ending in disgrace and imprisonment. Gotch's Private Bank, hopelessly insolvent, and recklessly speculative over a series of years, sufficiently long to drive the partners mad, unless they looked on their case as a very common one. Some of our moralists insist that the dishonesty of banking comes from the joint-stock principle, but unfortunately, so many private concerns have been brought to account, that it is impossible not to believe that the evil lies far deeper, and is very much more serious than any simple business arrangement will explain. But that which we complain of does not stop with the bankers; wholesale traders and large manufacturers are as deeply involved as any other class of the cammunity. Extensive speculations that promise large profits require the association of several respectable traders, and from their co-operation springs into existence a mass of accommodation paper, sufficient to carry on the business of a small state. First, a few accept for each other; then extraneous aid is found to be necessary; new acceptors are wanted and paid for; and in the end comes the smash and exposure; and respectability, with its big house, its servants, its carriages, its plate and wine, turns out to be little better than a system of fraud and false-pretence, carried on under the belief that honesty is really not the best policy, except as a cloak to conceal the dexterous dodge by which the unsuspecting part of the world is taken in. We have no objection that amended laws and new legal provisions should be set up against such practices as these, but, at the same time, we may say that we do not believe in their efficacy. Such things make men more ingenious, but not more honest. Laws are only of much use, when made against exceptional practices; they lose all their force when that which they prohibit has become general. Improved bankruptcy laws will not make honest traders. They will rather drive ingenious tricksters into new methods of fraud. people must get on, to be held respectable in the world, and if that is the only ground upon which they can claim to be respectable, no ambitious man can afford to be considered poor, and therefore, law must follow morality, and be kicked out of doors as a dangerous obstacle to the growth of a wealthy respectability. If Unfortunately, too, this disease is spreading. It is not confined to speculators in money and trade. It has already found its way amongst our rural population. The dull, bucolic mind is sharpening up under the desire to grow rich; and, in a short time, we may find, at some of our agricultural exhibitions, mahogany beet-root as skilfully made as the hickory nutmegs in America. We do not expect such bold and extensive enterprises in fraud from our farmers, as we do from our city and town-bred speculators, but they can do something, and when they begin to work, they will do it with a will. For instance, the following has just appeared in an Ayrshire journal: -We learn that at a recent cattle show, two Ayrshire bulls carried off prizes unfairly; for it has been discovered that, in one of the cases the animal was furnished with false horns, ingeniously secured by means of gutta percha to the head; and in the other, the skin had been punctured behind the shoulder, to blow up some hollow at the place, and improve the animal's symmetrical appearance. From this it will be seen that cuteness is not confined to the mart or the exchange; but that the rustic pipe, that, in the days of Theocritus, carried off the prize for music, now carries off the prize at the cattle show; not by filling the uplands and vales with tender love notes, but by being ingeniously inserted in the punctured skin of the bull, to blow up such hollow places as might offend the eyes of the judges. We scarcely know what to recommend as a cure for this almost general disease. Law will certainly not eradicate it. Preaching cannot have much effect. Exceptional education will do little good. Indeed we know of nothing likely to be half so efficacious as a good sound general education, by the means of which man's life may be made respectable, independent of his surroundings. Wealth is now the idol of society, and every other consideration is lost in the desire to attain it. If, however, a sound effort was made to educate the mass of the people, so that they might look more within and less without for their pleasures and their happiness, much might be done to secure a sounder morality than at present unfortunately prevails. Until this is done, cheating and peculation must thrive. In the city, worthless signatures will be affixed to bills; and in the country, false horns will be attached to bulls; and pretence will pass for reality until the mask of life is removed, and men are compelled to stand in the presence of facts, too solemn and too serious to be got rid of by any kind of hypocritical juggle." P The late Duke of Buccleuch, in one of his walks, purchased a cow in the neighbourhood of Dalkeith, which was to be sent to his palace on the following morning. The Duke, in his morning dress, espied a boy early ineffectually attempting to drive the animal forward to its destination. The boy not knowing the Duke, bawled out “Hie! mun! come an' gie's a han' wi' this beast." The Duke walked on slowly, the boy still craving his assistance, and at last in a tone of distress exclaimed, “Come here, mun, an' help us, anʼ as sure as onything I'll gie you half get." The Duke went and lent the helping hand. "And now," said the Duke, as they trudged along, "how much d'ye think ye'll get for this job?" "I dinna ken," said the boy; "but I'm sure o' something, for the folk up at the big house are gude to a' bodies." As they approached the house, the Duke disappeared from the boy, and entered by a different way. Calling a servant, he put a sovereign into his hand, saying, “Give that to the boy who brought the cow." The Duke, having returned to the avenue, was soon rejoined by the boy. "Well, how much did you get?" said the Duke. “A shilling," said the boy, "an' there's half o' it to ye." "But you surely got more than a shilling," said the Duke. "No," said the boy; "as sure as death that's a' I got; and d'ye no think its plenty ?" "I do not,” said the Duke, "there must be some mistake; and, as I am acquainted with the Duke, if you return, I think I'll get you more." They went back, the Duke rang the bell, and ordered all the servants to be assembled. "Now," said the Duke to the boy, "point me out the person that gave you the shilling." "It was that chap there with the apron," pointing to the butler. The butler confessed, fell on his knees, and attempted an apology; but the Duke indignantly ordered him to give the boy the sovereign, and quit his service instantly. have lost," said the Duke, "your money, your situation, and your character by your covetousness; learn henceforth that 'honesty is the best policy." The boy by this time recognised his assistant in the person of the Duke; and the Duke was so delighted with the worth and honesty of the boy, that he ordered him to be sent to school, kept there and provided for at his own expense. 66 Napoleon said one day to Madame Campan :-" The old systems of instruction are worth nothing. What is wanting, in order that the youth of France be well educated?" "Mothers," replied Madame C. This reply struck the Emperor. "Here," said he, "is a system of education in one word. Be it your care to train up mothers, who shall know how to educate their children." This profound remark contains, perhaps, the secret of a mighty regeneration. Independent of mundane motives, there is a large sect of religionists who have no consciousness or suspicion they are dreamers; fancy they see visions, when they only dream dreams; who regard every evil as a penance inflicted by the immediate hand of Heaven, in punishment for natural sins of omission and commission. The whole class of events are swept into the grand category of public and private judgments. Persons who entertain such views as these, relative to human and Divine Providence, rarely advocate sweeping reforms. Of course such persons would say of a man falling down in a fit of apoplexy, from repletion of solids or fluids, or perhaps both, that "he died by the visitation of GOD." The great question to be solved is this:-Would such an individual have died, if the excess or excesses had not been perpetrated? Why not, pro bono publico, instead of insulting the Deity, and throwing dust in the eyes of our neighbours, the jury and coroner give the bona fide verdict-the real exciting cause, whatever that may and let Mr. Bull have the full benefit of the warning; for is not honesty the best policy? be; We trust we have said enough to convince all who are convinceable and open to conviction (not those who consider the wages of iniquity a fourth-rate consideration), that a thorough revision of our educational system is degirable. As to moral power-it is a most pernicious error; a most fatal delusion, to estimate national greatness, or national stability, by the amount or diversity of material interests; it is the physical and the moral state of the people that constitutes the power of a kingdom, and the strength of its institutions. |