THE FITTING OUT OF CONFEDERATE CRUISERS. (FROM THE " OBSERVER.")

A correspondent writes : — " I do not recollect to have seen quoted on this subject the words of a judge to whom American! can hardly fail to listen. The caie ii the leading case 'The Santiiflima Trinadad ' (reported in 7 WhcatoiCt S. O. Xep., 340). The judge is Mr. Justice Story. The words are these : — ' Theie is nothing in our laws, or in the law of nations, that foibidi our citizens from sending armed vessels as munition* of war to foreign ports for sale. It is a commercial adventure which no nation is bound to prohibit, and which only exposes the persons engaged in it to the penalty of confiscation ' This exposition of the law is now found by the Northern Americans not to conduce to their interests ; and they now, theiefore, call upon us to prohibit such trade. May I quote, in answer, another dictum of one of America's ablest judges, viz.— 'We must administer the laws as they exist, without straining them to reach public mischiefs which they were never designed to remedy.' "

THE DEPRECIATION OF GOLD. (FROM THE "SPECTATOR.")

Mr. Fawcett read a valuable paper before the British Association on this subject, in which he agrees generally with the condusionH of Mr. W. S. Jevons, that »ome depreciation of gold has already taken place, owing to the Australian and Californian supply ; and that it will go on more rapidly if the drain of silver to the East, which the gold supplants, should Miridenly stop. Mr. Jevons was presented as calculating the depreciation siuce 1849 at only ten per cent. This was incorrect' a* he has himself pointed ont in a note. What he did say^yas, that oven at the present moment of nnnsually 'depressed prices, it is ton per cent. ; luifc thafc if the level of prices were not at* its lowewt (temporary) ebb, it would probably be at least fifteen or sixteen per cent. And no one who examiuc^his data pan disagree with him. Probably Mr. Faweetfc him*elf would heartily Mquitie*. ,, iit . / 4.1 i<r.
