If this little treatise happens to travel into some of our corporate places, where the fire of contention, blown by the breath of party, is kept alive during seven years, let them cast a second glance over the above remark.

Some of the first words after the creation, increase and multiply, are applicable to Birmingham; but as her own people are insufficient for the manufactures, she demands assistance for two or three miles round her.  In our early morning walks, on every road proceeding from the town, we meet the sons of diligence returning to business, and bringing in the same dusky smuts, which the evening before they took out.  And though they appear of a darkish complexion, we may consider it is the property of every metal to sully the user; money itself has the same effect, and yet he deems it no disgrace who is daubed by fingering it; the disgrace lies with him who has none to finger.

The profits arising from labour, to the lower orders of men, seem to surpass those of other mercantile places.  This is not only visible in the manufactures peculiar to Birmingham, but in the more common occupations of the barber, taylor, shoe-maker, etc. who bask in the rays of plenty.

It is entertaining to the curious observer, to contemplate the variation of things.  We know of nothing, either in the natural or moral world, that continues in the same state:  From a number of instances that might be adduced, permit me to name one—­that of money.  This, considered in the abstract, is of little or no value; but, by the common consent of mankind, is erected into a general arbitrator, to fix a value upon all others:  a medium through which every thing passes:  a balance by which they must be weighed:  a touchstone to which they must be applied to find their worth:  though we can neither eat nor drink it, we can neither eat nor drink without it.—­He that has none best knows its use.

It has long been a complaint, that the same quantity of that medium, money, will not produce so much of the necessaries of life, particularly food, as heretofore; or, in other words, that provisions have been gradually rising for many ages, and that the milling, which formerly supported the laborious family a whole week, will not now support it one day.

In times of remarkable scarcity, such as those in 1728, 41, 56, 66, and 74, the press abounded with publications on the subject; but none, which I have seen, reached the question, though short.

It is of no consequence, whether a bushel of corn sells for six pence, or six shillings, but, what time a man must labour before he can earn one?

If, by the moderate labour of thirty-six hours, in the reign of Henry the Third, he could acquire a groat, which would purchase a bushel of wheat; and if, in the reign of George the Third, he works the same number of hours for eight shillings, which will make the same purchase, the balance is exactly even.  If, by our commercial concerns with the eastern and the western worlds, the kingdom abounds with bullion, money must be cheaper; therefore a larger quantity is required to perform the same use.  If money would go as far now as in the days of Henry the Third, a journeyman in Birmingham might amass a ministerial fortune.