=I never heard such a proposition in my life! How on earth can it be
proved that silver, as things now stand, has not changed in value more
than gold?=

By the simplest of all processes. If we were in a mining country, I could
easily prove it to you by the observed facts of geology, mineralogy, and
metallurgy; but that is perhaps too remote and scientific, so we will take
the range of prices since silver was demonetized. Of course you have seen
the various tables, such as Soetbeer's and Mulhall's. Take their figures,
or, better still, take those of the United States Statistical Abstract,
and you will find the following facts demonstrated:

In February, 1873, a ten-ounce bar of uncoined silver sold in New York
city for $13 in gold, or $14.82 in greenbacks. To-day the ten-ounce bar
sells there for $6.90.

"Awful depreciation," isn't it? "Debased money," and all that sort of
thing. But hold on. Let us see how it is with other things. For prices in
the first half of 1873 we will take the United States Abstract, and for
present prices to-day's issue of the New York _Tribune_. Wheat then was
$1.40 in New York city, so our silver bar would have brought ten and
four-sevenths bushels; to-day wheat is "unsteady" in the near neighborhood
of 64 cents, and our silver bar would buy ten and five-sixths bushels. No.
2 red is the standard in both cases.

Going through a long list in the same manner, we find that the ten-ounce
bar of uncoined silver would buy in '73, in New York city, twenty-three
and a half bushels of corn, to-day twenty-four bushels; of cotton then