Genre:

Letter

Subjects:

Mathematics, Class, Political Economy, Zoology, Animal Behaviour

    In ridiculing the recommendation that the poor attempt to save money for their future well-being, suggests that as '[t]he science of geometry owes much to the sublime discovery of a Scottish peer' (i.e. John Napier), so the 'nobler cause of freedom will yet be equally indebted to an English commoner's judicious application of certain political logarithms in behalf of reform' (525). Later, when calling for petitions against the inevitable prospect of a property tax, likens the taxation system and the legal system to pilot fish following a shark. A footnote points out that pilot fish are incorrectly named by sailors due to 'a mistaken notion that the finny imps point out his prey, while in fact they suck the sea-tiger's own blood'. (528)