Sometimes, when a great many demand the gold, it is suddenly found that the Bank-house has it not! The promise of _banking up_ the gold till wanted in exchange for the Paper _has been broken_. Down goes _Credit_--every kind of value shrinks at once; for the Bank has _not_ the real money, and values have been measured by the paper! The traders and everybody connected with them have incurred debts--that is, made paper promises to pay, like those of the Bank, for property _valued on_ the Bank-paper. It is found that this Bank-paper is too much by one-half--the property has been over-valued in proportion. Still the debtors are required to pay the amount of _their_ paper promises! It is impossible--ruin and _Bankruptcy_ ensue--the whole trading world is convulsed, and tens of thousands are beggared! The explanation is that the Bank is allowed by the Government (in consideration of certain advantages to itself) to lend out the gold for usury--that is, it lends a thousand pounds of gold to be returned in three moons, for which use the borrower pays twelve or twenty pounds! It makes its gains by thus using the gold which it has promised safely to keep. It is permitted to do this, because the risk of having _much_ gold demanded at once is small, and from experience the Bank has discovered that if one-third part of its paper-promises of gold is in hand, it will be in little risk of having more demanded! Backed by the Government, it deliberately, for the sake of gain, runs the risk of being a cheat and robber! Then follows a curious contrivance of these dishonest Barbarians. To save its own moneys and advantages in the Bank, and to save loss or ruin to the owners of the establishment, who are very powerful and numerous, composed of members of the High Castes as well as others--in fact, to save the general wreck of the _sham_ paper-money (_Credit_) upon which values are falsely based, the Government issues a Law, forcing everybody to receive from the Bank its paper precisely as if it were gold! Thus, having assisted in one fraud, it resorts to another, to remedy in some measure the evils of the first--extending and perpetuating the evil, which a wise man would remove! Another remarkable thing is the organised _Betting_. The Houses where this is done are splendid, and the many people supported in them and by the gains, live luxuriously, and are greatly respected. The gains are, in small measure, also shared by those who put in money from which bets may be paid, when the House loses the bet.