in any case taken root from attacks of cholera; nor is the constitution materially injured, if at all, as from many malignant diseases. The enemy appears to quit the field without leaving any havoc behind him or maiming his victim with corporeal or mental imbecility. The great source of terror is its fatality, although the disease is actually less fatal than some others.

Among the investigations of Dr. Russell and Dr. Barry, the question of contagion seems to be but little, if at all, affected; but remains a matter of individual opinion, which any one is competent to satisfy himself upon from all he can learn.

This question is sufficiently difficult and complicated, and we think of little or no importance but as one of national interest, respecting the interdictions of quarantine, which have so baneful an influence upon commerce. Without advocating the abandonment of quarantine regulations in a case of doubt and danger, we certainly have little or no faith in their capability of securing us from infection. Nothing, we think, short of a wall as high as the atmosphere of our globe will ever prove an effectual barrier to the invasion of this epidemic. The laws of contagion and infection are, assuredly, imperfectly understood even by medical men; and they appear to be of different kinds, and to be liable to many modifications. Thus, one disease is propagated by actual touch; another by emanations from the body to a considerable distance; a third is transmitted from the body in a very limited sphere of action; a fourth is wafted from the body by currents of air in particular directions; a fifth is propagated by the breath; the seeds of a sixth lie dormant in stuffs, woollens, &c., and propagate disease when exposed to the air; and a seventh is communicated by mental association. Now to which, if to either, of these modes of infection cholera is referrible may be difficult to determine. But if we were to give the preference to one more than another, it would be to the fourth mode of propagation; for we do think that there are facts to show that the disease is propagated by currents of air in particular directions, emanating from the bodies of persons labouring under the disease; at the same time we consider the contagion, if it is one, as a comparatively weak contagion, and not like that of the small-pox and others, affecting persons in the full vigour of health and mental fearlessness. There appear to be certain conditions necessary to the spreading of infection in cholera, if it does not occur sporadically. These conditions seem to be relative to the recipient body, and to the surrounding air. If the former be in that state of mental and bodily vigour described, escape seems very frequent; and if the air around the emanating body be wholesome, fresh, and circulating, the chances of escape are very much increased indeed. In this view of the case, then, the disease may be supposed to be communicable, and to spread by infection according to a certain modified mode of contagion, in which the air around is a principal agent. Therefore, whether contagious or not, or infectious, which is much the same thing, our great reliance is not upon insulation, not on disinfecting processes upon stuffs, &c., but upon freedom of air, space, cleanliness, and habitual vigour of the corporeal and mental powers. These, we believe, will do more than quarantine, all which can be expected from its regulations, of any real benefit, being included simply in the preventing of persons actually labouring under the epidemic

from approaching our shores, for the sake of precaution. If the disease indeed be in Sunderland, then we must admit either that it is communicable by air, or persons, or goods; or that there is a disposition in the air at different places to generate the disease. The -probability however seems to us, that the seeds of the disease have travelled in currents of air from the Baltic, where the cholera now rages, and that it will show itself in this country, as it is probably now doing, in a modified form, and with less disposition to spread over the land than in countries where its ravages were less actively opposed.

Dr. Daun, Dr. Brown, &c., residing now at Sunderland, have seen the cholera Asiatica, and yet entertain, or did so at least, doubts as to whether it is in Sunderland, and now report the cases under the titles of diarrhoea, and malignant diarrhoea. This we consider as another indication of the altered and modified form of cholera in this country. We have now, in all probability, an opportunity of fighting the enemy on our own ground; and, if the people prove true to themselves, we shall doubtless drive him from the country altogether. But the people must not be trusted. The Boards of Health must not sleep or doubt, but act promptly and energetically; and Government must sanction and promote the means of cleansing and ventilating recommended from time to time, so as to allow the enemy no resting-place or footing.

Before we take leave of this subject we cannot avoid noticing the name given to this disease. Although we care not about names, yet they are apt, as applied to diseases, to involve some prejudices inimical to their removal. First, we have the Indian, or Asiatic, cholera, although there are two distinct forms of cholera prevalent in India, one only of which is properly cholera or bilious. True, we trace a disease of a certain character by the map from India; but where are our proofs that the disease now in the Baltic is the identical cholera of Asia, marched physically from the Indian continent over the seas to the continent of Europe? Our proofs go no further than that certain tracks of the globe have been marked by the devastations of a disease which shows itself in symptoms greatly resembling those that were noticed as cholera morbus in India.

Have we never had cholera ? Are we not liable to malignant diarrhoea ? Are spasms, and bloodless extremities, and blue pinched countenance, with vomiting and diarrhea, never seen in this country? They have been seen, treated, and described. We do not pretend to affirm that the disease now on the continent has been here before; but we think it not improbable that it is a modification of that which a few years ago had all the character of an epidemic, and not unfrequently still appears so.

In short, whatever opinions may be given about this disease, it is quite clear that we have not yet acquired the means of ascertaining its precise place in the nosological arrangements of medical science. It is quite clear that we know not whether the continental epidemic is a disease sui generis or not, at present. But in the midst of all our unavoidable ignorance, we have this consolation, that the simplest methods within our reach and power of adoption avail very greatly in checking its progress, and in rendering the human body not susceptible of the impressions of this epidemic.

A VIEW OF NATIONAL ECONOMY.

FROM the Stock Exchange to the National Debt-the transition is slight in every sense; taken literally, a few paces convey you from the one to the other. From the Capel-Court door of the great" Plutonian Hall," (which we have described in our former articles on the Stock Exchange,) a very short space separates you from the Bank of England: a few steps, such as a jobber takes when striding over through a shower of rain to make a transfer, convey you across Bartholomew Lane through the side-door of the Bank into the Rotundathe habitation and high seat of that fine full-grown monster, the National Debt; this Rotunda being the original exchange and market for stock, and where still much of the minor business is transacted.

66

We speak here of the Bank of England as identical with the funds: this is an inaccuracy no doubt, but one into which we have been naturally led by the popular notion in this respect; for it may be said if they do not exist here, where are they? It is here, in the building at the corner of Threadneedle Street, that a debt of some eight hundred millions, not one shilling of which remains in the hands of the borrower that is to say, a bodiless abstraction-a real algebraic minus-a so much less than nothing-is made, by a curious play on the imagination of the public, to assume the appearance of substantial existence, productive property, and has in the idea of most people, as real and tangible a being a local habitation and name," as my Lord Key on his biennial throne at the Mansion House opposite. The Bank in Threadneedle Street is, however, in reality, merely the agent of the Government, "no more,"-receiving a commission for keeping its books and for having the dividends pass through its hands. A disagreement on the subject of commission, or any other of the many points which are open and debateable between them, which may well happen any day, and will certainly before long,-and this imaginary existence of the funds at the Bank would be annihilated in a moment, "melted into air, into thin air.” We once happened to witness the nonplus of a country stockholder who wished, naturally enough, to "see" the funds (a term so admirably applied on the old mystifying principle of lucus a non lucendo) in which he had laid up his long savings, and of which therefore he reckoned himself a part proprietor. On being shown into the empty offices of the Bank, or only furnished with a few clerks, and bulky sheepskin ledgers, instead of the ingots and treasures which his vague but lofty notions of the funds had led him to expect, he expressed considerable surprise, and seemed to have qualms, unfelt before, respecting the value and stability of stock, which showed no external signs of existence besides the few bulky old books above mentioned; if, however, the case which we have stated above to be probable had taken place, namely, a disagreement with the Government, and a total removal of the management of the debt from Threadneedle Street Bank, what would have been the alarm of our provincial on being told by some clerk, with an arch mischievous leer, that the funds had left that place; and, as he might very truly add, he could not exactly say where they were gone to; if after this he should have found his way to the Treasury, perhaps some good-natured official might have endeavoured to explain to him that the funds were, in fact, as safe

and sound as ever; but that, having quitted their old habitation, they could not, until another tenement was provided for them, be exhibited to the world with all those tangible and satisfactory appearances which they had hitherto maintained in their original place in the City. Having then decided the immateriality of the National Debt, and found, by analysis, that its only external and visible evidences of existence consist in certain big books kept in the offices of some bankers in the city, let us see what are the functions and effects by which it manifests itself, and make it so mighty and serious a reality in our national affairs. With the great exception of reform, there is perhaps at this moment no circumstance of the internal condition of the country of more pressing and daily increasing importance than this same National Debt: it is one of those questions on which the public without communicating together by meetings or otherwise, have almost unanimously passed a resolution that "something must be done." Twenty-seven millions sterling every year beyond the heavy charges of the State taken by taxation, which bears directly on the middle and lower classes of the people is, in the present greatly increased value of money, a fiscal burden too great for any nation in existence, or that ever did exist, to support for a long series of years. To a part of the public, therefore, the subject is one of close and anxious interest, that is, to the fundholder; to all it is important as one of the chief elements in all questions debating, and about to be debated, on the subject of the wide-spreading poverty of the times, and the measures which may be proposed to relieve it in the new state of things to which we all look forward with so much interest; for whatever solid and permanent benefits the great measure of reform may be calculated to produce in future, and for our descendants, the bulk of its supporters naturally look to it with most interest as a means of relief from the intolerable burdens and corruptions which press down and afflict the present generation—evils which have arisen and accumulated under the present (may we not indulge ourselves in anticipation by calling it the old?) system-the "working-well system," as by some with so much impudence, and by others with so much naïveté, it is called-evils which the men of that system had not the power, even if they had the grace to wish it,

to remove.

We are not, however, going to give a dry chapter on statistics, or political economy, on the present occasion: we deal only in round numbers and common-sense views of the leading and most generally interesting features of our subject, pledging ourselves only to a substantial and sufficient accuracy in matters of date and numbers; any thing more, any dogged attempt to lay bare the more dry and dismal detail of our subject, we shrink from just now; and, indeed, are warned by our physician, especially while the fear of the cholera is rife in the land, to abstain from all such harsh and acrid disquisitions, and to dally for a while with our grievances, national as well as particular.

The National Debt then exists in the shape of some eight hundred millions of stock and government securities, bearing for the most part an interest of 3 per cent. per annum, but redeemable only by the same amount in pounds sterling, unless the creditor consent, as in the case of purchases by the sinking fund, to the liquidation of his

claim at a lower rate. This immense debt has been created at various times during the last and present centuries, and at various rates of interest on the money advanced, though generally above the legal rate of 5 per cent.; the money borrowed having been usually sent out of the country, either to support our own forces, or as subsidies to other States. The largest addition made to the debt during any one period of war, and indeed a large part of the whole amount, was made in the course of the last or Buonapartean war, which closed finally in 1815; and it is chiefly to this part of the history of the debt that we intend on the present occasion to confine ourselves. This large part of the debt, then, was incurred during the eighteen years which succeeded the suspension of cash payments at the Bank, and the consequent depreciation of the currency by loans of money on stock bearing 3 per cent., or, as it may be less technically stated, by the sale of annuities of 37. at a price agreed on between the parties to the contract, (generally between fifty and sixty pounds,) with the condition of being redeemable by the grantor at not less than 100%. sterling, unless with the consent of the grantee. Now, it is chiefly to these two circumstances that the present onerous, disastrous character of the debt must be attributed; that is, 1st, the creation of stock bearing the low nominal rate of interest of 3 per cent., and for which, consequently, the Government received only 601. for the 100%. of stock, when the contract price was at par, (though it seldom happened that the terms were so favourable to them,) and with the monstrously disadvantageous condition annexed, of being redeemable only at 1007. sterling. 2ndly, borrowing money in a paper currency at a great discount, of which the real value in gold was often only three-fourths of the nominal amount in paper; the interest of which debt we are now paying in a currency restored to its ancient standard, and can redeem the principal only in the same restored currency. We have, however, be it recollected, only promised to give with something like general and sufficient accuracy, a sketch of the manner in which this part of the debt and its heavy responsibilities have been brought upon the nation, eschewing, both for the sake of the reader and ourselves, all specific and unnecessary detail on this vast and multitudinous subject. We think, therefore, that we shall best attain this object by taking, as a specimen of the whole, the case of a subscriber to a loan to the amount of 1000l., 3 per cent. consols, during the period to which we have confined our remarks; taking, as nearly as may be, an average transaction of the kind. This case we will briefly dissect, and show what have been the results to the borrower and lender-the nation and the stockholder respectively. Money in England means gold→ standard gold. Thus the subscriber to a loan in 3 per cent. consols to the amount of 10007. stock at 60, really paid in the depreciated currency of the time 120 ounces of standard gold, (the price being then about 57. per oz.,) for a permanent annuity of 6 ounces of the same gold, or its equivalent (307. of the reduced currency). How stands this transaction at the present time? In the first place, the annuity of 6 ounces of gold, which the loan-jobber purchased, has been increased by a gratuitous act of the borrower (the Currency Bill) to 8 ounces; that is, the currency in which he receives his 301. dividend is now equal to 8 ounces of gold. So much for the interest;-now for the principal money. The 120 ounces which the lender paid down is, in the