that its value or purchasing power was so constant and continuously inherent in itself, even under circumstances when the value of most other commodities would be destroyed, that the greatest security or guarantee which any person owning gold could possibly have of its remaining valuable to him for any length of time was, that the owner should simply keep possession of it. By no portion of people on the island was this last attribute regarded so much in the light of a blessing as by the poor old men and women. As a general rule, they earned but little more than sufficed to support them, and they were therefore always naturally very anxious lest what little they saved should be impaired in value or made worthless by keeping, before the time when they might especially need it to pay for doctors and medicine, or insure them a decent burial. The cowry money, which had before represented their hard toil and personal deprivation, had turned out, on keeping, to be only worthless shells; the bead money had become valueless when it became unfashionable; the cattle money had to be fed every day to keep it from experiencing a heavy discount, and penned up every night to prevent it from walking off; the wheat money was always liable to be injured by damp or devoured by vermin; while twenty pounds of pig-iron had proved too heavy for their old limbs to carry to the store every time they wanted to purchase a little cloth or tobacco. But here was something at last which completely satisfied the necessities of their situation, and enabled them to feel certain that, whether they buried it in the ground, where it was always damp and moldy; or put it in the chimney, where it was always hot and smoky; or lived at one end of the island among the heathen, or at the other end among the Christians, would always, year in and year out, buy about the same average quantity of all sorts of things; and which, when offered in payment for services or commodities, to the doctor, lawyer, merchant, druggist, undertaker, mason, or tailor; to the Yankee, Irish, Dutch, Turk, or Hindoo; to the governor of Ohio, or a senator from Indiana, did not require any of them to look in a book, examine a law, read the Bible, or hunt up the resolutions of the last Congress or political convention, to tell how much it was worth, or whether it was safe to take and keep it.