These characteristics of everyday life and its doings are to a considerable extent applicable to most of the great towns of England; but we are treating them in special relation to the widely stretching and ever-growing metropolis. And this leads us to draw attention to a circumstance which renders shilling entertainments and amusements more and more accessible every year. In days which some among us will remember, London attractions were available to few except those who for the time sojourned within its limit. No suburban railway trains, few suburban omnibuses, and still fewer stage-coaches, there was a deficiency in the means for bringing the public to the central regions of the metropolis, and of taking them home again when the day's pleasuring was ended. It is not too much to say that, for all practical purposes of locomotion, Kensington and Westbourne, Kennington and Walworth, Hackney and Stepney, Holloway and Kilburn, were farther out of town then than Richmond and Croydon—nay, Windsor and Gravesend—are now. Saying nothing of omnibuses and cabs, we are within the truth in stating that a hundred railway stations are easily reached from the metropolis by trains starting at eleven or twelve o'clock at night at cheap fares. What is the consequence? The father of a family can arrange for wife and senior children (juniors of course included in the pantomime season) a visit from the near suburbs and the more distant environs, to places of interest in the metropolis; knowing that there will be the means of returning home after the enjoyments of the evening are ended. How this tells upon the shilling will be readily understood by those who know the prevalent prices of admission to public places.
May we not find a clue to the solution, at the Mint? We all know that it is more convenient to make our payments, so far as possible, in one coin than in two or more, let it be of gold, silver, or copper. Now, as a matter of ascertained fact, the Mint produces a larger number of shillings than of any other denomination of silver coin. For instance, in ten recent years, twenty-six million shillings were produced at the Mint, against seventeen million sixpences and nine million florins—the other silver coins being relatively few in number. Why it is that the Mint puts eighty-seven and a quarter grains of sterling silver into each and every shilling, and never deviates from that quantity (rigorously 87.27272 grains), we are not here called upon to inquire; but unquestionably the determination exerts some effect on prices, within the limit, at anyrate, of the matters discussed in the present article—intensified by the predominance of this particular kind of silver coin over others. If we were to abolish the shilling from our coinage, and to substitute the franc (worth about tenpence), there is much reason to believe that we should gradually change from 'Price One Shilling' to 'Price One Franc;' and the same with 'Admission' instead of 'Price.' Very likely we should receive less in quantity, less number or less dimensions, of articles or enjoyments included in each purchase; but this would be borne with more patience than a change in the opposite direction—in other words, it would be found more easy to adjust our dealings to the altered value of the coin, than to give the troublesome amount of one franc in silver plus twopence in copper or bronze to make up a shillingworth; for a dislike to 'bother' is prevalent with most of us. But how about 'Admission One Franc?' Should we obtain only five-sixths as much instruction or amusement as we now obtain; and if so, in what manner would the curtailment be carried into effect? Would the shilling gallery, for instance, share in the enjoyment of less splendour and less fun when it became a franc gallery? Would a franc concert-caterer give a smaller number of songs, and the Polytechnic give fewer dissolving views and scientific lectures on each evening?
A subject of much solicitude to the financial and commercial world just at present may, for aught we can tell, be wrapped up in this very problem. The price or value of pure or bullion silver has fallen materially. The purchasing power of (say) an ounce of silver is less than it was a year ago, as compared with gold and with general commodities; and perchance the amount of 'value received' may have to be readjusted to our friend the shilling in some way not at present perceptible.
A question has been asked, What is the real or intrinsic value of a shilling? and a good question it is, like the late Sir Robert Peel's, 'What is a pound?' The matter seems simple, but it intimately involves many important considerations. So far as concerns the Mint, the government, or the state, the value of a shilling is honestly expressed; no profit is made on its manufacture; on the contrary, a certain sum has to be provided annually out of the general taxation of the country, to make up a small deficiency. The chemical and mechanical processes of coining cost so much, the unavoidable (though trifling) waste amounts to so much, the wear of the coin costs so much for recoining after a few years, and so much for putting in new silver to make up the deficiency from 'light weight;' and all these items swell the cost of the shilling to the Mint. If the coin were made much below its intrinsic value in pure silver, it would not pass on the continent; if above, it would be melted down as bullion; and thus the Mint or the state has many points to consider in the matter. A bronze penny pays its full expense of manufacture; a gold sovereign and a silver shilling do not. Whether, at the present time, when the Mint can buy silver bullion and old silver at a cheaper rate than was the case a few years ago, the silver coinage just now pays its own expenses, is a question on which possibly the Master of the Mint may have something to say in his next annual Report.
[THE BIG TREES OF MARIPOSA.]
M. le Baron De Hübner in his interesting work, A Ramble Round the World, gives an account of an excursion from San Francisco to the Yosemite Valley, in the Sierra Nevada, for the purpose of seeing what are known as the 'Big Trees of Mariposa.' It is a toilsome journey by stage-wagons with relays of horses, through a wild country, and the distance going and returning is four hundred and forty miles. The journey took place in June, when the weather was fine, as it generally is in California near the coast of the Pacific. At the rancho or farm establishment of a hospitable planter, the wheeled carriages could go no farther, and the party were provided with little Indian horses, harnessed and saddled in the Mexican fashion, to complete the excursion. There were now, however, only a few miles to be travelled.
The Big Trees of Mariposa, which are reported to be the most gigantic trees in the world, were discovered as lately as 1855. The stories told of their gigantic dimensions seemed almost incredible. It was represented that they exceeded in height the tallest church steeples; were in fact as high as the top of St Paul's in London, and that is three hundred and fifty-six feet, reckoning from the marble floor to the cross. Another circumstance that seemed surprising was that these marvellously tall trees grew in a valley among mountains, at a height of eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. Such a circumstance in itself conveys an impressive idea of the magnificent climate in California, it being difficult in any part of England to grow trees successfully at a greater elevation than a thousand feet above sea-level, and seldom at that. Reaching the spot where the large trees grew, the Baron and his companions began to observe various trees fallen on account of age or the force of the winds, while at the same time infant trees were springing spontaneously up, and which, after growing for hundreds of years, will perish in their turn. Of the trees generally, the Baron says:
'The Big Trees of Mariposa well deserve their world-spread reputation. A law lately passed, and voted unanimously by the legislature, shelters them both from speculation and from the devastation of the mining companies. Unfortunately, however, it cannot protect them from the incendiary fires of the Indians. But none of these trees can be cut down. There are more than four hundred, which, thanks to their diameter of more than thirty feet, their circumference of upwards of ninety feet, and their height of more than three hundred feet, are honoured with the appellation of the Big Trees. Some of them have lost their crown and been in part destroyed by fire, that scourge of Californian forests. Others, overthrown by tempests, are lying prostrate on the soil, and are already covered with those parasitic creeping plants which are ever ready to crop up round these giant corpses. One of these huge hollow trunks makes a natural tunnel. We rode through it in all its length on horseback without lowering our heads. Another, still standing and green, enables a horseman to enter it, turn round, and go out of it by the same opening. These two trees form the great attraction of the tourists. Like the Russian pilgrims in Palestine who have bathed in the Jordan, the tourists, after having passed on horseback through the tunnelly trunk of one of these trees and the interior of the other, strong in the consciousness of having done their duty, think of nothing but instant departure. The greater part of these trees are marked by the inscriptions of different celebrated persons. One of them bears the name of Ferdinand de Lesseps.
'The Big Trees, with their smooth, dead-red trunks and short horizontal branches, are of a coniferous race, well known in Europe. One sees specimens in all our botanical gardens and in most of the "pinetums" of private persons. The first discoverer, an Englishman, gave them the name, which has stuck to them in Europe, of Wellingtonia. This name, which was offensive to the Americans, was changed by them into Sequoia gigantea, after an Indian chief of Pennsylvania, who distinguished himself by his kindness to the whites and by his civilised habits. These Sequoias would have a far grander effect to the eye if they were isolated, instead of being crowded with other trees, many of which have attained to almost the same size. Without the help of a guide, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish them from one another. The great indefinable charm of this spot lies in the poetic beauty of the site and the extraordinary fecundity of nature.'