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every thing that you sell: it will then be "part and parcel" of the thing. "Palmer's Principles of Nature," and so on.

An honourable Gentleman, in the House of Commons, acquainted the House, that we are two millions more in debt now than we should have been, had we never had any sinking fund. I will suppose that we have had a sinking fund forty years; for, if we have had one longer, it is more against the Noblemen. Very well, then the sum of five millions, every year during forty years, amounts to two huudred millions; and the two millions more lost, makes the gross sum, two hundred and two millions! Now, Sir, somebody must have received this sum! Must they not? Yes; and I am now going to show you who has received it. The Noblemen have received every penny! And, I shall presently show you how! I have now told you the half of my story, keep it in your mind, for the next half is not so clear! You may read, in the newspapers every day, of the routs and balls which are given by the noblemen. All of which routs cost from one to ten thousand pounds! You understand this?

Now mind, and pay particular attention, because I want to make short work. There are five sinking fund commissioners. Liverpool, Canning, Robinson, Peel, and Huskisson, I think but I am not sure. These five commissioners have each a stockbroker; these five stock-brokers have each ten brokers under them. These fifty brokers send up the stocks, and pull them down, at the mere nod of their masters. This is the reason that the stocks vary so much every day. When the Noblemen behind the Throne want to give a route, one of these sinking-fund commissioners is always invited. This is a hint what he is to do. He gives a nod to his broker who gives a nod to his underlings; these sends up the funds, when a short paragraph appears in the Courier, two per cent, that is two pounds in every hundred. Then the thing behind the Throne, who has two hundred thousand pounds in the funds, and who intends to give a route, sells out his two hundred thousand pounds; by doing thish e gains ten thousand pounds. Now mind, the commissioner's broker has bought this two hundred thousand pounds stock; and, after the thing behind the Throne has given his route, down the funds are pulled by the underling brokers, lower than they were before those underlings sent them up. So that the thing behind the Throne, buys more stock back, for his two hundred thousand pounds, than he had before, besides clearing ten thousand pounds by the sale. And, nobody has lost any thing, except the sinking fund brokers. Now mind, again, these brokers charge two shillings and sixpence brokerage on every hundred pounds stock that they sell. This sum is divided between them, and the sinking fund commissions; which sum amounts to five hundred, because the brokers charge for both buying and selling the two hundred thousand pounds before mentioned. They allow their underling brokers to get a trifle but not much. But, what is still

more curious, is, that the sinking fund commissioners are authorized, by law, to buy, and to sell stock to themselves; and to charge two shillings and sixpence on every hundred pounds so bought and sold.

If I were a commissioner's stock broker, I would begin, every morning, to set down stock thus: bought of A two hundred thousand pounds. Brokerage two hundred and fifty pounds. Sold five hundred thousand to B. Brokerage seven hundred and fifty pounds.

A man who was a clerk of fifty pounds a year, was a commissioner's broker about ten years; during which time he accumulated a half a million of money. He then walked quietly off; and the things and commissioners made him high Sheriff, and I expect that they will put a handle to his name.

The noblemen receive nearly four millions in sinecures and pensions; and five millions and fifty thousand pounds every year out of this sinking fund. And, in my next, I will prove to you, that they have cheated the people out of six millions more this very year. Making the gross sum fifteen millions, that they have received this very year. I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, JAMES HALL.

HINTS TOWARDS FORMING A SOCIETY FOR ENQUIRING INTO THE TRUTH OR FALSEHOOD OF ANCIENT HISTORY, SO FAR AS HISTORY IS CONNECTED WITH SYSTEMS OF RELIGION ANCIENT AND MODERN.

IT has been customary to class History into three divisions, distinguished by the names of Sacred, Prophane, and Ecclesiastical. By the first is meant the Bible; by the second, the history of nations, of men and things; and by the third, the history of the church and its priesthood. Nothing is more easy than to give names, and therefore mere names signity nothing unless they lead to the discovery of some cause for which that name was given. For example, Sunday is the name given to the first day of the week, in the English language, and it is the same in the Latin, that is, it has the same meaning, (Dies Solis) and also in the German, and in several other languages. Why then was this name given to that day? Because it was the day dedicated by the ancient world to the luminary, which in English we call the Sun, and therefore the day Sunday, or the day of the Sun; as in the like manner we call the second day Monday, the day dedicated to the Moon.

Here the name, Sunday, leads to the cause of its being called so, and we have visible evidence of the fact, because we behold the Sun from whence the name comes; but this is not the case when we distinguish one part of history from another by the name of sacred. All histories have been written by men. We have no evidence, nor any cause to

believe, that any have been written by God. That part of the Bible called the Old Testament, is the History of the Jewish nation, from the time of Abraham, which begins in the 11th chap. of Genesis, to the downfall of that nation by Nebuchadnezzar, and is no more entitled to be called sacred than any other history. It is altogether the contrivance of priestcraft that has given it that name. So far from its being sacred it has not the appearance of being true in many of the things it relates. It must be better authority than a book, which any impostor might make, as Mahomet made the Koran; to make a thoughtful man, believe that the Sun and Moon stood still, or that Moses and Aaron turned the Nile, which is larger than the Delaware, into blood, and that the Egyptian magicians did the same. These things have too much the appearance of romance to be believed for fact.

How

It would be of use to enquire, and ascertain the time, when that part of the Bible called the Old Testament first appeared. From all that can be collected there was no such book till after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, and that it is the work of the Pharisees of the second Temple. they came to make the 19th chapter of the 2d book of Kings, and the 37th of Isaiah, word for word alike, can only be accounted for by their having no plan to go by, and not knowing what they were about. The same is the case with respect to the last verses in the 2d book of Chronicles, and the first verses in Ezra, they also are word for word alike, which shews that the Bible has been put together at random.

But, besides these things, there is great reason to believe we have been imposed upon, with respect to the antiquity of the Bible, and especially with respect to the books ascribed to Moses. Herodotus, who is called the father of history, and is the most ancient historian whose works have reached to our time, and who travelled into Egypt, conversed with the priests, historians, astronomers, and learned men of that country, for the purpose of obtaining all the information of it he could, and who gives an account of the ancient state of it, makes no mention of such a man as Moses, though the Bible makes him to have been the greatest hero there, nor of any one circumstance mentioned in the book of Exodus, respecting Egypt, such as turning the rivers into blood, the dust into lice, the death of the first born throughout all the land of Egypt, the passage of the Red-Sea, the drowning of Pharaoh and all his host, things which could not have been a secret in Egypt, and must have been generally known, had they been facts; and therefore as no such things were known in Egypt, nor any such man as Moses;

at the time Herodotus was there, which is about two thousand two hundred years ago, it shews that the account of these things in the book ascribed to Moses is a made story of latter times, that is, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, and that Moses is not the author of the books ascribed to him.

With respect to the cosmogony, or account of the creation, in the first chapter of Genesis, of the Garden of Eden in the second chapter, and of what is called the fall of man in the third chapter, there is something concerning them we are not historically acquainted with. In none of the books of the Bible, after Genesis, are any of these things mentioned, or even alluded to. How is this to be accounted for? The obvious inference is, that either they were not known, or not believed to be facts, by the writers of the other books of the Bible, and that Moses is not the author of the chapters where these accounts are given.

The next question on the case is, how did the Jews come by these notions and at what time were they written?

To answer this question we must first consider what the state of the world was at the time the Jews began to be a people, for the Jews are but a modern race, compared with the antiquity of other nations. At the time there were, even by their own account, but thirteen Jews or Israelites in the world, Jacob and his twelve sons, and four of these were bastards. The nations of Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, and India, were great and populous, abounding in learning and science, particularly in the knowledge of astronomy of which the Jews were always ignorant. The chronological tables mention, that Eclipses were observed at Babylon above two thousand years before the Christian era, which was before there was a single Jew or Israelite in the world.

All those ancient nations had their cosmogonies, that is their accounts, how the creation was made, long before there was such people as Jews or Israelites. An account of the cosmogonies of India and Persia is given by Henry Lord, Chaplain to the East India Company, at Surat, and published in London, 1630. The writer of this has seen a copy of the edition of 1630, and made extracts from it. The work, which is now scarce, was dedicated by Lord to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

We know that the Jews were carried captives into Babylon, by Nebuchadnezzar, and remained in captivity several years, when they were liberated by Cyrus, king of Persia. During their captivity they would have had an opportunity of acquiring some knowledge of the cosmogony of the Persians, or

at least of getting some ideas how to fabricate one to put at the head of their own history after their return from captivity. This will account for the cause, for some cause there must have been, that no mention nor reference is made to the cosmogony in Genesis in any of the books of the Bible, supposed to have been written before the captivity, nor is the name of Adam to be found in any of those books.

The Books of Chronicles were written after the return of the Jews from captivity, for the third chapter of the first book gives a list of all the Jewish Kings from David to Zedekiah, who was carried captive to Babylon, and to four generations beyond the time of Zedekiah. In the first verse of the first chapter of this book the name of Adam is mentioned, but not in any book in the Bible, written before that time, nor could it be, for Adam and Eve are names taken from the cosmogony of the Persians. Henry Lord, in his book, written from Surat, and dedicated, as I have already said, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, says that in the Persian cosmogony of the name of the first man was Adamoh and of the woman Hevah.* From hence comes the Adam and Eve of the book of Genesis. In the cosmogony of India, of which I shall speak in a future Number, the name of the first man was Pourous, and of the woman Parcoutee. We want a knowledge of the Sanscrit language of India to understand the meaning of the names, and I mentioned it in this place, only to show that it is from the cosmogony of Persia rather than that of India that the cosmogony in Genesis has been fabricated by the Jews, who returned from captivity by the liberality of Cyrus, King of Persia. There is, however, reason to conclude on the authority of Sir William Jones, who resided several years in India, that these names were very expressive in the language to which they belonged, for in speaking of this language he says (see the Asiatic Researches) "The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure; it is more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either."

These hints, which are intended to be continued, will serve to shew that a society for enquiring into the ancient state of the world, and the state of ancient history, so far as history is connected with systems of religion, ancient and modern, may become a useful and instructive institution. There is good reason to believe we bave been in great error, with respect to the antiquity of the Bible, as well as imposed In an English edition of the Bible, in 1583, the first woman is called Hevah.

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