26 KEY. F. D. HUNTINGTON S 



histories of popular delusions laid before tho world, from 

 the fear that the reading of them might chance to teaCh 

 men how to deceive ; forgetting that such works are quite 

 as useful (if not the most useful) in preventing the many 

 being imposed upon as they are by the few crafty deluders. 

 He would evidently have men ignorant ; although his co- 

 worker, Mr. Garrison, in commenting upon this same 

 subject, declares that already, " Morally speaking, the 

 whole nation is rotten ; with its four millions of human 

 beings plundered of every right, and registered as so much 

 bona fide property by their plunderers." 



Still, my friend Mr. Garrison, whose opinion is a valued 

 and valuable one, also asserts that he thinks this book of 

 mine " may serve to put honest, well-meaning people on 

 their guard in respect to any new delusion that may be 

 started hereafter, for the purpose of picking their pockets." 



The reverend critic of my humble " History " would 

 have all men remain in ignorance of the deception, and 

 fraud, and chicanery, and evils, that attended the Tulip 

 mania, the South Sea bubble, the Mississippi scheme, and 

 a hundred similar delusions, because such knowledge might 

 lead them astray. Just as if men, being informed of this 

 existence of a pit on a road they were compelled to travel, 

 should insist upon walking deliberately into it, instead of 

 turning such information (as they more naturally do) to 

 purposes of safety. The reverend Mr. Huntington is a 

 good man ; too good, I fear, but not too wise, for a world 

 in which they make half-dimes and three-cent pieces ! 



Mr. Huntington alludes to these transactions which I 

 have narrated in my book, as if they were exceptional to 



