sively relieved by the establishment of a national currency. The sufferings which have been produced by the efforts that have been made to resume, and to continue specie payments, have been great. They are not terminated, and must continue until the value of property, and the price of labor, shall assume that relation to the precious metals which our wealth and industry, compared with those of other states, shall enable us to retain. Until this shall be effected, an abortive attempt, by the substitution of a paper currency, to arrest the evils we are suffering, will produce the most distressing consequences. The sufferings that are past will, in such an event, recur with additional violence, and the nation will again find itself in the situation which it held at the moment when specie payments were resumed.

I have the honor to be your most obedient servant,

ON

PROVIDENT BANKS;

WITH A PLAN OF THE

UNLIMITED PROVIDENT BANK AT CAMBRIDGE;

AND

A SCALE OF THE PRICE OF DEBENTURES,

WITHOUT LOSS TO THE REVENUE.

BY PROFESSOR CHRISTIAN.

ORIGINAL.

LONDON:

PROVIDENT BANKS.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

A FEW years ago, my professional pursuits led me to travel many times between Leeds and Manchester. In that populous and florishing part of the kingdom I often had an opportunity of observing neat and elegant, sometimes splendid and magnificent, mansions and gardens; and, upon inquiring who was the owner, my informant frequently added, that not many years back he had been a workman for daily wages in some neighbouring manufactory.

And in walking with a lady in one of the best streets in a great trading town, I was expressing my admiration of the elegance of the houses, where the large plate-glass in the windows, the mahogany doors, and every other circumstance, denoted the opulence of the owners,-my companion observed, that there were few occupiers of those handsome houses who had not begun their lives as clerks in a counting-house.

These are objects that cheer and animate the mind, and inspire an Englishman with a genuine love of his country; more especially if he is told, that such scenes are not to be found upon any part of the surface of the habitable globe out of the King of England's dominions.

Happy country, where such instances of talents and industry abound! Happy country, where liberty unparalleled resides, and which affords perfect security to the unbounded acquirement of property!

I mention these instances, to show what industry and care can accomplish; and the richest reader of this humble page will not scorn the slender pittance of the poor, when he reflects, that many generations cannot be passed since the

founder of his fortune stored up the first shilling or guinea, the earnings of his toil; and if he could discover that he was an honest laborer with a spade, or at the plough or the loom, he would have much more reason to be proud, than if he had been a merciless soldier, who had followed some insatiable tyrant through scenes of blood, devastation, and horror.

A profound writer of antiquity has justly observed, that to be well born is to inherit the virtues and the wealth of our forefathers. And no virtues ought to be held in higher estimation than industry and frugality,-they are the immediate preservatives from vice and licentiousness, especially from gaming, drunkenness, debauchery, and extravagance,-they are the parents of many other virtues,-they secure independence, they teach men the truth of that sound and incontrovertible maxim, that honesty is the best policy, and dishonesty the worst,-they put it into their power to exercise the dearest charities of their nature, and to practise the most perfect of all precepts, viz. that of doing to other men what they would that they should do unto themselves.

--

If these are the sure or probable consequences of the encouragement of care and industry, men in high stations cannot deserve more gratitude from their country than by giving facility to the security and accumulation of the fruits of industry, preserved by the frugality of the possessors.

The Friendly or Benefit Societies, under the parliamentary regulations introduced by the Right Honorable George Rose, have done infinite good, though they may be accompanied with some evils and inconveniences. But their professed object is only to provide against disease and disaster, and to prevent, by their mutual contributions, the existing members of the society from becoming a burden to the parish.

These Provident Institutions have a higher aim,-it is to enable every one, who can save something out of his earnings, or income, to deposit it where it will be carefully preserved; and where it may accumulate, till the possessor obtains such a degree of affluence, that he may give his children the best education, by the effects of which, aided by their own honorable conduct, they may rise to a higher, even to the highest, scale in society.

That plan is the best calculated to promote these great objects, which comprises in it, at the same time, the greatest facility, security, profit, and rapidity of accumulation.

* Ευγενείς γαρ είναι δοκουσιν, οἷς ὑπαρχει προγόνων αρετη και πλουτος.

ARIST. ETH. lib. v. c. 1.