the year 1865 were $2,998,130. The disbursements were $1,540,130, which left a gain of $1,448,000. This is supposed to be divided among the policy holders. The expenses for postage, advertising, medical examinations, salaries, stationery, and printing was $212,000. The motives in both parties is to make gain out of each other. The Commercial tells us that these companies owe those who have insured with them $800,000,000. These companies have received $44,000,000. One thing is very certain, the people who own and manage these institutions, must be paid for their work. For their share they probably receive $15,000,000. As $500 will supply a person's wants for a year, it follows that 30,000 persons are kept in idleness, who can make on the Miles Greenwood loom in a year 270,000,000 yards of cloth. Money obtained by life insurance is soon gone, and then the family are as helpless as ever. If the insurer had gone to the country, and made a farm, taught his family spinning and weaving, they would have a constant support.

Mary Wollstonecraft says: "Woman thus infallibly becomes the solace of men when they are so weak in body and mind that they can not exert themselves, unless to pursue some frothy pleasure or to invent some frivolous fashion. What a melancholy sight it is to see numerous carriages that drive in the cities full of pale-faced ladies!" Many evils will cease when laborers leave the cities. They are no longer places of refuge for fugitive slaves. Laborers living in cities are slaves to landlords and merchants.

COMMERCE, ITS ORIGIN-MANKIND NEEDED COMMERCE TO IMPROVE THEIR CONDITION-ITS EVILS AND REMEDY-FRANKLIN'S OPINIONS OF COMMERCE-REV. SIDNEY SMITH'S OPINIONS OF COMMERCE.

K

INGS and nobles have started legislation, which may be defined, the art of keeping mankind poor. Commerce will do this most effectually. Franklin defines commerce to be "The exchanging of the necessaries of life for superfluities. It is giving our victuals and clothes to the islands for rum and sugar.'

That kings and courtiers believed in keeping the people poor may be inferred from some of their expressions. Cardinal Richelieu says: "If the people were well off, it would be difficult to keep them within legal bounds." In the play of "Jane Shore" is this language: "The restive knaves are overrun with ease, as plenty is the nurse of faction." Robert Owen was traveling in Europe; a great dinner was made for the purpose of drawing him into a controversy with M. Gentz, a famous politician, and a champion of a different school of reform. M. Gentz enjoyed "the full confidence of the leading despots of Europe," and was secretary of the congress of sovereigns, then about to assemble at Aix-la-Chapelle. Mr. Owen opened to the company his scheme for the improvement of the human

race, and for arranging the social machinery, "so as to saturate society at all times with wealth sufficient to amply supply all its wants through life." M. Gentz was asked for a reply; and, to Mr. Owen's surprise, said: "We know very well what you say is true; but how can we govern the masses if they were wealthy and so independent of us.” Mr. Owen had engraved a picture of what society might be if reformed. He showed this to Lord Lauderdale, who looked at it attentively, and then suddenly exclaimed, "Oh I see it all! Nothing could be more complete for the poor and working classes. But what is to become of us?"*

Bulwer, in his "England and the English," tells us of a savage chief, who looked for some time at a printing press in operation, and then said: "If that was among my people I could not rule them." Montesquieu, in his "Spirit of the Laws," tells us that the Turkish rulers plundered their subjects as close as possible, to keep them from revolting. A people must have some accumulations of food, when they go to war.

Gov. Hammond, when he said "that in all social systems there must be a class to do the mean duties of life," knew that there must be some custom or usage, or some acts of legislating, some carrying away of the people's food, or selling away the public lands to favorites and speculators, or granting them to railroads which introduce habits of luxury to the few at the expense of the many. These acts make drudges of a part of the people. This senator knew, and many of the others knew that a state of universal riches and equality would give them no needle drudges to prepare for their wives and daughters costly robes, or kitchen drudges to prepare highly-wrought and costly food. A system that makes senators do drudgery will not do.

* Life of ROBERT OWEN, by Ashmead and Evans, Philadelphia, 1865.

Says D'Israeli, in his "Curiosities of Literature:" "That the Romans did not practice the art of printing can not but excite our astonishment, since they really possessed the art, and may be said to have enjoyed it, unconscious of their rich possession. I have seen the Roman stereotypes, or printing immovable types, with which they stamped their pottery. How, in daily practicing the art, though confined to this object, it did not occur to so ingenious a people to print their literary works, is not easily accounted for. Did the wise and grave senate dread those inconveniences which attended its indiscriminate use?"

The Marquis D'Arginson says: "Trading centralization tends to make the world a single kingdom, plundered by a multitude of intendants" (superintendents.) From these sentiments we may learn that legislation is a means to keep the people poor and in ignorance, which commerce can accomplish.

After the conquest of England the villains and vassals of the nobility had only themselves and their masters to support. The lord, to keep his people poor, had only to increase the number of his retainers. As soon as commerce, or rather ships, were invented, then the food could be carried away. As seamen were wanted to navigate these ships, they would be taken from the working classes, which would lessen their number. The workers would have to feed and clothe themselves, their masters, and the seamen. The ship is laden with food and clothing, and it sails to Brazil. The natives are engaged at those pursuits that are useful— they are creating food and clothes. The captain says to the natives, "Quit your useful labors, and go to seeking diamonds, for which we will give you food and clothes." The poor working people of England have now to clothe and feed these diamond seekers. Another ship is laden with

food and clothing, requiring more sailors to be taken from the industrious classes. The ship goes to Ceylon. The captain says to the natives, "Your labor produces food andclothes, if you will quit that labor and dive for pearls, we will give you food and clothes for your labor." Another ship is laden with food and clothing, requiring more sailors from the industrious classes. This freight is taken away to Mexico, and for it the people are set to work seeking for silver, gold, dye-stuffs, sandal-wood, and many other useless things. The scholars of America, the men with certificates of learning written on sheepskin, can not deny that sailors come from the working classes, and to feed and clothe these lessens the scanty stores of those who remain to do useful work. It can not be denied that those who seek for gold, silver, diamonds, and pearls, are clothed and fed at the expense of the poor workers of England. If all this useless commerce were to come to an end, what a relief it would bring. Those who produce the values that obtain the products of the mines and the sea, do not enjoy any part of them. To see a person bedecked with diamonds ought to fill the just mind with indignation and sorrow. To see so much labor wasted should give pain.

The Rev. Sidney Smith says: "Every rock in the ocean where a cormorant can perch is occupied by British troops, has a governor, deputy governor, store-keeper, and deputy store-keeper, and will soon have an archdeacon and a bishop; military college, with thirty-four professors, educating seventeen ensigns per annum-being half an ensign for each professor-with every species of nonsense, athletic, sartorial, aud plumigerous. 'A just and necessary war' costs this country above one hundred pounds per minute. A pension for a man who broke his head at the pole-to another who had his leg shot at the Equator; subsidies to