st. One is astonished in times like these, when people think
taxes and national debt so serious, at the easy carelessness with
which the doctor treats the disease, and his sure remedy. He says in
his celebrated work on Annuities (i. 277): 'It is an observation that
deserves particular attention here, that in this plan it will be of
less importance to a state what interest it is obliged to give for
money; _for the higher the interest, the sooner will such a sum pay
off the principal_. Thus, L.100,000,000 borrowed at 8 per cent., and
bearing an annual interest of L.8,000,000, would be paid off by a fund
producing annually L.100,000 in fifty-six years; that is, in
thirty-eight years less time than if the same money had been borrowed
at 4 per cent. Hence it follows that reductions of interest would in
this plan be no great advantage to a state. They would indeed lighten
its present burdens; but this advantage would be in some measure
balanced by the addition which would be made to its future burdens, in
consequence of the longer time during which it would be necessary to
bear them.'

'Certain it is, therefore,' says the doctor, in a general survey of
his arithmetical salvation of the country, 'that if our affairs are to
be relieved, it must be by a fund increasing itself in the manner I
have explained. The smallest fund of this kind is indeed omnipotent,
if it is allowed time to operate.' And again: 'It might be easily
shewn that the faithful application from the beginning of the year
1700, of only L.200,000 annually, would long before 1790,
notwithstanding the reductions of interest, have paid off above
L.100,000,000 of the public debts. The nation might therefore some
years ago have been eased of a great part of the taxes with which it
is loaded. The most important relief might have been given to its
trade and manufactures; and it might now have been in better
circumstances than at the beginning of last war: its credit firm;
respected by foreign nations, and dreaded by its enemies.'

William Babington Maxwell (18661938) was a British novelist. He was a son of novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Though nearly 50 years old at the outbreak of the First World War, he was accepted as a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and served in France until 1917.

Cyrus Townsend Brady (December 20, 1861 January 24, 1920) was a journalist, historian and adventure writer. His most well-known work is Indian Fights and Fighters. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1883. He was also a deacon in the Episcopal church. His first wife was Clarissa Guthrie, who died in 1890. His second wife was Mary Barrett.

Rebecca Sophia Clarke (1833-1906), also known as Sophie May, was an American author of childrens fiction. Using her nieces and nephews as inspiration, she wrote realistic stories about children. She wrote 45 books between 1860 and 1903. The most popular being the Little Prudy books. She lived most of her life in her native town of Norridgewock, Maine, where she lived out her life with her sister, who was also a successful author.