In process of time, however, as infirmity began to disable Mr Benjamin for the daily walk from his residence to his shop, he left the whole management of the business to the father and daughter, receiving every shilling of the profits, except the moderate salaries he gave them, which were sufficient to furnish them with all the necessaries of life, though nothing beyond. But when the old gentleman died, and his will was opened, it was found that he had left everything he possessed to Mary Glegg; except one guinea, which, without alleging any reason, he bequeathed to Leah Leet.
DECIMAL SYSTEM OF COINAGE.
The pounds, shillings, and pence which served for the simple reckonings of our fathers, have entailed upon us a highly complicated system of accounts since we have become a great commercial people. Steam-engines, locomotives, and electric telegraphs have multiplied our transactions a hundredfold, but no adequate labour-saving machinery has been introduced into the counting-house, where the value of these transactions has to be recorded and adjusted. The simple and scientific method of computation by what is called the decimal system, is used at this moment, we are told, by more than half the human race. Not only has it been by law established in most of the countries of Europe, but throughout the great empires of China and Russia; it is penetrating the Ottoman Empire; it has obtained a footing in Persia and Egypt; and it is universal in the United States of America, whence it has made its way into several other transatlantic states. Among ourselves, the thing is approved and admired in the abstract, but we dread the trouble it would give us to fall into a method to which we are unaccustomed; and we apprehend, on very insufficient grounds, that much confusion would arise during the transition. Moreover, it is to be feared that out of a spirit of prejudice or contradiction, many would not, even under the penalties of law, adopt the change. At this moment, as is well known, certain classes of people persist in selling corn and other articles by old local measures, although at the risk of prosecution. Thus, in Scotland, we still hear of firlots, bolls, and mutchkins, notwithstanding that these antiquated measures were abolished upwards of twenty years ago. In short, it would appear that the change of popular denominations in weights, measures, and moneys, is one of the things which the law, in ordinary circumstances, has great difficulty in reaching.
This difficulty, however, ought not to be deemed insuperable. The boon given to society by the decimal system is worth struggling for. On this account, it appears highly desirable that the people at large should be made thoroughly acquainted with its principles, and be able to weigh the advantages against the difficulties of such a change. Some years ago, the subject was pretty fully discussed in several literary and commercial periodicals; and recently, Mr Taylor's little work[1] has presented it in a more permanent form. Our own pages appear particularly suitable for giving wide circulation to a familiar and popular exposition of the subject.
The ancients used certain letters to represent numbers, and we still employ the Roman numeral characters as the most elegant way of expressing a date in typography or sculpture; but every one must see what a tedious business the calculation of large sums would be according to this cumbrous system of notation: nor is it easy to say whereabouts our commercial status, to say nothing of science, would have been to-day, had it never been superseded. The Romans themselves, in computing large numbers, always had recourse to the abacus—a counting-frame with balls on parallel wires, somewhat similar to that now used in infant-schools.
It was a great step gained, and a most important preparation for clearing away the darkness of the middle ages by the light of science, when between the eighth and thirteenth centuries the use of the characters 1, 2, 3, &c. was generally established in Europe, having been received from Eastern nations, long accustomed to scientific computations. The great advantage of these numbers is, that they proceed on the decimal system—that is, they denote different values according to their relative places, each character signifying ten times more accordingly as it occupies a place higher. Thus 8, in the first place to the right, is simply 8; but in the next to the left, it is 80; in the third, 800; and in the fourth, 8000. Yet we do not require to grasp these large numbers in our thought, but deal with each figure as a simple unit, and subject it to every arithmetical process without even adverting to its real value. To some, it may seem superfluous to explain a matter so familiar; but we have met with many who know pretty well how to use our system of notation mechanically, yet do not know, or rather have not thought of the beautifully simple principle on which it proceeds—that of decimal ascension.
Now, we want to see the same principle applied to the gradations of our money, weights, and measures. Instead of our complicated denominations of money—namely, pounds, each containing twenty shillings, these each divisible into twelve pence, and these again into four farthings—we want a scale in which ten of each denomination would amount to one of that immediately above it, as in our notation. And instead of our complicated system of weights and measures, we want one similarly graduated system—each measure and weight rising ten times above the former. All calculations of prices would then be made by simple multiplication. What a gala-day for school-boys when the pence and shilling table would be abolished by act of parliament, and there would no longer be the table of avoirdupois-weight to learn, nor troy-weight, nor apothecaries', nor long-measure, nor square-measure, nor cloth-measure, nor liquid-measure, nor dry-measure, but one decimal scale of weights and measures would suffice for every commodity, and there would only be their names to get by heart in order! Every one sees that there would be an astonishing simplification in this system of reckoning by tens—that the study of arithmetic would be immensely facilitated, and the business of the counting-house divested of puzzling calculations. Let us see whereabouts we are in the way towards its attainment.
About ten years ago, a parliamentary commission on the subject of weights and measures, advised the adoption of a decimal scale, but recommended as a preliminary step, the decimation of the Coinage. Regarding it as important, however, that great deference should be paid to existing circumstances, and that the present relative notions of value, so deeply rooted in the public mind, should be disturbed as little as possible, they pointed out the facilities existing in our present coinage for a re-arrangement on the decimal plan. They said that the pound might be preserved precisely on the present footing, and thus would be maintained in name the price of everything above twenty shillings in value. They remarked that the farthing, which is the 960th part of L.1, might be set down as the 1000th, which would be a variation of 4 per cent. only—somewhat less than that to which copper is liable from fluctuation of price. We have thus the units at the one end of the scale, and the thousands at the other; it remains only to interpose the tens and hundreds between them, by introducing a florin as the tenth of a pound, and a cent—equal to 2-1/2d. nearly—as the tenth of the florin. Adopting these views, the following would be the new and simple scale of money-reckoning:—ten millets, 1 cent; ten cents, 1 florin; ten florins, L.1.