COMMERCE.

MAN has been defined by some naturalists as an exchanging animal-an animal who buys and sells, that being a thing performed by no other living creature, and therefore suitable as a distinction in character, though others, much more exalted, might readily be found. The practice of exchanging one commodity for another is doubtless coeval with the first herding of mankind together. No man, even in the rudest savage state, and who lives in the society of neighbours, can rest satisfied with such objects as he can procure or fashion by his own labour. He must depend on others for assistance, while he assists them in return, The cultivator of the ground would exchange some of its produce for an animal from the flocks of his neighbour; and both would be glad to give a portion of their wealth for the clothing or weapons made by a third party. Thus, exchanging becomes a matter of convenience between two parties, each of whom is anxious to obtain a share of the other's goods for a share of his own, and a mutual advantage is the result. Such desires and practices must have been displayed in the very earliest stages of society. No nation of African or Indian savages is ever found without a strong inclination to exchange the rude products of their country for the articles possessed by the traveller; an ox or sheep being perhaps eagerly offered by them for a single needle, a nail, or a small toy looking-glass.

As mankind advance in their social condition, the practice of exchanging increases; the desires and necessities become more urgent; each person finds it more profitable and agreeable to adopt and hold by one fixed employment, and to sell the produce of his labour for a variety of articles made by others, than to attempt to make every thing for himself; and, finally, for the sake of convenience, a class of persons are engaged to conduct the exchanges from one hand to another. In this improved condition, the production of articles of general consumption is called manufacturing; while that department of industry in which the exchangi" is transacted is called trade or commerce. For still further convenience, the business of exchanging is committed to several orders of traders-the wholesale merchants, who in the first instance purchase large quantities of goods from the producers; the retail dealers, who have been supplied in smaller quantities from the merchants, and sell individual articles or minute portions to the public; and to these sometimes an intermediate dealer is added. In this manner the transfer from the workshop of the manufacturer to the house of the actual consumer is interrupted by several distinct processes of exchange, in which each seller obtains a certain profit at the expense of the person who has ultimately to buy and use the article. It is a principle of trade, that the fewer hands through which any article is made to pass, the better for the consumer, because the article can be brought with the least burden of profits, or at the lowest price, into general use. this principle, sound as it is in the abstract, is counteracted by another which must on no account be lost sight of. This is the principle of convenience. A manufacturer engaged deeply in his own pursuits finds it more profitable and agreeable to sell his articles in large than small quantities. The maker of millions of yards of cloth has no time to spend in selling single yards. If he were compelled to sell by retail, he would have no time to conduct his affairs; he could manufacture only a small quantity, and, therefore, being limited in his amount of produce and sales, he must take larger profits. Thus, upon the whole, it is much better for all concerned to

But

allow the manufacturer to pursue his own way in selling only very large quantities to wholesale merchants. To these traders the same rule may be applied. They seek out the seats of manufacture; and, purchasing, a large variety of goods, they send them to the towns and places where they are required by the public, and there the articles can be had individually from a shop. It is evi. dent that if any man wish to buy a bandkerchief, he may procure it much more cheaply from any shop in which such things are sold at an advance upon the original cost, than if he were to travel perhaps hundreds of miles to the house of the manufacturer, and there make the purchase. The use of an intermediate class to conduct exchanges is thus very conspicuous; and any attempt to revert, generally, to the original practice of causing the maker to deal with the consumer, would be entirely incompatible with an enlarged system of trade between different countries, or even between different places in the same country. We say generally, because there are instances in which makers may, with advantage to themselves and the community, sell their produce in small quantities or single articles to the public, but these are exceptions to a common rule.

Convenience, it is evident, forms a guiding principle of trade, and requires the same consideration as the actual value of an article. This, however, has been recognised only in very recent times. At one period there were laws to prevent farmers from selling their grain in a large quantity or by the lump, without exposing it in an open market. Such laws were manifestly unjust. They interfered with the liberty of the farmer, who in his capacity of manufacturer had surely a right to sell his produce in whichever way he felt it to be most for his advantage. It would be the same kind of injustice, if the law were to prevent a manufacturer of handkerchiefs from selling them at his own workshop to wholesale dealers, and causing him to take them many miles to a certain street in a certain town, and there expose them for sale in small lots to the public. It is of the greatest importance in matters of trade and commerce never to interfere in any shape to prevent men from dealing in chatever manner appears most beneficial and convenient to themselves, provided it be conformable with strict justice. By being left to consult their own inclinations, the public, in the end, though probably in a way not easily recognis able by an unreflecting mind, reaps the advantage.

Commerce, by which we comprehend traffic carried on at home or with foreign countries, is of great antiquity. and, both in the earliest times and in our own day, has been one of the principal engines of civilization. Among the industrious nations which at a remote period of his tory were planted on the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, it became a means of spreading knowledge in the interior of Asia, and many parts of Africa and Europe. Unfortunately, the intelligence which was so disseminated was afterwards obliterated by the overruling powers of barbarous and warlike nations; but the efficacy of com merce in modern times is likely to be permanent wherever its influence is extended, seeing that the greatest manu facturing and mercantile people are at the same time the most powerful and most capable of offering protection to those who sustain a commercial intercourse with them. It is exceedingly pleasing thus to reflect on what com merce is capable of effecting, independent of the actual comfort which it produces, wherever it is fairly introduced By its appeals to the selfishness, the vanity, and othe passions, good and bad, of mankind, it appears to be the best of all forerunners to the efforts of the schoolmaster

and the missionary. Its influence in this respect has been remarkably exemplified in the boundless regions of Hindostan, which, by the efforts of a company of merchants, have been laid open to the settlement of enlightened men from Europe, who, though by slow degrees, will ultimately spread the blessings of education, and the decencies of social life, among many millions of human beings. In the remote islands in the Pacific Ocean, the influence of commerce has been recently of marked tility. The introduction of articles of a fanciful nature, both for the ornamenting and covering of the person, has induced a desire of following European manners and customs; and as these commodities cannot be procured but by the exchange of native commodities, a spirit of industry has consequently been produced, which cannot fail to be of both moral and physical advantage to the patives. It is always thus with the intercourse which Commerce necessarily involves. New tastes are created, and to be gratified, industry must be exerted. But to witness the extraordinary influence of commerce in producing civilized and refined habits, we necd not look beyond our own country. Commerce, in this its chosen seat, has caused roads everywhere to be cut, canals to be opened, railways to be formed, expeditious modes of travelling by sea and land to be effected; all of which great accessories to our comfort have tended in the most wonderful manner to introduce not only useful commodities and personal luxuries, but highly cultivated sentiments, literature, and the arts, into districts which at no distant period lay in a comparatively primitive condition. The intercourse which commerce in this manner requires, is the grand lever which, it is apparent, must in the first place be employed to lift the load of ignorance from off the natives of Africa; and when this lever is properly insinuated, the way will soon be prepared for the introduction of those measures of inelioration which philanthropists so anxiously design.

It is obvious that this scheme of mutual interchange among nations of the commodities which they respectively produce, is agreeable to every rational principle, and must have been designed by a wise Providence for the universal benefit of his creatures. In order that manufactures may be produced, and commerce brought in to disseminate them both at home and abroad where they are wanted, no species of legislative enactment is requisite either to encourage or direct. The law which governs production and consumption is a law of nature -it is the overruling principle of self-interest, by which only that quantity of manufactures is produced which can be advantageously disposed of, and only those com modities purchased and consumed which the wants of individuals require. And, curiously enough, this principle of self-interest, if allowed free scope, is uniformly and sufficiently competent to regulate both the production and consumption of commodities, to a degree more nice and satisfactory than could be attained by the best-devised | statutes which the wisest legislators could enact. The grand principle, therefore, which can alone regulate commerce and manufactures, is found in the natural passion for gain; and the sole essential requisite for the successful advancement of mercantile and manufacturing industry and wealth among the people, is for the people to be let

alone.

Evident as these principles must be to all who have any knowledge of social life, they have, either from ignorance or some other cause, been generally lost sight of by governments in all ages of the world, and plans have been contrived to regulate that which, if left alone, would have much better regulated itself. To such an extent have regulating and restrictive laws been carried in some countries, that they have nearly annihilated both manufactures and legitimate commerce, and reduced masses of the people to the condition of paupers, besides encouraging the pernicious and demoralizing pursuits of VOL. II.-33

the smuggler. The restrictions and regulations which governments usually impose upon commerce, do not perhaps originate so much in the plea that manufacturers and merchants stand in the condition of children, and require to be taken care of lest they should hurt themselves, as from the unfortunate exigencies under which the governments happen to be placed. They have all less or more engaged in wars, which have been conducted at an enormous expense to their respective countries. In order to liquidate these expenses, all kinds of taxes are levied, directly and indirectly; but as the levying of these taxes breeds discontent, large bodies of military have usually to be kept up, to act as an armed national police. Thus, the people of these countries have for ages to go on paying not only the price of the wars, or the interest of the sums borrowed and laid out upon the wars, but as much more for the military force afterwards imposed upon them. What is more distressing, the people have probably to give a deal of money, in order that their respective governments may be the more able to secure the attachment of men of consequence to assist in allaying the general clamours for a redress of grievances. This is a very rough view of the matter, but it is enough to show the dreadful exigencies into which nations fall, by their engaging in wars or other expensive follies. In whatever manner, however, national exigencies originate, the plan pursued for relief consists chiefly in the imposition of duties on certain commodities much in demand, and at various stages of their manufacture, transmission, and sale. It is likewise customary to impose duties on goods imported from foreign countries, with the view of protecting the manufacturers of such articles in this country; but this only benefits a class, or a few persons, at the expense of the whole community, and, therefore, all such duties are in the main as detrimental to trade and the public welfare as those imposed for the liquidation of national debt and expenditure.* "There is (observes Mr. McCulloch) no jugglery in commerce. Whether it be carried on between individuals of the same country, or of different countries, it is in all cases bottomed on a fair principle of reciprocity. Those who will not buy need not expect to sell, and conversely, It is impossible to export without making a corresponding importation. We get nothing from the foreigner gratui tously; and hene when we prevent the insportation of produce from abroad, we prevent, by the very same act, the exportation of an equal amount of British produce. All that the exclusion of foreign commodities ever effects, is the substitution of one sort of demand for another. It has been said, that when we drink beer and porter we consume the produce of English industry, whereas, when we drink port or claret we consume the produce of the industry of the Portuguese and French, to the obvious advantage of the latter, and the prejudice of our countrymen!' But how paradoxical soever the assertion may at first sight appear, there is not at bottom any real distinetion between the two cases. What is it that induces foreigners to supply us with port and claret? Ine answer is obvious:-We either send directly to Portugal and France an equivalent in British produce, or we send such equivalent, in the first place, to South America for bullion, and then send that bullion to the Continent to pay for the wine. And hence it is as clear as the sun at noonday, that the Englishman who drinks only French wine, who eats only bread made of Polish wheat, and who wears only Saxon cloth, gives, by occasioning the exportation of a corresponding amount of British cotton, hardware, leather, or other produce, the same encourage ment to the industry of his countrymen, that he would were he to consume nothing not immediately produced at home. A quantity of port-wine and a quantity of Birmingham goods are respectively of the same value

* See article POLITICAL ECONOMY.

X 2

so that, whether we directly consume the hardware, or having exchanged it for the wine, consume the latter, in so far as the employment of British labour is concerned, it is altogether indifferent."*

From these explanations, it will be observed that it is immaterial what is given in exchange for imported goods -whether money or native produce. At the same time, it must be understood that if money is given, there must exist some active industry in the country by which the money is realized. As a general question in commerce, it is of no consequence what is the nature of the industry by which the money is produced. It may consist in the raising of superabundant crops, or other raw produce for exportation, or of manufacturing raw and comparatively valueless materials into articles of value and deLand, or of carrying goods from one country to another. Unless a country possess one or more of these Franches of industry, it is without the means of paying for imported articles, and must retire from the field of general commerce. England is not of sufficiently large dimensions to export superabundant crops of grain, but it possesses in an extraordinary degree the means of manufacturing mineral and other substances into articles for exchange, and it derives no inconsiderable profit from the carrying of commodities. Its manufactured goods, therefore, pay for imports of foreign articles, including bullion or the raw material of money, and these again, in a manufactured state, are a fund for the payment of still further imports. Thus the wealth of our country has increased.

PRINCIPLES OF COMMERCE.

The practice of commerce is in a great measure dependent on mutual good faith, and the integrity of sailer and buyer, and can in no case permanently flourish where these fundamental qualities are wanting. The first or great leading quality, therefore, in the character of a merchant, ought to be scrupulous honesty both in word and deed. The article which he proposes to dispose of must be exactly what he declares it to be, not inferior or in any respect unsound in its nature. If it possess any blemishes, these must be announced to the buyer before the bargain is concluded, and, if necessary, though at a considerable loss, an allowance made for them. The merchant is not less called on to be faithful in the fulfilment of all promises which he may make, whether with respect to goods or their payment; because those to whom the promises have been made may on that account have made similar promises to others, and, therefore, the breaking of a single promise may prove injurious in every link of a whole train of transactions. Perfect honesty or integrity is a fundamental principle of trade; and the next most important are, strict regularity in all proceedings, according to established usage, and also steady perseverance. The merchant must give regular attendance during the hours of business, be regular in executing all orders and answering all letters; regular in the keeping of his books, and in the reckoning of his stock and moneys; in short, he must be methodic and careful in all branches of his concerns, for without this species of attention, the best business is apt to become confused, and to be ultimately ruined. What is true of individuals is true when applied to a whole nation. No people have ever attained opulence and high mercantile consideration, who have not possessed a character for integrity and regularity in all their dealings.

Besides these indispensable qualities in the individual character of a merchant or tradesman, there is required a happy combination of enterprise and prudence with the utmost coolness-enterprise to embrace favourable opportunities of buying and selling, and prudence and

Dictionary of Commerce.

coolness to restrain from engaging in over-hazardous and ruinous speculations. In all his transactions, the man of business is understood to proceed upon a cool inflexible principle of doing that which is most advan tageous for himself, without fear or favour; because in commerce each party is supposed to be governed by motives of self-interest (always within the rules of honesty and propriety), and is under no obligation to deal from mere personal regard, or any kind of friendly consideration. In commence there is, strictly speaking, no friendship. If there be friendship among the parties concerned, it is a thing aloof from business transac tions—a matter of private arrangement—and is only to be regarded as such. On this account, even among the most intimate friends, there must be an exact mode of dealing, and the most accurate counting and reckoning.

The British, for several centuries, seem to have been endowed, above all other nations, with those qualities of mind which are suitable for the conducting of commerce on an enlarged and liberal scale. Their integrity, persevering industry, enterprise, prudence, and liberality of sentiment, have never been excelled. In patient industry they have been rivalled by the Dutch; but in point of enterprise and liberality, that people have fallen far short of them, and their trade has languished accordingly. The British are pre-eminently a commercial as well as a manufacturing people. Taking them generally, they possess a spirit of restless industry, which renders them actually unhappy, unless when busily engaged in some pursuit calculated to enrich them, or at least to produce for their families the means of a respecta ble subsistence. The Americans, who are but a branch of the same British stock, are equally, if not more, remarkable for this fervent spirit of industry; and, though only set up as a separate nation within a period of sixty years, and less distinguished for their integrity and prudence than the English, have already distanced many of those dignified European principalities and powers which first discovered and colonized their country. The French, the Germans, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Italians, and others, though each possessing a larger or smaller extent of manufactures and commerce, are ob viously deficient, in a national sense, of the eager spirit of industry which is so characteristic of the people of Great Britain. Taken in the gross, they are too apt to addict themselves to amusement in preference to business. They delight in holidays, and will at any time leave their work to mingle in a dance or some kind of buffoonery, in which an Englishman would be ashamed to appear. Scarcely one of the continental nations, moreover, has yet settled down under a well-conducted government appointed by the people. There indeed seems to be little which is settled among them. Some of the principal are yet at that stage of social life which was common in England about the reign of Henry VII.; others are not farther advanced than a period considerably earlier; and all have yet a great deal to suffer and to learn before they attain that state of quietude and security to life and property, that condition of domestic comfort and national prosperity, which Great Britain, with all its faults, so amply enjoys.

COMMERCIAL TERMS AND TRANSACTIONS.

The following explanations of the principal terms used in commerce, will illustrate the mode of conducting bu

siness transactions.

Firm.-Every business, whether private or public, is conducted under a specified designation or title, called the name of the firm. This name may be that of a single individual to whom the business belongs, or of two or more individuals, or any title which it may be found advisable to adopt. Sometimes the name of a firm re mains long after all who are indicated by it are dead

In such a case, the business has passed into the hands of new proprietors, who, though legally responsible for its obligations, are not for some private reason inclined to change the old and well-known title of their firm. A particular firm or business-concern is sometimes personified in the term house-as, Such a house does a great deal of business, &c.

Company-Two or more individuals engaged in one business constitute a company or copartnery, each individual being called a partner. Companies are of two kinds, private and public. A private company is organized by a private arrangement among the parties, each having certain duties to perform and a certain share in the concern. In companies of the private and common description, no individual can leave the concern at his own pleasure, for by doing so he might seriously injure or embarrass his partners. He can withdraw only after giving a reasonable warning, by which time is allowed to wind up the concern, or place it in a condition to pay him back the capital which he has risked, or the profits which are his due. No partner, however, can transfer his share to another person, by which a new member would be introduced into the firm without the consent of the partners.

The profits of partnerships are divided according to a specified agreement or deed of copartnery. Generally, in the case of partnerships of two or three persons, each receives the same share on the occasion of an annual division, but in other cases, a partner may not be entitled to more than a fourth or sixth part of what another receives. The amount of capital which a partner invests in the concern, the service he can be to the business, and other circumstances, regulate the amount of his share. When each of two persons sinks the same capital, but one takes the whole of the trouble, then he on whom the trouble falls, who is called the active partner, is entitled to receive a stated sum in the form of salary over and above his share of profits. Whatever be the share which individual partners have in a concern, the whole are equally liable for the debts incurred by the company, because the public give credit only on the faith that the company generally is responsible. He who draws the smallest fraction of profit, failing the others, may be compelled to pay the whole debts. On this account, every partner on leaving a company should be careful to advertise in the Gazette and newspapers that he no longer belongs to the firm of which he was a member; he is then responsible for no debts incurred subsequent to the

announcement.

Public companies are very different; they consist of a large body of partners, or proprietors of shares, the aggregate amount of which forms a joint stock, and hence such associations are called joint-stock companies. They are public, from being constituted of all persons who choose to purchase shares, and these shares or rights of partnership are also publicly saleable at any time without the consent of the company. The value of a share in a joint-stock company is always the price which it will bring in the market; and this may be either greater or less, in any proportion, than the sum which its owner stands credited for in the stock of the company. Unless specially provided for in the fundamental deed of copartnery, every member of a joint-stock company is liable in his whole personal property or fortune for the debts of the concern. In some instances this liability is obviated by the provisions of an act of parliament, or parliamentary charter, establishing the company. Jointstock companies are managed by directors appointed by the shareholders.

It is an axiom in commerce, that business is much better conducted by single individuals for their own behoof, than by companies of any kind; as respects jointstock associations, they are only useful in very great

concerns, requiring enormous capital, and involving se rious risks of loss.

Capital. What is now termed capital was in former times called stock. The capital of a merchant is strictly the amount of money which he embarks in his trade, or trades upon, that is, employs for buying goods, paying wages of servants, and liquidating all debts when due. When trading within the limits of his capital, business is done upon a secure footing; but if he proceeds beyond these, in any material degree, he is said to be over-trading, and is exposed to the chance of ruin or very serious embarrassment. Trading beyond the amount of available capital, is, nevertheless, a prevailing error, and causes innumerable bankruptcies. With a comparatively sinall capital, a tradesman may carry on a large business, by receiving payments shortly after making his outlays. By this means, there is a rapid turning over of money, and small profits upon the various transactions speedily mount up to a large revenue. For example, if a tradesman turn over his capital twelve times in the year, at each time receiving money for what he sells, he can afford to do business on a twelve times less profit than if he could turn over the same capital only once in a year. This leads us to a consideration of credit.

Credit.-Credit in business is of the nature of a loan, and is founded on a confidence in the integrity of the person credited, or the borrower. An individual wishes to buy an article from a tradesman, but he has not money to pay for it, and requires to have it on credit, giving either a special or implied promise to pay its value at a future time. This is getting credit; and it is clear that the seller is a lender to the buyer. In all such cases, the seller must be remunerated for making his loan. He cannot afford to sell on credit on the same favourable terms as for ready money; because, if he were to receive the money when he sold the article, he could lay it ou to some advantage, or turn it over with other portions of its capital. By taking credit, the buyer deprives the seller of the opportunity of making this profit, and ac cordingly he must pay a higher price for the article, the price being increased in proportion to the length of credit It very ordinarily happens that the seller himself has purchased the article on credit; but this only serves to in crease its price to the consumer, and does not prevent the last seller from charging for the credit which he gives and the risk of ultimate payment which he runs. Credit for a short period is almost essential in all great transactions; but when going beyond fair and reasonable limits, it acts most perniciously on trade, by inducing heedless speculation, and causing an undue increase in the number of dealers with little or no capital. An excessive competition among these penniless adventurers is the consequence; each strives to undersell the other, with the hope of getting money to meet his obligations, and thus vast quantities of goods are sometimes thrown upon the market below the original cost, greatly to the injury of the manufacturer and the regular trader. What are called "gluts in the market" frequently ensue from causes of this nature.

Defoe, who wrote upwards of a century ago, makes the following observations on credit and over-trading, in his Complete English Tradesman :- There are two things which may properly be called over-trading, and by both of which tradesmen are often overthrown:1. Trading beyond their stock [or capital]; 2. Giving too large credit. A tradesman ought to consider and measure well the extent of his own strength: his stock of money and credit is properly his beginning; for credit is a stock as well as money. He that takes too much credit is really in as much danger as he that gives too much credit; and the danger lies particularly in this, if the tradesman over-buys himself, that is, buys faster than he can sell, buying upon it the payments peilaje

become due too soon for him; the goods not being sold, he must answer the bills upon the strength of his proper stock-that is, pay for them out of his own cash; if that should not hold out, he is obliged to put off his bills after they are due, or suffer the impertinence of being dunned by the creditor, and perhaps by servants and apprentices, and that with the usual indecencies of such kind of people. This impairs his credit, and if he comes to deal with the same merchant or clothier, or other tradesman again, he is treated like one that is but an indifferent paymaster; and though they may give him credit as before, yet depending that if he bargains for six months, he will take eight or nine in the payment, they consider it in the price, and use him accordingly; and this impairs his gain, so that loss of credit is indeed loss of money, and this weakens him both ways.

"A tradesman, therefore, especially at his beginning, ought to be very wary of taking too much credit; he had much better slip the occasion of buying now and then a bargain to his advantage, for that is usually the temptation, than buying a greater quantity of goods than he can pay for, run into debt, and be insulted, and at last ruined. Merchants, and wholesale dealers, to put off their goods, are very apt to prompt young shopkeepers and young tradesmen to buy great quantities of goods, and take large credit at first; but it is a snare that many a young beginner has fallen into, and been ruined in the very bud; for if the young beginner does not find a vent for the quantity, he is undone; for at the time of payment the merchant expects his money, whether the goods are sold or not and if he cannot pay he is gone at once. The tradesman that buys warily, always pays surely, and every young beginner ought to buy cautiously; if he has money to pay, he need never to fear goods to be had; the merchants' warehouses are always open, and he may supply himself upon all occasions, as he wants, and as his customers call." It certainly "is not possible in a country where there is such an infinite extent of trade as we see managed in this kingdom, that either on one hand or another it can be carried on without reciprocal credit both taken and given; but it is so nice an affair, that I am of opinion as many tradesmen break with giving too much credit as break with taking it. The danger, indeed, is mutual, and very great. Whatever, then, the young tradesman omits, let him guard against both giving and taking too much credit."

Orders.-An order is a request from one dealer to another to supply certain goods. An order, when in writing, should be plain, explicit, and contain no more words than are necessary to convey the sense in a simple, courteous manner. The same rule applies to all letters of business, which, by the practice of trade, are confined to their legitimate object. He that affects a rambling and bombastic style, and fills his letters with long harangues, compliments, and flourishes, should turn poet instead of tradesman, and set up for a wit, not a shopkeeper. A tradesman's letters should be plain, concise, and to the purpose; no quaint expressions, no bookphrases; and yet they must be full and sufficient to express what he means, so as not to be doubtful, much less unintelligible. We can by no means approve of studied abbreviations, or leaving out needful conjunctive terms and pronouns in trading letters; as, for example, Have just received yours of the 11th," &c.: which ought to be expressed as follows-"I have just received your communication of the 11th instant," &c. The leaving out of pronouns and other words in a business letter, gives it a mean appearance.

ture consists chiefly of desks for the clerks, and the banks of the establishment, which are secured at night in an iron or fire-proof safe. Almost every different business requires a different set of books, but the mode of keeping them is generally the same. The usual set of books comprises a day-book, in which sales or purchases on credit are individually entered as they occur; a leger, into which all these entries are engrossed in separate accounts; a journal or note-book, for entering miscel laneous transactions; a cash-book, in which every pay. ment or receipt of money is regularly entered; a letter. book, into which all letters are copied before they are sent off; and a bill-book, for the entering of bills pay. able and receivable. In large concerns there are various other books, as foreign-leger, town-leger, country-leger, &c. The art of book-keeping is simple. It requires only a competent knowledge of arithmetic, and skill in penmanship, with a little training in the method of entering and posting accounts. The strictest care and accuracy are desirable. It is an understood rule, that no book should show a blot or erasure; a leaf, also, should never on any account be torn out, whatever blotch or error it contains. The reason for this scrupulous care is, that a merchant's books should be a clear and faithful mirror of his transactions, and an evidence of his integrity. In the case of misfortune in trade, or other circumstance, the books may be subjected to a rigid judicial examination, and the appearance of an erasure or torn-out leaf may lead to conjectures of an unplea sant nature and consequences. When an important error occurs in book-keeping, it is better to let it remain and write error below it, than to make a large erasure or to cut out the leaf.

From the books kept by a merchant, a condensed view of his affairs ought to be annually made up. This document contains an inventory or list of goods, money debts owing to the merchant, or other available property: also a contra list of all debts and other obligations due by the merchant. Both being balanced, the residue, whether for or against the merchant, is at once observ able. Every man in trade, for at least his own satisfaction and government, should make up a balance-shee' of this nature annually.

Bill of Parcels.-An account or list of items of goods, given to their purchaser by the seller, or delivered along with the goods at the purchaser's house. Should a purchaser dispute the delivery of the goods, it is necessary to produce proof of the fact; when delivered to car riers, a receipt is usually given by subscribing a parcel book.

Invoice. A bill or account of goods, which is forwarded separately, announcing the date of their despatch and the particular conveyance by which they are sent. If the seller fail to forward an invoice by post, and the goods be lost at sea while on their way, the purchaser is not answerable, for he is not supposed to know how or when the goods were sent, and therefore could not insure against their loss. The careful sending of in voices forms an important duty of a merchant's clerk.