Robinson Crusoe's Money;: or, The Remarkable Financial Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island CommunityWells, David Ames
General
Robinson Crusoe's Money;: or, The Remarkable Financial Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island Community
Wells, David Ames
Currency question -- United States; Money
For example--and here was one of the greatest
merits of the new system--it not only symbolized, but practically
applied, the views of the most advanced financial philosophers;
favored (as the orator-philosopher wished) "more democracy and less
aristocracy in the clothes market;" and encouraged the use of the
least costly material out of which the community could make clothes;
while the painted cotton, silk, wool, and leather could be made to
look so exactly like the real articles, that it was only when the
attempt was made to exchange the representative for the real that the
difference was clearly discernible. Furthermore, every garment devised
in accordance with the new system was, in all cases, a perfect fit. The
plague of buttons was annihilated. Every man could save time enough
in dressing and undressing to enrich himself, if he only employed his
economized moments usefully. Every man might, without embarrassment,
sleep in his clothes; and if he desired to change his monkey-jacket
three hundred and sixty-five times in a year for an overcoat, or
an overcoat for a monkey-jacket, he could do it most expeditiously,
without the waste of any raw material more expensive than paint; and
thus the system, after a time, by a happy thought, got the name of the
"three-sixty-five interchangeable." Of course, this answered very well
so long as the weather continued mild and pleasant; but later in the
season, when it became cool and frosty, experience soon showed that
the warming qualities of different kinds of paint were not essentially
different; that something more than confidence was necessary to keep
out the cold; and that the temperature and circulation of the body
physical remained unaffected, whether a man painted himself sky-blue
one day and pea-green the next. [29]
Again, two shrewd fellows, Peter von Scrapehem and Israel Double,
owned each a farm worth ten thousand dollars. Peter sold his farm
for its full value to Israel, and took a mortgage for the total
purchase-money; and Israel, in turn, sold his to Peter, and took a
mortgage also for its full value. By so doing, each of these worthy
persons clearly doubled the property in his possession, inasmuch as
while each had at the outset only ten thousand dollars' worth of real
estate, each now had ten thousand of real estate and ten thousand of
personal property; or an aggregate of forty thousand between them,
in the place of twenty thousand originally. This method of multiplying
property by multiplying titles was so easy, and the result so apparent,
that the example was very generally followed; and when the census
came to be taken, a few months afterward, all were amazed at the
enormous increase of wealth that had followed the discovery and simple
recognition of the true nature and value of titles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account