SIXTY YEARS HENCE. CHAPTER I. RESULT OF SIX MONTHS INTERVAL. Six months have passed away, the great bulk of the people, who have never enjoyed more than a bare sufficiency of food and raiment, suffer little by the scarcity; but those who live by the labour of others, whether great capitalists or petty farmers or traders, have one by one seen the accumulated fruits of labour, called capital, pass from their hands. A heavy but inevitable tax weighs upon the first neces saries of life, because the antidote to the murrain is quite indispensable to all primary articles of produce, as the guano had become, fifty years ago, to certain lands barren without this fertilising principle. But the millions affected by this ruinous state of things are kept quiescent by the facilities afforded them by all the national and local banking establishments. As they have wisely not been driven to despair, and as the credit to be obtained depends upon the general tranquillity, they are on the contrary the most zealous supporters of public order. As each man now depends on his credit he carefully conceals his circumstances from his neighbours, and all living on the indulgent forbearance of their unseen creditor, continue ignorant of the general bankruptcy and dependence. If we now turn to that portion of society constituting the political world, we shall find that it has learned-after the rapid succession of events which half a year ago disturbed its long apathy-to view without surprise the great but gradual change which has taken place during that period. Having witnessed, within the space of a few weeks, the alternate ascendancy of various political sects and leaders, the wreck and dissolution of time-honored parties, and the appearance of new and preponderating characters in the political arena-men begin to regard the possession of power as legitimatised by half a year's uninterrupted enjoyment, and the respectability of an opposition as established by six months of consistency and continuance. Nothing is changed in the external forms of the United Monarchies. Their dynasties immured in grand, Lomalike seclusion still figure in public pageants. The federal assembly still meets and deliberates; John Cash is still premier and is |