Uncle Sam's Milk Checks

There was once a dairyraan who did a large and prosperous business. He was known and respected by a large community, and nearly all the people who knew him did business with him. I do not know what his real name was, but they called him Uncle Sam. At the early day when these things happened there was very little money, and people nsed bar lead, bnllets and tobáceo for change. Finally Uncle Sam, who was a j rather unusual character, read a ' sage in one of Aristotle's works in regard to the inven tion of money, that "it was afterward determined in value by men putting a stamp on it in order that it may save them the trouble of weighiug it. " So Uncle Sam built a stamping machine which would stamp out an English penny's worth of lead and was worth a pint of milk, as he was then selling milk. These checks proved to be quite convenient. People found them all full weigbt, and Uncle Sam's workmen and servants took their pay in them. People also sold him their cows for tbem, and Uncle Sam sold milk for them. Sometimes the people used the lead coins for bullets and for weghts, but Uncle Sam didn't care very much. Although it did cost him something to coin them, he had passed them at their lead value. In fact, Uncle Sam would exchange coins for bar lead at any time, weight for weight, as a matter of public convenience. Some other people made coins in a mold occasionally, bnt people generally weighed them in order to find whether they were as heavy as Uncle Sam's coins. Uncle Sam said he didn't care how many coins they made, and he would take them himself if they were full weight. A lead mine was discovered not very f ar from Unclo Sam's, and lead went down in price toabout half what it had been. A great many people who had gome of üncle Sam's lead began to wonder what he was going to do about the matter. The checks were worth only a halfpenny now. They discovered that Uncle Sam was still receiving them for a penny's worth of milk and that he was continuing to pay them out to his workmen just as before. His business was enlarging, and he was stamping out these checks in larger numbers than ever. People sold him hay and cows for them at the same rate, for he had said that he intended to maintain the parity of his checks and the penny. People didn't use his checks for bullets now, for bar lead cost only half as much. And Uncle Sam requested his friends not to make any of these checks out of bar lead, for he didn't like to accept halfpenny checks for a penny unless he had passed them off on the public for a penny's worth of labor. The uext thing of note that happened to Uncle Sam was this: The people who owned the lead mine heard about his scheme, and they got up a convention in order to see if semething couldn't be done for lead. They wanted to get the good old prices. They proposed that Uncle Sam sbould coin the whole output of their mine free and let them cart away the checks, since they owned the lead. They tried to make Uncle Sana believe that this would doublé the price of lead and he could go right on doing business as if uothing had happened. There was also some talk to the effect that people couldn't pay their debts unless they could get some cheap money to pay with. The working people were getting a penny a day, and many of them thought these lead pennies they were getting were too good and would buy too much at the stores. They joined the free coinage movement in order to get a cheap penny which would buy only half as much as the present penny, with a view of restoring lead to its old price, so people could pay their debts in cheap money. They said they would trust toluck to get their wages doubled. Some of the wiser ones shook their heads and said Uncle Sam certainly couldn't carry the whole lead output at twice its rnarket value. They were confldent that if he should attempt to do so the lead coins would soon pass at their junk value. This would upset credits and business and ruin the whole community. When I finish the translation of this story and learn how the tangle was