About five hundred years ago, our ancestors, having reached that pass in civilization when they came to dispense with the use of pockets, began to find it necessary to substitute a new currency for that of the metals, which it was inconvenient to carry, of which they might be robbed, and which also was liable to be counterfeited.

The first expedient was to try a lighter substitute.

Laws were passed giving value to linen and cotton, in the raw material; then compounded and manufactured; next, written on, and reduced in bulk, until, having passed through the several gradations of wrapping-paper, brown-paper, foolscap and blotting-paper, and having set the plan fairly at work, and got confidence thoroughly established, the system was perfected by a coup de main,--'promises' in words were substituted for all other coin.

You see the advantage at a glance.
A monikin can travel without pockets or baggage, and still carry a million; the money cannot be counterfeited, nor can it be stolen or burned." "But, my lord, does it not depreciate the value of property ?" "Just the contrary;--an acre that formerly could be bought for one promise, would now bring a thousand." "This, certainly, is a great improvement, unless frequent failures--" "Not at all; there has not been a bankruptcy in Leaphigh since the law was passed making promises a legal tender." "I wonder no chancellor of the exchequer ever thought of this, at home!" "So much for your Great Breeches, Chatterino!" And then there was another and a very general laugh.

I never before felt so deep a sense of national humility.
"As they have universities," cried another coxcomb, "perhaps this person has attended one of them." "Indeed, sir," I answered, "I am regularly graduated." "It is not easy to see what he has done with his knowledge--for, though my sight is none of the worst, I cannot trace the smallest sign of a cauda about him." "Ah!" Lord Chatterino good-naturedly exclaimed, "the inhabitants of Great Breeches carry their brains in their heads." "Their heads!" "Heads!" "That's excellent, by his majesty's prerogative! Here's civilization, with a vengeance!" I now thought that the general ridicule would overwhelm me.