E. R. Leland

“ They swarm up his legs with incredible rapidity, each one driving his pincer-like jaws into his skin, and, with the purchase thus obtained, doubling its tail and stinging with all its might. There is no course left but to run for it. The tenacious insects then have to be plucked off, one by one, a task which is generally not accomplished without pulling them in twain, and leaving heads and jaws sticking in the wounds.
The errand of the vast ant-armies is plunder. Wherever they move, the whole animal world is set in commotion, and every creature tries to get out of their way. ”

“ The public have become so accustomed to the use of a bond-secured currency, and have so generally credited the satisfactory results to the feature of special security, that the suggestion of an unsecured currency, or, rather, a currency not secured by special deposits, is not likely, at the outset, to be received with favor. To many it will recall the days of wild-cat banking, when the country was flooded with money that was practically irredeemable, and wide-spread and serious loss was inflicted on the community, especially upon the poorer classes, by having worthless issues forced upon them. ”

“ Sometimes they let the leaf drop to the ground, where a little heap accumulates, until carried off by another relay of workers; but generally each marches off with the piece it has operated upon, and, as all take the same road to their colony, the path they follow soon becomes smooth and bare, looking like the impression of a cartwheel through the herbage. The heavily-laden workers troop up and cast their burdens on the hillock ”

“ There is one other proposition in regard to the reissue of silver: it is, to coin a silver dollar which shall contain enough metal to make it the equal of the present gold dollar. To this there is no moral objection, but there are grave economic ones. The rapid and violent fluctuations of the silver-market during the last two years show that forces are at work which are unusual in their nature and not yet understood, and the appeal can well be made to all prudent men whether it would not be better to wait a little before reintroducing into our currency so unstable an element. ”

“ All creditors are placed in the position of the creditors of the swindling government. Debtors are indiscriminately benefited at the expense of creditors. To pay the public debt in a depreciated currency, whether it can be done legally or not, is to weaken if not destroy public faith. ”

“ Every dollar which is paid as brokerage, growing out of the use of two kinds of currency, is a tax levied upon the people. If the sums which have been annually paid by consumers in the way of brokers' commissions since 1862, as a result of the depreciation of our currency, could be stated, and it could be shown by whom this tax has ultimately been paid, it would raise a party in favor of a single standard that would sweep everything before it. ”

“ Until the indestructibility of matter and the persistence of force were demonstrated, there was nothing absurd in the supposition that matter could be created and annihilated, force produced and destroyed; and men of genius and learning vainly sought to turn dross to gold, to find the elixir of life, to construct machines which should create their own force. ”

“ That such a currency can best be furnished by banks of issue, if not so generally admitted, would seem to be demonstrated by universal custom among civilized nations. The issuance of circulating notes is a legitimate, if not necessary, function of the business of banking. It is one of the forms of the complicated system of credit which has made commercial growth possible, nor is there any reason why this particular form of banking obligation, constituting, as it does, but a minor part of the total, should, when created, have other or better safeguards than the remainder. ”

“ The well-known cash is a cast-brass coin of that description, and, although it is valued at about one mill and a half of our money, and has to be strung in lots of 1,000 to be computed with any ease, it is the sole measure of value and legal tender of the country. Spanish, Mexican, and our new trade-dollars, are employed in China; they pass because they are necessary for larger operations, and because faith in their standard value has become established; but they are current simply as stamped ingots, with their weight and fineness indicated. ”

“ The national banking system, which has frequently been declared to be the best yet devised, can not be said to offer a solution, for, although it served its temporary purpose very well, it lacks, so far as its currency is concerned, the essential element of permanency, being based upon a public debt that, fortunately, is not a perpetuity. Recently grave concern has been felt and expressed over the prospective contraction, if not total withdrawal, of the national-bank circulation which is likely to result from the diminished supply of Government bonds. ”

“ SINCE the earliest recorded observations of insect-life, the ant has been a subject of especial comment and wonderment. Found throughout the range of both temperate and the torrid zones, it is in the tropics that the most interesting species abound, and where their vast numbers and their industry and fearless pertinacity make them a veritable scourge. ”

“ There is a school of economists a title that can not properly be applied to the greenbackers—who hold that it is radically unsound and productive of evil for banks to assume the function of furnishing money; who maintain that there should be no money other than a metallic currency, or one which would in all respects act precisely as a metallic currency acts, because not only based upon but actually representing specie of a like amount deposited and held for its redemption. ”

“ As one reads the book, the most vivid impression made is by the wonderful amount of painstaking labor that the record of the experiments shows. Like the artist of Kouroo, he seems to have said to himself: "Time is an ingredient that enters into no perfect work; and my work shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life." And, lo! while the task which he set to himself was to answer the question, "Why the Drosera caught such numbers of insects," the result has been the most valuable contribution to botanical literature which this age has seen. ”

“ The public have the deepest interest in the avoidance of perturbations or disturbance in the currency supply. If the principles presented be sound, and their application correct, it would seem to be clear that the existing banks could continue their present circulation, and guarantee it, with safety to themselves and their note holders; and that thus might be accomplished the desideratum of paying off the Government bonds, when the time comes, without canceling the bank circulation. ”

“ When a breach is made in one of their covered ways, all the ants underneath are set in commotion, but the worker-minors remain behind to repair the damage, while the large-heads issue forth in a most menacing manner, rearing their heads, and snapping their jaws with an expression of fiercest rage and defiance. Pitched battles sometimes occur between different pugnacious species, and classical writers have deemed them worthy to be recorded. ”

“ Coins command other commodities by the amount of pure metal in them.
The silver dollar buys just as much food or clothing as would so many grains of silver in any other shape; and the stamp—whether it show the classical features of Kaiser William or the graceful figure of the Goddess of Liberty—does not increase its purchasing power, except to the very slight degree which is the measure of the convenience of having it converted from bullion into coin at public cost, but this percentage is so small that it may for present purposes be neglected. ”

“ The main column, from four to six deep, moves forward in a given direction, clearing the ground of all animal matter, dead or alive, and throwing out here and there a thinner column to forage for a short time on the flanks of the main army. If some rich place be encountered, for example, a mass of rotten wood abounding in insect-larvæ, a delay takes place, and a very strong force is concentrated upon it. The excited creatures search every cranny, and tear in pieces all the grubs they bring to light. ”

“ Outside of the straggling ranks of the greenbackers the national-bank notes are regarded with favor. It can not be gainsaid that the period during which they have been in existence has been a very comfortable one, so far as a good currency for the people could make it so. Whatever theoretical objections there may be to the system, it has worked singularly well, is justly popular, and it is easy to understand why its probable restriction and ultimate discontinuance should be looked forward to with concern. ”

“ Darwin says, "the greatest inferiority of all is the absence of a central organ, able to receive impressions from all points, to transmit their effects in any definite direction, to store them up and reproduce them." That is to say, Drosera seems to be without even the prefigurement of a brain, and we can almost fancy that we detect a trace of disappointment or regret in this admission. ”

“ As a matter of fact, gold and silver measure the value of commodities in precisely the same way that the commodities measure the value of gold and silver. Value is based on utility, but utility is not intrinsic in any substance; and a thing is only useful so far as it is supplied in needful quantities at the right time, the degree of utility constantly varying. ”

“ Nowhere is the division of labor—which in mankind always marks a high state of civilization—so rigid, being carried to the extreme of a physical modification of great numbers of the community for the better fulfillment of their duties. Their undeveloped sterile females may serve to warn—or to encourage—those members of the Anthropidæ who are so anxious to subordinate, if not wholly lay down, the gentle functions of maternity in order that they may engage in the sterner work of the world! ”

“ The worst insect pest of tropical America is the terrible fire-ant (Myrmica sævissima) , whose sting is likened to the puncture of a red-hot needle. It is found only on sandy soils in open places, and seems to thrive most near houses and in weedy villages. Towns are sometimes deserted on account of this little tormentor. It is a small species, of a shining red color, not greatly differing from the common red stinging-ant of our own country, except that the pain and irritation caused by its sting are much greater. Where it abounds, the whole soil is undermined by it ”

“ It is true that notes which pass from hand to hand as money are not scanned as closely as are other evidences of debt, nor can there be the same discrimination exercised in their use. They must, if circulated in small denominations, of necessity be taken by many who have no means of forming correct conclusions as to the soundness of the issues, and who can least afford to suffer loss. But the circulation of small notes of any sort is to be deprecated. ”

“ The Bank of England is the custodian of the principal portion of the reserve of all the banks and bankers of England, and to it the latter must look for money to meet the excessive and unusual demands that are made upon them in time of panic. At such times, therefore, a rapid inroad is made upon the bank's supply of gold, and, if the act of 1844 continues in force, a point is soon reached where the directors are compelled, for self-protection, to cease discounting even upon the best securities. ”

“ The suggestion may be somewhat startling to bankers, who, as a class, are proverbially and properly conservative, but the soundness of the principle which underlies it has been demonstrated by long experience and is constantly finding wider application. Bankers daily risk, without thought of fear, far larger sums than such an insurance of currency would involve upon guarantees that are much less stable, that is upon the indemnity furnished by insurance companies, which, both as regards sums at risk and premiums charged, conduct their business on comparatively small margins. ”

“ Here and there an ant may be seen, stretching forth first one leg and then another, to be brushed and washed by one or more of its comrades, who perform the task by passing the limb between the jaws and the tongue, finishing by giving the antennæ a friendly wipe. It is a curious spectacle, and well calculated to increase one's amazement at the similarity between the actions of ants and the acts of rational beings—a similarity which must have been brought about by different processes of development of the primary qualities of mind. ”

“ The occasional desertion of national banks to the ranks of state institutions, and the contemplated separation of others, as well as the prospect of enforced relinquishment of circulation by all, indicate, plainly enough, that it is none too soon to consider some modification of the national banking system, if it is to be maintained, and it has worked too well to be needlessly abandoned. ”

“ Darwin has given the name of aggregation, precedes and accompanies all motion. When a leaf which has not been excited or inflected is examined, the cells forming the pedicels are seen to be filled with an homogeneous purple fluid. If the tentacle be examined some hours after having been excited, the purple matter is found to be aggregated into masses of various shapes suspended in a colorless fluid. The change begins within the glands and travels downward, being arrested for a short time at each cell-wall; the aggregated masses perpetually changing form, separating and uniting. ”

“ IN primitive days the parties to a trade had in every case first to agree as to the quantity and quality of the articles to be exchanged. When gold and silver first made their appearance in the list of commodities they were, along with other metals, in an unfashioned state, and the processes of barter were carried on with them precisely as with more bulky and inconvenient articles, so that at each transfer it became necessary to determine their quality and quantity, that is, their purity and weight, by the crude methods which then obtained. ”