of the money of paper issued by the treasury would be kept as constant as that of the gold coinage issued by the mint, and from an analogous cause. The infusion of the democratic spirit into our political relations has made the mint a self-regulating institution. While the coinage of money was in the hands of royalty, nothing was more common than debasing the currency as a device for raising money for the king's private purse. By making a thousand dollars' worth of gold simulate the value of two thousand, the royal coiner pocketed the difference. Finally, however, the growing spirit of popular freedom demanded that the mint should be managed in the interest of the public, and with this change honesty and justice are inherent in its operations. If the coinage is made baser than the standard, it will not circulate except at a discount; if it is made better than the standard, the brokers and jewellers buy it up and melt it over for the gain they can thus make. The stamp of the mint is, therefore, a guarantee of honesty, and is everywhere accepted without question. The same thing could be done with the issues of the currency from the treasury, and the dollar of paper could be given as accurate and stable a value as the dollar of gold. Whatever may be thought of the value of this system, and it requires some previous training in such subjects of consideration, before any one is capable of forming an intelligent opinion about the matter, yet there is no question that it has the merits of a system which is consistent with itself, and a treasury thus managed would have a method for its action, and a test for what it should do. In this respect, at least, it would be a great improvement upon the want of method which now characterizes the management of the treasury. In fact, at present, this important branch of the national service is conducted very much as though the influence of the treasury upon the price of god was the sole object for which it was instituted, and the measures taken by those in control to produce the ends they desire, are as though an engineer should attempt to control the steam engine under his care, not by handling the valves which regulate the admission of the steam, but by pushing or pulling on the balance-wheel. The attention given to economic science in modern times has resulted in the suggestion of other systems for the management of the treasury, which it will not be amiss to notice here. The stuts of political economy are fully aware of the importance of financial systems in matters of social and industrial organization, and how desirable it is that the popular intelligence upon such subjects should be accurate, and infused with a wise distrust of mere precedent, since only as the intelligent desires of the public are expressed in political action can it be hoped that the systems in operation will be modified to suit the changed conditions of the times. Another system was proposed by Mr. Edward Kellogg, in a work published first in 1849, and again in 1861, uuder the title A New Monetary System. In this work he proposes that the currency of the country should be issued by the government, and based upon the real estate of the country, since the value of the improved real estate is the best test of the wealth of a country. According to this system any owner of real estate should have the right to obtain a loan from the government of one half the valuation of the property. This loan should be given in the currency, for an indefinite period of time, and at such a rate of interest as would suffice to pay the expenses of organizing and conducting the business, at most probably rather under than over one per cent. interest. In this way he maintains that the volume of the currency in circulation at any one time will represent the necessities of the industry of the country. No one will desire to thus borrow from the treasury unless he can make a profitable use of the money, and of his need for money, and his ability to use it, each man is his own best judge. The arguments by which Mr. Kellogg sustains his suggestions, and the statistical proofs he brings to show that the present rate of interest is so much higher than the average rate of the profits made by industry over the expenses of living, as to threaten the absorption of the country's wealth into a few hands, and is the chief cause for the unequal distribution of wealth, are well worthy of careful consideration from every one. Another proposition, by which the currency shall be made so readily accessible to all that it cannot be monopolized, consists in the suggestion that the government should issue through the treasury a sufficient quantity of bonds to provide the amount of the currency required by the industry of the country, and that these bonds should draw only a low rate of interest, say three per cent. a year, and that to any one who deposits these bonds as collateral, currency of a certain proportionate value shall be lent at the same rate of interest, all loans to be settled within a year, so that each year's products shall pay each year's loans, The working of this system, it is claimed, would be, that it would prove self-regulating. Whenever opportunity offered, and of this the public, each man acting according to his own knowledge of his own interests, is the best judge, currency would be called for, and when the time for its profitable use had passed, the currency would be returned for bonds. Further: this currency would be stable, because it would at any time represent the demands made for it by the industry of the country, and it would also be impossible to monopolize it, while it would not cost too much. It would, perhaps, not be wise to adopt either of these sugges tions entirely, but all of them are valuable as indicating the modifications of our financial system which shall make the treasury what it should be, the centre of the circulation of the body politic; and it is manifest to every one who has studied the spirit of the times, and investigated with a method the course of the changes which this century has brought about in our social and financial organizations, that some such system is needed for satisfying the demands of the industrial activity of the times, which, with its methods of steam transportation and telegraphic communication, has outgrown the financial systems which were competent for the last century. PROGRESS IN MODERN METHODS OF MANUFACTURE. MODERN AND ANCIENT MATERIALS FOR PERSONAL CLEANLINESS. THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY TO WEAVING. TRADITIONS OF THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE SPINNINGWHEEL. EARLY USE OF THE DISTAFF IN THIS COUNTRY. PUBLIC SPINNINGSCHOOLS.- ENGLAND'S JEALOUSY OF HER LOOMS. SAMUEL SLATER. ALFRED JENKS. THE FIRST MILL IN PENNSYLVANIA. BARTON H. JENKS.HIS CAREER AS AN INVENTOR. THE BRIDESBURG MANUFACTURING COMPANY. - COMPLETENESS OF THEIR APPLIANCES AND THE REPUTATION OF THEIR PRO DUCTIONS. THE methods of transportation in the modern world, which have replaced the galley with its oarsmen by the steamship driven by its powerful engines, or the train of pack-mules with the steam locomotive and its long lines of cars, are not more striking than the change introduced into the production of cloth, by which the old hand process of spinning and weaving has been replaced by those of machinery. Elsewhere in this volume allusion has been made to the moral effects produced by the increased production of material for clothing in modern times. Though there is no question that among the favored rich in antiquity, and even in the middle ages, stuffs of great richness and splendor were frequently used, yet among the mass of the people habits of personal cleanliness, which are so dependent upon a frequent change of clothing, were not possible. With the tedious and slow process of hand spinning and weaving, and also with the want of an abundant supply of a cheap material like cotton, the people of those times had not the materials at hand for providing themselves with the clothing which the introduction of machinery has made accessible to all. The dress of the people was, therefore, mostly of woollen materials, which were worn much longer than we should now consider to be in accordance with the rules of hygiene. For women, particularly, the in troduction of cotton, and the improvements in machinery, have afforded a cheap and healthful material for their under-clothing, which has been made largely available. It may seem to many an innovation to insist upon the importance of the material conditions for the moral advance of the world, and it is only within quite modern times that the necessity of these has become even partially understood. Yet this method of investigating the facts of social progress is daily gaining ground with scientific students. The introduction of machinery to weaving and spinning was made in England. The earliest method of spinning by hand was with the spindle and distaff. With very slight, if any modifications or improvements in these implements, this method continued in use for centuries. The looms, also, for weaving, were of a very primitive and rough description. Even with these appliances, however, very fine fabrics were produced, but at a cost of time and labor which placed them entirely beyond the reach of any but the very rich. The simple looms upon which the camel's-hair shawls are woven are, perhaps, the best representatives remaining now in use of the looms which were used by our ancestors. So great an innovation upon the spindle and distaff was the spinningwheel regarded, that in early Anglo-Saxon and Irish traditions it was considered to have had a divine origin. The simplest form of the spinning-wheel is supposed to have been brought from India, where it had long been in use, and in Germany, in the fifteenth century, it was improved by having the treadle applied to it. Dr. Taylor, in his "Hand-Book of the Silk, Cotton, and Woollen Manufacture," has given a version of the Irish legend of the divine gift of the spinning-wheel, as he took it from the lips of an Irish peasant woman. In the eighteenth century, about 1767, Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny, though, in a poem entitled the "Fleece," printed in this same year, the distaff and spindle are spoken of as being still in quite general use in Norwich and the county of Suffolk, from which portion of England many of the first settlers of this country came. The following lines, in which the allusion occurs, may prove of interest : "And many still adhere To the ancient distaff, at the bosom fixed, |