Some gave this for a Reason why all the Stocks of the Societies fell
so fast, but there were other Reasons to be given for that, such as
Clubs, Cabals, Stock-Jobbers, Knights, Merchants and Thie---s. I mean
a private Sort, not such as are frequently Hang'd there, but of a
worse Sort, by how much they merit that Punishment more, but are out
of the reach of the Law, can Rob and pick Pockets in the Face of the
Sun, and laugh at the Families they Ruin, bidding Defiance to all
legal Resentment.

To this height things were come under the growing Evil of this sort
of People.

And yet in the very Moon where, as I have noted, the People are so
exceeding clear Sighted, and have such vast helps to their perceptive
Faculties, such Mists are sometimes cast before the publick
Understanding, that they cannot see the general Interest.

This was manifest, in that just as I came away from that Country, the
great Council of their Wise Men, the Men of the Feather, were a going
to repeal the old Law of Restraining the Number of these People; and
tho' as it was, there was not Employment for half of them, there
being 100 in all, and not above 5 honest ones; yet when I came away
they were going to encrease their Number. I have nothing to say to
this here, only that all Wise Men that understand Trade were very
much concern'd at it, and lookt upon it as a most destructive Thing
to the Publick, and forboding the same mischiefs that Trade suffer'd
before.

It was the particular Misfortune to these Lunar People that this