'JO 



Coin and Currency in [No. 9, new series. 



bear a uniform and established value. In the case of a metallic 

 currency two essentials are requisite — each piece must be of a cer- 

 tain proper weight and a certain proper fineness. The coin should, 

 if possible, bear upon it some mark significant of its fulfilment of 

 these two conditions. This mark a Mint supplies, as far as the 

 thing can be done. Let a piece of money bear upon its obverse, 

 reverse, and edges evidence of having being struck at some known 

 mint, the degree of probability of its genuineness — that is, of its 

 really containing the amount of metal of proper purity which its 

 denomination professes — depends upon the degree of clearness of 

 that evidence combined with the degree of confidence reposed in 

 the good faith of the managers of the mint. 



The weight of a fragment of metal may be ascertained by most 

 people with a little trouble : but how great a loss of labor and 

 time would result from having to weigh every piece of money 

 tendered in payment, in the intercourse of modern commercial 

 and social life, is obvious. In England even now, the fact of 

 gold coin being payable by weight not tale is productive of con- 

 siderable inconvenience. But the ascertainment of the degree of 

 fineness of any tendered coin is altogether beyond the reach of the 

 great majority of mankind. Few possess either the chemical know- 

 ledge or the chemical skill necessary for " assaying." The evi- 

 dence afforded by color, lustre, hardness, and " ring" — the only 

 evidence within reach of the unscientific investigator — goes but a 

 little way. For this purpose an establishment of known respecta- 

 bility and unsuspected honesty was necessary ; and these condi- 

 tions seemed best fulfilled by assigning the management or super- 

 intendence of the coinage to the State. Confidence in the ruling 

 power in this respect has often been grievously misplaced, as we 

 shall see ; but on the whole the arrangement appears the best that 

 can be adopted, and is in modern times the only one. 



I need scarcely observe upon the importance of securing the 

 utmost possible genuineness in a country's currency. The Athe- 

 nians, from whose institutions the Roman jurisprudence was copied, 

 and on which, through the Romans, much of our own and the 

 Continental law is based, punished adulteration of the coinage 

 with death. Until recently in England " coining" and forgery 



