sent a centime; the hour of labour sixty
centimes; the day, consisting of ten hours of
labour, would represent six francs. It is
even suggested that in a society founded on
labour and exchange, there would be nothing
strange in taking, instead of a franc as a
measure of the value of things, an hour of
labour equivalent to sixty centimes; and to
say of an article worth sixty francs that
it is worth a hundred hours, or ten days of
labour.

Without pursuing the projected innovation
further, thus much may be remarked. If the
unit of value is to be the unit of labour (however
we may express it, or in whatever shape
we may put it), it is composed of two combined
elements,—time, and the workman's
maintenance. The latter element varies
immensely. In a country where people live
mainly on vegetables, require but little fire
and clothing, and lodge for next to nothing,
as within the tropics, the unit of labour must
ever stand at a lower figure than in London
or Paris, where rent, cooking, and dress are
dear. The artisan must be kept alive and in
reasonable strength; for, without him, there
are no results of labour; but the cost of
keeping him in that state, and of maintaining
his animal machinery in working condition,
will not be uniform, even in the same county
or department. A universal unit of value
cannot be fixed; because the value of
provisions and of time varies over the whole
superficies of the globe, and fluctuates in each
particular spot. Consequently, there appears
good reason for adhering to the proposition
that, while adopting the mètre as the foundation
of our measures and weights, we are not
thereby compelled to adopt the franc, which
is inapplicable to us as a unit of value. If
the French will adopt gold as the basis of
their currency, and we a decimal coinage
with the sovereign as our integer, then, with
metrical weights and measures common to
both, our commercial interchanges will go on
smoothly and easily, like well-regulated
chronometers which differ in their rate of
going, but which agree, all the same for that,
in the longitude they indicate.

PUTTERS DOWN.

THE faculty of making people know their
places—of silencing them by ridicule, sarcasm,
or civil contempt—of putting them down, as
it is called—may, no doubt, be exercised
lawfully, sometimes meritoriously. There are
impertinent, presuming, mischievous people
in the world whom, as a last resource, it may
be necessary to put down. More rarely, there
are shameless, loud-tongued traducers of
whatever is sacred or kindly in our nature—
men deaf to reasoning, because they ignore
those moral instincts on which reasoning is
founded—whom it may be virtuous to put
down. Let it be understood that I have no
fault to find with him who reluctantly uses
the keen weapon of the tongue to abate an
annoyance or an impiety.

But I do confess that if there be one
character more than another that rouses my
usually bland temper into combativeness, it
is the character of the putter-down upon
system. In his atmosphere of forked lightning
and thunder my milk of human kindness
naturally curdles. If he be a complete
master of fence, I dislike him all the more.
I have a prejudice against duellists in general,
but I feel positive aversion to him who is
profuse in his challenges because he never
misses his man. The professed putter-down—
if urged by the love of display—is ungenerous;
if by the love of combativeness—is ungenial;
if by the love of causing pain—is
cowardly. The last is the bravo of society.

The most resolute putter-down I ever met
was Dion Dixit, Esq., one of her Majesty's
counsel. He was the representative in the
direct line of the famous Ipse Dixit, whose
scions have so often intermixed with some of
our most intellectual families. Dion Dixit,
Q.C., was by no means the most unfavourable
type of the genus putter-down. He had, at
the time I speak of, been some years a
widower. In person he was handsome, of
commanding height, and well-proportioned.
His features, though large, were regular and
classical. He had a florid complexion, spite
of the midnight oil at Lincoln's Inn; an
expression which would have been pompous
and stolid, but for a keen and flexible lip and
eyebrows of uncommon mobility. Imperious
or sardonic when opposed, I have known him
at other times to be good-humoured and even
gracious. Tart and curt, even to ladies, if
they doubted his infallibility, he more
frequently wore towards them an air of playful
toleration. He was artist enough to know
that this gentle deportment towards the fair
relieved and threw out that imposing attitude
which he presented to his own sex. He was
shrewd and quick, tolerably well read, and
accustomed to society. He had become a
putter-down from a sense of self-importance,
and from a love of power—qualities which
his profession had unduly fostered—rather
than from any absolute scorn or malice in his
disposition.

I first met Mr. Dixit at a water-cure
establishment in the west of England. What
disorder had originally brought him to that
sanitary retreat I never knew; but it is
certain that on my arrival there he might
have served as a living advertisement for
hydropathic therapeutics. I was then at a
loss to know what motive could detain so
robust a gentleman in a company of invalids.

I reached Langham Park at a late hour,
and after a cup of tea in Doctor Mason's
private library, retired to my room. I duly
underwent the ordeal of the two inquisitors
who roused me at dawn, swathed me with
chilling appliances of water, and then, by
merciless friction, suggested the presence of a