14 MUTUAL BANKING. 



the capitalists, and with the money thus obtained, added to the 

 other, the debtors would pay the interest due. The capitalists 

 would have their choice of the best the state produces, and the 

 mechanics of the city, who receive money from the capitalists, the 

 next choice. Now, how would all this be looked upon by the people 

 of the commonwealth? There would be a general rejoicing over 

 the excellent market for produce which had grown up in so unex- 

 pected a place, and the people would suppose the existence of this 

 city of financial horse- leeches to be one of the main pillars of the 

 prosperity of the state. 



Each of these capitalists would receive yearly S1.800, the inter- 

 est on $30,000, on which to live. Suppose he lives on .?fKX), the half 

 of his income, and lays the other half by to portion off his children 

 as they come to marriageable age, that they may start also with 

 S30,00() capital, even as he did. This SlKX) which he lays by every 

 year would have to be invested. Themen of business, the men of 

 talent, in the state, would see it well invested for him. Some intel- 

 ligent man would discover that a new railroad, canal, or other pub- 

 lic work was needed; he would survey the ground, draw a plan of 

 the work, and make an estimate of the expenses; then ho would go 

 to this new city and interest the capitalists in the matter. The capi- 

 talists would furnish money, the people of the state would furnish 

 labor; the people would dig the dirt, hew the wood, and draw the 

 water. The intelligent man who devised the plan would receive a 

 salary for superintending the work, the people would receive day's 

 wages, and the capitalists would own the whole; for did they not 

 furnish the money that paid for the construction? Taking a scien- 

 tific view of the matter, we may suppose the capitalists not to work 

 at all; for th(! mere fact of their controlling the money would insure 

 all these results. V\'e suppose them, therefore, not to work at ail; 

 we suppose them to receive, each of them. $1,800 a year; we suppose 

 them to live on one-half of this, or SIWO, and to lay up the other 

 half for thi;ir children. We suppose new-married couples to spring 

 up, in their proper season, out of these families, and that these new 

 coup'es start, also, each with a capital of .?3(),(M)(J. We ask now. is 

 there no danger of this new city's absorbing unto itself the greater 

 portion of the wealth of the state? 



'J'liere is n<i city in this commonwealth that comes fully up to 

 this kli'/d\ of li /'(tine a fit and i)arasite city ; but there is no city in the 

 state in which this ideal is not more or less completely embodied. 



Suppose, when Virginia was settled in lilOT, Knglaud had sold 

 the whole territory of the United States to the first settlcMS for 

 11,000, and had taken a mortgage for this sum on the whohi i)rop- 

 erty. $1,0(K) at seven per cent per annum, on iialf-yearly notes, tl:e 

 interest collected and rcloaned as it f(^ll due, would amount, in the 

 interval between 1G()7 and 18.50, to ?10,777,21().000. All the property 

 in the IJnitfcl States, scjveral times ovisr, would not pay this debt. 



If the reader is intercisted in this matter of the comparative 



