The similarity in the coinage of different countries is worth notice.  A very slight change in the percentage of silver used would render the half-guilder of Austria, the krone of the Scandinavian Union, the franc of the Latin Union, the mark of Germany, the half-guilder of Holland, the quarter-ruble of Russia, the 200-reis piece of Portugal, the 5-piastre piece of Turkey, the half-milreis of Brazil and the half-rupee of India, all interchangeable with the English shilling, and all of them about the value of the quarter-dollar of North and South American coinage.  With the exception of Brazil, the other South American States, as well as Mexico and the Central American countries, are all rapidly approximating a uniform coinage, which the needs of commerce will unquestionably soon harmonize with that of the United States.  Curiously enough, the great force that is assimilating the alien branches of the human race is not Christianity but trade.

A HISTORY OF THE PANIC OF 1857.—­The cause of the panic of 1857 was mainly the rage for land speculation which had run through the country like an epidemic.  Paper cities abounded, unproductive railroads were opened, and to help forward these projects, irresponsible banks were started, or good banks found themselves drawn into an excessive issue of notes.  Every one was anxious to invest in real estate and become rich by an advance in prices.  Capital was attracted into this speculation by the prospect of large gains, and so great was the demand for money that there was a remarkable advance in the rates of interest.  In the West, where the speculative fever was at its highest, the common rates of interest were from 2 to 5 per cent. a month.  Everything was apparently in the most prosperous condition, real estate going up steadily, the demand for money constant, and its manufacture by the banks progressing successfully, when the failure of the “Ohio Life and Trust Company,” came, August 24, 1857, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.  This was followed by the portentous mutterings of a terrible coming storm.  One by one small banks in Illinois, Ohio, and everywhere throughout the West and South went down.  September 25-26 the banks of Philadelphia suspended payment, and thus wrecked hundreds of banks in Pennsylvania, Maryland and adjoining States.  October 13-14, after a terrible run on them by thousands of depositors, the banks of New York suspended payment.  October 14 all the banks of Massachusetts went down, followed by a general wreckage of credit throughout New England.  The distress which followed these calamities was very great, tens of thousands of workmen being unemployed for months.  The New York banks resumed payment again December 12, and were soon followed by the banks in other cities.  The darkest period of the crisis now seemed past, although there was much heart rending suffering among the poor during the winter which followed.  The commercial reports for the year 1857 showed 5,123 commercial failures, with liabilities amounting to $291,750,000.