Meantime, my Sheffield friends must not think I am neglecting them, because I am at work here in Venice, instead of among them. They will know in a little while the use of my work here. The following portions of letter from the Curator of our Museum, with the piece of biography in it, which I venture to print, in haste, assuming permission, will be of good service to good workers everywhere. “H. Swan to J. Ruskin. “Walkley, Sheffield, October 18, 1876. “Dear Master,—The interest in the Museum seems still increasing. Yesterday (Sunday), in addition to our usual allotment of casual calls at the Museum, we had a visit from a party of working men; two or three of them from Barnsley, but the most Sheffielders, among which last were several of those who came to meet thee on the last occasion. Their object was a double one; first, to see what progress we were making with the Museum; and, secondly, to discuss the subject of Usury, the unlawfulness of which, in its ordinary aspects, being (unlike the land question) a perfectly new notion to all except one or two. The objection generally takes this shape: ‘If I have worked hard to earn twenty pounds, and it is an advantage to another to have the use of that twenty pounds, why should he get that advantage without paying me for it?’ To which my reply has been, There may, or may not, be reasons why the lender should be placed in a better position for using his powers of body or mind; but the special question for you, with your twenty pounds, now is, not what right has he to use the money without payment—(he has every right, if you give him leave; and none, if you don’t;)—the question you have to propose to yourself is this, ‘Why should I, as a man and a Christian, after having been paid for what I have earned, expect or desire to make an agreement by which I may get, from the labour of others, money I have not earned?’ Suppose, too, bail for a hundred pounds to be required for a prisoner in whose innocence you believed, would you say ‘I will be bail for the hundred pounds, but I shall expect five pounds from him for the advantage he will thereby get?’ No; the just man would weigh well whether it be right or no to undertake the bail; but, having determined, he would shrink from receiving the unearned money, as I believe the first unwarped instinct of a good man does still in the case of a loan.