128 
furners of articles of general confumption 
{for I do not now {peak of rarities), that 
# is impoffible to fuppofe that any feller 
¢an find it advantageous to have almoft 
the whole of his commodity left on his 
bands. Try a price a little lower, and fo 
on, down to the price at which the whole 
will be fold: you will find the lower the 
price, provided it do not fink below that 
point, the larger will be the fm produced 
by the quantity fold. 3d. The butcher 
wha, ina market, fhould fuffer a part of 
his meat to be fpoiled, by perfifting to 
afk a higher price than that at which he 
might fell the whole, would certainly 
raile the price of the part fold by him, 
but ke would alfo raile the price of all 
that was foid by the other butchers. We 
will fuppofe that ke has’a fifth, or twenty 
zn the hundred, of all the- meat in the 
mtarket. If he. afks a price at which he 
fells only ten, the other ten are as if they 
did not exift, and the quantity is reduced 
from one hundred to ninety. A tenth 
being withdrawn, and the demand remain- 
ing the fame (other eatables fora moment 
eut of the queition), the value of the 
remainder will be increafed one tenth. 
But this increafed price myft be divided 
among the ninety. The butcher, who 
thought by the increafed price of the half 
told, to make up for the lofs of the half 
tpoiled, finds that he has gained one, and 
loft ten. 
i fay that he fas gained one, on the, 
fappofition that the mcreafed price of 
butcher’s meat has not made the cufto- 
mers buy other articles of food in the mar- 
ket, or apply to other butchers elfewhere ; 
but, as this would certainly be the cafe, 
the gain of this one mult be divided 
among all the venders of thofe articles, 
and all the other butchers, who’e commo- 
cities would rife with the increafed de- 
mand; ard the one will be found to be 
not the one thoufandth part of the one. 
‘The gain will be of much too finall a de- 
nomination to be capable of being dedu@- 
ed from the lofs. Nothing but a combi- 
nation, not only of al] the butchers in the 
market, but of all the owners of all the 
eatables that are not too diftant to be 
brought before the confumer fuffers hun- 
ger, can de what we hear of fo often, and 
is fo much dreaded, fet these own price. 
Unnatural fituations alone, produced by 
political caufes, can effect it—a prifon— 
a fhip—an army—to cut off all intercourfe 
with the reft of the world, tegether with a 
fubfeription from the wholecommunity, or, 
which isthe fame thing, taxes levied in fuf- 
Acient quantity to buy up all, or nearly all, 
On the National Debt. 
{March r. 
articles of food, and applied with fufficient 
ingenuity to prevent any’part from being 
refold: thefe alone are powerful enough 
to compel the confumer to give any price 
that may he exaéted. 
He that would dry up an arm of the fea 
mutt poffefs a three-fold power :—to draw 
off the water ; to prevent it froni flowing 
back; and to cut off all communication 
with the ocean. MisoORHETOR. 
P. S.—J: N. H. and any other of your Cor- 
refpondents, who fkall bring forward obice- 
tions in a manner as mild and unrhetorical, 
will find them noticed in the regular courfe 
of my obfervations on thefe cafes. 
‘ ee 
_ For the Monthly Magazine. 
Ox the NATIONAL DEBT, illufrative 
of the COPPER-PLATE. 
HE engraved plate, reprefenting the 
progreflive increafe, and prefent 
amount of the National Debt, done by a 
method, invented by Mr. W. Playfair, 
about fifteen years ago, is inferted from a 
new and elegant edition of his Commercial 
and Political Atlas, lately pwolifhed, in 
which the trade, and mott of the public ac- 
counts of England, are reprefented in the 
fame manner, in 26 different charts. } 
In the plate, the divifions that pafs from 
right to left, are ten millions fterling eachs 
and the lines that are perpendicular, or 
from top to bottom, repreient the years 
marked at the foot of each. Thus, if it 
is wifhed to know the amount of the debg 
at the beginning of the American war, 
obferye where the line, reprefenting the 
debt, croffes the year 1775, and therlook 
on the right fide of the plate for the num~- 
ber of millions, oppofte which will be 
found to be one hundred and thirty-five: 
millions, and fo for any other epoch. 
A very little practice renders this mode 
of ftating accounts, extremely ealy and fa- 
miliar ; the advantages arifing from which, 
are acknowledged, both inxthis and other 
nations, to be very confiderable.* It aobre- 
viates and facilitates the acquifition of 
knowledge, by giving form and fhape to 
what would otherwife remain a number of 
diftin&t faéts, and thereby communicating 
a fimple and permanent idea of the gra- 
dual progre{s, and comparafiye amount, at 
different periods, by prefenting to the eye 
a figure, the proportions -of which, corre- 
{pond with the amount of the {ums inten- 
ded to be exprefied. 
* The book was tranflated, and the plates. 
engraved, in France, where it procured the 
author a very flattering reception, only 2 few. 
months before the revolution broke ont. A 
& 
