220 JOURNAL. 



machinery is clumsy beyond what I could have imagined, and the 

 improvement talked of is to be on a French model ; which will be 

 more expensive than one of Boulton's, and, compared with it, is as 

 the old hammer for striking coin is to the screw dies now used here. 

 The greater part of the coin still current in Chile is of rough pieces 

 of silver, weighed and cut in any shape, and struck with the hammer, 

 and far ruder than any I had seen before. This mode of coining is, 

 however, now discontinued ; and the scarcely less tedious method of 

 first punching the metal, and then placing each piece by hand in the 

 screw, has taken place of it. The assay department, however, is in a 

 better, i. e. a more modern state ; but I am too sorry a chemist to be 

 able to give a proper account of it. I understand government has it 

 in contemplation to issue a coinage of low value, which will be of 

 great advantage to the people. I have often been struck with the 

 inconvenience of the want of small coin here. There is nothing in 

 circulation under the value of a quartillo, or quarter of a real, which, 

 if the dollar be worth four shillings and sixpence, is more than three 

 half-pence ; and quartillos are not coined here, and are so scarce, that 

 I have only seen three since April : consequently we may call the 

 smallest common coin the medio, or near threepence halfpenny; a 

 sum for which, at the price of bread and beef here, a whole family 

 may be fed. What then is the single labourer to do ? This evil, 

 great as it is, has occasioned a greater. In order to accommodate 

 purchasers with a quantity under the value of a medio, or quartillo, 

 the owners of pulperias (a kind of huckster's shops) give in exchange 

 for dollars or reals promissory notes : but these notes, even where 

 the article bought is half a dollar, and the note for half, the pulperia 

 man will not discount in cash, but in goods ; so that he makes sure 

 of the poor man's whole coin, besides the chance that a peasant, who 

 does not read or write, may lose or destroy the note itself. Many 

 and rapid fortunes have been made by these notes, and the loss to 

 the poor has amounted to more than any one of the government 

 direct taxes. This has not been overlooked by some of the great 

 merchants connected with the minister here; and a number of retail 

 shops have been set up at their expense, though under the names of 



