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The heads of those establishments must have large in- 
comes to support them; but they commonly come from 
rents and interests paid for the uses of their realised pro- 
perty, not from their own talents or labour ; therefore the 
incomes so spent in mere ostentation are so much of the 
nation’s wealth wasted and cast to the winds. 
To keep a great many horses and dogs merely for sports or 
gambling, a large retinue of servants and followers for 
parade and show in compliance with the rules of “ fashionable 
life,” all being useless appendages to greatness, the costs are 
“wanton wastes of wealth,” and often much worse than 
waste, as they tend to pervert the taste, corrupt the morals, 
and mystify the minds of the parties themselves — -upheld by 
the higher orders, they must be right. 
We have certainly many gentlemen of great wealth who 
spend their incomes for laudable purposes — to improve their 
farming lands, to foster industry, to instruct and help the 
needy — in short, to promote the wellbeing of society. To 
such all honour be given. But it will be seen that these 
come under the useful section of society already mentioned. 
We must trace all the channels through which wealth 
flows to see its nature and uses. 
It is common to consider the holders of bank notes, bills 
of exchange, and engagements to pay money , as persons 
possessing so much wealth. They however are not thereby 
holders of wealth at all, but merely its signs and the power 
to obtain it, in money or what they deem its equivalent, at 
the appointed times. We must now look to the proper 
functions of these holders of the signs of wealth. Bankers, 
brokers, commission agents, and the like, are useful and 
necessary assistants in trading and industrial pursuits, and 
they must possess and deal in bank notes and commercial 
paper to facilitate the exchanges among the producers and 
distributors of wealth. Thus far then the holders of these 
signs of wealth belong to the useful classes of society. Let 
