labourers. In the same paper we have news
from Mount Alexander, that might well turn
the head of any villager. One person " left
Melbourne on Saturday, and returned on the
Monday week following, bringing fourteen
pounds weight of gold with him, dug up by
himself. Another man, after working ten
days, brought back twenty-two pounds weight.
A friend of mine, a gentleman who only went
to see, was anxious to try his luck, and begged
a dishful of earth, to have, as he thought, a
few grains to take home with him ; a few
minutes washing gave him nearly two ounces
of gold." The gold at Mount Alexander,
the richest field discovered yet, lies near
the surface. Two men there obtained four
hundred ounces in three weeks. As for the
weekly " Gold Circular," at Sydney, it gets
poetical :—

"In our first shipment, we could count the
value of the gold in pounds sterling by
hundreds; in a few weeks it rose to thousands;
in a few weeks more it became tens of
thousands; and we are fast approaching a period
when each ship will convey hundreds of
thousands." At the time when that was
written — on December sixth — in the very
few months since the digging was commenced,
there had been shipped from Australia, gold
to the value of three hundred and twenty-nine
thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven
pounds; and since that time the yield of gold
has been increasing. At the same time,
California continues unexhausted, and the
field of gold in Russia has enlarged.

It will be seen, therefore, that there is just
reason for anticipating a change in the value
of gold, which will begin to take place
gradually at no distant time. The annual supply
of gold promises now to be about eight times
greater than it was at the commencement of the
present century. The value of silver, with
reference to corn, fell two-thirds in the sixteenth
century, as that of gold is likely to fall in the
nineteenth. The price of silver fell in
consequence of the increased production from the
great mines in America. A piece of gold is
now assumed to be worth fifteen or sixteen
like pieces of silver; during the Middle Ages
it was worth only twelve such pieces. In
Europe, under Charlemagne, ten pieces of
silver were an equivalent; and at one period,
in Rome, silver was but nine times less
precious than gold: relative values, therefore,
have varied, and they will vary again. Since
they were last fixed by law, there have
occurred no causes of disturbance. Now, however,
a time of disturbance is again at hand.

In France the monetary unit is a franc, and
silver is, by law, the standard coinage; but, a
supplementary law having assigned the value
of twenty silver francs to pieces of gold of a
fixed weight, our neighbours will not be
exempted from our difficulty, and the French
State, like the English State, may profit, if it
please, at the expense of public creditors.
Governments have only to do nothing, and a
large part of their debts will tumble from
them; holders of Government securities have
only to be passive, and in the course of years
their incomes will diminish sensibly. Debtors
will hold a jubilee, and creditors will be
dismayed, if gold shall be allowed to fall in value,
without due provision being made to avert, as
far as possible, all inconvenience attending
that event.

In 1848, the value of gold had been for
many years a very little more than the
amount of silver allowed by law, in France,
as its equivalent. The little difference was
quite enough to put gold out of circulation.
Gold was more precious as metal than as
money; it was, therefore, used by preference
as metal; when wanted as coin, it was only
to be bought, at more than its legal current
value, of the money-changers. There is a
vast quantity of gold in circulation now, but
it is newly coined.

The fall in the value of gold cannot begin
to any appreciable extent, until the utmost
available quantity has been employed upon
the monetary system of the world. Coinage
now goes on rapidly. A huge mass of
sovereigns has lately been sent from England to
the Australian colonies. When the depreciation
once begins, it will be tolerably rapid. It
is not absurd to calculate, that if the gold
production should continue at its present
rate, sovereigns will be as half-sovereigns now
are in value, in the course of about twenty
years.

At the same time, it will be the duty of all
States to take such precautions as shall make
it impossible for a change of this kind to
introduce confusion into commerce, or to change
the character and spirit of existing contracts.

THE RIGHTS OF FRENCH WOMEN.

IT is very absurd and very provoking; but
there certainly is something so peculiar in the
style and manner of John Bull, that, go
where he will, and dress as he may, he is sure
to be recognised as an Englishman.

"Does Monsieur know where he is going
to?" asked a man in a blouse, as I entered
one of the French frontier towns. His politeness
arose from the hope of pocketing (in
return for leading me to the place I might
want to find) a few of those ugly and
miscellaneous things called sous. These, however,
it is rumoured, are soon to grow beautifully
less, by the substitution of a new miniature
coinage, a sort of doll's money, in which a
tiny pocket-piece about the size of a farthing,
is to represent the value of a stout,
overgrown brown penny.

"Does Monsieur know the way?"

"Yes, thank you, I know my way. But
what is all this bustle about?"

"They are drawing for the conscription,
here, to-day. To-morrow they will draw at
the place you come from. The driver hopes
you will return in his voiture:" there being