ow, in regard to this also, public
opinion was blinded. The author calls attention to the increase of
gambling in values of all sorts in these words: "What shall I say of the
stock-jobbing, as frightful as it is scandalous, which goes on in Paris
under the very eyes of our legislators,--a most terrible evil, yet,
under the present circumstances,--necessary?" The author also speaks
of these stock-gamblers as using the most insidious means to influence
public opinion in favor of their measures; and then proposes, seriously,
a change in various matters of detail, thinking that this would prove a
sufficient remedy for an evil which had its roots far down in the whole
system of irredeemable currency. As well might a physician prescribe a
pimple wash for a diseased liver. [34]

Now began to be seen more plainly some of the many ways in which an
inflation policy robs the working class. As these knots of plotting
schemers at the city centers were becoming bloated with sudden wealth,
the producing classes of the country, though having in their possession
more and more currency, grew lean. In the schemes and speculations put
forth by stock-jobbers and stimulated by the printing of more currency,
multitudes of small fortunes were absorbed and lost while a few swollen
fortunes were rapidly aggregated in the larger cities. This crippled a
large class in the country districts, which had employed a great number
of workmen.

In the leading French cities now arose a luxury and license which was
a greater evil even than the plundering which ministered to it. In
the country the gambling spirit spread more and more. Says the same
thoughtful historian whom I have already quoted: "What a prospect for
a country when its rural population was changed into a great band of
gamblers!" [35]

Nor was this reckless and corrupt spirit confined to business men; it
began to break out in official circles, and public men who, a few
years before, had been thought above all possibility of taint, became
luxurious, reckless, cynical and finally corrupt. Mirabeau, himself,
who, not many months previous, had risked imprisonment and even death
to establish constitutional government, was now--at this very
time--secretly receiving heavy bribes. When, at the downfall of the
monarchy a few years later, the famous iron chest of the Tuileries was
opened, there were found evidences that, in this carnival of inflation
and corruption, he had been a regularly paid serv