Surely this is a question which people would like to have clearly answered for them, and it might lead to some important results if the answer were acted upon. The riband-makers at Coventry, starving, invite the ladies of England to wear ribands. The compassionate ladies of England invest themselves in rainbows, and admiring economists declare the nation to be benefited. No one asks where the ladies got the money to spend in rainbows (which is the first question in the business), nor whether the money once so spent will ever return again, or has really faded with the faded ribands and disappeared forever. Again, honest people every day lose quantities of money to dishonest people. But that is merely a change of hands much to be regretted; but the money is not therefore itself lost; the dishonest people must spend it at last somehow. A youth at college loses his year's income to a Jew. But the Jew must spend it instead of him. Miser or not, the day must come when his hands relax. A railroad shareholder loses his money to a director; but the director must some day spend it instead of him. That is not--at least in the first fact of it--_national_ loss. But what the public need to know is, how a final and perfect _loss_ of money takes place, so that the whole nation, instead of being rich, shall be getting gradually poor. And then, indeed, if one man in spending his money destroys it, and another in spending it makes more of it, it becomes a grave question in whose hands it is, and whether honest or dishonest people are likely to spend it to the best purpose. Will you permit me, Sir, to lay this not unprofitable subject of inquiry before your readers, while, to the very best purpose, they are investing a little money in sea air? Very sincerely yours, J. RUSKIN. DENMARK HILL, _July_ 30. FOOTNOTES: [72] The discussion had been carried on in a series of letters from a great number of correspondents under the heading of "Marriage or Celibacy," its subject being the pecuniary difficulties in the way of early marriage. The _Daily Telegraph_ of July 30 concluded the discussion with a leading article, in which it characterized the general nature of the correspondence, and of which the final words were those quoted by Mr. Ruskin. [From "The Daily Telegraph," August 6, 1868.] _THE OWNERSHIP OF RAILWAYS._[73] _To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_