Tip (money)

“ The Manchester and Salford Equitable Co-operative Society "combine the securities and facilities of a bank with the profits of a trade." But the business by which they mostly thrive, is by the purchase and sale of food, provisions, groceries, draperies, and other articles, with the exception of intoxicating liquors.
The sole secret of their success consists in "ready money." They give no credit. Everything is done for cash; the profit of the trade being divided amongst the members. Every business man knows that cash payment is the soundest method of conducting business. ”

“ It causes one person to give wealth to another without a fair return in values, or without any return. The pay that employers give to their employees should be the only compensation they receive. All the money given by the public on the side is unearned increment.
The best condition for a fair exchange of wealth is where standards are known and prices are definite. Self-respect and sound economics flourish in such an atmosphere, whereas, if values are hazy and compensation is indirect and irregular, as it is under the custom of tipping, the bickering that follows degrades manhood. ”

“ Here's a ticket good for so many meals at a restaurant —an order for so much wealth; and here's a silver dollar —no 'tisn't; it's a check on a—er—on a "resort"; in fact, on a saloon; an I.O.U. for 11 cents, the price of a cigar—or something—I suppose. "Man should not live by bread alone." Now what's the difference between this ticket and check and the currency issued by the government? Simply this: These are the I.O.U.'s of individual's money, the I.O.U.'s of the entire American people. These are orders for certain kinds of wealth at particular places ”

“ The fact is, I don't mind tellin' you I've a deal on, an' I've undertaken t' put up this money in cash—to-night."
The banker ruminated for a few minutes. Experience had told him that with a certain class of men money in bills was more valuable than money in a cheque or draft. The very bulk of the currency seemed to impress them. He had seen an old-timer refuse a twelve-hundred-dollar marked cheque for his property, and yet surrender greedily at the sight of a thousand one-dollar bills piled on a table before him. ”

“ The second thing the workingman must desire is that the fruit of his labor be realized, that his wages be paid him in a kind of money on the value of which he can depend — a money that will not cheat him; and I shall endeavor to show that a gold dollar, or a paper dollar convertible into gold, is, and that, even under the most favorable circumstances, an irredeemable paper currency, such as advocated by the greenback or fiat dollar apostles, is not that kind of money. ”

“ We are all growing to tolerate a kind of petty grafting that is not right, that is un-American. I object to having a man take my [41] hat and hang it up for me and then accept a coin. I am strong and big enough to hang up my own hat. And I also prefer to carry my own bag to having a boy half my size carry a bag that is half his size and be paid with a coin. If he honestly earns the money he should have it as an earning, not as a gratuity. ”

“ It is of the very essence of money—its pith and marrow and protoplasm—that it should be a legal tender, a universal solvent, the ultimate of payment, and redeemable, at the prices ruling, in everything that is on sale. If the volume of such money be properly regulated, while there may from time to time be variations in the prices of particular articles, the general range of prices will be maintained practically undisturbed. ”

“ Debts of 4 cents can be legally paid in one-cent pieces, of 60 cents in three-cent pieces, of 100 cents in five-cent pieces, of 500 cents in subsidiary silver, and of any amount in gold coins or in silver dollars.
12. A money inferior in general value will, so long as it circulates locally, drive a superior money out of the circulation. This proposition is a fundamental and universal one in monetary Science. The only exception to it is found in token-coins, and in subsidiary silver so far as that has the token-quality, that is, so far as its nominal is above its bullion Value. ”

“ Many persons believe that the Bank of England has some peculiar power of fixing the value of money. They see that the Bank of England varies its minimum rate of discount from time to time, and that, more or less, all other banks follow its lead, and charge much as it charges; and they are puzzled why this should be. "Money," as economists teach, "is a commodity, and only a commodity;" why then, it is asked, is its value fixed in so odd a way, and not the way in which the value of all other commodities is fixed? ”

“ During those six days $157,000,000 were received over the counters of those fifty-two banks; and, of that amount, $19,370,000 was in cash—twelve per cent. 353only in cash; and eighty-eight per cent. of that vast amount, representing every grade of business, was in checks, drafts, and commercial bills. Does a country that transacts its business in that way need as much currency afloat among the people as a country like France, without banks, without savings institutions, and whose people keep their money in hoards. ”

“ This is done in a very convenient manner by lending their own promissory notes payable to bearer on demand—the borrower being willing to accept these as so much money, because the credit of the lender makes other people willingly receive them on the same footing, in purchases or other payments. These notes, therefore, perform all the functions of currency, and render an equivalent amount of money, which was previously in circulation, unnecessary. ”

“ The money function is immeasurably the most important that can be conferred by society upon any material, and it is absurd to urge that that function is not of itself sufficient for the maintenance of the value of money. All the value that money can possibly have—the totality of value that can exist in the shape of money in any country—will attach to anything upon which the sovereign authority stamps it, whether the material on which the stamp is placed be gold, silver, paper, or anything else. ”

“ But in the present situation of the Bank, intrusted as it is with the function of supplying the public with that paper currency which forms the basis of our circulation, and at the same time not subjected to the liability of converting the paper into specie, every advance which it makes of capital to the merchants in the shape of discount, becomes an addition also to the mass of circulating medium. ”

“ For small trading and at home, metal money answers well. But there is great trouble and risk in sending coin hundreds of miles to pay for goods bought at a distance. An easily carried substitute for gold and silver is the bank-note, a promise to pay so much, issued by the treasury or some banker, and passing as money from hand to hand. ”

“ Assuming the currency of the country to consist of two-thirds paper and one of specie, and assuming, also, that the money of a country, whatever may be its component parts, regulates all values, and expresses the true amount which the debtor has to pay his creditor, the effect of the change upon that relation, and upon the property of the country, would be most ruinous. All property would be reduced in value to one-third of its present nominal amount, and every debtor would, in effect, have to pay three times as much as he had contracted for. ”

“ Suppose one of these men gets from the mint a thousand gold dollars while, for pocket money, $50 is sufficient; he is almost sure to get speedily rid of at least $950 by spending it for enjoyables, investing it in durables, or depositing it in the bank. In any case he and the hundreds of others in the same situation tend to raise prices in the community where they are expending their money, or where they and others draw checks on the banks in which it is deposited. ”

“ That we have ordained: that each of us should contribute IV pence for our common use within XII months, and pay for the property which should be taken after we had contributed the money; and that all should have the search in common; and that every man should contribute his shilling who had property to the value of XXX pence, except the poor widow who has no ‘forwyrhta’ nor any land. ”

“ Speculative debtors, on the other hand, always thrive on depreciating currency, paying their debts in what costs less exertion. Under appreciating currency, the creditors gain, be they bankers or workmen.
Banking.—The peculiar convenience for saving found by experience in the use of each of these methods of settlement in exchange leads to a natural commingling of all. Coins serve some purposes best, and accounts have a limited range; notes of hand are often desirable, and paper money, if safe, is universally convenient. ”

“ All the juvenile depositors seem inclined to take care of their pence by depositing them in the bank; and the grown-up people have become of the same turn of mind,—rather than carry their loose money to the public-house, or spend it foolishly. Some factory operatives have saved sufficient to buy stock and commence farming. ”

“ If all prices were altered in like proportion [Pg 24] as soon as money varied in value, no one would lose or gain, except as regards the coin which he happened to have in his pocket, safe, or bank balance. But, practically speaking, as we have seen, people do employ money as a standard of value for long contracts, and they often maintain payments at the same variable rate, by custom or law, even when the real value of the payment is much altered. Hence every change in the value of money does some injury to society. ”

“ Buying and remitting commercial long bills is no pastime for an inexperienced man. Entirely aside from the question of rate, and profit on the exchange end of the transaction, there must be taken into consideration the matter of the credit of the drawer and the drawee, the salability of the merchandise specified in the bill of lading, and a number of other important points. ”

“ The rate of discount for trade bills is usually 1/2 per cent. per annum higher than the rate for bank bills.
The essential feature of almost all the bills on the market is that they represent a commercial transaction, such as a sale of goods, where value passes. It is this that lends them their self-liquidating quality; for they are usually liquidated by the acceptor out of the proceeds of the resale of the goods during the currency of the bill. ”

“ Do you not mean that it is the value you pay for the goods you give in exchange, plus your profit upon these goods?-I say the price we could afford to pay in cash is just the price we do pay cash, which is paid not to the knitter, but to the party in the south that we buy our goods from. Our goods cost us cash: that cash, thousands of pounds every year, would go into the hands of the knitters here; but in that case we would just give them that money, less the profit we have on the goods. ”

“ An examination of the assets side of the balance-sheet proves that most of it has been created by money lent to their customers by the banks, and that the cheque currency of to-day is, like the note currency of a former day, based on mutual indebtedness between the banks and their customers. ”

“ This is a dollar—a unit of money—part of the great instrumentality created by society to effect the multitudinous exchanges of property and services among men. The amount of its command is constant, because the increase in the volume of money is regulated by the sovereign authority of the nation, with strict regard to the increase of population and demand—hence the value of this unit remains unchanging through time. ”

“ I've lived in the city so long that no one can fool me with counterfeit money. I can tell it in two looks, Ingua. So I'd rather have a nice new bill than ten clumsy silver dollars and I made the trade myself."
"Where'd ye get so much money, Josie?"
"My wages. I don't do much work, but I get paid regularly once a week." ”

“ Thus, when a clothing-dealer sold goods on three months’ credit, for currency whose purchasing power was so much less than gold that it took one hundred and fifteen of currency to buy one hundred in gold, he added five per cent. to his sale price, or he bet that the depreciation of currency at the end of three months would be indicated by one hundred and twenty for gold; while for a credit longer than three months he bet that the risk of depreciation would be greater, and added, to cover this risk, an average of ten per cent. ”

“ Every shopkeeper has a board secured by a ledge and running to a point, on which the paras are reckoned, and then spouted into a canvass bag. At the present rate of exchange, this apparently silver coin is less than one third of a farthing, and, as all money is reckoned by it, a stranger is startled to see his baccul’s or huckster’s bills amount to 10,000 paras. ”

“ Speaking on the same theme, paper money, Governor Johnston said: "Every man of property - every man of considerable transactions, whether a merchant, planter, mechanic, or of any other condition - must have felt the baneful influence of that currency." ”

“ Ring up the revenues and make the dear people pay it in added purchase price!
The people have a few dollars stored away in savings accounts or stockings, and if they want a thing they will broach their hoardings. They have the money. We want it.
One of the surest and easiest ways to get it is to make them pay more for what they consider essentials to their subsistence, to the comforts and the pleasures of their lives. They have been buying some splendid monthly periodicals at twelve and a half cents to fifteen cents. If they want them, why not make ’em pay twenty or twenty-five cents? ”