£ S. D.; OR, Pounds, Shillings, and Pence, still Retained. PUBLIC attention having been directed to the Weights and Measures (metric system) Bill, which was read a second time on the 14th May, 1868, it may not be inopportune, to reconsider the merits of a Decimal Coinage. Since the Royal Commission, which terminated its labours in April, 1857, very little if any movement in this matter has taken place, except by Professors of Social Science, of Political Economy, and some Chambers of Commerce, notably that of Liverpool. We intend, though cursorily, to pass in review somewhat of the history of Decimal Coinage. Whether by accident or intention, we find the ten, or the multiple of ten, peep through the misty haze of extreme antiquity. In the Scriptures the omer is the tenth of an ephah; the A 2 shekel, the hundredth of a maneh. Again, a tithe was the due of the ancient priesthood. Then we perceive that at one time, the Roman as represented the tenth part of the denarius, and in coins of the period the numeral X is to be found behind the head of Pallas or Roma. The ancients, as far as mechanical arithmetic was concerned, could not favour or disfavour any system of calculation, as the absence of what we term the Arabic numerals, rendered it extremely difficult to manipulate, any but the most primitive reckoning. With regard to the coinage, that is, or was in use, by the principal European and transatlantic peoples, a little of their past numismatic history may serve the better to elucidate the origin of the present moneys. The livre, the parent of our English pound, was instituted by Charlemagne in the year 800. This great emperor, whose forethought, was equal to his energy, sought to unify the different moneys of his realm; and when it is borne in mind that his gigantic empire, reached from the Baltic, to the Mediterranean, from the Sarmatian frontier to the Pyrenees, the object was, without doubt, worthy of his intellect. Originally a livre, was a pound weight of pure silver, but ten centuries of internal commotion and extraneous warfare caused the depreciaion of the original standard from 60s. to 93d., and a little before the decimalization of the French coinage, the country was in a financial chaos of confusion. This helped rather than retarded the introduction of the new system, for the assignats or paper money of the republic of France had become so reduced in value, that the simplest article could not be purchased for less than one livre (at that period representing no more than about one halfpenny) fractional currency was therefore practically unknown. The Legislature had little difficulty, when returning to a metallic currency, to change the old livre of 20 sous of 12 derniers into francs, subdivided into 100 centimes. These were, and are still coined, in pieces of,, franc pieces, two, and five franc pieces, consisting of 90 per cent. pure silver, and 10 per cent. alloy, and one quarter, half, and whole Napoleons of 20 francs each, also consisting of 90 per cent. pure gold, and 10 per cent. alloy. This monetary system has led to important changes in the States adjoining France. In the first place, Belgium, that land, whose governors were varied in the course of history, as often as the grub, until a butterfly. It could unfold by its various coins, the changes it had experienced; now the guilder, now the Spanish dollar; at one time the Austrian kronen thaler, and again the Dutch guilder. Upon the independence of the country in 1830, the franc and centime were recognised as the legal money of the realm. Italy, until very recently, had almost in every principality a different currency. Whilst the Northern Piedmont assimilated its coin to that of France, the Southern Naples counted with granis and scudos, Lombardy and Venice used the Austrian florin. Now the whole of Italy have |