Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1888 — The Paper Money of Peru. [ARTICLE]

The Paper Money of Peru.

Reports received in Washington from Callao describe the sudden collapse of the paper money of Peru. Part of the currency amounting to 20,000,000 soles, was issued by the banks at Lima ten years ago, and guaranteed by the government. The remaining 40,000,000 soles is government money. Its purchasing capacity declined several years ago to one-twentieth that of silver, but, in the absence of any other circulating medium, it continued to be used by the people. Finally in the brief period of ten days, confidence was lost in it so rapidly it was virtually repudiated in all business transactions not directly connected with the government, which receives it in half payment for duties on imports and pays it out to its employes. The amount of silver in circulation in Peru' is very small. The banks and commercial houses of Lima and Callao could not produce 2.000,000 soles.

Exerybody has heard of persons who have been swallowed up by quicksands, and a dreadful death it must be; but here is a form of death quite as bad: Recently Frank Glidden a lobster hunter, went about his task on the Beverly Mass., flats, and while so employed stepped into a bottomless mud hole. He couldn’t get out, and gradually sank until the mud closed over and smothered him. A novel electric railway is undergoing construction in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn. The railroad is an elevated structure and the cars are hung below it close to the street level. They hang from sets of wheehr taking their power from the tracks, which are charged with electricity. A speed of from eight to ten miles an hour is claimed for the cars. - . If a man knew as much when he is sober as he thinks he does when drunk Solomon’s sayings would be nowhere compared with his wisdom.