cabins, became the ordinary dwellings. An improvement in dwellings is certain to improve the character of a people. The inside walls of these houses were of lath and plaster, the laths fastened to the frame with pegs, nails being then hand-made and expensive, a small size costing in London five-pence a hundred, and five-pence was about half a day's wages of the workman who made them. Nails were mostly made, however, by women and children.
In Mortonia, as in every community not purely communistic, a currency was necessary, although a less amount was necessary in Mortonia than in other communities of its population, owing to the traffic being conducted by the public agency. The colonists could take their produce to the stores and in exchange get credit on the store books, on which they could purchase goods; but still some money was necessary. Morton had no authority to coin money. Partly for this reason and partly because he had some ideas of his own, centuries ahead of his age, on the subject of currency, he determined to make money of paper bills. He saw that in civilized commerce money is only a set of counters with which an instantaneous, authentic, and indisputable account of
