Another new departure was more successful. “Besides its regular financial operations,” says the London _Times_ of February 16, 1849, “the Bank of France made vast advances to the city of Paris, to Marseilles, to the Department of the Seine, and to the hospitals, amounting in all to 260,000,000 francs. But even this was not all. To enable the manufacturing interests to weather the storm, at a moment when all sales were interrupted, a decree of the National Assembly had directed warehouses to be opened for the reception of all kinds of goods, and provided that the registered invoices of these goods so deposited should be made negotiable by indorsement. The Bank of France discounted these receipts. In Havre alone 18,000,000 francs was thus advanced upon colonial products, and in Paris 14,000,000 on merchandise. In all 60,000,000 francs was thus made available for all the purposes of trade. Thus the great institution had placed itself, as it were, in direct contact with every interest of the community, from the Minister of the Treasury down to the trader in a distant part. Like a huge hydraulic machine, it employed its colossal powers to _pump a fresh stream into the exhausted arteries of trade_, to sustain credit and preserve the circulation from complete collapse.” How like “a grimacing dance of apes” our American way of handling financial crises looks, in comparison with the above. The Bank of England. Prof. Laughlin showed the usual gold-bug worship of British finance in this: “In the Bank of England the first moment of stringency the rate of discount is raised. That has the effect of preventing all unnecessary loans. The borrower who has good collateral will get the money if he is willing to pay an increased rate. Our system is such that we can loan until we come to the legal limit; and is deficient in that respect, as we cannot loan at a greater discount because of the iniquitous action of the usury laws. You can help a customer by increasing the rate. Just at the moment of the greatest stringency our American system is deficient.” Ordinary decorous language would fail to characterize that infamous statement. The fact is that the British system is utterly brutal. Our “iniquitous usury laws” prevent a man from giving everything he has to the banks in hard times. The British system is that of Jay Gould in his gold corner of 1869. He settled with his debtors by “taking all they had.” He was merciful, and forgave them the balance; which is the usual stock exchange style.