Centinel

“ Will. A wandering Lover that has lost his Heart, and I have shreud Guess ’tis in thy dear Bosom, Child.
La Nu. Oh you’re a pretty Lover, a Woman’s like to have a sweet time on’t, if you’re always so tedious.
Will. By yon bright Star-light, Child, I walk’d here in short turns like a Centinel, all this live-long Evening, and was just going (Gad forgive me) to kill my self.
La Nu. I rather think some Beauty has detain’d you: Have you not seen La Nuche? ”

“ So, come, there is the door open for you; do not stay groaning and praying with the young whig now, but be ready, when I call at the door, to start as if they were sounding, 'Horse and away.'"
So speaking, Halliday unlocked the door of the closet, admitted Jenny and her pretended kinswoman, locked it behind them, and hastily reassumed the indifferent measured step and time-killing whistle of a centinel upon his regular duty.
The door, which slowly opened, discovered Morton with both arms reclined upon a table, and his head resting upon them in a posture of deep dejection. ”

“ The Massachusetts Centinel of September 17, 1789, pointed out that to people accustomed to deal in pounds a fair salary in dollars looked large, and urged that cheap rogues and dunces would cheat and lose more than could be saved on the salary account ”

“ The words "more or less" apparently occurred in the official accounts of the capture of York in April, 1813, but I have not been able to discover in exactly what connection. At all events, they caused much fun in the peace papers. "One dead Indian, 'more or less,'" said the New York Herald of July 14, 1813, p. 1-1. "Wanted," declared the Columbian Centinel of December 4, 1813, "about five hundred ('more or less') able-bodied, stout-hearted real Americans, to collect our land tax in our territory of Canada" (p. 2-3) . ”

“ In effect, however, there is but one unit, the dollar; because a sum of money expressed in dollars is instantly converted into cents, or into mills, by a shift of the decimal point, without any appreciable mental effort. In Great Britain, however, the currency not being decimal, but divided into guineas, pounds, crowns, florins, shillings, pence and farthings, there are seven different units. Pencil and paper will generally be required by any but skilled mental arithmeticians to transfer a sum of money from one expression to another. ”

“ A third scheme, which was connected with the assimilation of English to French and American money, proposed the establishment of an 8s. gold coin as unit, with the tenpenny or franc and the penny (reduced by 4%) as subdivisions. The new coin would be equivalent to 10 francs or (by an anticipated reduction of the dollar) 2 dollars. None of these plans has gained any great amount of popular support.
For the general question of monetary scales see Money, and for the decimal system in reference to weights and measures see Metric System and Weights and Measures. ”

“ Every currency system must be based on a standard unit of value which consists of a “fixed quantity of some concrete substance defined by reference to the units of weight or space.” Thus the English unit is the pound, which consists of a definite quantity of gold (123·27447 grs. standard fineness) , while the French unit is the franc (composed of 5 grammes of silver ths fine) . It is not, however, necessary that the standard unit shall be a coin. All that is needful is that the current coins shall be multiples or submultiples of the unit, or at all events easily reducible to it. ”

“ But all the world is not American. In England they have a piece they call a farthing, which is about half a cent. Ah! sorrow!” she cried, “that makes it scarcely better, for the buyer must be lost, and we shall find none so brave as my Keawe! But then, there is France: they have a small coin there which they call a centime, and these go five to the cent, or thereabout. We could not do better. Come, Keawe, let us go to the French islands; let us go to Tahiti as fast as ships can bear us. There we have four centimes, three centimes, two centimes, one centime ”

“ To a person accustomed to buy sugar at six cents a pound, it would be a little perplexing at first to buy it at 13 cents the kilo, or 61⁄2 cents the half-kilo. It is the experience of the average American, however, that in a foreign city, where the metric units and coinage have both to be acquired, familiarity is obtained after about two weeks. Consequently, less time should be needed to gain familiarity with the metric system, when the coinage is unchanged. ”

“ The only difficulty which has appalled the advocates of the decimal system, is with respect to the cent-piece. It is said to be too small for a silver coin, too large for a copper, and mixed metals find no favour at the Mint. But if it is to be a denomination in accounts, it must have a representative coin, and a silver cent could be very little smaller than our present 3d.-piece. ”

“ On the Continent the currency in nearly all countries is far simpler than in England, for the reason that it is on a decimal basis. The franc is the acknowledged unit of France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, and it is divided into a hundred parts, known as centimes in the three countries first named, and as centissimi in the last of the list. Reckonings are in francs and centimes; the approximate value of the franc is twenty cents of American money—though in reality it is a trifle over eighteen cents. ”

“ Does it appear to be a strange proposition that money should be measured? Why should not a dollar be just as absolute as a dollar as a pound is as a pound; or as a foot is as a foot; or as a gallon is as a gallon? A cord of wood contains one hundred and twenty-eight solid feet, or eight cord feet. It must always be eight feet in length, four feet in height and four feet in width, or some other multiples of one hundred and twenty-eight. A cord can never be any more, never any less than just that measurement. ”

“ You now see that the convenience of our method of numeration arises from a few simple signs being made to change their value as they change the column in which they are placed. The same advantage arises from counting in a similar way all the articles which are used in every-day life. For example, we count money by dividing it into pounds, shillings, and pence, of which a shilling is 12 pence, and a pound 20 shillings, or 240 pence. We write a number of pounds, shillings, and pence in three columns, generally placing points between the columns. ”

“ Thus if the standard unit be 1 the higher coins will be 10, 100, 1000, &c., the lower .1, .01, .001, &c. In a perfect system there would be no breaks or interpolations, but the actual currencies described as “decimal” do not show this rigid symmetry. In France the standard unit—the franc—has the 10 franc and the 100 franc pieces above it; the 10 centime below it; there are also, however, 50 franc, 20 franc, 5 franc, 2 franc pieces as well as 50 and 20 centime ones. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The international electric units are metric units. It has come into our currency. A nickel weighs, by law, five grams, and a dollar twenty-five. The U. S. foot is defined by law as a certain fraction of the international meter.
The colonies of Great Britain, less conservative than their mother country, have recently urged Great Britain to adopt the metric system. In August, 1902, the prime ministers of the colonies officially urged upon the Secretary of State the importance of adopting the metric system throughout the British Empire. ”

“ In money there must be a unit. In arithmetic, as you are aware, you are taught what a unit is. Thus, I make here on the blackboard the figure 1. That, in arithmetic, is a unit. All countings are sums or multiples of that unit. A unit, therefore, in mathematics, was a necessity as a basis to start from. In making money it was equally as necessary to establish a unit. The constitution gave the power to Congress to 'coin money and regulate the value thereof.' Congress adopted silver and gold as money. ”

“ The pound, which was not a coin, but a note promising to pay 20 shillings to the bearer, is also disused for the present, and the sovereign supplies its place; but the name pound is still given to 20 shillings.
[44] Farthings are never written but as parts of a penny. Thus, three farthings being 3⁄4 of a penny, is written 3⁄4, or 3⁄4. One halfpenny may be written either as 2/4 or 1⁄2; the latter is most common.
[45] When a decimal follows a whole number, the decimal is always of the same unit as the whole number. ”

“ As the currency in California is dollars, not pounds, we must ask our readers to accustom themselves to dollars. A dollar is 100 cents, and, roughly speaking, a cent is equivalent to a halfpenny, so that a dollar would be worth, of our money, four shillings and twopence. Its value, however, varies a few cents according to the place where it is exchanged. Bank of England notes or pounds are never worth less than four shillings and twopence, i.e., 480 cents or halfpennies, which, of course, is four dollars and 80 cents, there being 100 cents in a dollar. ”

“ It is often required to find to how much a certain sum per day will amount in a year. This may be shortly done, since it happens that the number of days in a year is 240 + 120 + 5; so that a penny per day is a pound, half a pound, and 5 pence per year. Hence the following rule: To find how much any sum per day amounts to in a year, turn it into pence and fractions of a penny; to this add the half of itself, and let the pence be pounds, and each farthing five shillings; then add five times the daily sum, and the total is the yearly amount. ”

“ A 9subdivision of the talent would become the pound or common unit of weight in the retail market, and a subdivision of the pound would be fixed as the weight of silver which, impressed with signs guaranteeing its fineness, if not its actual weight, would be the currency of the merchants.
Then arose, by involution, another system of weights in which the pound was usually of 12 or 16 ounces, and the ounce was the weight of so many standard coins. Every modern pound was based on this system. ”

“ No one wants the pound decimalised except a few decimal unpractical persons. A properly taught schoolboy adds up sums of money duodecimally for the pence, 180decimally for the shillings, converting these by twenties into pounds. ”

“ With the Revolution the old coinage passed away and was replaced by the decimal system, the peseta and céntimo being equivalent to the French franc and centime. Yet still prices continue to be quoted in reales, which are now rated at 25 céntimos, or about 5 cents of American money.
Nothing is more difficult than to ascertain accurately the variation in the purchasing power of money, but perhaps the price of labor affords the most trustworthy standard. ”

“ Any fraction of a pound sterling may be decimalised by rules which can be made to give the result at once.
Thus, every pair of shillings is a unit in the first decimal place; an odd shilling is a 50 in the second and third places; a farthing is so nearly the thousandth part of a pound, that to say one farthing is ·001, two farthings is ·002, &c., is so near the truth that it makes no error in the first three decimals till we arrive at sixpence, and then 24 farthings is exactly ·025 or 25 thousandths. But 25 farthings is ·026, 26 farthings is ·027, &c. ”

“ A quarter, or “two bits” is two reals, in Spanish dos reales but always pronounced “do reals.” The real is the unit of calculation, the people rarely using the term pesos, or dollars, in small amount, If you ask the hotel prietor what are his terms, instead of saying two dollars, he will say sixteen reals, and will use that term for any amount less than five dollars. An actual real of 61⁄4 cents is no longer coined, and its value leads to serious complications.
Your street car fare is twelve cents for two tickets. ”

“ In England there is no record of such legislation prior to the thirteenth century. By statute of King Henry III., A. D. 1266, the combined standard of money, weight and capacity was defined by the statement that 'an English penny, called a sterling, round and without any clipping, shall weigh thirty-two wheat corns in the midst of the ear ; and twenty pence do make an ounce, and twelve ounces one pound, and eight pounds do make a gallon of wine, and eight gallons of wine do make a London bushel, which is the eighth part of a quarter. ”

“ A clearer idea is obtained by the expression 13,518.6 lbs. than by its equivalent in numerous denominations, 6 tons, 13 cwt., 3 qrs., 17 lbs., 11 oz., 5.6 drachms.
We would not be understood to limit a system to one denomination, or even to two. Yet two well-chosen units in each table, as compared with the present English system, would be a decided improvement. Suppose we had pounds and pound cents, yards and yard cents, etc., corresponding with the dollars and cents of currency; they would furnish incomparably superior advantages to the existing methods. ”

“ The value of 100, 1000, 10,000 dollars is well estimated by the mind; so is that of the tenth or the hundredth of a dollar. Few transactions are above 163 or below these limits. The expediency of attending to the size of the money Unit will be evident, to any one who will consider how inconvenient it would be to a manufacturer or merchant, if, instead of the yard for measuring cloth, either the inch or the mile had been made the Unit of Measure.
II. The most easy ratio of multiplication and division, is that by ten. Every one knows the facility of Decimal Arithmetic. ”