There is also a "sectional" view of this subject, which is shown in the

following table:

The fluctuations in the proportion of circulation to value money, in the same State at different times, is shown in the following statistics of the banks in Massachusetts:

The variations in the several banks of the same State, at the same time, in regard to the proportion between their circulation and specie, are quite remarkable, as shown in the returns made up by the Secretary of the State of Massachusetts for 1852. From the returns of 137 banks, it appears that the general average was $5 94 of circulation to one of specie, but the extremes of variation were as follows:

In Plymouth County the banks varied in their circulation, as compared with specie, from.

Norfolk..

Middlesex...

16 to 24

Bristol...

The Suffolk Bank of Boston is not included in the above, as it held at that time a considerable amount of specie belonging to the country banks. We have taken these facts from the Massachusetts returns, not because they are peculiar or extravagant as compared with those of other States, but because they are convenient to our hands, and because they present probably neither of the extremes of a high or low circulation.

Statistics like the foregoing might be indefinitely extended, but enough has been presented to prove our position that a mixed currency is constantly fluctuating both in quantity and quality. Fixing our eye steadily on this great fact, we are enabled to account for all those frightful convulsions in the monetary world which we know take place, those disturbances of trade, that spirit of overtrading, speculation, and gambling, that fearful recklessness and disregard of mercantile obligations, so rife among us. If no true faith can be placed in the currency, no true faith ought to be expected anywhere; if the standard of mercantile obligation is destroyed, what is left? This is the characteristic and most important fact in relation to such a currency. It is a fact on which every other seems to hinge, and it cannot, therefore, be too deeply fixed in the mind of every one who wishes to comprehend the various phenomena of a mixed currency system.

We proceed to examine in detail the consequences which we should naturally infer would, and which we find actually do, take place wherever such a currency exists.

I. A mixed currency stimulates credit at one time and depresses it correspondingly at another.

While the banks are expanding the currency; that is, increasing the quantity of credit money, they are very desirous to make loans, and all who apply with fair paper (good notes, &c.,) are sure to get "accommodated," even if the paper they offer has five, six, or in many cases eight months to run. Money is thus made plenty; everything advances in price; business men feel willing to give their own notes, because it is so easy to get money with which to pay them, and they are willing to give credit, and long credit too, because the notes they take are so readily cashed at the banks. It is now "good times." Everybody can pay, therefore all are not only ready but anxious to sell on credit. In this manner, and for these reasons, credits increase with the most astonishing rapidity; men seem to loose all sense of fear, and confidence is universal.

The

Now comes the reverse of the picture. The banks from necessity commence a contraction; they have overtraded as well as their customers; many of them owe ten, twenty, thirty dollars payable on demand to every dollar they have in their vaults; they are called on for specie and they at once stop all loans. This they must do, or fail. Business men go to the banks as usual to borrow money, but can get none; they call on their debtors to pay, but money is scarce and getting scarcer every day; the ablest of their debtors can pay but little, the weakest none. money market grows worse and worse, and country merchants, city merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen of all kinds begin to feel the presThe wheels of business are clogged; confidence, once so high and general, is nearly annihilated; most transactions are made for cash; men are now as unreasonably suspicious, as they were before kindly confiding— all, in the expressive language of trade, is "stagnation." How many times has this game been played over in Great Britain and the United States! And how certain is it that it must be again and again repeated while such a currency exists!

sure.

II. These fluctuations of a mixed currency cause numerous bankruptcies. This we have in fact already seen. The bankruptcies which take place in any community are just in proportion to the expansibility and contractibility of its currency. This is a fixed law-it must be so in the nature of things-facts show it to be so. Of all countries which have a mixed currency France, from 1803, when the Bank of France was established,

up to 1848, had the most uniform and safe-the smallest proportion of credit money. Its general average from 1809 to 1838, according to official statements, was as 20 dollars in specie to 24 in bills, or five-sixth of its currency was value money, making an average adulteration of only one-sixth.*

In France we find, during that period, the fewest failures of any country which has a mixed currency. England has a far more fluctuating currency than France. Scotland has a currency still more vacillating than that of England, but as we have not been able to find any statistics from that country, we cannot state the proportion of its credit money. From the suddenness and violence of its contractions, however, we have the most conclusive evidence that the adulteration of Scotch currency is much greater than that of England. In the United States the currency is more insecure and unstable than in any other country in the world. Its elasticity is such that it expands and contracts many times its average length, as we have already shown by official statistics. We have seen it asserted, but do not now recollect upon what authority, that the comparative bankruptcies among business men in the different countries named was as follows:-In France, 15 out of every 100; England, 35; Scotland, 60; United States, 80.

Of the general correctness of these estimates there is little doubt. It has been demonstrated by the many examinations that have been made, that the bankruptcies in this country among merchants, manufacturers, and business men in general, who give and take credit to any great extent, are 80 out of every 100. And it is presumed that the observation of all acquainted with the commercial history of the different countries above named, will confirm the general correctness of this table of bankruptcies, and go far to prove, if any proof be wanting, that the failures and the dangers which attend business operations in any country are, ceteris paribus, as the proportion of its credit money to its value money. We are well satisfied of the correctness of the principle.

When the process of contraction commences, the first class on whom it falls is the merchants of the large cities-they find it difficult to get money to pay their notes. The next class is the manufacturers-the sale of their goods at once falls off. The laborers and mechanics next feel the pressure they are thrown out of employment; and lastly, the farmer finds a dull sale and low prices for his produce, and all, unsuspicious of the cause, have a vague idea that their difficulties are owing to "hard times." And not only does this system, by its great issues of credit money-disturbing the laws of trade, destroying all careful business calculations, and exciting, to the wildest pitch of frenzy, overtrading, onesided over-production and speculation-cause all these extraordinary fluctuations of trade and credit; but the banks often head the long list of bankruptcies, and give the fatal blow to great commercial houses staggering in very drunkenness under the stimulus of expanded paper. The slightest suspicion of its ability to meet demands will overturn any bank but the firmest and surest.

Periodical revulsions in trade of a frightful character have occurred in this country at short intervals ever since the introduction of the mixed currency system. Their terrible effects have been seen by all, and we have become so familiar with them, that we regard them as the natural

* Of the present currency of France we say nothing. It is quite different in its character.

phenomena of business operations-but it is not so-such fearful disasters never happen in a normal state of trade, and can only be produced by a false and delusive standard of value.

In a subsequent number we propose a further consideration of this subject, and the alleged advantages of a mixed currency.

Art. III-GARBLINGS: OR, COMMERCIAL COMMODITIES CHARACTERIZED. NUMBER II.*

WHEAT FLOUR.

TESTS AND ADULTERATIONS--MOISTURE--QUANTITY OF GLUTEN-QUALITY OF GLUTEN--CORN MEAL --RYE FLOUR-BARLEY FLOUR--OAT MKAL--PEA MEAL-BEAN MEAL BUCKWHEAT MEAL--PO• TATO STARCH AND RICE FLOUR -- DARNEL OR TARE FLOUR LIME -- ALUM-PIPE CLAY-MAGNESIA SULPHATE OF COPPER, ETC.

TESTS AND ADULTERATIONS.

Moisture. If flour is exposed to a damp atmosphere it will absorb moisture to a destructive extent. It will heat, ferment, and clod, when it will be found to have increased from twelve to fifteen per cent in weight. The effect of moisture is to destroy the adhesive properties of the gluten, rendering it unfit to produce wholesome bread. It favors the development of vegetable mold, which renders bread poisonous. The proportion of water naturally present in good flour is about fourteen per cent, and in bread forty-four per cent. Inferior qualities contain more. Increased moisture is usually communicated by the addition of other things which have greater affinity for water. An abundance of moisture, therefore, is just ground to suspect other adulteration. The quantity of moisture in flour and bread can be easily ascertained by heating it. If the former loses more than twelve per cent, and the latter more than forty per cent of its weight, the quality is impaired.

QUANTITY OF GLUTEN.-As the superiority of wheat flour consists in the quantity of gluten it contains, it is of maintest importance to determine this point. Having first ascertained that the flour does not contain an unusual amount of moisture, let a weighed quantity be made into dough and placed into a fine sieve or gauze bag, and there submitted to a stream of clear water until it ceases to impart a milky color. There will remain on the strainer a pale, dirty gray mass, of a fibrous structure, very adhesive, ductile, and extre nely elastic. This is crude gluten.

Another means of separating the gluten is, to digest in a water bath, at the temperature of 167° F., one ounce each of wheat flour or bread and bruised barley malt, mixed with about half a gallon of water. By adding iodine to this mixture until it ceases to take a blue color, all the starch is washed out, and the gluten being left unchanged, may be collected, washed, and dried.

Bakers often determine the quality of flour by the tenacity of the dough-the length to which it may be drawn into a thread, or the extent to which it may be spread out into a thin sheet. Others adopt the following process:-weigh exactly one thousand grains of the four to be examined, and put it into a capsule. Into a cup formed of the flour, pour

For number i., see Merchants' Magazine for July, 1857, (vol. xxxvii., pp. 19–23.)

about four hundred grains of water, stir it until the whole of the water is absorbed, and a plastic and consistent mass obtained. It is then kneaded between the fingers for two or three minutes, and afterwards left for fifteen minutes in summer, and about an hour in winter, for complete combination with the water. A metallic sieve is then immersed in cold water, and the paste is plunged repeatedly, for an instant at a time, into the water of the sieve, constantly kneading it, slowly at first, and afterwards more rapidly.

By a little practice the water, the greater part of the starch, and the soluble matters may be removed, while the adhering particles of gluten remain in the hand in the form of an elastic mass. The sieve is then raised, and any shreds of gluten which may have escaped are united in the lump. The washing of the whole is completed by kneading it strongly for ten minutes under a stream of cold water. The gluten thus obtained is subjected to strong pressure, then wiped dry, and weighed. It is afterwards put into an oven and quickly dried, but before it changes color, is to be taken out and weighed a second time. We thus determine the proportions of moist and dry gluten, which serve as a check upon each other; and further, by this test the addition of from ten to fifteen per cent of starch can be determined, as it reduces in the same ratio the proportion of gluten.

But the quantity of gluten in flour can be much more accurately determined by the use of instruments. M. Boland has invented an instrument which, from its use, he calls an aleurometre, or flour-measurer. It consists of a copper cylinder about six inches long and three-quarters of an inch in diameter. It has two principal parts; the one about two inches long is closed, forming a kind of cup, capable of containing half an ounce of fresh gluten; it screws into the remainder of the cylinder. The cylinder, being thus charged, is heated over an oil bath to about 420° F. The gluten by this treatment swells, and according to its rise in the tube, which may be measured by a graduated stem, so is the quality of the flour. Good flour will furnish a gluten which augments to four or five times its original bulk, rising in the tube to above the 40th degree; but inferior gives a gluten which does not swell, becomes viscous and nearly fluid, adhering to the sides of the tube, and giving off occasionally a disagreeable odor, while that of good flour merely suggests the smell of hot bread. If the gluten, in its dilatation, does not rise to the 25th degree of the graduate tube, the flour may be considered as unfit for making bread. Another and more simple instrument has been invented by M. ROBINE. It is founded on the property of dilute acetic acid, of dissolving out the gluten and albuminous matter in flour, without affecting the other constituents. The density of the solution indicates the richness of the flour in gluten.

To ascertain this point, M. Robine has very ingeniously adopted a hydrometer, which he calls an Appreciateur, graduated in such a manner as to indicate the number of four-and-a-half pound loaves, which can be made out of three hundred and fifty-four pounds of flour, this being the usual amount in a French sack. It is evident, however, that a scale can be adapted to one hundred and ninety-six pounds with equal facility.

He directs, that acetic acid be diluted with distilled water, until the appreciateur sinks to its 93d degree. The liquid then being cooled to 59° F., mix the flour in as many times twelve ounces of the acetic acid as there are drachms in the quantity of the flour used for the experiment.