number eleven perhaps, or seventeen) make
something else. It is nothing to the purpose
to object that, by constant practice and by
being well up in your tables, the mental
process here described is performed almost
unconsciously. It still has to be performed ;
otherwise, pence, shillings and pounds could
not be added together to form one amount.

Now suppose, — though this is not the
system I am going to propound for your
approbation, — suppose that ten, instead of
twelve pence, made one shilling; and that
ten, instead of twenty, shillings made one
pound; how incomparably easier compound
addition would be! That is, it would cease to be
compound and would become simple addition.
There could not be two figures in the column
either of the pence or shillings, because
nothing higher than nine could stand there;
and there would be no mental arithmetic to
do of turning pence into shillings and
shillings into pounds (the cause of troublesome
mistakes, as everybody's experience can
testify); because decimal notation would do
that of itself. In short, the pence and
shilling tables would be abolished utterly,
to the tumultuous joy of schoolboys and
schoolgirls, without any allusion to the
private sentiments of the masters and mistresses
of schools. There would be no putting on of
dunce's caps, no perching on high stools, book
in hand, no sticking in corners with the face
to the wall, no boxes on the ears, no smitings
elsewhere with birchen rods, no "impositions"
to learn by heart, no shuttings-up at play
hours; none of these horrors would have to
be endured on account of tables incorrectly
said; because tables would be sunk, heavier
than lead, five fathom deep, in the waters of
oblivion. I call upon all instructors and
instructees to give me three hearty British
cheers in honour of the anticipated deliverance.
And then the accountants — the
—accountants would simply have to cast up
columns of figures, untormented by the
division by twelves and twenties, which are the
curse and incubus of £ s. d. There would
even be no occasion, unless from choice, to
put those mystic letters at the top of a bill.

"What does the little d. mean?" a foreigner
once asked me.

Any three naked plain figures, without
any point or comma between them, 4 5 6
suppose, would necessarily mean, and could
mean nothing else than, four pounds, five
shillings, and sixpence. Take, for experiment's
sake, the larger sum of 1234 5 6. The six
being, of necessity, pence, and the five, by the
law of nature, shillings, the sum total must
amount to one thousand two hundred and
thirty-four pounds, five shillings, and sixpence.
And with ever so many of such items to add
together, the operation and the result would
be equally clear and simple. Try and comprehend
this perfectly, before reading any
futher; and meditate upon the system calmly and
fairly the next time you take up your
Ready-reckoner, or glance at your tables of farthings,
pence and shillings. I will not, on the
present occasion, harass you with troy or
apothecaries' weight, nor with harmonious
measures, liquid and dry, — with Winchester
bushels, combs, quarters, gallons, gills, pottles,
and Scotch pints.

A system analogous to the above might be
adopted without greatly disturbing the
current coin of the realm; although some
modification must, of course, be made. There may
be a great variety of coins existing, for the
convenience of change as well as for compendiousness
(to serve, in short, as small bank-notes),
which are not required to make their appearance
in written accounts. We have no
separate column for half-sovereigns and half-
crowns. French accounts are kept in francs
and centimes only, — a plan I shall explain
immediately; — and yet, in addition to franc
and centime coins, they have the Napoléon or
twenty-franc piece (corresponding to, though
not of equivalent value with our sovereign),
besides pieces of one, two, and four sous, and
of two, five, and ten francs.

In planning a decimal coinage and a
decimal system of book-keeping, the first
point to settle is, to determine the unit, or
rather the starting-point, which is to be
divided into tens and hundreds. The French
when they made the change from the old
system to the new, fixed upon the franc,
value tenpence, as their unit. This they
divided into tenth parts, décimes, value one
penny; and hundredth parts, centimes, value
one-tenth of a penny English. Practically,
décimes are rarely spoken of; it would help
our compatriots if it were not so, because the
décime is exactly a penny. But still décimes
have a material existence in the shape of
two-sous pieces, and a moral existence in the
figure which occupies the place of tens in the
column of centimes. The franc being
divided into a hundred centimes, a franc and a
half is expressed in numerals by 1.50, or one
franc fifty centimes; a franc and a quarter by
1.25; and a franc and three-quarters by 1.75.
A franc and one sou, or one franc five
centimes, is written thus, 1.05; a sou only, in
the centime column, thus, 05. The cipher is
put before the five, not only because such is
the correct notation in decimal fractions, but
also for the sake of preventing mistakes, by
keeping the five in its proper place in a
column which, thus, always consists of two
figures, and two figures only, side by side. I
have heard English travellers complain of
the difficulty of reckoning by centimes; sous
they manage easily enough, by thinking about
our own halfpenny pieces. But nothing is
easier, when you once have the clue, than to
convert centimes into sous, and vice-versâ.
Five centimes make a sou; therefore, a simple
division by five gives you the value in sous
or halfpence. Thus, sixty-five centimes are
thirteen sous, or six décimes five centimes, or
in plain English sixpence halfpenny.