254 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1856. believed our present system to be better than a decimal 

 one: 



If this school be a logical one, it ought to be prepared to 

 maintain that a country with a decimal system already established 

 ought to abandon its coinage, and to introduce the succession of 

 4, 12, 20. This is a conclusion at which all parties would have 

 laughed three years ago, and at which those who are to come 

 after us will well laugh when the objections to this salutary 

 reform are written down in histories after the happy, and we 

 hope speedy completion of the change. 



It is now 1882, and our reckonings and payments are 

 still made in pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings. 



Let me add one argument, which I have never seen 

 used, in favour of decimals. It touches the morality 

 of the question. Small shopkeepers, especially haber- 

 dashers, find the full benefit of the present system by the 

 use they make of farthings, and the difficulty of bringing 

 them fairly into the calculation. At this time articles in 

 small retail shops are often priced %d. less than an even 

 sum of pence. The result is that to persons unaccus- 

 tomed to reckoning they appear cheap, while in reality 

 the impossibility of halving and quartering farthings in 

 accounts where farthings are of frequent occurrence gives 

 a gain over the professed prices of some halfpence on every 

 bill. The shopman cannot be expected to do a difficult 

 sum in small fractions for every customer, and each cus- 

 tomer loses very little, but where these customers in each 

 day count by hundreds, as in many of the large retail 

 ready-money shops, the gains in this way must be con- 

 siderable, as those who understand business well know. 



The Commission sat through the years 1857, 1858, 

 and 1859. From resolutions passed on March 1, 1859, it 

 appears that nothing had been ascertained which ren- 

 dered the change desirable ; that while the weights and 

 measures remain as at present the coin could not be 

 touched ; and as the weights and measures could not be 

 interfered with, the coin must be left alone. These, in 



