“Yes, sir; a book is not dead paper except to sleepy minds. A book is a man giving you his best thoughts in his very best words. It is only the shallow reader that can't learn life from genuine books. I'll back him who studies them against the man who skims his fellow-creatures, and vice versa. A single page of Adam Smith, studied, understood, and acted on by the statesmen of your day, would have averted the panic of 1793. I have the paragraph in my note-book. He was a great man, sir; oblige me, Mr. Skinner.” “Certainly, sir, certainly. 'Should the circulation of paper exceed the value of the gold and silver of which it supplies the place, many people would immediately perceive they had more of this paper than was necessary for transacting their business at home; and, as they could not send it abroad, bank paper only passing current where it is issued, there would be a run upon the banks to the extent of this superfluous paper.'” Richard Hardie resumed. “We were never so overrun with rotten banks as now. Shoemakers, cheesemongers, grocers, write up 'Bank' over one of their windows, and deal their rotten paper by the foolscap ream. The issue of their larger notes is colossal, and renders a panic inevitable soon or late; but, to make it doubly sure, they have been allowed to utter 1 pound and 2 pound notes. They have done it, and on a frightful scale. Then, to make it trebly sure, the just balance between paper and specie is disturbed in the other scale as well as by foreign loans to be paid in gold. In 1793 the candle was left unsnufled, but we have lighted it at both ends and put it down to roast. Before the year ends, every sovereign in the banks of this country may be called on to cash 30 pounds of paper--bank-paper, share-paper, foolscap-paper, waste-paper. In 1793, a small excess of paper over specie had the power to cause a panic and break some ninety banks; but our excess of paper is far larger, and with that fatal error we have combined foreign loans and three hundred bubble companies. Here, then, meet three bubbles, each of which, unaided, secures a panic. Events revolve, gentlemen, and reappear at intervals. The great French bubble of 1719 is here to-day with the addition of two English tom-fooleries, foreign loans and 1 pound notes. Mr. Law was a great financier. Mr. Law was the first banker and the greatest. All mortal bankers are his pupils, though they don't know it. Mr. Law was not a fool; his critics are. Mr. Law did not commit one error out of six that are attributed to him by those who judge him without reading, far less studying, his written works. He was too sound and sober a banker to admit small notes. They were excluded from his system. He found France on the eve of bankruptcy; in fact, the state had committed acts of virtual bankruptcy. He saved her with his bank.