205 
State Convention—Gold as a Standard, Etc. 
10.5 per cent. Reducing all the values to a gold standard, I find 
that gold fluctuated in a single year nearly 58 per cent., while the 
fluctuations in the value of greenbacks tested by the same standard 
of general prices, was only 9.5 per cent., or less than one sixth of 
that of gold ! 
A more reliable illustration is found in the banker’s almanac for 
1875. In it is found a tabular list of the comparative prices of 
seventy-five staple articles in the New York market on the first day 
of May for fourteen successive years, 1862 to 1871. From the in¬ 
formation contained in this table and a table giving the monthly 
premium on gold during the same years, I have made some careful 
calculations, the results of which are embraced in the following 
table. It embraces in separate columns the rise and fall of the pre¬ 
miums on gold reckoned by the percentage on the premiums of 
each } r ear,* rise and fall of currency prices, the same of gold prices, 
(or prices reduced to the gold standard,) the fluctuation of currency 
values, and the fluctuations in the value of gold. The figures for 
the last two vears are taken from the New York Financial Review 
for 1876. 
Years. 
Premium 
on gold. 
Currency 
prices. 
Gold 
prices. 
Value of 
currency 
Value of 
gold. 
1863-4 . 
r 
20.00 
r 
34.00 
r 
28.00 
f 
25.00 
f 
22.00 
1864-5 . 
f 
40.58 
f 
2.00 
f 
14.70 
r 
2.00 
r 
17.60 
1865-6 . 
f 
9.15 
f 
16.70 
f 
14.00 
r 
20.00 
r 
17.00 
1866-7 . 
f 
3.50 
r 
1.60 
f 
0.09 
f 
1.40 
r 
1.00 
1867-8 . 
r 
7.50 
f 
3.60 
f 
2.10 
r 
3.70 
r 
2.10 
i868-9 . 
f 
1.25 
r 
12.70 
r 
11.00 
f 
11.25 
f 
9.87 
1869-70 . 
f 
63.00 
f 
11.20 
r 
5.60 
r 
13.00 
f 
4.75 
1870-1 . 
f 
20.50 
f 
7.22 
f 
8.58 
r 
7.80 
r 
9.27 
1871-2 . 
r 
14.00 
r 
6.10 
r 
8.68 
f 
5.67 
f 
8.00 
1872-3 . 
r 
33.00 
r 
8.40 
r 
4.00 
f 
7.75 
f 
3.75 
1873-4 . 
f 
23.50 
f 
42.60 
f 
40.80 
r 
73.00 
r 
69.00 
1874-5 . 
r 
21.20 
f 
10.18 
f 
11.85 
r 
11.12 
r 
12.12 
1875-6 . 
r 
4.40 
f 
0.72 
f 
1.15 
r 
0.72 
r 
1.16 
Average annual variate 
20.12 
12.08 
11.66 
14.80 
14.50 
The figures indicate the per cent.; f, fall; r, rise. 
* The percentage is not the numerical per cent, of the rise or fall but the percent¬ 
age on the premiums at the time from which the reckoning starts. Thus, if the pre¬ 
mium is 30 per cent, and then goes up to 40 per cent., the rise is not, 10 per cent, but 
33f 3 per cent. 
