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BURN’S TREATISE ON THE LAW OF STOCK-JOBBING. 
$65 
Art. LX. 4 brief Treatise on the Law relative to Stock-jobbing, and other Transactions 
in the Public Funds. 
THE theorists, who have best discuss- 
ed the doctrine of circulation, are ac- 
customed to denominate that circulation 
useful, which adds a value to the com- 
modity transferred ; and that circula- 
tion noxious, which expends unproduc- 
tively the labor and venture of transfer, 
and leaves the commodity transferred in 
its pristine state. ‘Those who speculate 
in bullion, in cochineal, in corn, may 
gain or lose much by a fluctuation in the 
price of their purchase; but they 
restore it to the consumer unaltered ; 
no addition of labour is consolidated 
with its value: it might as well have 
wandered to the goldsmith, the dyer, 
or the miller, without mediation, and 
have escaped the chance of an interve- 
ning rise or fall. It is probable, how- 
ever, that such speculators find usually 
a profit accruing ; they would not else 
invest capitals, which might quiescently 
produce an interest; they consequent- 
ly tend to inhance the price to the ul- 
timate consumer, and thus offer a bounty 
_to the original producer. They stimu- 
late the miner at Santafé, the nopal- 
gardener at Quito, the farmer on the 
Delaware, to increase his produce ; and 
by securing a more abundant growth 
they eventually indemnify, and more 
‘than indemnify the consumer, for the 
added cost of his present purchase. But 
no apology of this kind can be devised 
for the speculators in the stock-market : 
the commodity is increased or diminished 
’ by war or peace, not by the value they 
withdraw or confer: the time, the ca- 
ital, the intellectual effort they employ 
is all withdrawn from productive in- 
dustry and expended on barren gam- 
bling : and the rank and comfort of in- 
numerable families is staked on the ca- 
' price of a cabinet, or the arrival of a 
courier. Even. Professor Basch (Von 
dem Geldsumlauf; book IIL. section 
43) whe approaches Mandeville in the 
conviction, that whatever is, is right, 
declares against stock-jobbery, as he 
calls it, and pronounces it to be com- 
~ pletely hurtful. Under this impression 
~ alaw was made in the 7th year of George 
41, that all contracts made after the 
Ist June, 1734, for wagers relating to 
the public stocks, should be void. 
_ May it not however be surmised that 
‘some advantages accrue to a commu- 
nity from a perpetual fund.,of ready 
By I. J, Burn, Solicitor. 
8vo. pp. 96. 
money, which can be advanced at a mo- 
ment’s notice to the government, or to 
individuals ? Does not a stock-exchange 
retain in this applicable form a mass of 
capital, which would else be vested 
in bonds, mortgages, or other slowly 
derangeable securities? Do not some 
advantages arise from the political vigi- 
lance ot a body of jobbers much inter- 
ested in the wise conduct of state-affairs ? 
Do not the commissions levied by bank- 
ers and brokers on the amounts which 
change hands, belong to the class of 
productive circulations? Is there not 
an important consumption of stamps oc- 
casioned by these transactions? Ought 
all the prizes of lite to be reserved for 
prudence, industry, frugality ; has not a 
spirit of enterprize and adventure, bor- 
dering on rashness, also its value? 
“* Nothing venture nothing have,” may 
be no proverb in poor Richard’s alma- 
nac; but if it does not suit an econo- 
mic, it may sitit an opulent society. 
Does not much of our most important 
commerce originate in, and owe its suc- 
cess to this liberal daring? Is mot 
a stock-exchange a seminary and con- 
servatory of courageous hazardy ? Mu- 
tability of fortune is the parent of many 
virtues ; there is more of courtesy, of ate 
tention to inferiors, of tenderness to the 
victims ofadversity,in those whoaremuch 
exposed to reverses of situation, than 
in those whose entailed acres defy im- 
prudence itself. The. stock-jobber is 
tavourably circumstanced for discipline 
in such qualities: nor are his misfor- 
tunes wholly useless; the inequality of 
riches is surveyed with more compla- 
cence tor being liable to capricious in- 
terruptions. 
There is an old book of Mortimer’s, 
Every man his own Broker. Cases of 
‘difficulty are since become more various 
and complex. Further elucidations and 
instructions were desireable. The pre- 
sent writer has collected with meritori- 
ous industry the principal trials which 
have occurred since the 7th of George 
the second, in order to compel the ful- 
filment of bargains, of which evasion, 
has been attempted under that act. We 
think the act itself should be repealed ; 
and indeed all the laws, which hiige 
gaming transactions on a mere prince ple 
of henor. ‘They were originally made to 
privilege noblemen against bankruptcy : 
