CHILD, SIR J08IAH. 



CHILDREN, JOHN OEORQE. 



atafcn to hi* 'Ray on Health and Loot Lift,' for having treated 

 their miinun* with ro.den.am. Hia AOoeophioal Principle, of 

 Natural R UfiotV rontaining the element* of natural philosophy, and 

 the vi.leoee of natural religion to be deduced from them, waa 

 dedicated to the Earl of Roxburgh, for whole nae it appear, to have 

 been written. 



Chryae'* natural disnoairlnn to oorpnlency wu so increased by full 

 Uviag in London, that in a few yean he became "fat, abort-breathed, 

 tetharpe, awl lietlesa." Hi* health gradually sank, and, after trying 

 variety of treatment with little benefit, be confined himself to milk, 

 with "eeeda, bread, mealy roota, and fruit" The experiment too- 

 oeeded, and he wa* *oon relieved of hi* moat distressing symptoms. 

 Dmrma: hi. Ulne**, being deserted by hia old aeaociato*, be began to 

 look to religion for eaoanhtion. and at last "came to this firm and 

 settled reeolution fat the main, via., to neglect nothing to secure 

 my eternal peace, more than if I bad been certified I ahonld die 

 within Ute day j nor to mind anything that my secular obligations 

 and duties demanded of me, lea* than if I bad beta ensured to live 

 fifty yeara Bore. This, though with infinite weaknem and imper- 

 fartioa, ha* been my fettled intention in the main since," (' The 

 Kntlisb MaUdy.' xnd edit, p. 834.) 



In 172S be pubtbbed an 'Essay on the true Nature and due Method 

 of treating the Gout.' together with the virtue, of the Bath waters, 

 and the nature and core of moat chronic disease*. He had resided at 

 Bath during the summers of several yeara, and attributed much of 

 thebmeat he bad received to drinking the water*. In 1724 appeared 

 hi* well known Eeay on Health and Long Life,' in which he in- 

 aalaaUa the necessity of a strict regimen, particularly in diet, both 

 in preventing and curing diasasea. It waa dedicated to Sir Joeeph 

 JektU, Mislir of the Rolls, who had been under the author'* care. 

 In the preface be give* aa account of hia former works, which he 

 eeoeum where faulty, with great frankness, particularly when he had 

 treated other writer* with levity or disrespect In 1733 he brought 

 out his ' English Malady,' a treatise on the spleen and vapours, as 

 well a* hysteric and bypochondriacal rliiin.n. in general This work, 

 once very popular, contain* a wry minute account of the author's 

 own case. It appears that on his recovery he gradually returned to 

 a more generous diet " However for near twenty yean I continued 

 aober, moderate, and plain in my diet and id my greatest health 

 drank not above a quart, or three pinta at meet, of wine any day (which 

 1 than absurdly thought neeetaary in my bulk and stowage, though 

 certuoly by far an overdose), and that at dinner only, one half with 

 y meat, with water, the other after, but none more that day, never 

 tailing any sapper, and at breakfast nothing but green tea, without 

 any eatable ; but by these means every dinner necessarily became a 

 amrCrit and a debauch ; and in ten or twelve yean I swelled to such 

 an enormous siae, that upon my last weighing I exceeded 32 (tone. 

 My breath became *o abort, that upon stepping into my chariot 

 quickly, and with aome effort, I waa ready to faint away for want of 

 breath, and my (ace tamed black." ('The English Malady,' 2nd 

 edit, LowL, 1784, p. 843.) 



He now returned to hi* low diet, and with the same success as 

 before, though it required a longer time to re-establish hia health. 

 The proposal of a milk diet appear* to have afforded much diversion 

 to contemporary wita, some of whose gibes and sarcasms rather ruffled 

 our author's complacency. Dr. Cheyne died at Bath, in 1742, at the 

 age of 7*. 



CHILD, SIR JOSIAH, BART., was an eminent London merchant 

 __* latter part of the 17th century, and one of the ablest of our 

 artier English writer* on commerce and political economy. His 

 principal publication i* entitled 'Brief Observation* concerning Trade 

 aad the InUreet of Money,' by J. C., 4to, London, 1668. In his preface 

 be toila u* that tliia tract waa written at hi* country-house in the 

 >r, that U, in 1665. IU leading purpoee is to defend the 

 ion of the local rate of interest from eight to six per cent 

 made by ordinance of the Long Parliament in 1651, and 

 at the Restoration), and to urge a still further reduction. 

 Modal anooees i* that of the Dutch, 

 " the lownees of the rate of interest is the catua 

 *ejanu of all the other cause* of the rich*, of that people." The 

 f Mtoieal, aa is now well understood, is merely a measure or 

 MIII IBB un i of th* ratio of the supply of money to the demand. It 

 rtasa or fall* with the rate of profit* ; and that again depends in mat 

 part upon the quantity of capital Beating for employment;*) that, in 

 ""VlS 1 ? 1 " d * ' low ** f interest being the cause of accumulated 

 Ui in a community, it i* more likely to be the consequence of that 

 '_*"* Thi* wa* pointed out in an anawer to Child'* treatise, 

 yar under the title of 'Interest of Money Mistaken, 

 ing that the abatement of Intoreit U the effect and 

 of the Riobe. of a Nation.' In another respect alao 

 loo* in tab publication are opposed to thoae now generallj 

 hi. recommendation, namely, that the natural rate of 

 kept down, or rather attempted to be kept down 

 OIL ID aMpport of hi* viewii be rv print**, tu At 

 fP"dU. Kir Tboma* Culpepitr * ' Tract against the High Rate o 

 TV*"* P" ot * b<M> ln 1628 - Notwithstanding *ome fundamental 



'* Bowtver. the work contain* much that is touud and valunM- 

 and some of the principle* laid down iu it are both in advance of the 



The author'* great example of 

 ad he maintains that " the lo 



current opinions of the day and pithily and happily expressed. A 

 eeoood edition, much enlarged, appeared in 1690, under the title of 

 A New Discourse of Trade ;' a third in 1693 ; and the work has sinoe 

 >een twioe reprinted, the laat time in 12iuo at Olaagow in 1761. It is 

 n this work that Child baa explained his plan for the relief and 

 employment of the poor, of which Sir Frederic Eden has given an 

 account in hi* 'State of the Poor,' voL L pp. 186, etc. It included 

 he substitution of district* or unions for parishes, and the compulsory 

 transportation of paupers to the ooloniea. He proposes that the funds 

 should be managed by an incorporated body to be styled ' The Father* 

 of the Poor,' and to wear, each of them, " some honourable medal, after 

 ihe manner of the familiars of the Inqusition in Spain." In Watt's. 

 ' Bibliotlieca,' and other catalogues, this plan U noticed aa a separate 

 publication (though without date) ; but we do not know that it ever 

 tppeared except aa one of the chapter* of the ' New Discourse of 

 Trade.' Child, who was oue of the directors and for aome time chair- 

 man of the East India Company, and who took a leading part in the 

 conduct of its proceedings, is stated to have written several tracts in 

 defence of the trade to the East Indies ; but they appear to have been 

 all anonymous, and the only one which baa usually been dim 

 assigned to him is that entitled ' A Treatiae wherein it is demonstrated 

 that the East India Trade i* the most national of all Foreign Trades, 

 by 4iAowaTpir, 4to, London, 1681. This is affirmed in the work called 



The British Merchant ' (originally published in 1710), second edition, 

 voL L p. 162, to have been written by him, or at least by bis direction. 

 It was contended by the opponents of the company that the Kant India 

 trade was ruinous, or prejudicial, by reason of its draining the country 

 of gold and silver; it was answered by Child, OB it hod been many 

 yean before by Thomas Mun, in his ' Discourse of Trade from England 

 unto the East Indies,' that the trade in reality brought more treasure, 

 or gold and silver, into the country than it took out of it, by our 

 sales of eastern commodities to other European nations. It was upon 

 this ground simply that parliament had recently (by the 15 Car. II., 

 c. 7, B. 12) so far permitted the trade to be legally carried on in the 

 only way it could be carried on at all as to allow the exportation duty- 

 free of foreign coin and bullion. 



Taking his stand upon what has been called the mercantile system, 

 the principle of which is, that the value of a foreign trade depends 

 upon the balance which it leaves to be received in money, Child 

 admitted the paramount importance of gold and silver ; but contended 

 that the effect of the India trade, taken in ita whole extent, as including 

 the trade with other countries which we carried on by means of our 

 import* from the east, was to promote, not to prevent, the accumu- 

 lation in our hands of the precious metals. The destruction however 

 of the fancy that there was anything necessarily desirable in that 

 result, aa far at least as it could be destroyed by reasoning, and tin; 

 demonstration of the truth that gold and silver do not differ in any 

 respect in their commercial character from other commodities, were 

 accomplished a few years after this date by Sir Dudley North in hia 



* Discourses upon Trade, principally directed to the Cases of Interest, 

 Coinage, Shipping, and Increase of Money,' 4to, London, 1691. 



Sir Josiah Child was the second son of Richard Child, a merchant 

 of London; he was born in 1630, was created a baronet in 1678, and 

 died in 1699. He attained to great wealth, was thrice married, and 

 by each of his wives had one or more children, who married into some 

 of the highest families among the nobility. His last wife survived till 

 the year 1735, "at which time," we are told by Moront, the historian 

 of Essex, " it was aaid she was nearly allied to HO many of the prim.- 

 nobility that eleven dukes and duchesses used to ask her bleating, and 

 it waa reckoned that above fifty great families would go into mourning 

 for her." 



CHILDREN, JOHN OEORQE, was born on the 18th of May 1777, 

 at Ferox Hall, Ton bridge. From the Grammar school of that town 

 he went to Eton, and afterwards, in 1794, entered Queen's College, 

 Cambridge, as fellow-commoner. He studied with a view to the 

 church, but the early death of his wife led him to travel in the south 

 of Europe and in the United States, from whence he returned to devote 

 himaolf to scientific pursuits. 



While studying mineralogy, chemistry, and galvanism, he made the 

 acquaintance of Davy, Wollaston, and other leading men of science. 

 In 1807 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In the following 

 year he contributed a paper to the ' Philosophical Transactions,' on 

 'Some experiments performed with a view to ascertain the most 

 advantageous method of constructing a voltaic apparatus, for the 

 purposes of chemical research,' in which bo determined the effect of 

 unusually large battery plates. With twenty pairs of plates each four 

 feet long and two feet wide, he confirmed Davy's observation, " that 

 intensity increases with the number [of platen], and the quantity of 

 electricity with the extent of the surface." 



This was followed in 1816 by a paper, published also in the ' Philo- 

 sophical Transaction*,' ' An account of some experiments with a large 

 voltaic battery,' in which a further series of singularly interesting 

 result* was described, among them the conversion of iron into steel 

 by union with diamond, under the sole action of the battery. 



Between the dates of these papers Mr. Children travelled in Spuin, 

 and viited the quicksilver mines of Almaden, then but little known 

 in England. In 1816 he woe appointed one of the librarians in the 

 department of Antiquities (afterwords of Natural History) of the 



