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Untitled Article
pear ; their existence is simply an evidence that social intercourse is still in its infancy , and that much ignorance prevails amongst the members of the community . Eleventhly . —Banker-men—At the first sound these people would seem to be the makers of field inclosures , but they are merely the fences which serve to hedge in the money of the
community , i . e . —they keep a sort of register of the total amount of commodities by means of their representatives , paper , gold , and silver . The ignorance of the community enables these people frequently to profit in knavish ways , by various branches of the trade in money , and occasionally by positive gambling . The strange thing in the matter of banking is , that so many people willingly give away the interest on a portion of their capital which b y other arrangements they mignt keep in their own pockets . Fear and mistrust , the children of ignorance , are
the causes of this . Excellent men are occasionally found amongst bankers as amongst other classes of the community ; but as a mass they are mere machines , like automata . They worship as their god the staple of their trade—money , and estimate the value of human beings according to the amount of it they are supposed to possess . They regard the class of mechanics with great contempt , forgetting that their own pursuits are of a still more drudging nature , and really requiring less intellect . Twelfthly . —Law-making men—These are people of all classes , who meet together in Parliament , some by prescriptive
right , and some as delegates of the people . They , therefore , do not proceed upon any systematic plan , but each one who takes a fancy to any particular branch gets up an Act of Parliament and persuades other members to help him . Sometimes this is done on the principle of barter . " You vote for my Act todav , and I'll vote for yours to-morrow . " The consequence is ,
that Acts of all kinds exist , each one turning on its neighbour , and producing a system of absolute contradiction and perfect confusion ; and no man can tell what an A < t may be made to mean until he has broken it , when a judge interprets it , and his interpretation stands for a precedent . These laws are not always made by those whose name they take . Indeed most commonly the originator and framer of tlie law is some one in the back ground . Occasionally he may be an honest , intelligent , and patriotic man , but more often he has some sinister interest to serve . On more than one occasion , Acts of Parliament have
been made for the purpose of providing a place for an individual at tlie public expense , and if he rendered any service to the public in return for it , it was very fortunate for that numerous body . There is hope , however , that as the public begins to see the absurdity of all this , measures will at length betaken to appoint efficient persons to make a code of laws systematic
Untitled Article
Social Classification . 2 Q 5
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1836, page 295, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2657/page/31/
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