2l6 



NATURE 



[April 13, 191 1 



'! with w atcr I 

 .iloiiK ^Ivilltilly 

 iiuuculc tliiir \ ill.ij4i- In 

 of propciiv in I.iikI. 

 make fairly good |)< ' 

 wells, work up impc 

 p!omrnt=;, . "■' 

 Slill, ill 



The public woi: 

 poor would 1) 



load to 

 K.kets 



)UII 



Up 



they pi.n 



CUSliMll 1 



funereal 

 both. It 



"IK. 



iM'iii brinf 

 ions .-ind ini- 

 ,:--r' ■■'-,■ adepis III Hi. II .iii<.i ij.i->ket weaving. 

 these advances towards i i\ ili-.ttion, 

 i.-... .ij) to quite recent times the brutal 

 il hrad-luniting. As conm . nd with tlieir 

 ritc;s tills niav be piacular, piupitiainry, or 

 seems reasonable to suppose that, lilce th.- 



\UT HI ponilni 

 with tiif l)K)od 



Wa of Burma, they procure heads in the hojie that 

 the soul of the victim uill accompany his skull, and 

 tliat wlieii hung up in tlie house of its possessor this 

 will ait a- a guardian against the powers of evil, 

 the skull ot a stranger being preferred, because the 

 ghost dtx's not know its way about, and is less 

 likely to waiKhi. Mr. Hodson has done good ser- 

 14 out how the custom is connected 

 leud, with funerary rites and eschato- 

 logical beliefs, and that it has a social side as a proof 

 of fitness for initiation into the tribe. Hence it is 

 often encouraged by women, who laugh at young 

 men appearing at the village festivals without the 

 ilecoiation which marks the successful warrior. 



Mr. Modson's careful review of the tribal and 

 village customs, particularly the institution of taboos 

 and the use of the communal house for males, super- 

 stitions, and religious beliefs, a survey largely based 

 on personal intercourse with the tribe, forms an 

 important contribution to the ethnology of India. 



D 



THE PENNY: A SUGGESTION. 

 EAR old penny ! You have been with me all my 

 life. You were the first present I ever had, 

 and when I was young your potentiality was great. 

 You would buy everything a boy required — peg-tops, 

 jam tarts, kites, marbles, or a bun. As I grew older 

 I recognised that your purchasing power did not keep 

 pace with my desires. Still, you do something — you 

 give me a paper, a box of matches, or carry me 

 long distances on trams or buses. With two or three 

 pennies in my pocket I feel armed against emergen- 

 cies. You will dry an urchin's tears or give comfort 

 to a beggar. You have been and still remain a friend 

 to young and old. 



But with all your virtues you have still some draw- 

 backs. I think you are susceptible of great improve- 

 ment. 



The ordinary person likes you in twos or threes, but 

 in quantity he calls you " coppers." When in this 

 form, the young lady in the shop frequently apologises 

 — not for you so much, as for her inability to repre- 

 sent you by some other coin. 



Forty-eight coppers, so says the law, weigh one 

 pound ; but nobody, whatever his vocation may be, 

 cares to carry a pound, whether it be represented by 

 forty-eight pennies or a lump of brass in his pocket. 

 Not only would they weigh him down, but possibly 

 they might spoil his figure. From the legal definition 

 you should weigh one-third of an ounce, or i45"8333 

 grains. The latter number frightens me ; it is in- 

 definite and without end. It means nothing for 

 common use. To carry about a weight which cannot 

 be used to weigh anything in particular, not even a 

 letter, is not practical. It is silly. If our penny 

 could be made to weigh a little bit less but remain 

 commensurable with an ounce, even if a hole was 

 bored through its centre to reduce its weight, which 

 w-ould tell you what it was by its feel, the Chancellor 

 of the Exchequer would, by the saving in metal, cer- 

 tainly be possessed of wealth equal to the fees of 



NO. 2163, VOL. 86] 



you iM' .. ...ic ... 

 lotni, so far as 

 in your dimension 



1 k 



Ic whether 



..^, .,, , :.. ..^ur modern 



now, there is as little respectabilit;. 

 as in your weight. 

 A penny is one out of a number of little discs that 

 can be economically stamped out of a sheet of bronze. 

 We are told that a bit of metal goes through rolls, 

 which are so wonderfully adjusted that the resultant 

 strips or "fillet-^" do not vary more than i/io,o<>. 

 part of an inch in thi ir thi(knes>. This suggests that 

 the authors ot the p< nny wished it to possess an 

 accuracy bord' i ini; nn the supernatural. But the sub- 

 sequent punching, pressing, and milling has appar- 

 ently done much to destroy their good intentions. 



When you, little penny, entered the world, you wer^ 

 bright and shiny, with all the lustre, and colour <t 

 burnished gold ; but your guinea-like look never lasted 

 more than a few short weeks. You quickly becaiiT 

 the microbic-covered old brown copper. You look 

 round, you are supposed to be round, but are you 

 really round? 



M.uiy times per day somebody or other wishes to 

 draw a circle, puts you on a piece of paper, and 

 scratches a pencil round your edge. Now and then 

 the housewife puts you on a piece of linen to mark 

 out buttonholes or points for decoration. The results 

 look excellent, and satisfy many purposes, but a pair 

 of callipers show that you have more than one 

 diameter. The least diameter of our world runs from 

 the north pole to the south, but if the north pole of a 

 penny is Britannia's head and the fringes of her skirts 

 the south, this is your longest diameter. Poor old 

 penny, your dimensions have been made opposite to 

 those of the world in which you circulate. The world 

 is world-shaped, and you are penny-shaped. You only 

 possess an average diameter, which is not an inch or 

 an inch and a quarter, neither does it appear to be 

 related to any everyday unit of linear measure. Your 

 dimensions, like your weight, suggest an oversight 

 on the part of your creators. You are lopsided and 

 measure nothing in particular. 



As you exist at the present day you measure a tiny 

 little bit more than one inch and one-fifth. Why "the 

 tiny little bit " exists, I and my friends connected 

 with minting cannot tell. Knock it off, and the 

 Exchequer would increase its capital without extra 

 taxation, and five pennies would measure exactly six 

 inches. 



But reformation should go still farther, and the 

 diameter of a penny, if possible, be made to measure 

 something more definite by itself. If the halfpenny, 

 which does measure one inch, stands in the way, do 

 not disgrace it, but reduce it to another standard. 



Our poor dumb friend, not only because it neither 

 possesses a useful weight or measure, has been com- 

 pelled to take a back place in numismatic competi- 

 tions, but it has had to put up with a bit of extra 

 weight in the form of an inscription. On one side 

 of our penny we see a statement in abbreviated Latin 

 which tells us that the Ruling Monarch is a defender 

 of the faith. With this the penny give? us something 

 to think about both day and night, and to many the 

 statement may be regarded as in keeping with its 

 weight and measure. On the reverse, we see a brave- 

 looking, long-limbed lady sitting on a chariot, one 

 wheel of which appears to be elliptical. I have been 

 quite curious about this personage, and with the help 

 of a magnifying ijlass have compared her face as 

 shown on pennies and halfpennies, .^s a result of my 

 examination I conclude there are at least two tj'pes 

 of Britannia. The aristocratic, with a Grecian nose, 

 and the democratic, with a nez retroiiss^. Possibly 



