The greatest hit Gideon ever made was when the’ rebel army approached London; when the king was trembling; when the prime minister was undetermined, and stocks were sold at any price. Unhesitatingly he went to Jonathan’s, bought all in the market, advanced every guinea he possessed, pledged his name and reputation for more, and held as much as the remainder of the members held together. When the Pretender retreated, and stocks rose, the Jew experienced the advantage of his foresight. Like Guy, and most men whose minds are absorbed in one engrossing pursuit, Mr. Gideon was no great regarder of the outward man. In a humorous essay of the period, the author makes his hero say, “Neither he nor Mr. Sampson Gideon ever regarded dress.” He educated his children in the Christian faith, but said he was too old himself to change. Being desirous to know the proficiency of his son in his new creed, he asked, “Who made him?” and the boy replied, “God.” He then asked, “Who redeemed him?” to which the fitting response was given. Not knowing what else to say, he stammered out, “Who—who—who gave you that hat?” when the boy, with parrot-like precision, replied in the third person of the Trinity. The story was related with great unction at the period. “Gideon is dead,” writes one of his contemporaries, in 1762, “worth more than the whole land of Canaan. He has left the reversion of all his milk and honey, after his son and daughter, and their children, to the Duke of Devonshire, without insisting on the Duke taking his name, or being circumcised.” That he was a man of liberal views, may be gathered from his annual donation to the Sons of the Clergy, from his legacy of £2,000 to the same charity, and of £1,000 to the London Hospital. He died in the faith of his fathers, leaving £1,000 to the Jewish synagogue, on condition of being interred in the burying-place of the chosen people.” The question of the sinking fund has greatly occupied the attention of financial men, and upon few schemes have so many and such various opinions been given. To view the subject by the light of common sense, it seems palpably absurd that more money than was necessary should be borrowed for the sake of paying it again, or that, while a surplus fund remained in the Exchequer, new loans should be raised. Paine afterwards declared it was like a man with a wooden leg running after a hare,—the more he ran, the farther he was off. The first sinking fund is usually called Sir Robert Walpole’s, because it was adopted by him; but its author was the Earl of Stanhope. The taxes, which had at first been for limited periods, being rendered perpetual, proved greater than the charges they were meant to defray. The surpluses, therefore, were united under the name of the Sinking Fund, and appropriated for the discharge of the national debt.