The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-18 00:00:00

INTERNATIONAL COINAGE.

-7- 'GREAT

MATCH.

Under this title the Boston Daily Advertizer, of
the 3d inst., gives the following :
It has been whispered during the past month that
a twelve-mile walking match would come off during
Mr. Dickens's present visit to Boston, between an
English friend of his and a well-known Bostonian.
No one could tell precisely the day, and it was kept
very quiet till last Saturday morning, when rumour
got wind that some time during that day it would
come off. The great novelist, it is well known, it
a superb pedestrian, being good for thirty miles
"on end" any day. He has frequently during his
visit to America taken very long walks with his
friend, Mr. J. T. Fields, and the two, we understand,
accompanied several pedestrian feats together in
England. There is no healthier exercise than walk-
ing, and it was resolved that a pedestrian twelve-
mile contest should be tried on the mill-dam road
towards Newton, in which Mr. Dolby and Mr.
Osgood should be the principals, and Mr. Dickens
and Mr. Fields should be the umpires, the two latter
gentlemen also to walk the whole twelve miles with
their respective men. The articles, we understand,
were drawn up by the great author and subscribed
by all four of the gentlemen. Whoever had hap-
pened to be passing over the mill-dam on Saturday
last about twelve o'clock would have met walking
over the ground at a tremendous pace the four
pedestrians, appropriately costumed for the exer-
cise and the blustering state of the weather.
We have no particulars of the walk out and
in, but we learn that the first six miles were ac-
complished in one hour and twenty-three minutes,
and the return six miles were finished by Mr.
Osgood in one hour and twenty-five minutes, he
winning the match by exactly seven minutes. The
distance walked over we should judge to exceed
twelve miles, and it was pretty tall pedestrianism to
accomplish the whole in two hours and forty-eight
minutes. Both men, accompanied by the umpires,
walked the whole distance.
Mr. Dickens gave an elegant dinner at the Par-
ker House the same evening to signalise the occa-
sion, at which were present, we understand, some of
the leading literary men of our city and vicinity.
Several ladies graced the festival. Walking is a
manly and healthy exercise, and we hope this event
will do good, and send more people over our beau-
tiful roads on their own legs.
The competitors themselves write to the same
journal the subjoined :
A CARD.—To the Editor of the Transcript.—Within the
past few days our names have been brought somewhat
conspicuously before the public, in connection with what
is termed a "great pedestrian contest." On the principle
that whatever is worth chronicling at all is worth chroni-
cling correctly, and as all the printed accounts of the
" event" in question either exceed or fall short of the
truth, we take the liberty of stating the actual facts in
tho case.
The walking match between the two subscribers to this
letter had its origin in a bit of pleasantry several weeks
ago in the city of Philadelphia. From day to day since
it has been the theme of much good-natured "bounce be-
tween us, and has been looked forward to with no little
interest and amusement by us both. We have not, how-
ever, had the advantage of training for the walk, but
have pursued our usual avocations with our accustomed
regularity.
The match itself occurred on Saturday last, Feb. 29, at
noon. "The men" (to speak in sporting phrase) were
started from a point on the Milldam road about half a mile
this side the toll-house, the starters and umpires being Mr.
Charles Dickens and Mr James T. Fields. The course was
over the Milldam road to the village of New Centre, the dis-
tance beingsix and one-half miles out, and six and one-half
half miles bask. The time in which the walk was actually
accomplished was 2 hours 48 minutes, and the inward time
1 hour 25 minutes. The match was won by Mr. Osgood,
who came in precisely 7 minutes ahead.
May we be permitted to suggest to such of your readers
as may have aspirations for becoming suddenly famous
that they cannot find a surer or a harder road to glory than
the road to Newton Centre, with the snow a foot deep, as
was on Saturday.—We are, your obedient servants,
JAMES R. OSGOOD,
GEORGE DOLBY.
Boston, March 3, 1868.

(From the Anglo-Americxm Times.)
We give the following summary of the interesting
Report of Samuel B. Ruggles, delegate from the
United States to the Paris Exhibition, dated Paris,
November 7, 1867, which touches on the various
details of the plan upon, which the unification of
money is proposed to be carried out. The chief
points are five in numb er.
1. A single standard, exclusively of gold.
2. Coins of equal weight and diameter.
3. Of equal quality (or titre), nine-tenths fine.
4. The weight of Ole present five-franc gold
piece, 1,612.70 milligrams, to be the unit, with its
multiples. (The weight .of the present gold dollars
of the United States is :1,671.50 milligrams. The
value of the excess over the five-franc gold piece,
58.60 milligrams, slightly exceeds three and a half
cents. To encourage the reduction of the United
States half-eagle and of the British sovereign to the
value and weight of 25 Ecancs, the conference una-
nimously recommended the issue of a new coin cf
that weight and value by France and the other gold-
coining nations. The ;reduction in value of the
half-eagle would slightly exceed 17i cents. ; in the
sovereign four cents.)
5. The coins of each nation to continue to bear
the names and emblems; preferred by each, but to
be legal tenders, public and private, in all.
•

The conference invited the different nations to
answer by the 15th February. The aggregate po-
pulation interested, in Europe and America, a little
exceeds 320,000,000 ; the population of the depen-
dencies of these nations is estimated at 190,000,000.
There was no delegate from Australia, which was
the more striking, as news reached the conference
that measures were in progress at Peking for strik-
ing coins of the weight and value of 20 francs, five
francs, and one franc, bearing the head of the Ce-
lestial Emperor, assimilating the money of China to
that of Europe. The money of Japan somewhat
resembles that of France, particularly in a double
standard, under which the ratio of silver to gold is
fixed at 131 to 1. In ignorance that our value was
15 or 16 to 1, the Japanese had fixed the ratio at
4 to 1, which great exaggeration of silver they were
induced to continue by a treaty in 1858, under
which they were rapidly despoiled by European
traders ; but this was partially corrected in 1860,
when they raised the ratio to 131 to 1. Under the
91st section of the Act of Parliament, 29th March,
1867, the " Dominion" of Canada possesses the
sovereign, and " exclusive legislative authority" to
regulate its own " currency and coinage," but from
the interest manifested by Mr. Bouchette and other
Canadian officials, it is believed that the interna-
tional system will be readily agreed to in
Canada. It is worthy of note that in Persia the
standard of gold is .900 fine, the same as that
of the United States, while that of Turkey is .915
fine. The principal gold piece of Persia is worth
22.27 francs, that of Turkey 22.48 francs. Mr.
Ruggles suggests the desirability of inviting the
Spanish and Portuguese independent American
nations to join in the proposed plan of simplifying
the coinage of the world. M. Esquirou de Parieu,
Vice-President of the Council of State of France,
declares, in one of his essays, that " a monetary
union of Western Europe and the Transatlantic
nations would possess an incontestable importance.
Above all, it would produce a good moral effect ;"
and he adds, "The Americans can never regard
their dollar as a merely national coin, after having
borrowed it from their neighbouring Spanish colo-
nists." Spain itself borrowed the dollar from Aus-
tria during their union under the common empire
of Charles V. " Joachim's thaler," first coined in
the silver mines of the Bohemian valley of St.
Joachim or James, is the great ancestor of the
American dollar. The various doubloons of the
Central and South American nations, if measured
in weight and value to 100 francs, would become at
once equivalent to the double eagle, or twenty dol-
lars of the United States, or to four British sove-
reigns, when reduced as now proposed, and be cur-
rent without recoinage, brokerage, or other impedi-
ment throughout the world. This enlarged doubloon,
divided in halve 3 and quarters, would supply the
people of Spanish America with one convenient
coin, equivalent to fifty francs, or an eagle of the
United States, or two British sovereigns ; and
another coin equivalent to 25 francs, or an
United States half-eagle, or one British sove-
reign. Mexico has already a gold coin of 20
pesos, finely executed, and Peru a gold piece
of 20 soles each, nearly equivalent to the
gold in England,
fromof 1793 to 1851,
dForuanbleee,eaagnlde.thTehue
ntoitteadl csotiantaes7
was $984,000,000, being $180,000,000 by the United
States, $480,000,000 by Great Britain, and
$424,000,000 by France. The total for 15 years,
from 1851 to 1866 was $2,108,000,000 of which
$665,000,000 were by the United States,
$355,000,000 by Great Britain, and $987,000,000
by France. The amount of gold in circulation in
France, Belgium, and Italy is estimated at
$7,000,000,000 of francs, or $1,400,000,000. The
rest of Europe would probably carry the total to
$1,800,000,000. To suppose these nations would
recoin such an amount, merely to adopt the existing
coinage of the United States with only $300,000,000
outstanding, would be absurd. The coinage of
silver at the British Mint for the 10 years, from
1857 to 1866, both inclusive, was only £3,677,182,
or $18,385,910. In France during the reign of
the present Emperor, in the 15 years from 1851 to
1866, the silver coined was only 215,561,101 francs,
or $43,112,180. The silver coinage of France,
Great Britain, and the United States, from 1851 to
1866, was only $117,000,000, against a gold coinage
108,000,000. Fortunately
in the same period of $2,
for France, the surplus gold of the United States
was at hand to be recoined and steadily fill
the vacuum caused by the export of silver
from that country, which is said to have amounted
during the last 15 years to $750,000,000 to the
East Indies alone. The present heterogeneous con-
dition of the coinage of Europe was caused by the
downfall of the Rontan Empire. Augustus Cresar
suppressed the private coinage of the leading Roman
families, and checked the rude coinage of the
barbarous tribes of Britain, and all money remained
subject to the central authority till the final wreck
of the Roman Empire. On this event every petty
State, especially in Germany, exercised the sovereign
right of coining money. Before the extinction
of the Heptarchy similar powers were vested
in the Archbishops of Canterbury and York,
while France was annoyed for centuries with the
varying coinages, not only of petty feudal sove-
reigns, but of ecclesiastics of high and low degree.
The thirteen colonies which first occupied that por-
tion of the North American Continent called the
United States adopted the " pound" as their unit
of money. The twenty silver shillings which they
coined, being reduced in weight, were not equal to
the pound sterling of the parent country. In some
places the pound was not worth in silver more than
3 dollars and 33 cents, measured in the presen'
money of the United States ; in others
worth only two dollars and 50 cents ; but the a
tachment of the people to old habits induced them
to retain the subdivisions of shillings, pence, and
farthings. Several of the colonies coined silver
money, with small subdivisions in copper, till the
restoration of Charles 11. to the throne of England.
He issued an order, about 1660, strictly prohibiting
any further coinage by the colonies, as an usurpa-
tion of sovereign power. These coinages conse-
quently ceased, or greatly diminished, till the out-
break of the American Revolution in 1775, after
which various coins were issued by the several
" States" claiming to be sovereign, until the final
adoption of the dollar as the coin of the United
States.

The money pound of England is of French origin.
Charlemagne, in the year 800, sought to unify the
money of the Empire. With that view he ordai.
that the French livre, or pound weight of silver,
should constitute the monetary pound of money.
This livre, carried into England by William the
Conqueror, was imposed by him on the English
people. The "Tower pound," actually containing a
pound weight of siver, bears date of the Conquest,
1066. The money pound, however, has steadily
dwindled in weight, till now the 20s. into which
it is divided actually contains less than one-quar-
ter of a pound of pure silver, On the recognition

THE SUN, LONDW. WEDNESDAY EVEN:ENG, MARCH 18, 1868.

by El ngland in 1783 of the political independence of
the L united States their then existing political or-
ganize ttion " The Continental Congress of the
Confe-leration" thought proper to cast off the mone-
tary yoke of pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings.
On the 6th of Juiy, 1785, this Continental Con-
gress passed the memorable monetary ordinance,
reported by the " grand committee of thirteen, of
which Rufus Ring was a member." Not only did
it omit in any way to recognise the pound, but it
distinctly brought in and established the dollar as
the pertr.mnent unit of the United States. lts pre-

else weight was fired by a subsequent ordinance
passed Avgust 8, 1786, which further provided the
issue of a gold coin of 10 dollars to bear the im-

press of the eagle, which imperial emblem was se-

[ected in 1782 in view of the national sovereignty

then clearly discerned in the future. The ordinance
also expressly provided that the dollar should be
decimally divided. This monetary reform preceded

by at least six years the establishment of the
" metric system" of France, with the consequent

decimalization of its coin in 1792, under which the
ancient " livre" of Charlemagne, dwarfed and
shrunk in its career through the vicissitudes of ten
centuries, disappeared from the world. The Go-
vernment of the United States has constantly re-
commended the adoption of the metric system. By
an Act of Congress passed on the report of Mr.
Masson in the Representatives, and supported by

Mr. Sumner in the Senate, its use has been actually

Legalized through the American Union. But it will re-
. _

main on record that the first step for decimalizing the
money of the world was taken by the Republic
when just emerging from its cradle. A further and
more comprehensive measure was adopted in 1789,
in substituting for a loose political confederation, a
nation, with a Government having common sove-

reignty over the States and the peoples then united,
with the exclusive power to establish a uniform coinage
for the whole. The monetary clause in the Na-
tional Constitution is condensed in these words—
"No State shall coin money"—thus firmly estab-
lishing the monetary sovereignty of the Continental
Republic from ocean to ocean. Napoleon declared

that what Europe most needed was " a common
law, a common measure, and a common money ;"
and this is true for all nations. John Quincy Adams
in 1821 submitted to the Congress of the United
States his celebrated report pointing out the advan-

tages of a common measure and a common money
"to overspread the globe from the equator to the
poles." He said that this could only be accom-
plished "by a general convention of nations, to
which the world shall be parties, and in which the

energies of opinion must precede those of legisla-
tion." At an International Statistical Congress,
held at Berlin, September, 1863, composed of re-
presentatives from Governments, a report was pre-
sented by a committee of delegates from 14 nations
mainly prepared by Mr. Samuel Brown and Profes
sor Leone Levi, of. London, which recommended the
decimalization of the pound sterling, but proposed
to retain the pound itself a 9 the monetary unit ; and
further that "in respect to silver coins, the dollar
reduced in value to 5 francs, the florin made equal
in value to two and one-half francs, and the franc
itself should also be retained as unites ; and that
all of them should be decimally divided. Many Eng-
lish merchants and bankers, especially the late Sir
William Brown, of Liverpool, have for several
years advocated the decimalization of the pound
sterling. When this report was presented at Berlin
Mr. Ruggles objected to the adoption of the four
units, chiefly on the ground that it would tend to
preserve the double standard of gold and silver, and
prolong the vain attempt to fix by legislative enact-
ment the values of two metals, in their nature mut-
able, and governed only by the law of demand and
supply. In the course of the discussion Dr. Farr,
Registrar-General of the United Kingdom, sug-
gested that the gold dollar of the United States
should be made equal to one-fifth the British sove-
reign ; to which it was answered, on behalf of the
United States, that both the British sovereign and
the United States half-eagle of five dollars should
be reduced to the value of 25 francs, and thus unify
at once the gold coinage of the three nations. The
Congress adjourned without deciding the question,
on account of the difference of opinion on this point
between the delegates of Great Britain and those
of the United States of other nations. Chief
Justice Chase, when Secretary of the Treasury,
proposed, in his annual report to Congress, 1862,
to unify the coinage of the English races by reduc-
ing the value of the half-eagle of the United States
to that of the Britsh sovereign, which would have
required a reduction of 13i cents in the half-
eagle.

On the 23d of December, 1865, the Govern
ments of France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy
made the quadripartite monetary treaty ; and
after earnest discussion, a denomination or unit
equivalent to and equiponderant with the ex-
isting gold 5-franc coin of France was adopted by
13 yeas voting in its favour, and 2 (Great Britain
and Sweden) in favour of a unit of 10 francs. The
publication at Paris of the letter of the Hon. John
Sherman, Senator from Ohio, materially advanced
the interests of monetary unification. In it he
said :—" As the gold five-franc piece is now in use
by over sixty millions of people of several different
nationalities, and is of convenient form and size, it
may well be adopted by other nations as the com-
mon standard of value, leaving to each nation to
,egulate the divisions of this unit in silver coin or
tokens. If this is done, France will surely abandon
the impossible effort of making two standards of
value. Gold coins will answer all the purposes of
European commerce. A common gold standard
will regulate silver coinage. In England many
persons of influence and different Chambers are
earnestly in favour of the proposed change in
the coinage. The change is so slight with them
that an enlightened self-interest will soon in-
duce them to make it ; especially if we make
the greater change in our coinage. We can
easily adjust the reduction with the public
creditors in the payment or conversion of their
securities, while private creditors might be autho-
rised to recover upon the old standard." No prac-
tical inconvenience was experienced from the Act
of Congress of 1834, which reduced the weight of
the gold dollar more than five per cent. The Con-
ference do not propose to abandon the use iu any
way of the word " dollar," or " sovereign," or
" thaler," or "florin," or " rouble," or in any way
to substitute " franc" for them, but every nation
will continue to use the names with the local
emblems it may prefer. The proposed gold coin,
with its reverse inscribed " Or Essai Monetaire,"
encircling "25 francs, 10 florins, 1867," has been
already struck by order of the Government of
France. A similar gold piece has been struck, in-
scribed on its reverse, "5 dollars, 25 francs, 1867,"
and a specimen was forwarded to the President, to thd
Secretary of State, to the Secretary of the Treasury
of the United States, and a fourth to Mr. Ruggles
himself. The diameter of this international coin
is c 4 millimetres, and a little more than the present
half eagle of the United States and of the sovereign
of Great Britain, while the medallion of the Em-
peror, in bold relief ou the face of the coin issued by
France, distinguishes it at once from the ordinary
" Napoleon" of 20 francs, which is only 24 milli-
metres in diameter. The counterpart, when issued
by the United States, will doubtless bear the
national monetary motto—" In God we trust."
Mr. Ruggles concludes his report with these
words :—" Should the present effort of the nations
of the earth to unify their coin be crowned with
success, this specimen medal, the first-born off-
spring of the International Monetary Conference,
bearing its conjoint inscription of dollars and
francs,' with its millesime' or date of iSEUC, will
possess an enduring historic value, in recording the
commencement of the new monetary era with the
precious and indissoluble union of the coinage of
the Eastern and the Western Continents."
ed

The clothes of Mrs. Kofti, an American lady, of
the wealthy family of Thorndelle, of Boston, took fire from
ether, which she was taking for asthma. This was on the
22d of February last. Her husband came into the room
while her dress was burning, and put out the fire before
she had suffered much injury ; but Mrs. Kofti became so
frightened that an attack of apoplexy came on, and she
died almost instantly. Mrs. Kofti married a German profes-
sor at Hamburgh les Bains fur her second husband. Sho
was a very estimable woman, and her loss is greatly re-
gretted at Dresden among the American circle there. She
is a sister of Madame Sartigues, wife of M. Sartigues,
formerly Spanish Minister to WashiVon,