2°* S. X. Oct. 20. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



311 



VALUE OF MONEY. 

 (2»'> S. ix, 503.) 

 I am as little able to reply as your correspond- 

 ent who asks me the question. I believe Lord 

 Macaulay's several estimates scattered through his 

 History are as near the mark as may be : from a little 

 correspondence with him on a kindred point I know 

 thnt he had paid systematic attention to it,_ and 

 could produce many references to rare authorities. 

 The following considerations, put together merely 

 for suggestion to those who have never attended 

 to the" subject, will show how many different 

 meanings may be given to one phrase, or at least 

 may be^'implied in the mode of using it. 



1 . By the value of money is often meant its in- 

 trinsic value at one time as compared with another. 

 Thus, when the Norman kings coined their silver 

 pence, 240 of them went to the pound of silver'; 

 which pound was what we still know as the pound 

 troy, or near enough to it for this rough explanation. 

 Accordingly, if shillings had then been coined, 20 

 of them would really liave been a pound weight. 

 In our day, 66 shillings weigh a pound, when 

 issued : but as they are not coined up to value, 

 the number would be less, if we were to take 

 a silver standard, and begin coining upon it 

 with due respect to the present price of gold 

 against silver. Still there would be a great dif- 

 ference between our supposed standard shilling 

 and the 20th part* of a pound troy : and this sort 

 of difference is sometimes referred to as furnishing 

 the means of judging the comparative value of 

 ancient and modern money. But it is clearly no 

 index whatever of purchasing power, unless we 

 suppose coin of one date bought by weight with 

 coin of another. 



2. The value of money is often estimated by 

 comparing the quantity of some one commodity 

 which it would formerly buy with that which it 

 would now buy. This is a true method of com- 

 parison, so far as that one quantity is concerned : 

 just as our last case is a true method, when we 

 are only thinking of coin against coin. For ex- 

 ample, it is recorded that in the times of the Nor- 

 man kings, when a great part of the civil list was 

 levied inVind upon the people who were honoured 

 by the king's immediate neighbourhood, the king's 

 purveyors were satisfied to take fourpence as the 

 composition for a fat sheep, fit for a king's table. 

 Probably the composition was below value, and 

 the sheep did not contain nearly so much effective 

 mutton as in our time. But if we say a shilling 

 for the market price, meaning the 20th part of a 

 pound of silver, and if we suppose a sheep to be only 

 half what it is now, this would answer to buying 

 the half of one of our sheep for three or four of 

 our shillings, and would show that, as against 

 mutton, the value of money was enormously 

 greater than it is now; that is, the purchasing 

 power. 



But take another article, books. We all know 

 that a Bible to read may now be bought for eigh- 

 teen pence, while no such thing could at one time 

 be bought under several pounds. I speak of a 

 book merely as something to read, without refer- 

 ence to material or ornament. Accordingly, set- 

 ting money against something to read, it appears 

 thai; the value of money was formerly immensely 

 less than now. 



3. But probably the question asked is — What was 

 the average purchasing power of money ? What sort 

 of command, for instance, would a hundred pounds 

 give, as compared with what it would give now, if 

 taken into the market to buy what was really wanted 

 of all manner of goods. This is a very difficult 

 question : and one which has never been answered 

 on average actually made. It depended in part 

 upon a person's residence and station. A country 

 farmer or proprietor, who bought little except of 

 the produce of his neighbourhood, would make a 

 given sum go much further than a retainer of the 

 Court, who required expensive manufactures. 

 This is the case now, to some extent : and was 

 very much the case indeed in the time of Eliza- 

 beth. And we can trace the alteration as it pro- 

 ceeded. When Mrs. Tabitha Bramble, something 

 more than a century ago, caught her brother 

 giving away twenty pounds In charity, -she ex- 

 claimed " Charity begins at home ! Twenty 

 pounds would have bought me a complete suit of 

 flowered silk, trimmings and all ! " The dress 

 alluded to would have cost, in our time, about 

 the half of this. It is clear that the ■ value of 

 money, as compared with goods, will vary exceed- 

 ingly with the character of the goods chosen for 

 comparison: while the value of money, as com- 

 pared with an average of commodities, will depend 

 greatly upon the commodities supposed to be wanted. 



4. There is yet another way in which the value 

 of money is estimated ; that Is, by the degree of 

 social Importance attached to a given income. 

 When persons find that in the time of James I. 

 a country gentleman of a thousand a year was at 

 least as likely to be thought of for a knight of the 

 shire as one in our day of five times that income, 

 they are very apt to suppose that this must Imply 

 money to have had five times the purchasing power 

 which It has now. This, however, is a misconcep- 

 tion : that is, the implication is a misconception, 

 be the fact what It may. 



Nevertheless, it may be that this test is the best 

 of the four. Seclal importance Is_ that for which 

 people desire to make money, taking mankind in 

 the mass, far more than physical luxuries. If 

 the average incomes of the different classes could 

 be well ascertained, at the period in question, the 

 comparison with our own time would perhaps give 

 a better relative view of what money would do than 

 any conclusions drawn from purchasing power. 



A. Db MoBeA^^ 



