not, their value will be appreciated to the gold standard, and this in specie payments." Everybody knows that he has no more of these notes than he wants. The people would take a thousand millions more, and still cry, Give! And the principle, that if the papermoney be not in excess of the wants of the people, it will not be presented for redemption, makes the alternative of redemption in bonds, if not all redemption, unnecessary. Surely it makes resumption easy.

The other most notable resumption bill was that of a distinguished financier of the House, Mr. Samuel Hooper. It was more simple. It proposed simple convertibility of the greenbacks at the Treasury at New York, to begin May 1, 1874, after which time greenbacks should be received for customs, and the Secretary might sell six-per-cent bonds to buy coin to keep the mill running, and should reissue the greenbacks. In this, as in the other case, the greenbacks that flowed into the treasury in exchange for coin were to flow out again, bringing more debt with them, and to repeat the operation ad infinitum. The bill also provided for the issue of three-per-cent notes to the banks on call, in exchange for greenbacks, to be held as reserves. This was to induce them not to lend their money to speculators. Having created banks to issue paper-money as a loan to the people, it was now proposed to pay them interest out of the public treasury on their idle money, to prevent their lending it too freely. This method also promised much paper-money inflation with specie payment, a recognized necessity in plans for resumption; for the popular in stinct fears contraction, and is in favor of unlimited paper-money. We should not judge harshly our public financiers, who have to frame their plans for resumption upon this necessity.

The problem of the paper-money expansion is much complicated by the expansion of the American Eagle in our statesmanship and in the palladium of our liberties. He would be a proph

et without honor in his own country who should say that depreciation of gold by the Treasury operations is no real appreciation of the currency, and, therefore, is no approach to specie payment: he would fare even worse who should say that there is no appreciation of the currency without calamity; that appreciation is an increase in the purchasing power of money in all things which is measured by falling prices in all things; that to cause an apparent appreciation of the currency by depreciating gold, whether it be by making notes legal tender, or by "bearing" the gold market with the Treasury surplus, is only to cheapen gold for export, and thus to drive it from the country, and put specie payment farther off; that the depreciation of gold below the range of 45 to 50 has not been attended with a corresponding appreciation of the currency in its general purchasing power; that the actual depreciation of the currency is now more than double what is marked by the premium on gold; and that all the operations of "bearing" gold below its just ratio to the currency have only sacrificed so much of its value to the Treasury, stimulated its exportation, and reduced the means of resumption.

The American people have had from their infancy a genius for paper-money. It is mortifying to find that the colonial fathers brought it to a more perfect system than we. Regularly, after their frequent Indian wars had made necessary a "forced loan" in notes, they fixed the rate of their redemption according to the depreciation they had experienced. Thus the depreciation was diffused gently as the dew, and at the end the holder got all the value he paid. Thus the good times of expansion were not followed by the terrible pinching of contraction. There was no appreciation, and thus the measure of private contracts was not raised, nor the specie standard disturbed. The colonial fathers were very pious men, and they thought this a just way of levying a "forced loan," and of redeeming a depreciated currency. But

we have a higher standard: we insist on the inflexibility of the obligation of the government, overlooking the fact that we raise the obligation of the $10,000,000,000 of private contracts by raising the value of the medium of payment. But the mysteries of papermoney have so confused the popular mind that it actually believes this raising of the obligation of contracts makes all richer. It was a serious matter to change the measure of all existing contracts from coin to flying paper: it is vastly more serious to raise the obligation of current indebtedness from flying paper to coin. But we call this tremendous alteration of private obligations public faith.

This is chiefly because we have imagined that the currency can be raised to par with coin, without changing its value, and that the dollar can be appreciated, and yet be as easy to get as when it was cheap. But real appreciation of money is always a calamity. The instinct against contraction recognizes this. Depreciation of money stimulates all the circulation of the body politic. It is rising prices, quickened trade, easy payment of debts, general confidence, and, apparently, general prosperity. Appreciation is the reverse. It restricts the circulation of the body politic, causes falling prices, harder payment of debts, diminishing trade, and general distrust. It is the instinctive perception of the hard consequences of real appreciation which, in the face of all the high professions of public faith, has caused it to be fixed that there shall be no redemption of the greenbacks, no payment, and therefore no real appreciation. It is this that has imposed on the Secretary of the Treasury the miraculous task of converting $ 732,000,000 of paper-money (with occasional additions to "move the crops " and to equalize the banking privilege) to specie value and to resumption, by speculative operations on the Wall Street gold market.

There is for our instruction the experience of Great Britain in restoring specie payment after a lesser deprecia

tion. It tells of contraction and appreciation, and their consequences, monetary pressure and widespread mercantile ruin. At the last the small remaining margin between paper and gold was overcome by beginning payment, in large sums only, in ingots, somewhat raised in value. An attempt to force specie payment, before contraction had appreciated the notes to par, proved disastrous. But America is such a surprising country that no experience serves her.

The bank circulation before the civil war had been as high as $ 214,000,000. In 1860 it was $207,000,000. We suppose the amount of specie was over $ 250,000,000, and the greater part was in the hands of the people. This gave $457,000,000 as the circulation medium of that time. We suppose $165,000,000 a high estimate for the specie at this time. Save the diminishing amount circulating in California, it is out of the ordinary channels of circulation or deposit. This seems to leave the $732,000,000 of paper-money the sum of the circulation. No close comparison can be made of the situation at this time with that in the era of specie-paying bank-paper, because of the peculiar condition of the coin, and because of the law of bank reserves on circulation and deposits. No one can tell how far this law is observed, or how far it holds currency out of circulation. But if we make a rough guess, and set off the doubtful amount withheld from the circulation by the law of reserves, against such incalculable influence as the specie may have in the circulation, and call the $732,000,000 of issued paper the true volume of the circulation we may find that this increase, as compared with the circulation, with specie payment, is not far above the inflation of general prices. And these have risen with the increase of bank circulation, and are rising. The cost of domestic production in general has been increasing for several years, and is growing with the growth of paper-money. This is the way a country grows up to its currency. But the inflation of prices by papermoney is always uneven and fluctu

ating. In the reckoning, we must take into account that the operations of the Treasury to depress gold depress in like degree the prices of the exportable products. There never was devised so potent an engine for stimulating imports as that which inflates the cost of home production by papermoney, and "bears" the gold for foreign purchases.

A simpler showing is made by taking the actual amount of paper and specie, and comparing their proportions with those of any time of specie payment, anywhere. Only they who think the expansion of the American Eagle is to bring specie payment will deny that a specie basis is prerequisite, and that conditions must be made which will secure this basis before resumption can begin. To depress the purchasing power of specie drives this basis out of the country. Not only the paper, but the coin, must be made to appreciate. If the appreciation of money be a blessing, the country can have much of it; for by a contraction of the paper-money we can not only bring that to par with coin, but, by restoring coin to its natural channels, we can rescue that from a forced depreciation which drives it from the land.

But it is confessed that the real appreciation of money which comes from contraction, or making it grow dearer, is so repugnant to the popular instinct that no public man dare propose it. It may be that ingenious financiers will invent a plan of banking upon a specie basis, with special encouragement, which shall transfer new transactions to the coin basis, and thus specie payment shall be made to steal upon the people unawares. It may be that, through some endless chain contrivance, which shall carry greenbacks into the Treasury and bring out bonds, contraction shall surreptitiously come upon the country through the promise of inflation. But at this writing the development theory of resumption is the great American doctrine. The country is waiting to grow up to specie payment. And as confidence in the growth of the country is boundless, many are desirous to show their faith in it by pouring the bank reserves into the inflated current, and by adding a large sum in greenbacks, to be issued to "move the crops," or to relieve the chronic monetary stringency, or to regulate general speculation, at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury.

Sam. R. Reed.

THEY

Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

VOL. XXXI. - NO. 187.

39

IN the Atlantic Monthly for Decem

ber last, I told the story of The Fight of a Man with a Railroad; and related how, while travelling on the New York and New Haven Railroad, from New York to New Haven, I tendered in payment for my passage a coupon-ticket marked, "Good from New Haven to New York," and was dragged from the train because I refused to pay my fare in any other form, and subjected to severe bodily injuries. The facts of this case are so familiar to the public that they need not be recapitulated here. The sequel of the contest -a suit for damages which, after four trials, resulted in a verdict of $3,500 in my favor is also well known. But some interesting and characteristic facts of the legal struggle still remain to be told; and by way of preface, it should be stated that my suit against the New York and New Haven Railroad Company was an action for damages for physical injuries sustained by me at the hands of its employees; not for its refusal to receive the ticket which I offered, and which I claimed was a legal and sufficient tender. I believed, and still believe, that if I pay for seventy-four miles of transportation on a railroad, I am entitled to such transportation on presentation of the evidence of my payment in the form of a ticket, at whichever end of the route I claim my due. But the basis of my suit was not the denial of my rights as a traveller. I sued the New York and New Haven Railroad Company, demanding damages for its wrongful act in beating and maiming me,for an assault, in fact. I brought the suit in a Massachusetts court, first, because the superintendent of the New York and New Haven Railroad had said that, if I wished to test the case, "he would give me all the law I wanted, and would show me that the laws in Connecticut were different from those

where I came from "; secondly, because most of the witnesses on my side were residents of Boston and vicinity, and could attend court in that city without much inconvenience; and thirdly, because I believed that the Massachusetts courts represented the highest type of judicial purity.

On the day of the first trial, I entered the court-room laboring under the agitation natural to the novice in legal contests, and worn with the labors of preparation. When the examination of witnesses was begun, I was first called to the stand. I was required, as is the custom, in direct examination, to tell who I was, where I lived, what my business was; and, these preliminary questions having been answered, to give a full history of the collision between myself and the railroad authorities. What was said and what was done I was permitted to tell, under constant interruptions from the counsel for the railroad, with, "Your Honor, I object!" and thanks to these interruptions, and to the slow pen of the judge, which lagged in note-taking, and had to be waited for, I gave, instead of the concise, straightforward, and symmetrical account which I intended to give, confused and piecemeal sketches, which did no justice to my case before the jury. I was wholly unable to show the animus of my antagonists, the contemptuous insolence which characterized their treatment of me in the earliest stages of the affair, and the reckless brutality which marked its catastrophe. I was allowed to tell the jury that I was ejected from the train and received bodily harm : the law recognizes the fact of an ejection; but it ignores the fact that the victim has " senses, affections, passions," and that the insult was put upon him in the presence of a car full of ladies and gentlemen.

The hasty retrospect of my evidence

which I involuntarily made gave me no courage for the next and severer ordeal, -the cross-examination. The first questions of the counsel for the corporation were gentle, soothing, and seductive; but, finding that I refused the hidden pitfalls into which he would fain lead me, he changed his method, and strove to make me exhibit myself as a "common travelling agent," who had deliberately plotted to swindle the railroad company by trumping up a claim for damages for a pretended injury. He interrogated me as to the particulars of my physical discomforts: on what days did I suffer pain from my injury? at what hours of the day? Did the weather affect my state of health? Then he required me to consider what a mean, contemptible fellow I was, to try to save two dollars and a quarter by using an old ticket. Then he demanded, to know why need I be such a "rough," and get into that disgraceful quarrel, disturbing the other passengers, assaulting the railroad officials, and making them leave their business and come all the way to Boston, when I might have paid my fare, and every thing would have been smooth?

On another trial the lawyer who conducted the case in behalf of the railroad company thundered out this command: "Now, sir, look upon the jury and tell them why you broke the rules of that road, why you attempt ed to use that ticket! A man of your age and your experience in travelling must have known better. What made you think you could do it?" A hush followed this indignant outburst. Every eye in the court-room was fixed upon me; the spectators straightened themselves in their seats to listen; the reporters liffed their heads, and fingered their pencils nervously; the lawyers within the bar winked at each other significantly; and the presiding judge bent forward in an attitude of grave expectation.

My answer was deliberate, for I had outgrown my original nervousness, and was hardened to the asperities of judicial inquisition: "On general prin

ciples, when I pay a dollar for a thing, I am entitled to the equivalent of that dollar, whether I buy a railroad ticket or potatoes."

"Ye-e-s," rejoined the lawyer, slowly, and with a sneer in every word, "and when you buy potatoes, you think you can take it out in sugar or tea, if you prefer." He had made a good point, he thought, and he cast about the room a look inviting congratulation.

"No," I said; "I do not think I can take it out in sugar or tea. But I think, if I buy a barrel of potatoes, it's nobody's business but my own whether I take the head out of the barrel and eat through that way, or tip it the other end up, and go through that way!"

For once I had the whole court with me in a laugh, in which judge, jury, lawyers, and spectators took eager part; and my inquisitor dashed his papers on the table, and dropped into his seat.

During the last trial I had testified that I knew tickets had been used "backwards 29, on the road, and I believed such usage amounted to a custom. My tormentor asked why I did not bring witnesses to prove such a custom. I replied, that we did introduce a witness for that purpose, but the defendant's counsel refused to permit him to testify, declaring that the custom of the road had nothing to do with the case; only the rule of the road was to be considered. The counsel denied

this, and affirmed that he would not have objected to such testimony, if we had been able to produce it. A gentleman sitting among the spectators rose and whispered to my lawyer; and as soon as I left the witness-stand, he was called and sworn, the opposing counsel watching the proceeding with undisguised curiosity. "Mr. Witness," asked my lawyer, "you have travelled a good deal on the New York and New Haven Railroad, have you not?" "Yes, sir." "State whether or not you ever had any tickets to go in the reverse direction, and how they were marked."

Before the witness could answer, the