions, or 
60 per cent. ‘of the whole, the spirit 
was the lowest, on 53 of these occa- 
sions, to. an extent exceeding 23°; and, 
on one occasion, amounting to 64°, 
which the mercury stood higher than 
the spirit. On no one day through the 
whole period were the two thermo- 
meters found agreeing at the five hours 
of registry: on one day only did the 
mercury always stand highest ; and only 
on four other days did it stand lowest, 
at each of the times of registering. 
I mention not here, this recapitulation 
of my former paper, from any idea that 
my observations can vie in accuracy, 
deficient also as they are in range, with 
the observatious in p. 339; but in order 
to mention, that, the differences indi- 
cated daily and hourly by my two ther- 
mometers, gave ine not the least indica- 
tion of any law of expansion, differing in 
the two fluids: but on the contrary, 
these differences seemed explainable id 
the 
