146 HEREDITY. 



no more funds except through the Baring Brothers, 

 or some English firm. Undoubtedly we have sound 

 houses ; but let this silver bill pass, let foreign cred- 

 itors be cheated by it, or put into such a position 

 that they assuredly \yould think themselves cheated, 

 and the effect on American credit will be of a 

 painful kind, and perhaps prolonged. There is no 

 sense in the boards of trade on the Atlantic coast, if 

 they do not know where their interest lies in the 

 matters of importation and exportation. But the 

 Atlantic cities, which have most at stake, are sub- 

 stantially a unit against this silver bill. Your Boston 

 Board of Trade has appealed to Congress against its 

 passage, and at the same time has not been unmind- 

 ful of the interest of the poor man. The Boston 

 Board of Trade is willing to have all debts under ten 

 dollars — under any small sum — paid in silver ; 

 willing that silver shall be legal tender in small 

 amounts ; and that takes off a burden from persons 

 who are extremely poor, and diminishes the weight 

 of the clamor concerning two kinds of money, one 

 for the rich and another for the debtor class. 



If the silver bill were to become a law, it would 

 depreciate the value of the savings banks deposits of 

 the poor. Who does not know that every man that 

 has put money into a bank has expected, and has 

 been led to expect by the action of the general gov- 

 ernment, that it would gradually appreciate in value ? 

 We have had a terrific experience with an inflated 

 currency in the form of paper, and yet we have little 

 by little come out of it : such is the recuperative pow- 



