But suppose there had been a general demonetization of gold instead of silver, how would the ratio have stood then? Would not the same reasoning prove silver unchangeable, and gold the fluctuating metal? Oh, nonsense! it is impossible to demonetize gold, because the civilized world recognizes it as an invariable standard by which all commodities are measured in value. The supposition is absurd. It would be very much like deoxygenizing the air. But, my dear sir, gold has been demonetized, and not very long ago, either, and very extensively, too. It was deprived of its legal tender quality by four great nations, comprising some seventy million people; demonetized because it was cheap and because the world's creditors believed it was going to be cheaper; the demonetization, so far as it went, produced enormous evils, and nothing but the firmness of France and the far-seeing wisdom of her financiers prevented the demonetization becoming general on the continent of Europe, which would have reversed the present position of the two metals in the public mind. Of the many singular features in the present overheated controversy, probably the most singular is the fact that comparatively few bimetallists know of, or, at any rate, say much about, this demonetization of gold, while the monometallists ignore it entirely, and many of them, who ought to know better, absolutely deny it. So extensive was this demonetization of gold, and so far-reaching were its consequences, that it may easily be believed that it was the beginning of all our misfortunes, and that the crime of the century, instead of being the demonetization of silver in 1873, was really the demonetization of gold in 1857; for that was the first general or preconcerted international action to destroy the monetary functions of one of the metals and throw the burden upon the other, and it first familiarized the minds of financiers, and especially of the creditor classes, with the fact that the thing might easily be done and that it would work enormously to their advantage. It may also be said that it led logically to the action of 1867, which was but the beginning of a general demonetization of silver. The history of gold demonetization is full of instruction and is here given in detail.