Were Bastiat alive at this time he would reform his description so as to make it read as follows: "You have an American gold piece. You have had it hoarded in a bank vault for fifteen years. What does it mean in your hands? If you can read with the eye of the mind the inscription it bears, you can distinctly see these words: 'Pay to the bearer 50 per cent. more service than he has rendered to society; value not received or stated on me, but resulting from a cunning manipulation of the law of legal tender, through the influence of the holders of gold and of obligations payable therein, and as a reward to the bearer for having had this money hid away and for depriving society of its use for seventeen years.'" When people are found everywhere working for money and not for the things which they really need, it is clear that they are working for money, not because of the material of which it is composed, but because it is an order for property which they can at any time obtain by parting with the money. To modify and elaborate Bastiat's description of the crown piece, it might be said of the Money Unit of the United States under a properly regulated system: "You have a dollar. What does it mean in your hands? If you can read with the eye of the mind the inscription it bears, you can distinctly see these words: To all to whom this may come: Greeting. This is a dollar--a unit of money--part of the great instrumentality created by society to effect the multitudinous exchanges of property and services among men. The amount of its command is constant, because the increase in the volume of money is regulated by the sovereign authority of the nation, with strict regard to the increase of population and demand--hence the value of this unit remains unchanging through time. It is an order for all property on sale, and all services for hire; the proportionate amount of such property and service to which its possessor is entitled being fixed by the universal competition to get it." GRESHAM'S LAW. Many persons fear an outflow of gold from the operation of what is known as "Gresham's law," namely, that "bad money will expel good." Sir Thomas Gresham, a financier of Elizabeth's time, stated that if a number of the gold or silver coins of any given denomination were deprived of part of their pure metal, and so made cheaper than the remainder, a successful circulation of the coins thus deprived would result in the melting up or exportation of the coins of standard weight. Writing of this, Mr. Jevons ("Money and the Mechanism of Exchange," American edition, page 84) says: