68 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



possessed buildings far surpassing any of modern times. In those 

 days extremes met, the poor were poor, and the rich very rich. 

 How their wealth was accumulated history is silent, but corruption 

 was rampant amongst the upper classes of that day. 



Mr. Griffen, the famous statistician, recently stated, when 

 speaking of the accumulated wealth ot Great Britain, that if the 

 several countries were to be separated, England would be entitled 

 to ^308 a head, Scotland ;^243, Ireland ^93. Making a compari- 

 son of the three richest nations of the world he said that the wealth 

 per head of the population is as follows; Great Britain ^270, or 

 $1,276 ; France ^190, or $912 ; United States ^160, or $768. 



Earl Russell, in an address made by him before the University 

 of Aberdeen, alluding to the corruption which prefaced the fall of 

 Rome, said such a state of things was not confined to Rome. We, 

 he said, have not yet got quite so low, but we have arrived at a point 

 where intellectual greatness ceases to be appreciated, and a low sen- 

 sualism characterizes our habits. It is for this that money is needed, 

 and the more that is acquired and spent the more is needed. It is 

 through the eager desire for the acquisition of riches in the briefest 

 space of time that our stupendous failures occur, our defalcations, 

 and our records of destitution and paupeiism so discreditable to 

 national honor follow in their wake. In the pursuit of wealth com- 

 mercial morality disappears, and he cited the anecdote of a Quaker 

 whose ship was so long at sea that he went to effect an insurance 

 upon it. The Company was equally wary. Pending the negotia- 

 tion the merchant heard that his ship was lost. He wrote to the 

 Secretary to this effect : 'If thee hast not made out the policy, thee 

 needest not, for I have heard from the ship." The Secretary filled 

 up the policy at once, and handed it to the messenger, thinking 

 what a stroke of business he had effected. The messeng&r returned 

 with the reply — " Since thee hast made out the policy, it is all right, 

 I have heard from the ship as I told thee — but — she is lost." 



The late Henry Ward Beecher, in a lecture he delivered in Ot- 

 tawa some years ago on the ministry of wealth, pointed out the dif- 

 ferent ideas of wealth as entertained by people in different stations 

 of life, and delineated the pain of the avaricious millionaire, whose 

 only thought was how to make his interest increase. A wealthy 

 man, he said, should encourage and patronize Art and Beauty. The 

 power to concentrate wealth had an influence on the suffrages of 



