y market or prices generally,
is at variance with the predictions of financial writers upon both sides
of the Atlantic. The increase in the present production of gold,
compared with former periods, is enormous; and it would not be
surprising if, in view of the explorations which are going on in Africa,
Japan, Borneo, and other countries bordering upon the equator, the
product of the precious metals within the next decade should be a
million of dollars _daily_. The price of gold has not diminished,
although the annual product has increased fivefold within twenty years.

LAST WORDS.

I am at last resolved. This taunting devil shall possess me no longer.
At least I will meet him face to face. I have read that the face of a
dead man is as though he understood the cause of all things, and was
therefore profoundly at rest, _I_ will know the cause of my wretched
fate, and will be at rest. My pistols lie loaded by my side--I shall die
to-night. To-morrow, twelve awestruck and trembling men will come and
look at me. They will ask each other: 'What could have been his motive
for the rash act.' Rash! my face will be calmer than theirs, for my
struggles in this life will be over; and I shall have gained--perhaps
knowledge, perhaps oblivion, but certainly victory. And to-night, as the
clock strikes twelve, there will be shrieks and horror in this room. No
matter: I shall have been more kind to those who utter them than they
know of, for they will not have known the cause until they have read
these lines.

And yet most people would esteem me a happy man. I am rich in all that
the world calls riches. I sit in a room filled with luxuries; a few
steps would bring me into the midst of guests, among whom are noble men
and women, sweet music, rare perfumes, glitter and costly show. My life
has been spent amid the influences of kind friends, good parents, and
culture in all that is highest and worthiest in literature and art; and
I can recall scenes as I write, of days that would have been most happy
but for the blight that has been upon me always. I think I see now the
pleasant parlor in the old house at home. Here sits our mother, a little
gray, but brisk and merry as a cricket; there our father, a
well-preserved gentleman of fifty, rather gratified at feeling the first
aristocratic twinges of gout, and whose double eyeglass is a chief
feature in all he says; there is Bill, poring over Sir William Napier's
'Peninsular War;' the