history; it is not much, or very romantic,
but I am often asked about it, so I have just
set down the truth.

MONEYSWORTH.

MONEY is an object which enters, more or
less, into most people's calculations: honest
money, if possible—good, that is not bad money,
of course; but in other respects, what sort of
money, is a matter of pure indifference, or
fancy. Golden guineas, silver dollars, copper
pence, or brass farthings, are singly and
collectively welcomed with smiles, as helping to
make up a sum required, or to meet a little
bill at a certain date. Such is the way of the
world in general. So it be but money, honest
and good, few persons are fastidious about its
form and material. It would savour of being
more nice than wise. But—to take a lesson
from my honoured fellow-labourer in his
article Why?—every schoolboy does not
know that, at this moment, secret conclaves
and conspiracies are being held, at home and
abroad, whose object is to bring money into
some sort of discipline and regularity. Odd
money, they grant, is better than no cash at
all; a dozen sacks of cowries, and a gross of
strings of glass beads, are preferable, they
allow, to so many empty bags and an equal
number of unadorned strings; but still they
venture to entertain the opinion that a little
uniformity and agreement in respect to money
will help the cause of civilisation, and promote
good understanding between different nations.
Short reckonings make long friends. Plain
and easy reckonings are shorter than difficult
and intricate reckonings. Therefore, the
monetary reformers of the day are powerful
strengtheners of international friendship.

But, before the money-manufacturer, the
state, can go to work upon its job of coining,
it must first crack, swallow, and digest a
couple of rather tough-shelled nuts. The
first, What shall be the representative value?
the second, What shall constitute the primary
element of that value?

Nut the first has been already disposed of,
in two irreconcileably different ways, by
England and France, and by the nations
which have foliowed their respective examples.
Gold is our representative, our actual circulating
medium; silver and copper are only
helps, to prevent poor folk from being cheated
of the fractional quantities which fall to their
due. Beyond a fixed and low amount, shillings
and pence are not a lawful payment if
the creditor chooses to object to receive them.
He can make his debtor give him gold, or its
equivalent, Bank of England notes.

In France, silver is the representative of
value, the base of the monetary system there,
as laid down by the law—which establishes
the chartered rights of silver—of the seventh
of Germinal of the year eleven; which
enacts that Five grammes of silver of the
standard of nine-tenths fine, constitutes the
MONETARY UNIT, which retains the name of
FRANC. Consequently, in France, the change,
the subsidiary coinage, is composed of the
metals gold and copper. The former helps
the rich man to pack the legal money, silver,
into a smaller space, and to carry it about
with greater ease; the latter, just like
coppers with us, serves for the payment of
persons and things whose claim or whose
value is only a fraction of the national monetary
unit. Large, heavy five-franc pieces,
five of which make an English sovereign
(approximately, according to the rate of
exchange), are the legal tender; and in them,
until very lately, by far the greater proportion
of payments, even of heavy sums, were
made. People engaged in a large way of
business had need of a stud of money-
wheel-barrows; they mostly managed with
human barrows, on legs. You went to the
bank to change an English note; and, while
you were disposing of your ponderous cargo
in small sacks, to balance equally in your
right and left pockets, to avoid luffing too
much on one side as you walked through the
streets—in came a respectable, steady man
(with the gait of an acrobat carrying half-a-
dozen others), who wiped the perspiration
from his brow as he took off his casquette,
and then eased a sack of five-franc pieces
from one shoulder, and then slipped another
sack from the other, and then unbuckled
a leather belt full of silver round his waist
from under his blouse, and then disengaged
another loaded belt or two traversing his
chest diagonally, sashwise, till you felt
relieved, and took breath as thankfully as the
money-carrier himself. Talk of the burden
of a heavy conscience! Did you ever feel the
burden of five-franc pieces? Did you ever
break down in a public vehicle from the
effects of a sudden flush of specie belonging
to the passengers, who were all carrying
home their quarter's incomes or salaries on
the same day of the month? Did you ever
sprain your back severely, and be obliged to
have it rubbed with hartshorn and oil, in
consequence of over-taxing your strength in
your hurry to pay all your Christmas bills at
once?

Between France, then, and England there
is a wide discrepancy in pecuniary matters,
both material and theoretical. Our legal
coin is gold, except for small sums; theirs is
silver, even for the largest. You might be
compelled to receive a legacy of a million of
francs, in francs. How long that would take
to count, you can calculate. Again, our
money accounts are made out by means of a
complicated application of the numbers four,
twelve, and twenty, in order to sum up coins
of four recognised denominations; while the
French have only two to manage by the
simple processes of decimal arithmetic.

A mutual reform is in the course of
negotiation, as every schoolboy does not know.
The French are advised to desecrate and