n with every
other shoemaker in the same locality, each hatter is in competition
with every other hatter, each clothier with every other clothier, all
offering their wares for units of money. In this universal and perpetual
competition for money, that number of shoemakers that can supply the
demand for shoes at the smallest average price (excellence of quality
being taken into account) will fix the market value of shoes in money;
and conversely, will fix the value of money in shoes. So with the
hatters as to hats, so with the tailors as to clothes, and so with those
engaged in all other occupations as to the products respectively of
their labor.

The transcendent importance of money, and the constant pressure of the
demand for it, may be realized by comparing its utility with that of any
other force that contributes to human welfare.

In all the broad range of articles that in a state of civilization are
needed by man, the only absolutely indispensable thing is money. For
everything else there is some substitute--some alternative; for money
there is none. Among articles of food, if beef rises in price, the
demand for it will diminish, as a certain proportion of the people will
resort to other forms of food. If, by reason of its continued scarcity,
beef continues to rise, the demand will further diminish, until finally
it may altogether cease and centre on something else. So in the matter
of clothing. If any one fabric becomes scarce, and consequently dear,
the demand will diminish, and, if the price continue rising, it is only
a question of time for the demand to cease and be transferred to some
alternative.

But this cannot be the case with money. It can never be driven out of
use. There is not, and there never can be, any substitute for it. It
may become so scarce that one dollar at the end of a decade may buy ten
times as much as at the beginning; that is to say, it may cost in labor
or commodities ten times as much to get it, but at whatever cost, the
people must have it. Without money the demands of civilization could not
be supplied.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS,

OF NEW YORK (BORN 1824, DIED 1892.)

ON THE SPOILS SYSTEM AND THE PROGRESS OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.

An Address delivered before the American Social Science Association at
its Meeting in Saratoga, New York, September 8, 1881.

Twelve years ago I read a paper before this association upon reform
in the Civil Service. The subject was of very l