The most remarkable specimens which I have been able to find of Money of Necessity are Swedish in their origin. The half-daler piece on page [639] is a mere baby, although it is three inches square. A four-daler piece was rather more than a foot square, and weighed nearly seven pounds. There is a specimen of an eight-daler piece in the British Museum, which is nearly a yard long and a foot broad. Just fancy carrying a few such pieces about in one's purse! Perhaps the largest piece of money in circulation in this country in recent years was the two-penny copper piece known as the "cartwheel," issued in 1797. It was quite a chunk of metal, and weighed exactly two ounces. A few years ago a gentleman collected a very large number of these two-penny pieces, and paved the floor of his smoking-room with them. No doubt they made better bricks than coins.
BEADS TO BUY PALMS.
The smallest pieces of British money have been issued for Malta and Ceylon, and are of such microscopic values as one-third and one-fourth of a farthing. The illustrations show the full size of the coins.
BEADS TO BUY IVORY.
The history of the fifteen-penny piece illustrated at the top of this article is certainly curious. It was good money in New South Wales some seventy years ago. In those days there was a great scarcity of "change" in the colony, and the piece of money in general circulation was the Spanish dollar. To make it go further, the centre of the dollar was punched out, and the bit of silver thus obtained was christened "fifteen pence," and put into circulation as of that value. The mutilated dollar still retained its original value, and was known as the "Holy Dollar"—from the round hole in it.
BEADS IN EXCHANGE FOR SLAVES.
