GEOGRAPHY, ANTIQUITIES, AND STATISTICS. 321 



num for the privilege of using the current coin of the realm. 

 Money, like every other article manufactured, wears out after a 

 certain amount of active service, and the life of a coin in these 

 days of rapid trading and travelling is very short. Tho results 

 of attrition on the surfaces of a newly-minted shilling, for <>x- 

 ample, soon manifest themselves after its issue, and the same may 

 be said of every other piece of money. When it passes from be- 

 tween the highly-polished dies of the stamping-press it has all the 

 beauty of an article of plate for presentation. Her Majesty's lin- 

 eaments are then clearly defined, and the " superscription " sur- 

 rounds the " image " with a sharpness of outline that tells elo- 

 quently in favor of the engraver. 



Alas ! how soon does the rich polish disappear ! How very 

 speedily are the fine lines of the hair smoothed down to the uni- 

 formity of a bald, flat surface, and how rapidly is the lettering 

 defaced, once the coin is tossed on the ruthless waves of general 

 circulation ! Its beauty, like that of the butterfly's wing, is marred 

 by touching, and the rubbing to which it is subsequently exposed 

 destroys its impressions entirely. From the instant that a coin 

 leaves the mint or the bank, and is put to the use for which it was 

 struck, its deterioration begins, and it loses both in appearance and 

 in weight. It is the annual waste of the coinage by attrition or 

 abrasion which involves the community in the heavy tax already 

 named. If each coin diminishes in weight day by day, what must 

 be the aggregate loss on the whole British coinage in a year, or in 

 a series of years ? It has been ascertained from official data that 

 there are about 150,000,000 of sovereigns, and 620,000,000 of sil- 

 ver coins of all denominations, doing duty day by clay in Great 

 Britain and Ireland. 



Of course they are all subject to the wasting laws of friction and 

 attrition, and at the end of each year they are worth intrinsically 

 less than they were at its beginning. As a rule the smaller coins 

 wear out at a greater speed than their larger and more valuable 

 relatives ; and the sixpence is notoriously short-lived, because it is 

 overworked ; but they all get thinner and smoother in a pretty 

 well-known ratio. They indeed become small by degrees, and it 

 is necessary to withdraw the worn specimens periodically from cir- 

 culation to recast them, and then to send them again to do battle 

 with the world. 



It takes possibly 100 old shillings to make 80 new ones, and 

 hence will be seen at once the source of loss, for the same rule 

 applies to all other moneys, though in regard to gold in a different 

 degree. Gold is the standard of value in England, and all gold 

 pieces should be both nominally and intrinsically worth the sums 

 they represent. When, therefore, a sovereign has become less- 

 ened in weight by attrition to the extent of half a grain below the 

 minimum legal weight at which it was originally issued, its circu- 

 lation may be legally stopped, and compensation demanded from 

 its last holder for its deficiency. This arrangement was acted 

 upon with great rigor some years since, and hence the clamor 

 about light gold which then arose. Silver and bronze coins are 

 tokens of value only, their nominal being greater than their in- 



