Br 1203

NOV 11 1881

Britice900.3 Semnee sund

CONTENTS OF VOLUME LVIII.

The law is, that every man shall pay his debts in gold and silver. The law is, that every bank shall pay its notes in gold and silver. The law is, that no paper money, of any sort, is a legal tender. The law is, that, if aủy banker tender you Bank of England paper, and refuse to give you sovereigns, for his notes, you may refuse the notes, and bring an action against the banker, and that if the notes which you present for payment amounts to ten pounds, or upwards, you may arrest the banker, who thus attempts to shume you off with Bank of England notes. The law is, that silver is legal tender to the amount of forty shillings, but to no higher amount. This is the law, relating to these matters; and, therefore, if men be ruined, or even starved, in consequence of their holding bank notes, the fault is their own, and not that of the law or the government.

то

THE PEOPLE OF ESSEX.

ON THE DANGERS ATTENDING PAPER - MONEY.,

Kensington, 29th March, 1826. deem it my duty to address

you MY FRIENDS,

on the dangers attending paperThere is this good in suffering, money, and to endeavour to inthat it has a tendency to make men duce you to rely on no sort of wiser than they were before they money, except the King's coin, a suffered ; and, supposing you to piece of which his Ministers have be like other men, I may, I hope, expressed their desire that every congratulate you on a vast 'in- poor man should have in his crease of wisdom, in the course of pocket. I address myself to you the last four months. But, still I in particular, because certain

A
Printed and Published by WILLIAM COBBETT, No. 183, Fleet.street.

[ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.]

'banks; you

transactions in your county points and his people to the public? you out to me as persons who are, They do no work of any sort; just at this time, peculiarly liable they produce nothing, nor do they to be deceived. You have seen a improve the worth of any thing great deal of the breaking of that is produced by others. “They

have seen also a great toil not, neither do they spin "; deal of the efforts to prop them and, if not “arrayed quite like up; you have felt the effects of Solomon in all his glory," I this banking work, which has strongly suspect, that Solomon, in ruined many thousands of you; all his glory, never had, at any but, still, you want to know a one time, so large a quantity of little more of the nature of the “ FINE OLD WINES” as is thing, called a bank.

now advertised for sale at the You find people enough to say, house of your late banker, Mr. that “banks are very good things," CRICKITT; and, I could almost that "the notes are a great ac- venture to take my oath, that Socommodation"; and the like.

LOMON never spent ten thousand Strange assertions! Can bank- pounds on an election, and that, notes cause the land to produce too, taken by him out of a bank, food? Can they create any thing? in which he had not one single No; but, they can, and they do, farthing. cause one man's property to pass Here, my friends, is one of the to another, without the latter giv- great causes of the sufferings of ing any thing for it. They can this nation; one great cause of

enormous robbery, and the increase of the paupers, of screen the robber from punish- the thefts, of the size of the gaols, ment. Suppose une to be a banker; poor-houses, mad-houses, and of suppose me to have put nothing those horrid scenes of deplorable into my bank; suppose me to get misery and starvation, which we a horse from a farmer and to pay daily behold. Somebody -must him in some of my notes, know. lose, somebody njust suffer, in coning, at the same time, that my sequence of the gains of those notes represent no property at who thrive by paper-money; and, all. Why should I, if I can get at last, a large part of this suffera horse in this way, run the risk ing falls on the working class. of being hanged for horse-steal- Mr. CRICKITT, in his examinaing? Of what use are a banker tion, is, in the newspapers, re