CapĂtulo 1
CHAPTER I.
OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.
The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labour, and the
greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is
anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the
division of labour. The effects of the division of labour, in the general
business of society, will be more easily understood, by considering in
what manner it operates in some particular manufactures. It is commonly
supposed to be carried furthest in some very trifling ones; not perhaps
that it really is carried further in them than in others of more
importance: but in those trifling manufactures which are destined to
supply the small wants of but a small number of people, the whole number
of workmen must necessarily be small; and those employed in every
different branch of the work can often be collected into the same
workhouse, and placed at once under the view of the spectator.
In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined to supply
the great wants of the great body of the people, every different branch of
the work employs so great a number of workmen, that it is impossible to
collect them all into the same workhouse. We can seldom see more, at one
time, than those employed in one single branch. Though in such
manufactures, therefore, the work may really be divided into a much
greater number of parts, than in those of a more trifling nature, the
division is not near so obvious, and has accordingly been much less
observed.
To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture, but one
in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the
trade of a pin-maker: a workman not educated to this business (which the
division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the
use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same
division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps,
with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not
make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not
only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number
of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One
man draws out the wire; another straights it; a third cuts it; a fourth
points it; a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make
the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a
peculiar business; to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by
itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a
pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations,
which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though
in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have
seen a small manufactory of this kind, where ten men only were employed,
and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct
operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but
indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when
they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a
day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling
size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of
forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth
part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four
thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought
separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated
to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made
twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two
hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth, part
of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a
proper division and combination of their different operations.
In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the division of labour
are similar to what they are in this very trifling one, though, in many of
them, the labour can neither be so much subdivided, nor reduced to so
great a simplicity of operation. The division of labour, however, so far
as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionable
increase of the productive powers of labour. The separation of different
trades and employments from one another, seems to have taken place in
consequence of this advantage. This separation, too, is generally carried
furthest in those countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry and
improvement; what is the work of one man, in a rude state of society,
being generally that of several in an improved one. In every improved
society, the farmer is generally nothing but a farmer; the manufacturer,
nothing but a manufacturer. The labour, too, which is necessary to produce
any one complete manufacture, is almost always divided among a great
number of hands. How many different trades are employed in each branch of
the linen and woollen manufactures, from the growers of the flax and the
wool, to the bleachers and smoothers of the linen, or to the dyers and
dressers of the cloth! The nature of agriculture, indeed, does not admit
of so many subdivisions of labour, nor of so complete a separation of one
business from another, as manufactures. It is impossible to separate so
entirely the business of the grazier from that of the corn-farmer, as the
trade of the carpenter is commonly separated from that of the smith. The
spinner is almost always a distinct person from the weaver; but the
ploughman, the harrower, the sower of the seed, and the reaper of the
corn, are often the same. The occasions for those different sorts of
labour returning with the different seasons of the year, it is impossible
that one man should be constantly employed in any one of them. This
impossibility of making so complete and entire a separation of all the
different branches of labour employed in agriculture, is perhaps the
reason why the improvement of the productive powers of labour, in this
art, does not always keep pace with their improvement in manufactures. The
most opulent nations, indeed, generally excel all their neighbours in
agriculture as well as in manufactures; but they are commonly more
distinguished by their superiority in the latter than in the former. Their
lands are in general better cultivated, and having more labour and expense
bestowed upon them, produce more in proportion to the extent and natural
fertility of the ground. But this superiority of produce is seldom much
more than in proportion to the superiority of labour and expense. In
agriculture, the labour of the rich country is not always much more
productive than that of the poor; or, at least, it is never so much more
productive, as it commonly is in manufactures. The corn of the rich
country, therefore, will not always, in the same degree of goodness, come
cheaper to market than that of the poor. The corn of Poland, in the same
degree of goodness, is as cheap as that of France, notwithstanding the
superior opulence and improvement of the latter country. The corn of
France is, in the corn-provinces, fully as good, and in most years nearly
about the same price with the corn of England, though, in opulence and
improvement, France is perhaps inferior to England. The corn-lands of
England, however, are better cultivated than those of France, and the
corn-lands of France are said to be much better cultivated than those of
Poland. But though the poor country, notwithstanding the inferiority of
its cultivation, can, in some measure, rival the rich in the cheapness and
goodness of its corn, it can pretend to no such competition in its
manufactures, at least if those manufactures suit the soil, climate, and
situation, of the rich country. The silks of France are better and cheaper
than those of England, because the silk manufacture, at least under the
present high duties upon the importation of raw silk, does not so well
suit the climate of England as that of France. But the hardware and the
coarse woollens of England are beyond all comparison superior to those of
France, and much cheaper, too, in the same degree of goodness. In Poland
there are said to be scarce any manufactures of any kind, a few of those
coarser household manufactures excepted, without which no country can well
subsist.
This great increase in the quantity of work, which, in consequence of the
division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing,
is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of
dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time
which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another;
and, lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which
facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.
First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workmen, necessarily
increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the division of
labour, by reducing every manâs business to some one simple operation, and
by making this operation the sole employment of his life, necessarily
increases very much the dexterity of the workman. A common smith, who,
though accustomed to handle the hammer, has never been used to make nails,
if, upon some particular occasion, he is obliged to attempt it, will
scarce, I am assured, be able to make above two or three hundred nails in
a day, and those, too, very bad ones. A smith who has been accustomed to
make nails, but whose sole or principal business has not been that of a
nailer, can seldom, with his utmost diligence, make more than eight
hundred or a thousand nails in a day. I have seen several boys, under
twenty years of age, who had never exercised any other trade but that of
making nails, and who, when they exerted themselves, could make, each of
them, upwards of two thousand three hundred nails in a day. The making of
a nail, however, is by no means one of the simplest operations. The same
person blows the bellows, stirs or mends the fire as there is occasion,
heats the iron, and forges every part of the nail: in forging the head,
too, he is obliged to change his tools. The different operations into
which the making of a pin, or of a metal button, is subdivided, are all of
them much more simple, and the dexterity of the person, of whose life it
has been the sole business to perform them, is usually much greater. The
rapidity with which some of the operations of those manufactures are
performed, exceeds what the human hand could, by those who had never seen
them, be supposed capable of acquiring.
Secondly, the advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost
in passing from one sort of work to another, is much greater than we
should at first view be apt to imagine it. It is impossible to pass very
quickly from one kind of work to another, that is carried on in a
different place, and with quite different tools. A country weaver, who
cultivates a small farm, must lose a good deal of time in passing from
his loom to the field, and from the field to his loom. When the two trades
can be carried on in the same workhouse, the loss of time is, no doubt,
much less. It is, even in this case, however, very considerable. A man
commonly saunters a little in turning his hand from one sort of employment
to another. When he first begins the new work, he is seldom very keen and
hearty; his mind, as they say, does not go to it, and for some time he
rather trifles than applies to good purpose. The habit of sauntering, and
of indolent careless application, which is naturally, or rather
necessarily, acquired by every country workman who is obliged to change
his work and his tools every half hour, and to apply his hand in twenty
different ways almost every day of his life, renders him almost always
slothful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application, even on the
most pressing occasions. Independent, therefore, of his deficiency in
point of dexterity, this cause alone must always reduce considerably the
quantity of work which he is capable of performing.
Thirdly, and lastly, everybody must be sensible how much labour is
facilitated and abridged by the application of proper machinery. It is
unnecessary to give any example. I shall only observe, therefore, that the
invention of all those machines by which labour is so much facilitated and
abridged, seems to have been originally owing to the division of labour.
Men are much more likely to discover easier and readier methods of
attaining any object, when the whole attention of their minds is directed
towards that single object, than when it is dissipated among a great
variety of things. But, in consequence of the division of labour, the
whole of every manâs attention comes naturally to be directed towards some
one very simple object. It is naturally to be expected, therefore, that
some one or other of those who are employed in each particular branch of
labour should soon find out easier and readier methods of performing their
own particular work, whenever the nature of it admits of such improvement.
A great part of the machines made use of in those manufactures in which
labour is most subdivided, were originally the invention of common
workmen, who, being each of them employed in some very simple operation,
naturally turned their thoughts towards finding out easier and readier
methods of performing it. Whoever has been much accustomed to visit such
manufactures, must frequently have been shewn very pretty machines, which
were the inventions of such workmen, in order to facilitate and quicken
their own particular part of the work. In the first fire engines {this was
the current designation for steam engines}, a boy was constantly employed
to open and shut alternately the communication between the boiler and the
cylinder, according as the piston either ascended or descended. One of
those boys, who loved to play with his companions, observed that, by tying
a string from the handle of the valve which opened this communication to
another part of the machine, the valve would open and shut without his
assistance, and leave him at liberty to divert himself with his
play-fellows. One of the greatest improvements that has been made upon
this machine, since it was first invented, was in this manner the
discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labour.
All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been the
inventions of those who had occasion to use the machines. Many
improvements have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the
machines, when to make them became the business of a peculiar trade; and
some by that of those who are called philosophers, or men of speculation,
whose trade it is not to do any thing, but to observe every thing, and
who, upon that account, are often capable of combining together the powers
of the most distant and dissimilar objects in the progress of society,
philosophy or speculation becomes, like every other employment, the
principal or sole trade and occupation of a particular class of citizens.
Like every other employment, too, it is subdivided into a great number of
different branches, each of which affords occupation to a peculiar tribe
or class of philosophers; and this subdivision of employment in
philosophy, as well as in every other business, improves dexterity, and
saves time. Each individual becomes more expert in his own peculiar
branch, more work is done upon the whole, and the quantity of science is
considerably increased by it.
It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different
arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a
well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the
lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own
work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every
other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to
exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity or, what
comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He
supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they
accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general
plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of the society.
Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or daylabourer in a
civilized and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of
people, of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been
employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The
woollen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and
rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great
multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the
wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver,
the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different
arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants
and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the
materials from some of those workmen to others who often live in a very
distant part of the country? How much commerce and navigation in
particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers,
must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs
made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the
world? What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the
tools of the meanest of those workmen! To say nothing of such complicated
machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the
loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labour is
requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the shears with which
the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for
smelting the ore, the feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to
be made use of in the smelting-house, the brickmaker, the bricklayer, the
workmen who attend the furnace, the millwright, the forger, the smith,
must all of them join their different arts in order to produce them. Were
we to examine, in the same manner, all the different parts of his dress
and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his
skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all
the different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he
prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose,
dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him, perhaps, by a long
sea and a long land-carriage, all the other utensils of his kitchen, all
the furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter
plates upon which he serves up and divides his victuals, the different
hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which
lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with
all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy
invention, without which these northern parts of the world could scarce
have afforded a very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of
all the different workmen employed in producing those different
conveniencies; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a
variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible
that, without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very
meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided, even
according to, what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in
which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more
extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear
extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the
accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of
an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter
exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute masters of the lives
and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.
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Title: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Author: Adam Smith
Release date: June 1, 2002 [eBook #3300]
Most recently updated: July 3, 2025
Language: English
Credits: Credits: Colin Muir and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS ***
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
by Adam Smith
Contents
INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK.
BOOK I. OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTIVE
POWERS OF LABOUR, AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS NATURALLY
DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER I. OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.
CHAPTER II. OF THE PRINCIPLE WHICH GIVES OCCASION TO THE
DIVISION OF LABOUR.
CHAPTER III. THAT THE DIVISION OF LABOUR IS LIMITED BY
THE EXTENT OF THE MARKET.
CHAPTER IV. OF THE ORIGIN AND USE OF MONEY.
CHAPTER V. OF THE REAL AND NOMINAL PRICE OF
COMMODITIES, OR OF THEIR PRICE IN LABOUR, AND THEIR PRICE IN MONEY.
CHAPTER VI. OF THE COMPONENT PART OF THE PRICE OF COMMODITIES.
CHAPTER VII. OF THE NATURAL AND MARKET PRICE OF COMMODITIES.
CHAPTER VIII. OF THE WAGES OF LABOUR.
CHAPTER IX. OF THE PROFITS OF STOCK.
CHAPTER X. OF WAGES AND PROFIT IN THE DIFFERENT
EMPLOYMENTS OF LABOUR AND STOCK.
CHAPTER XI. OF THE RENT OF LAND.
BOOK II. OF THE NATURE, ACCUMULATION, AND
EMPLOYMENT OF STOCK.
CHAPTER I. OF THE DIVISION OF STOCK.
CHAPTER II. OF MONEY, CONSIDERED AS A PARTICULAR BRANCH
OF THE GENERAL STOCK OF THE SOCIETY, OR OF THE EXPENSE OF MAINTAINING THE
NATIONAL CAPITAL.
CHAPTER III. OF THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL, OR OF
PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR.
CHAPTER IV. OF STOCK LENT AT INTEREST.
CHAPTER V. OF THE DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS OF
CAPITALS.
BOOK III. OF THE DIFFERENT PROGRESS OF OPULENCE IN
DIFFERENT NATIONS
CHAPTER I. OF THE NATURAL PROGRESS OF OPULENCE.
CHAPTER II. OF THE DISCOURAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN THE
ANCIENT STATE OF EUROPE, AFTER THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
CHAPTER III. OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF CITIES AND
TOWNS, AFTER THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
CHAPTER IV. HOW THE COMMERCE OF TOWNS CONTRIBUTED TO THE
IMPROVEMENT OF THE COUNTRY.
BOOK IV. OF SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
CHAPTER I. OF THE PRINCIPLE OF THE COMMERCIAL OR
MERCANTILE SYSTEM.
CHAPTER II. OF RESTRAINTS UPON IMPORTATION FROM FOREIGN
COUNTRIES OF SUCH GOODS AS CAN BE PRODUCED AT HOME.
CHAPTER III. OF THE EXTRAORDINARY RESTRAINTS UPON THE
IMPORTATION OF GOODS OF ALMOST ALL KINDS, FROM THOSE COUNTRIES WITH WHICH THE
BALANCE IS SUPPOSED TO BE DISADVANTAGEOUS.
CHAPTER IV. OF DRAWBACKS.
CHAPTER V. OF BOUNTIES.
CHAPTER VI. OF TREATIES OF COMMERCE.
CHAPTER VII. OF COLONIES.
CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSION OF THE MERCANTILE SYSTEM.
CHAPTER IX. OF THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS, OR OF THOSE
SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY WHICH REPRESENT THE PRODUCE OF LAND, AS EITHER
THE SOLE OR THE PRINCIPAL SOURCE OF THE REVENUE AND WEALTH OF EVERY COUNTRY.
BOOK V. OF THE REVENUE OF THE SOVEREIGN OR COMMONWEALTH
CHAPTER I. OF THE EXPENSES OF THE SOVEREIGN OR COMMONWEALTH.
CHAPTER II. OF THE SOURCES OF THE GENERAL OR PUBLIC
REVENUE OF THE SOCIETY.
CHAPTER III. OF PUBLIC DEBTS.
INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK.
The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it
with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually
consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that
labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.
According, therefore, as this produce, or what is purchased with it, bears
a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume
it, the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the necessaries
and conveniencies for which it has occasion.
But this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different
circumstances: first, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which its
labour is generally applied; and, secondly, by the proportion between the
number of those who are employed in useful labour, and that of those who
are not so employed. Whatever be the soil, climate, or extent of territory
of any particular nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply
must, in that particular situation, depend upon those two circumstances.
The abundance or scantiness of this supply, too, seems to depend more upon
the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter. Among the
savage nations of hunters and fishers, every individual who is able to
work is more or less employed in useful labour, and endeavours to provide,
as well as he can, the necessaries and conveniencies of life, for himself,
and such of his family or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or
too infirm, to go a-hunting and fishing. Such nations, however, are so
miserably poor, that, from mere want, they are frequently reduced, or at
least think themselves reduced, to the necessity sometimes of directly
destroying, and sometimes of abandoning their infants, their old people,
and those afflicted with lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to
be devoured by wild beasts. Among civilized and thriving nations, on the
contrary, though a great number of people do not labour at all, many of
whom consume the produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred times, more
labour than the greater part of those who work; yet the produce of the
whole labour of the society is so great, that all are often abundantly
supplied; and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is
frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and
conveniencies of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.
The causes of this improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the
order according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the
different ranks and conditions of men in the society, make the subject of
the first book of this Inquiry.
Whatever be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with
which labour is applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its
annual supply must depend, during the continuance of that state, upon the
proportion between the number of those who are annually employed in useful
labour, and that of those who are not so employed. The number of useful
and productive labourers, it will hereafter appear, is everywhere in
proportion to the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting
them to work, and to the particular way in which it is so employed. The
second book, therefore, treats of the nature of capital stock, of the
manner in which it is gradually accumulated, and of the different
quantities of labour which it puts into motion, according to the different
ways in which it is employed.
Nations tolerably well advanced as to skill, dexterity, and judgment, in
the application of labour, have followed very different plans in the
general conduct or direction of it; and those plans have not all been
equally favourable to the greatness of its produce. The policy of some
nations has given extraordinary encouragement to the industry of the
country; that of others to the industry of towns. Scarce any nation has
dealt equally and impartially with every sort of industry. Since the
down-fall of the Roman empire, the policy of Europe has been more
favourable to arts, manufactures, and commerce, the industry of towns,
than to agriculture, the Industry of the country. The circumstances which
seem to have introduced and established this policy are explained in the
third book.
Though those different plans were, perhaps, first introduced by the
private interests and prejudices of particular orders of men, without any
regard to, or foresight of, their consequences upon the general welfare of
the society; yet they have given occasion to very different theories of
political economy; of which some magnify the importance of that industry
which is carried on in towns, others of that which is carried on in the
country. Those theories have had a considerable influence, not only upon
the opinions of men of learning, but upon the public conduct of princes
and sovereign states. I have endeavoured, in the fourth book, to explain
as fully and distinctly as I can those different theories, and the
principal effects which they have produced in different ages and nations.
To explain in what has consisted the revenue of the great body of the
people, or what has been the nature of those funds, which, in different
ages and nations, have supplied their annual consumption, is the object of
these four first books. The fifth and last book treats of the revenue of
the sovereign, or commonwealth. In this book I have endeavoured to shew,
first, what are the necessary expenses of the sovereign, or commonwealth;
which of those expenses ought to be defrayed by the general contribution
of the whole society, and which of them, by that of some particular part
only, or of some particular members of it: secondly, what are the
different methods in which the whole society may be made to contribute
towards defraying the expenses incumbent on the whole society, and what
are the principal advantages and inconveniencies of each of those methods;
and, thirdly and lastly, what are the reasons and causes which have
induced almost all modern governments to mortgage some part of this
revenue, or to contract debts; and what have been the effects of those
debts upon the real wealth, the annual produce of the land and labour of
the society.
BOOK I.
OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE
PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR, AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS
NATURALLY DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE.