fered with by changes in the blood, such as are caused nearest approach to actual death, have nothing forby the inhalation of carbon-monoxide, sulphuretted midable in sensation. hydrogen, etc.; or the cutaneous or pulmonary respira- IV. Signs of actual death.-The recognition of tion may be interrupted; the former by anything the signs of death is important, in the first place, to which interferes with the functions of the skin, as burns enable the determination of the reality of death; and, or scalds, or covering the skin with a layer of varnish, in the second, on medico-legal grounds, to enable the etc.; the latter by paralysis of the respiratory centre, formation of an opinion as to the length of time duras in apoplexy,—by insufficient or abnormal blood, or ing which life has been extinct. We will examine in paralyzing poisons,-by interference with the functions detail some of the various signs of death. of the respiratory nerves, as in section or compression of the phrenic nerve, or in curare poisoning.- -or by paralysis or tetanus (as in strychnia poisoning) of the respiratory muscles; or, finally, by some mechanical obstruction to the expansion of the thorax. The continuous and entire cessation of the circulation is a positive sign of death: the difficulty, however, lies in obtaining such proof, since mere feeling of the pulse, or auscultation and palpation of the heart, may, from the weakness of pulsation, or some abnormality in 3. Absence of the conditions necessary to oxidation.- situation or character, fail to reveal any action, and a As regards the production of death from disturbance temporary suspension of the heart's action has been of the conditions necessary to oxidation, very little can known to occur without the production of death. be said; about all that we know is that there are cer- Several accessory tests of the condition of the circulatain conditions essential to such processes. Modifica- tion have therefore been proposed. Thus, when a tions of these conditions may produce disease or modi- thread is tied tightly around the finger, if the person fied vitality; their absence results in death. The most be living, the part beyond the ligature will become important of these conditions necessary to the proper bluish-red in hue, while a narrow white ring will suroxidation of protoplasm is a certain degree of tempera- round the finger where the ligature was applied: after ture, varying in the most marked degree for different the cessation of the circulation no such appearance members of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, but marked by strict limitations for each species, beyond which elevations or depressions of temperature must lead to depressed (as in hybernation) or suspended animation. A certain quantity of moisture appears to be also essential to the oxidation processes of protoplasm, a fact not strange to us when we recollect the composition of protoplasm itself, and demonstrated by the altered conditions of vitality which in the lower organisms follows the disturbance of the normal supply of water (latent vitality). Finally, the nutritive processes of oxidation which occur in protoplasm are, in the higher animals, directly under the control of the nervous system, and it is to disturbance of this controlling influence that the remarkable cases of suspended animation in man (trance, catalepsy) may be attributed. will be found. Then if bright steel needles are thrust III. Signs of impending death. For some time before death the indications of the fatal event usually become more and more apparent; speech becomes thick and labored; the hands, if raised, fall inertly; the labored respiration causes insufficient oxygenation of the blood, and the distress excites an attempt at inspiration which debility renders nearly ineffectual; hence gasping, sighs, yawning. The heart loses its power to pro-animals. pel the blood into the extremities, they become cold, There are certain other signs which may prove of and a clammy moisture oozes through the skin. Irreg- confirmatory value as to the presence or absence of ular action of the heart and lungs takes place, until at death. Thus, when heat is applied to the skin until a last the contractility of the vital organs is entirely vesicle forms, if the contents of the vesicle contain gone. Respiration ceases by a strong expulsion of air albumen, and the cutis vera, after removal of the cutifrom the chest, and in the very act of expiring the cle, appears red, and particularly if a red line forms person dies. While such is the ordinary sequence of after a short time around the blister, absolute evidence events which precede the death of an individual, they is furnished as to the life of the part, and hence strong must necessarily vary with the circumstances under presumptive evidence of the life of the individual. which death occurs. Delirium, restlessness, and de- While if the vesicle so formed contains gas-bubbles, mentia often occur; or the dying man, as in apoplexy, and only a little non-albuminous serum, and if the old age, and many febrile diseases, may remain feel- cutis vera appears dry and glazed, and no red line ingless, motionless, mindless for many days before the forms, the evidence is strong that the part is dead. So, cessation of the organic functions, or perfect conscious- also, caustic produces a reddish-brown eschar when ness may be possessed up to the last. The process applied to living skin, while the skin merely turns of dying should not necessarily be considered one of yellow or transparent without forming an eschar when physical distress and anguish; for no matter what the part is dead. Certain changes which occur in and may have been the previous torture, it must be all over about the eye may also be valuable confirmatory signs when once those changes begin in which death con- of death. Thus, at death, the pupil loses its mobility; sists; with the failure of the circulation the function the cornea loses its transparency, lustre, and sensibility; of the brain declines. If the fatal process begins in and the face assumes the well-known expression dethe respiratory apparatus unconsciousness precedes scribed as the facies Hippocratica. the arrest of the circulation; and if in the brain, any injury sufficient to affect the lungs and heart fatally must destroy its own consciousness. Convulsion is not the sign of pain; it is an affection of the motific, not of the sensory, part of the nervous system, and is due, under such circumstances, to insufficient supply of oxygen to the medulla oblongata. Temporary faintings and asphyxia, and the convulsions of epilepsy, the After death the body is subject to a gradual and progressive loss of heat, until ultimately the body becomes of about the same temperature as the surrounding media, and as this loss of heat is progressive, it may serve as an indication of the time a body has been dead. Thus, under ordinary circumstances, a body becomes cold in from fifteen to twenty hours after death. In some cases, however, there may be a post-mortem elevation of temperature from chemical | mitted to the bar in 1844, but had already entered upon action, in which oxygen combines with the elements of the body with extraordinary energy. Some of the most important signs of death are to be found in the condition of the muscular system. These conditions are marked by three stages: (1) When the muscles become flaccid, but still preserve their irritability. The duration of this stage, which sets in immediately after the arrest of the heart, or after death, in the popular conception of the word, may last for only a few minutes or for several hours, depending upon the cause of death. When contractility is present in any muscle, the person is either not dead or has recently died; when absent in all muscles, it may be stated positively that death has taken place. (2) Rigor mortis, or cadaveric rigidity, soon succeeds the first stage. In this condition the muscles become stiff and rigid, and the limbs retain the position they occupied at the time rigidity supervened. Rigor mortis is due to the coagulation of the myjosin of muscles, and is a process entirely analogous to the coagulation of the blood. On the occurrence of rigor mortis muscles lose their alkalinity and become acid: they also lose their elasticity and transparency. Rigor is also associated with the development of heat, partly due to the physical changes in density, and partly to the chemical changes. Rigor mortis ordinarily commences about three or four hours after death, though the time of its occurrence will depend upon the mode of death. Thus, in cases of sudden death in robust muscular subjects, not having been exposed to fatigue, rigor may be delayed for twelve hours or more. On the other hand the first stage of muscular change may apparently be absent, and rigor occur almost immediately after death: such cases are seen in subjects which have been exposed to great fatigue before death, as in hunted animals, in strychnia poisoning, and in instant death at the close of the action on the battle-field. Rigor mortis passes from above downwards; it begins in the back of the neck and lower jaw, passes then to the facial muscles, the front of the neck, the chest and the upper extremities, and last of all to the lower extremities. Usually it passes off in the same order, and when once gone, whether from the natural progress of changes, or from forced movements, it never returns, and the body becomes as flexible as it formerly was. Rigor mortis usually lasts for twenty-four or thirty-six hours, though when death has been caused by long continued exhausting diseases it may not last longer than an hour or two, or it may be very much prolonged: as a rule the longer its advent is delayed, the greater its duration and intensity. (3) After rigor mortis has disappeared the muscles again become flaccid and alkaline in reaction, and the third stage of change, that of putrefaction, sets in, unless prevented by rapid desiccation, or by the use of agents which prevent putrefaction. Putrefaction, which furnishes the sole absolute sign of death, consists in a slow oxidation of the organic constituents of the body, brought about by the action of the air under the influence of bacterial organisms. The marks of post-mortem lividity (Suggilations, livores), which are precursors of putrefaction, are caused by the diffusion of the blood coloring matter out of the corpuscles, first into the serum, and afterwards into the fluids of the different organs. (R. M. S.) DE BOW, JAMES DUNWOODY BROWNSON (18201867), an eminent Southern editor and statistician, was born at Charleston, S. C., July 10, 1820. His father, Garret De Bow, a native of New Jersey, had settled in Charleston as a merchant, and was for a time successful, but afterwards sank into poverty. At an early age the son was employed in mercantile business, but as soon as he obtained the necessary means went to Cokesburg Institute, and thence to Charleston College, from which he graduated in 1843. Having studied law, he was ad a literary career by contributing to the Southern Quarterly Review, then published at Charleston by Ď. K. Whitaker. De Bow soon became editor of the Review, and among his articles was one on Oregon and the Oregon Question, which attracted attention throughout the country, and was the occasion of a debate in the French Chamber of Deputies. In 1845 he was secretary of the convention held at Memphis, Tenn., to promote the interests of the South. John C. Calhoun presided over the convention, and De Bow prepared an elaborate report of its proceedings. He had also previously published some articles in the Charleston Courier advocating the holding of this convention, and while preparing them first felt the need in the Southern States of a monthly magazine, commercial rather than literary. For the purpose of establishing such a magazine he removed to New Orleans towards the close of 1845, and the first number of De Bow's Commercial Review was issued in the following January. For a time its existence was precarious, but eventually it became the leading periodical of the South-west. In 1848 he was appointed professor of political economy and commercial statistics in the University of Louisiana, and in the same year, when that State established a bureau of statistics, Mr. De Bow was placed in charge, and issued a valuable report in 1849. He assisted in founding the Louisiana Historical Society, and was a member of the New Orleans Academy of Sciences. He gathered material with a view of writing a history of Louisiana, but afterwards abandoned this intention, though he published a series of articles in his Review on "The Early Times of Louisiana." In 1853, Pres. Pierce appointed De Bow superintendent of the United States census, which position he held for two years, editing and completing the census report for 1850 in a superior manner, yet at reduced cost to the Government. In 1853 he issued The Industrial Resources of the Southern and Western States, in three volumes, compiled from his Review, and published an Encyclopedia of the Trade and Commerce of the United States. He was always an ardent advocate of Southern conventions, political, agricultural, mercantile, and educational. In most of those which were held he was a delegate, was several times secretary, and was president of the Knoxville convention of 1857. In these, as in the pages of his Review, he urged the perpetuation of slavery as it existed in the Southern States, and fiercely denounced all attempts at its abolition. Becoming more extreme in his views as time passed on, he even proposed the revival of the slave-trade. He was of course an advocate of the secess on of the South, and in 1858, in an address before the alumni of Charleston College, he maintained that the only salvation of the interests of that section lay in an immediate dissolution of the Union. When secession was accomplished he held several important positions under the Confederacy, especially that of chief agent for the purchase and sale of cotton on behalf of the Government. His Review was suspended for two years, but he was still active with voice and pen in behalf of the Southern cause. After the close of the war he resumed the publication of his Review at Nashville, and, accepting the results of the conflict, urged the Southern States to encourage immigration from Europe, to make a fair trial of the system of free labor, and to introduce manufactures. He became president of the Tennessee and Pacific Railroad, and used every effort to advance this great undertaking. Learning that his younger brother was lying at the point of death in New Jersey, Mr. De Bow hastened from the South to be near him. On the journey he caught a severe cold that terminated in pleurisy, of which he died at Elizabeth, N. J., Feb. 27, 1867. His brother died a month later. The Review was continued by his heirs for two years after his death. Mr. De Bow's characteristics were self-reliance, diligence, application, integrity, and devotion to what he believed to be the true interests of h's country. See Vol. XVII. p. 227 Am, ed. DEBTS, NATIONAL. National debts of long dura- | church dues, but chiefly by contributions from the surtion were unknown among the nations plus of the municipal administrations paid into the of antiquity. They carried on wars coffers of the state from the produce of the alum(p. 243 Edin. either by preparing for them in times works, the sale of salt, and the dogana, or customs ed.). of peace, or by subsisting on the enemy. revenues of Rome. When Alexander overthrew Darius on "However censurable this prodigality," says Ranke, the plains of Arbela an immense amount of treasure "Leo was doubtless encouraged in it by finding that it was taken. In most cases the nation which first de- produced for the time advantageous rather than misclared war invaded the country attacked, where to achievous effects. It was partly owing to this system considerable degree its armies were supported. Napo- of finance that Rome, at the period in question, rose leon adopted this policy, otherwise his military opera- to such an unexampled height of prosperity, since there tions would not have been so favorably regarded by was no place in the world where capital could be inthe French people. Debts were often contracted in vested to so much advantage. The multitude of new anticipation of taxes; but the first permanent national offices, the vacancies and consequent reappointments, debt is comparatively of modern date. The modern kept up a continual stir in the curia and held out to idea seems to be to incur the obligation requiring the all the prospect of easy advancement. Another conexpenditure, and raise the means to fulfil it afterward; sequence was that there was no necessity for burdening the ancient idea was the reverse. It cannot be unhes- the public with new taxes; it is indisputable that the itatingly asserted that the modern policy is the wisest. states of the church compared with other provinces, "Pay as you go" is one of the soundest rules that can and Rome with other cities, in Italy, were charged be observed by nations as well as by individuals. with the smallest amount of taxation. The Romans had already been told that whilst other cities furnished to their princes heavy loans and vexatious taxes, their master, the pope, on the contrary, made his subjects very rich. The first permanent national debt was created by the papal government. However loud were the complaints of extortion heard in Rome in the fifteenth century, the fact cannot be disputed that only a very small portion of the money raised for the pope was put into his treasury. All the nations of Europe were obedient to Pius II., yet he was so greatly in need of money that he could afford only one meal a day to himself and his dependents for a long time, and was obliged to borrow 200,000 ducats to prepare for the war with Turkey which he meditated. Whenever costly enterprises were undertaken the pope resorted to extraordinary expedients, and among these were jubilees and indulgences. Another mode of raising money was to create and sell offices. A certain sum was immediately paid for the office, and the official received at stated times thereafter a fixed sum or interest during his life. These arrangements were essentially annuities. The interest was raised by increasing the imposts of the church. There existed in the year 1471 nearly six hundred and fifty salable offices, the income from which amounted to 100,000 scudi. These were, says Ranke, chiefly held by procurators, registrars, abbreviators, correctors, notaries, clerks, even messengers and doorkeepers, whose increasing numbers continually raised the costs of a bull or a brief. This was, indeed, the very object of appointing them, for their duties amounted to little or nothing. Sixtus IV., adopting the plan proposed by his prothonotary, Sinolfo, established whole colleges by a single act, the places in which were sold for 200 or 300 ducats each. These institutions bore singular titles; one of them was called the "college of a hundred janissaries. Sixtus IV. carried the system so far that he has been regarded its real author; but, as we have seen, it was invented long before his day. Under him, however, the system was worked to its utmost capacity. His successors did not hesitate to employ the system as ocasion required. Innocent VIII. founded a new college of twenty-six secretaries for 60,000 scudi, with a complement of other officers. Alexander VI. appointed eighty writers of briefs, each writer paying 750 scudi for his appointment; and Julius II., on the same terms, added one hundred writers of archives. He also established a college consisting of a hundred and forty-one presidents of the annona, or bodies which received the different taxes, all of whom were paid by the state. His success in raising money was so great as to excite the admiration of other princes, whatever they might have thought of him as the religious head of the church. Leo X., who squandered the revenues of the church in a shameful manner, not content with selling the existing offices, raised a large sum by nominating additional cardinals. He created more than twelve hundred offices. Their sale yielded the sum of 900,000 scudi. The interest amounted to an eighth of the capital, and was raised by slightly increasing the But this pleasant state of things could last no longer than while a surplus remained in the public treasury. Leo did not live to fund all his loans, and his successors were obliged to tax the people more heavily. In 1526 Clement VII. took up arms against Charles V. and new loans became necessary. Until this time the money paid to the state on the sale of an office was returned in the way of interest, but when the lender died the obligation of the state to pay ceased. Clement proposed to raise 200,000 scudi by paying ten per cent. to the lender during his lifetime and continuing the payment to his successors. This was the first national loan in the modern sense of the term. The interest was charged on the dogana or custom-house revenues, and the loan was made more secure by giving a share in the management of the institution to the creditors. The old form of borrowing, however, was not wholly abandoned, for the lenders constituted a college; a few undertakers of the loan paid the whole amount into the treasury, and then disposed of the shares among their own college-members. Thus the lenders became participants in the management of the government to a certain extent, and Ranke says that "no capitalist would lend his money without the form of such participation. Although this mode of obtaining loans had been devised, the former one of getting them by the sale of offices was not abandoned. Subsequent popes resorted sometimes to one mode and sometimes to the other. When interest ceased on the death of the creditor, which was the case with the loans called racabili and received for offices, the rate was higher than on those loans whose interest was perpetual. These loans were called the non vacabili. For a long period the popes exerted themselves to the utmost to raise money by these modes, chiefly to aid in prosecuting wars in which the states of the church were usually engaged in company with other nations. The Turks for centuries were a menace to Europe, and the pope was often zealous in raising men and money to beat back the dreaded Moslem. But after a time so many loans had been issued that the taxes grew very high and were among the most oppressive in Europe. Many of these had been assigned to the lenders to receive their advances, and they, of course, insisted on their collection, and were usually successful. By this method they made sure of getting their money: indeed, without having such power, probably no loans could have been negotiated in those days. The honesty and efficiency of the government were not so well established as to induce lenders to part with their money on the simple promise of the government that it should be remaid in regular annual payments. They insisted that certain revenues should be pledged to them, and, moreover, that the farmers of taxes should pay the portion thus assigned directly to the lenders without first putting it into the state treasury. For centuries the people living under the most enlightened governments have had more faith in them and have trusted them to collect the revenues and pay their obligations. But one feature of this system has survived to our day-namely, the pledging of a certain revenue for the payment of a particular debt. That great financier, Pitt, strongly recommended Parliament to do this when authorizing some of the war loans during the war with Napoleon; and Alexander Hamilton, who had studied the British system of finance closely, recommended a similar policy for adoption by the American Congress. This was done in many instances. Pitt and Hamilton both believed that the possessors of money would lend more freely if the sources whence payments were to be made were described and specifically pledged for that purpose. But the custom of the lender to participate in the collection of the revenue, and to receive it directly from the tax-gatherer, has long since passed away, save in a few recent instances, as when Turkey and Egypt were compelled to allow some share of foreign interference in the administration of their finances. The next states to imitate the pope in borrowing were Genoa and Venice. In both states taxes were assigned to the creditors, who participated largely in their collection. One revenue after another was thus assigned to them until only a very small sum flowed into the public treasury. The first mode of contracting a permanent national debt, therefore, was this: the state borrowed money, pledging certain revenues in payment which were collected by the creditors or largely through their instrumentality. A more minute account of the loans of Genoa and Venice will be found in the article on BANKING. 66 the Bank of England in 1694. At that time the word fund" meant the special tax or fund which was set apart for meeting the charge on the money borrowed, whereas now the word has come to mean that money itself. After this followed the East India Company's loan of $10,000,000. Four years afterward the debt of Charles II. to the bankers and goldsmiths was compounded and added to the funded debt. This still forms a part of the national indebtedness. (For history of English debt see FINANCE, in ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA.) France created a debt in the reign of Charles V. in 1375, which was increased in ransoming Francis I. But when Sully became the chief minister of Henry IV. in 1597 he reformed the financial system, and during his administration paid the public debt, which amounted to 332,000,000 livres, besides remitting 20,000,000 of taxes in arrears and collecting a reserve of 17,000,000 livres, which were deposited in the Bastile. This reserve was squandered by Henry's successors, and the nation plunged deeply into debt during the reign of subsequent kings. At the death of Louis XIV. in September, 1715, the debt, says Cohen, amounted to $620,000,000; but another author more accurately states that as to the amount and nature of the obligations which the state had incurred, the most vague notions prevailed, even among financiers. One author states that they were thought to exceed the intrinsic value of the whole country; the fact was that, except so far as the rents upon the Hôtel de Ville were concerned, there were no regular means of ascertaining what money had been borrowed by the state and from whom. The country was flooded with state bills of endless variety in point of amount, date, and security. Some were for millions of livres, others for tens, hundreds, thousands. The date of some was a century old, that of others did not extend beyond the existing year. Many were payable at the national treasury, not In Florence government loans were made during the a few were drawn upon receivers-general; and the first half of the thirteenth century. There were two whole formed a mass of confusion, out of which it modes of making them. By one mode the treasurers seemed impossible to evolve anything like order, in of the commune made an agreement with one or more accordance with the principles of justice. The grossest great banking-houses, who, on receiving an assignment frauds had been practised upon the state and its credof the custom-duties, advanced the money and dis-itors; debts had been contracted, although no money tributed the loan among their customers and friends. had been received; those by whom money had been By the other mode the government itself announced really advanced had been compelled to sell their securithe loan and allotted it to the citizens in proportion to ties at one-half or one-fourth of their nominal value." their income, which was recorded on the esturio or The only well-authenticated fact about the debt at this assessment of real and personal property. The secur- time is that the sum annually required to pay the ity given in this case also was the custom-duties for a interest exceeded 89,000,000 livres. A more particufixed period. lar description of the indebtedness of France at this date will be found in Murray's French Finance and Financiers under Louis XV. Spain followed next. Then her Dutch child, Holland, followed her example. Her debt was contracted in the 16th and 17th centuries when contending so heroically against the might and tyranny of Spain, and also in consequence of the wars with Cromwell, Charles II., and Louis XIV. They attained their greatest height about the end of the 17th century, when the debt of England was beginning. This was the time when the stadtholder of the Netherlands and his wife acceded to the throne of England. Many of the people were disaffected by the event, and William III. was obliged to guard his possession at no inconsiderable expense, and yet if possible to prevent his new subjects from feeling the cost. One of his first acts was to abolish the tax of hearthmoney, thereby surrendering $1,200,000 per annum, although the national income was considerably below expenditures. Obliged to defend his kingdom within, and to enlist forces for war with France, and deeming it impolitic to impose new taxes, he could not do otherwise than to borrow. Other English monarchs had done the same thing before, but the credit of the state had never been pledged. The loans were personal, not national. In 1694, for the first time in English accounts, appears the item, "Interest and Management of the Public Debt." The first funded debt was $6,000,000, borrowed from France was not the only European state the amount of whose debt for a long period was involved in obscurity. The debts of Spain and Russia, until a recent period, have been an unfathomable mystery. Several reasons may be given for keeping them in this way. One is neglect and inefficiency on the part of officials. Another is that frauds could be more easily perpetrated and the treasury, with less difficulty, robbed. It has been considered a wise policy in some cases to keep the subject in darkness through fear that a full exhibit of the national indebtedness would impair public credit. So long as the real amount was unknown it was easier to make such representations concerning it as the public interests seemed to demand. Of course this could not be done if the record were accurately kept and published. There are four ways of stating national debts. The most usual way is to state them by their nominal capital. Thus we say that the debt of the United States on Dec. 31, 1881, less the cash in the treasury, was $1,765,491,717. This way is inaccurate for comparing debts because the difference in interest is not considered, nor that of population or national wealth. But it is the easiest way, and conveys to the reader some idea of the subject. The second way, which is in gen eral use on the continent of Europe, consists in stating | spendthrift; on the contrary was industrious in saving. debts by their annual rente or interest. This, it is All branches of the government became less effective said, measures more accurately the burden on a nation; in consequence of his parsimony. When Charles III. though it does not when a portion of its debt consists succeeded him he found nearly $35,000,000 in the of terminable annuities, which is the case with Eng- treasury. He repaired the act of Ferdinand, and in land. This way is not perfect, for it takes no account 1762 paid six per cent. on account of the debts of of population or wealth, and consequently of the Philip V., and continued to do so for the next four pressure of taxation. The third way marks an ad- years. In 1767 the loans bearing six per cent. interest vance by dividing the annual charge of the debt by the were reduced to four per cent. loans. The year folpopulation, and the last way consists in ascertaining lowing 60,000,000 reals were divided among the credthe proportion or percentage of the annual charge of itors. In 1769 his situation obliged him to discontinue the debt to the gross income of the population. But payments. The result was the complete destruction as Baxter, who has treated of this subject quite fully, of the royal credit. In 1783 Charles tried to negotiate says, "materials are seldom available for arriving at a loan of 180,000,000 reals, the creditors of Philip III. this comparison, and its general adoption must be left taking one-third at par. At the end of two years the for an age of more complete statistical knowledge.' experiment was given up, as hardly 12,000,000 had It is startling to think what a large proportion of been taken. national debts is contracted for war expenditure. The four debts incurred by the United States were for this purpose. The debt of Great Britain was similarly contracted. So was the larger part of the debt of France and the Netherlands, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. The debt of Germany represents a larger outlay for building railroads, and making other improvements, than the debt of any other European nation. A considerable sum has been expended by Italy and France for railroads and canals. A very large sum has been borrowed to meet annual deficits. This is true more particularly with respect to AustriaHungary, Russia, Italy, and Spain. The earliest account that can be given with any degree of accuracy of the debts of nations is for 1715. At that period the French debt was $700,000,000; the Netherlands owed $450,000,000; England, $180,000,000; and Spain, the Italian republics, and other states, about $250,000,000. The total national indebtedness of the world was therefore $1,500,000,000-being somewhat less than the debt of the United States at the present time. After Of all the countries in Europe carrying debts during the period under immediate review, the Low Countries were by far the most heavily burdened. But the people never for a moment thought of repudiating the debt. They struggled unflinchingly to pay it. So heavy was it that the price of bread in the towns was doubled, and it was a common saying at Amsterdam that every dish of fish brought to table was paid for once to the fisherman and six times to the state. For a short period her commerce, fisheries, and manufactures increased notwithstanding the burden. 1672 the country began to decline, and its condition was very serious by 1715. "Wages," says McCulloch, "having been raised so as to enable the laborers to exist, the weight of taxation fell principally on the capitalist. Profits were in consequence reduced below their level in surrounding countries, and the United Provinces lost their ascendency; their fisheries and manufactures were undermined; and their capitalists chose in the end rather to transfer their stocks to the foreigner than to employ them at home. During the next eighty years after 1715 the debt of The debt of France was so enormous, and a large England increased more than that of any other nation. portion was so well known to have been fraudulently One of the heavy items of indebtedness was the cost contracted, that steps were immediately taken after the of attempting to subdue the American colonies. This death of Louis XIV. to reduce the amount. The period covered the long administration of Sir Robert debt was of three kinds: state bills, the amount of Walpole, who established, with the concurrence of which was estimated at 700,000,000 livres, another Parliament, a sinking fund, by the operation of which sum of 800,000,000 livres, which represented the pur- he was confident that within a reasonable period the chase-money paid for judicial and other offices, and a national debt would be paid. It was composed of a third sum of 500,000,000 livres, which was properly few million pounds, which, by a wondrous manipulathe funded debt of the nation. This entire sum, as tion not exactly understood by those less wise in finance nearly as can be ascertained, was about $700,000,000. than himself, would be sufficient in due time to pay a As the grossest frauds had been perpetrated in issuing vastly larger amount of indebtedness. No wonder the state bills payment of them was suspended until this brilliant discovery was hailed with delight, for the they could be examined and verified. The brothers prospect of discharging a heavy debt by the payment Paris, who had acquired a great reputation for their of a small sum is, next to discharging such a debt by financial skill, were appointed to perform this delicate the payment of nothing, doubtless one of the most task. The amount presented for examination was pleasing illusions in which the burdened debt-payer $210,000,000. It is not known on what principles can indulge. For a considerable period Walpole's the examiners proceeded in making their determina- sinking-fund annually expanded. Within twenty tion; but their result is known, for this portion of the years, however, from the date of its creation, the acpublic debt was reduced to $65,000,000. The pro- cumulated treasure was applied toward defraying the ceedings appear to have been quite satisfactory, for when persons were asked to present complaints, if they had any, because of the decisions rendered, the total amount of the claims then presented was only 14,000,000 livres. Of this amount 8,000,000 livres were allowed. This was the beginning of national debt scaling-a process with which in these days we are painfully becoming too familiar. The next step of the kind was taken by Spain. When Philip V. died in 1745 his debts amounted to $45,000,000. Ferdinand VI., who succeeded him, was frightened at the burdens. He assembled a junta composed of bishops, ministers, and lawyers, and asked them to declare whether a king was obliged to discharge the debts of his predecessor. The question was decided in the negative in accordance with the king's hope and expectation. His conscience was quieted and bankruptcy was declared. But he was no ordinary expenses of the government. Such was the fate of the first sinking-fund. Fifty years afterward Pitt established another, which was destined to play a more important part in the history of English finance, and excited many a grave discussion before the fatal error of the system was clearly seen. In 1793 the following were the debts of the nations of the world: |