lings and their money were locked upon with the greatest confidence, and there was a corresponding desire to trade with them. I have said that the term Easterling was applied to traders from the shores of the Baltic, but as there were traders from the western shores of that sea to England, and especially from Gothland, the term Easterling was especially applied to those coming from the eastern shores of that sea. This word sterling came into use in the manner now explained, but its history does not end here. The adoption or selection of a sterling coin involves the employment of means for the rejection or depreciation of coins of a lower standard. The English Crown, as representing the merchants and the interests of trade, upheld this sterling coin, and so great was its importance regarded that ultimately the king established exchanges and by Acts of Parliament and proclamations it was ordered that all foreigners coming to England to trade should convert their money into sterling coin at the king's exchanges. The king's exchange of course led to the adoption of the term "Royal Exchange," and all money brought here by foreigners was converted into sterling money at a given rate and a given scale; and I need hardly say that some of the early kings of England realised a very large profit by the transaction. Then a difficulty arose with regard to shutting out other money, and that was remedied in some part by the establishment of a king's exchange at Dover. All persons who came from the continent to trade with England were bound by proclamation to land at Dover, and they were searched and had to deliver up the coins and exchange them for sterling coins, being allowed to trade with only sterling money. When they retired from trade, if they had any balance, they were again obliged to go to the king's exchange and change any money they had over of the king's money, for the English sterling money was not allowed to be exported. This led to some conflict with the Pope's money changers, who remitted the Papal revenues from England; but this is too long a story to enter upon now. There are some other points in the paper that I should like to refer to, one as to tokens. They have a very special reference to old London Bridge. I believe every tradesman of London Bridge some two or three centuries ago issued tokens, and persons passing over the bridge usually went into the shop and bought some small article as much in view of the tokens as of the article purchased. The amount of profit that was made by the tokens so issued was probably as much or more than that made by legitimate trading, and when a complete history of old London Bridge comes to be written one of the great features will be an account of these tokens.

Mr. BASTABLE: Some allusion has been made to the coinage of gun metal, and to the patent given to a man named Wood to coin copper into halfpence, which were forced into circulation in Ireland. I have read very contradictory opinions as to this transaction.

Mr. Froude in his history of the English in Ireland exposes the matter rather fully; but it is stated in other works that the Irish wanted the halfpence, and that there was no grievance worth mentioning.

Mr. ROWLAND HAMILTON: I would offer one remark as to the diminution in the weight of onr currency. We cannot doubt that the degradation of the Scotch pound and the French livre was due to the gross abuse of the coinage; but there was another cause at work, namely, the fluctuations in the value of the precious metals themselves. I doubt whether there are many trustworthy data by which to measure the effects of the alleged scarcity in early days, but this fact must be carefully considered in forming any estimate as to changes in the value of money. We have fallen into the habit recently of looking too exclusively to the larger and more recent sources of supply; but we should remember there have been very old sources, such as that alluded to as giving the name to the "guinea." Africa has for many ages afforded a steady supply of gold.

Mr. BILLINGHURST: Reference has been made in the paper to the great scarcity of copper coinage at one period in this country, until just the end of last century. At the present moment in some of our largest colonies the same scarcity exists. When colonists come over here they do not understand the use of our pence, as they have apparently no coins below the silver coin of 3d, and 4d. I presume this arises from the fact that the cost of importing copper coins would have to be borne by the banks. One can scarcely understand how they carry on the ordinary operations of life without copper coinage, because, as far as I know, they do not use tokens.

A MEMBER replied that in Australia tokens were coined.

Mr. J. B. MARTIN: In regard to the Scotch pound I think there is a well known Scotch song (" Robin Gray ") which records how "to make the crown a pound my Jamie ga'ed to sea," but that song was detected as a forgery by an English hand, because it was obvious to every Scotchman that the crown was worth more than the pound, and that therefore the financial operation would not be a paying one. One point of great interest arises out of this paper, and that is the question of small change. Whether a penny was habitually chopped into four pieces, as Dr. Evans thinks, is a question on which I will not express an opinion; but if you could buy a sheep in the time of Athelstan for a shilling, how would you pay for a mutton chop? It has been pointed out that the cross plays an important part in the coinage; no doubt the Church did get hold of money to a considerable extent. Abbey tokens, as everybody knows, are small metal pieces that are dug up in every field, and it may be supposed that to a great extent they did pass as small change. Thence may have arisen the tradesmen's metal

tokens of which we have heard. I don't think that in England we ever had a minute paper currency such as exists in some parts of Europe now. A few years ago in Austria they had little bank notes of twopence each, and it was natural to tear them in half to pay a penny. Dr. Evans has mentioned one instance of the manner in which history repeats itself that is remarkable: he quotes from Evelyn that taverns issued tokens which only passed current in the next street or two. Almost word for word the same language is used in a yellow book issued by the Italian Government for 1877 which gives the history of the withdrawal of the "illegitimate" issue of paper currency, and an account of paper money which only circulated within the doors of the particular café by which it was issued. All this shows the difficulty that must exist in any country where the fact is not recognised that small change is a real necessity, and that if the Government does not provide it, the people themselves will provide it in some shape or other which may ultimately be detrimental to the country.

Dr. EVANS, in reply: First, in regard to what fell from Mr. Blades as to the inconvenience of cutting coins into pieces, no doubt such angular fragments were inconvenient; still, in some of the early hoards of coins we find the pennies cut into halves and quarters, which certainly is a rather striking argument in favour of their being actually used in the currency. Where you find a double cross with a groove running along the cross, and you also find that coins, having such a double cross, have been cut along the groove, you have additional and fair ground for supposing that what was intended was that the coin should be cut into two or four pieces. The portrait of the Duchess of Richmond was not on the penny of 1797, but on the halfpenny of Charles II., in 1673. The authority for it is contemporary, being John Evelyn, so that it is fairly good. With regard to the gun-money, and various other points it seemed to me, if once I adverted to all the circumstances connected with the history of the coinage in Ireland to the present day, I might detain this meeting till to-morrow morning, and then be left speaking. The gun-money was simply money of necessity, the same as was frequently struck during sieges of various towns and under circumstances of difficulty, when even leather and card money was produced; but no doubt the effects in Ireland were very disastrous, as Mr. Blades has pointed out. In regard to the remarks of Dr. Bithell, I am sorry 1 have not gone into the question of the origin of the term libra, as meaning "pound." It was an omission on my part, no doubt, that I did not make some allusion to the two cross strokes across the £, but Dr. Bithell has no doubt correctly pointed out that it originated in the small s, for sterling, being placed across the £. As to the English shilling and the Jewish shekel, I may observe that the only Jewish shekels ever

coined were struck under the Maccabees in the second century B.C., with the exception of a few struck during the revolt of the Jews against Rome in the second century A.D. There was no other Jewish coinage of shekels, for the Jews, as a rule, employed the coins of the neighbouring countries. Mr. Walford has alluded to that interesting question of the Easterlings, and he has probably studied that question more than I have myself. He thinks that it is derived from the trading monks from the Baltic, but when we come to apply that theory to our own sterling coinage it would involve those trading monks in having had a coinage of their own. [Mr. WALFORD: They did, and brought it with them.] I do not find any of their coins in England, and there are none known. The only country from which they could bring the coins-the eastern coast of the Baltic-practically had very little coinage indeed. No doubt a great many of these Arabian or Cufic pieces came at a time when the course of commerce ran very much overland rather than by sea, and the merchants very likely brought over with them a certain amount of old silver, taken away by the Danish pirates in former times. As to any Easterling coinage being struck by the inhabitants on the shores of the Baltic and brought over here, I can only say I have not met with any specimens of it. The exchange of money, as Mr. Walford has pointed out, was a source of no small profit to the king, but one of the objects of insisting on all coins being brought and examined at these exchanges, and being exchanged, was this-that when once the sterling coinage was established there were imitations all over the neighbouring countries, especially Luxembourg and Flanders, but more particularly Flanders, and there they struck imitations of English coins, even with the name of Edward upon them, though with the name of the towns where they were struck. There are extant proclamations of Edward III. prohibiting, under heavy penalties, the introduction of these Luxembourg and Flemish pieces. As to the question in regard to Wood's patent, it had been a habit, even in the time of James I., to grant patents for the coinage of tokens. This patent granted to Wood was for the coinage of the halfpenny for Ireland, and it does not seem so extremely objectionable, inasmuch as the weight of the metal was very fair. It was not quite of the value of a halfpenny, but the coins were very fairly struck. The patent incurred the displeasure of Dean Swift, a great authority in those days; and if they were not well received in Ireland they gave occasion to those Drapier's Letters which have added to Swift's reputation for ability. As to the depreciation of the currency being due to the scarcity of gold, it must be borne in mind that the basis of the currency was formerly silver, and though a scarcity of silver might lead to a reduction in the weight of the silver penny, it did not always follow that the diminution of the weight was owing

to the scarcity of the metal, because, on the discovery of America a large amount of silver was imported to Europe, but it was precisely 50 years after the discovery of America that our coinage sank to its lowest point, and the coinage was called in, or received by way of taxation, and a more debased and lighter coinage was issued in its stead; therefore, though there was diminution in the value of the silver penny the coin became current at a higher value. I don't, therefore, think the diminution in weight was so much owing to a scarcity of the metal as to the natural instincts of most people in high positions to get money honestly if they could, but at all events to acquire money. The scarcity of copper in our colonies has been met to some extent by the issue of local tokens. With respect to the Abbey tokens mentioned by Mr. Martin, they are not, strictly speaking, but were properly counters. In the good old days, before the Arabic numerals were introduced, there was a great difficulty in keeping accounts in Roman numerals. If you take MDCCXIIIX, and try to multiply by XCLVI, it is not an operation easily performed. But if you have counters, one representing 5 and another 10, and so on, you can work accounts in that manner; and it was for that purpose that these pieces which resembled coins in most respects were used. You will find that in old accounts, for greater convenience, they speak of five score, and four score, because they had a separate counter for every score. It would take a whole evening to go into the history of the Abacus and show the superiority of the Arabic numerals over the Roman numbers. As to paper currency, in early times, when copper tokens were issued, at the end of last century and beginning of this, there were a great many small notes issued, and I have seen English notes of the amount of 2d. issued in the eastern counties, where there was a scarcity of small exchange.