The decimal system, as applied to the coinage & weights & measures of Great Britain : dedicated to the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury / by Henry Taylor.

  • Taylor, Henry.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The decimal system, as applied to the coinage & weights & measures of Great Britain : dedicated to the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury / by Henry Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    must remodel our penny purposely. This done, its i half would naturally be suggested, like the half-stiver i of cents in Holland. The division of a cent is im- material there, for half-cent coins are in common use; whilst in England half-farthings are almost unknown. Let it not be asserted that the public would perceive no difference between a 5 cent piece, so called, and a penny by name of the same value. There is the old thing, altered, to talk about and blunder with, in speaking and accounts. In the new coins, on the contrary, a 5-cent piece would simply be one of a series, coming naturally where it was required, and productive of no more remark than any of the others. The same argument we have used as to the penny applies to the shilling, in any new scale. Ketained by name, it would ever be considered as a denomination of i account, and reckonings would continue to be done by twenty in the pound instead of ten. The paramount object ought to be to put the forin prominently forward, as the pivot on which the improved system moved. There is an evident difficulty in reconciling the shilling of 25 half-pence” in the public mind. In speaking of the transition process, Mr. De Morgan says, ^‘the , great pinch, if it be one, lies in the odd half-penny which would go to the shilling.” But where would be the pinch,” if we were to leave off speaking either of shillings or of half-pence ? A shilling of anything but 12 pence would be an unfathomable mystery. Call it a halfforiny and 50 cents rises in the mind at once.