[3] "Quum Censores ob inopiam ærarii, se jam locationibus abstinerent ædium sacrarum tuendarum, curuliumque equorum præbendorum, ac similium his rerum: convenere ad eos frequentes, qui hastæ hujus generis assueverant; hortatique censores, _ut omnia perinde agerent, locarent, ac si pecunia in ærario esset_. NEMINEM, NISI BELLO CONFECTO, PECUNIAM AB ÆRARIO PETITURUM ESSE."--LIVY, lib. xxiv. c. 19. "The censors," says Arnold, "found the treasury unable to supply the public services. Upon this, trust monies belonging to widows and minors, or to widows and unmarried women, were deposited in the treasury; and whatever sums the trustees had to draw for, were paid by the quarter _in bills on the banking commissioners_, or _triumvirs mensarii_. It is probable that these bills were actually a _paper currency_, and that they circulated as money on the security of the public faith. In the same way _the government contracts were also paid in paper_; for the contractors came forward in a body to the censors, and begged them to make their contracts as usual, _promising not to demand payment till the end of the war_. This must mean, I conceive, that they were to be paid in orders upon the treasury, which orders were to be converted into cash when the present difficulties of the government should be at an end."--ARNOLD'S _History of Rome_, ii. 207, 208. This was just an inconvertible paper currency; and its issue immediately after the battle of Cannæ saved the Roman empire. We have heard, from a gentleman who was present, that, in a political Whig party many years ago, when the conversation turned on the service of a paper currency in bringing a state through a pecuniary crisis, and some one said it was that which enabled the Romans to surmount the Second Punic war, Lord Melbourne, who was present, immediately repeated, from memory, the words above quoted from Livy in capitals. [4] _Quarterly Review_, October 1850. [5] AVERAGE PRICES OF WHEAT:-- _s._ _d._ 1792, 47 1 1793, 49 6 1794, 54 0 1795, 81 6 1796, 80 3 1809, 106 0 1810, 112 0 1811, 108 0 1812, 118 0 1813, 120 0 [6] Exports to the United States from Great Britain:-- 1837, £4,695,225 1838, 7,585,760 1839, 8,839,204 1840, 5,283,020 1841, 7,098,842 1842, 3,528,807 1849, 11,971,028 MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.--PART V. BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON. BOOK III.--INITIAL CHAPTER, SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE CALLED "MY NOVEL." "I am not displeased with your novel, so far as it has gone," said my father graciously; "though as for The Sermon--"