ABSTRACT
It was not possible to write the previous chapters of this book without reflecting upon a curiosity. Of no one of the facts contained in them is there, I think, any serious dispute. I have given the references for them, and they are all the commonplaces of any important books of admitted authority such as, for instance, Mr. Feaveryear’s Pound Sterling or Mr. Lipson’s Economic History. They will be all quite tediously familiar to any one who has given a study to these important questions. Such students will be inclined peevishly to ask why it was thought necessary to tell again a tale already so well known.
