The Express.
London, England, 1853-03-18 00:00:00

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TO CORRESPONDRNTS.
mooed Edith. et ne Express; examining tee sem eyealees
°mew; is pubiLlied every Teemley awl Malay eight, to tine
ler poet.
tenuonteste Wended lor " The lizprow," Lem los Moslem, riper,
awn be et the (Ake. er, boovezirstreet, hf Two o'oinek on the
tel of psblieettes.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
bus Da?—Morning, 71i. 414
• Aftersoes. Ti. Ws.

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LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 18.

THE CuANCZLLOR of the EXCHEQUER is a scholar,
and is interested, without doubt, in the past history,
as well as in the present practice, of his office. He
has, in all probability, many a curious talc to tell of
the primitive bungling which characterised the
keeping of the national aces•unts in the olden time.
He can amuse his hearers with pleasant anecdotes
of the days when tallies were kept instead
of books, and when the bold Barons of the
Exchequer sat at chequered tables ruefully en-
gaged in the arduous task of adding and
subtracting by means of counters. Mr. GLADSTONE
bee Wary reason to congratulate modern tax-payers
fkat we manage these things differently now, and
that although his books may not satisfy the standard
by which Mr. Male would judge them, they show
that in this matter of account keeping we are im-
measurably above our ancestors. But while taking
smith for so much that has been done by his prede-
cessors, why will not 51r. GLADSTONE open his official
eyes to the fact that he has before him one of the
finest opportunities ever offered to a Chancellor of
' the Exchequer for easily winning reputa-
tion for himself? By a stroke or two of
the pen, and a few mellifluous sentences
in the House of Commons, he may achieve
a Ministerial immortality. Let him reform our
coinage by the introduction of a decimal system, and
if he goes out of office the next day we will warrant
him a harvest of tame which shall be the envy of a
mob of ex-Chaneellors, who merely stumbled into an
unpleasant notoriety by bungling over a bad Budget.
Our system of coinage is simply a disgrace to the
nation. Its absurdities are not to be equalled in
any civilised country under the sun. Ask the
lowest poiaaarde in the Marche des Innocens
in Paris " how many francs are there in 1,525
centimes?" and she will answer without a
thought 15 francs 23 centimes, or 15 francs
and a quarter. The number itself gives her the
answer. Ask the most scientific Chancellor of the
Exchequer that ever constructed a Budget " how
many shillings are there in 1,325 farthings," and he
will, unless originally a " calculating boy," be
obliged to call in aid pencil and paper, and go
through a couple of divisions before he could tell you
that the amount was 31 shillings and nine pence
farthing. In the same manner a Yankee boy of 10
years of age would tell you in an instant that 1,525
cents. are 13 dollars 23 cents., while an accomplished
arithmetician in England would occupy a couple of
lines of calculation in discovering how many pounds
there were in 1,525 pence.
We do not press this reform upon the Govern-
ment, however, merely as being requisite to relieve
us from a national disgrace. The French, i' s true,
have been in the possession of a perfect decimal sys-
tem of coinage, weights, and measures, for half a
century ; and the United States are not behind our
European rivals, but "let bygones be bygones."
We are a slow people, and can walk longer in a
tight shoe than more lively nations, who have
more delicate susceptibilities on the subject of
pinching. All that wo care about now is,
that as we have found out the evil we
should have the cure applied as soon as possible.
The great argument in favour of a speedy reform is
the nee with which it could be effected. There
are a multitude of plans for the alteration of the
coinage, and all of them are good, all are easy. The
Council of the Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool
would call in our present copper coin and replace
it with a new coinage. The coin of the lowest value
they would call a cent., and 1,000 of these would go
to the pound. The new penny would contain five of
these cents. It will be observed that our present
three-penny and four-penny pieces., which the
Council do not wish to disturb, would represent
values of 12; and 161 cents. The Council, however,
do not consider this as presenting any serious
obstacle to the retention in circulation of the coins in
question, as no practical difficulty has been found in
the United States by having in circulation 61 and
121 cent pieces.
We can hardly think that the difficulty with
=to the three-penny and four-penny pieces
be got over so easily, although we should
be well Motent to see the experiment
OWL We do not, however, consider the
=seiner so much in the way as the
am OMs. The plan which wo have recom-
meadadlisfere la these columns is to recognise the
division at the sovereign into 1,000 parts, called cents.
Beane. is mind that ultimately the copper coinage
should called in, we might let the farthing for
the time represent a cent., the difference between the
valise of the two being only 1-1200th part of a shil-
ling. The only new silver coin we should require
would be one of the vales of one-tenth
of a florin, or two-pence mid two-fifths.
The coins that would then enter into our system of
book-keeping would be four—sovereigns, fiorMs,
" tenths, and sent*. The other coins would be used
only in exchange. The Liverpool Council recom-
mend three only—sovereigns, florins, and cents.
The objection to this is, that you sacrifice
one of the great objects you wish to ob-
tain, namely a uniform system of multipliers
or divisors, ten being that used between
sovereigns and florins, and one hundred between
florins and cents. In the Liverpool system, while
you could in no case have more than one figure to
represent florins, you might have two to represent
cents. In our system you can only have one figure
in each of the denominations below sovereigns. In
the former case you leave an opening for a bungling
accountant to make a mistake. In the latter
a mistake is almost impossible. For ex-
ample : suppose a dull boy were told to
write down ono sovereign, one florin, and
one cent. in the system which admits of three coins
only. He would probably write 111 instead of
1101. In the system of four coins, he would know
that the number of sovereigns must precede three
figures, and ho would naturally be led to put a
cypher in the place where the " tenths "—of which
there are none in the present instance—ought to
come.

It is not our business, however, to recommend a
specific plan. All that we wish to see is an intention
on the part of the CHANCELLOR to adopt some sys-
tem of decimal coinage or other. The commerce
of England is on the point of indefinite extension.
Her coins are now current over a greater surface of
the world than those of any other nation. They are
used as instruments of exchange to • far larger ex-
tent than those of any other country. Let not each
coin that passes through the hands of a foreigner
bring to his mind the feet that, in this one subject
of currency, we are behind the rest of the world.
I Let Mr. GIADSTONE take the matter boldly in hand
—let the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, and all
other Chambers of Commerce, assist him in the task
of decimal coinage, and he and they will earn golden
opinions from all classes of men.

IMPERIAL TArre.—A Frankfort journal states that
it is able to communicate the interesting fact that General
O'Donnell has received from the Archduchess Sophia, in
memorial of the service he rendered the Emperor on the
18th ult., a gold ring with • large turquoise. Under the
stone are severs] hairs of the Emperor, clotted with the im-
perial blood
GAROTTING IN GLAM.:I/W.—As a gentleman was
returning home; on Friday evening, about ten o'clock,
and had crossed the ferry at Clyde-street, he was accosted
by three men dressed as sailors, who appeared tipsy and
anxious to fasten • qearrel upon him. Wishing to avoid
them, he turned up Washington-street and walked quietly
away, but had not proceeded tar when he felt himself
wised by the neck from behind, and dragged into a close,
where he was knocked down, robbed of his watch, hand-
kerchief, sod other contents of his pockets, and brutally
kicked in the face till he fainted. On recovering he found
himself lying in a pool of blood, with one of his hands in-
jured ea it trodden on, his nose laid open, and his face much
bruised ; sad it was with much difficulty be was enabled to
reach his home in Hope-street, where he had immediately
to he put to bed, and still lies seriously ill from the injuries
inflieted.—North British Daily Mail.