The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1878-02-13
ALL ABOUT MONEY.
An Interesting Account OF the Instruments
of Bnrter and Exchange From tho |
Earliest Time.

An Interesting Account OF the Instrument
of Burter and Exchange From thu
Earliest Time.
Skins of wild animals cured constitute
one of the earliest forms of currency
known, and while employed in the most
ancient times, are not disused in some
portions of the world. Such medium
seems appropriate among those who
subsist by the chase, as all primeva
peoples must in some degree, and it If
not. therefore, surprising to find in the
transactions Of the Hudson Bay Com
pany with the Indians the unit Of value
by which the price Of other articles il
reckoned is the beaver skin. Pastoral
people employ similarly the skins oi
tame animals, originally delivering the
entire skin, a cumbrous process, de.
fcient in conveyance and economy. but
finally employing small disk cut from
the leather as a representative Of its
value. Live stock is also widely en-
ployed, as it has been from the days OF
Abraham, and though a rude, it is sub
stantially uniform, denomination of value.
The Greeks stamped the image Of an OK
on piece of leather, and the image had
thence the current value OF the animal
represented. In the East, the camel,
the ass and the sheep have been, ever
since they were subdued to the uses OF
mankind, employed to reckon posses
sions or determine the amount of tri-
butte or marriage portions. In Lapland
and some portions of Sweden and Nor.
way the amount of wealth possessed by
q person is denominated in reindeer.
Among the Tartars the number of mares
similarly determines the opulence OF
their possessors. Among the Esqui-
maux it is customary to speak of one
another as worth so many dogs.
Slaves have been employed to deter
mine ratios of value since the state Of
bondage was first established among
men. In New Guinea the slave is still
the unit by which the value OF other
possessions is recorded, ss he used to be
among the Portuguese traders OF the
Gold Coast. Among barbarous tribes,
we may conjecture that their earliest
commercial essays would be in the ex-
change of fruits, nuts and such simple
and primitive articles as they were able
to manufacture. One would exchange
cocoa-nuts for stone pestle; another a
rudely-woven mat for bunch OF feath-
ers. After q time some article would
naturally be found more convenient than
others. and would thus be employed as q
common standard and instrument OF
interchange. The Portuguese found
small mats called ibongoes, valued at
about one and half pence each, en-
ployed as currency on the African coast,
and punches Of red feathers serve by
their comparative stability to mark the
fluctuations of yams and breech- -clouts
in some of the tropical islands OF the
Pacific. Some tribes of North American
Indians found wampun as useful IN their
rather limited mercantile transactions as
the merchant of South street or Burling
slips finds greenbacks or bills OF ex-
change. Cowry shells are still exten.
sively used in East India, Siam and
among some OF the islands Of the Indian
Archipelago. Among the Fijians whales
teeth pass readily from hand to hand,
effecting all necessary intercan ges, the
red teeth being taken at about twenty
times the value of the white ones.
Ornaments of all kinds have in all
times constituted measures OF value, In
Egypt, Penicia, Etruria, and many 9TH
er ancient countries, as we'll as in Ire
land and Northumbria, rings have been
found which were designed to serve the
double purpose of ornament and cur
rency, and the same dual function may
be ascribed to the anklets, afmlets, and
earrings which are worn throug hout
British India, Persia, Egypt, and Abys.
sinia. The Goths and Celts fashioned
their rings of thick golden wire wound
in spirals, from. which various lengths
could be broken to accommodate the
varying needs of traffic. Gold chains
have been similarly employed. In many
countries golden heads are yet boarded,
worn, and circulated, fulfilling thus the
triple functions of money, inasmuch as
they constitute at once store OF value,
standard of value, and an instrument
of exchange. Amber was used as cur
rency by the savage races OF the Baltic
in the period of the Roman dominion,
as 1t still is in some of the regions OF the
East. The Egyptian scarabee carved on
sard or nephrite or other precious stones,
circulated freely throug hout the Medl-
terranean coasts and islands probably
before the first Phenician coin was i'm
pressed, and engraved gems and precl'
ous stones were employed to transfer
wealth as well from one country to
another as from hand to hand until q
comparatively recent period. In Africa
ivory tusks pass to and fro in the pro-
cesses of trade, rudely defining the ratio
of value of other articles. Among the
Tartars, bricks Of tea, or cubes OF that
herb pressed into O solid form, pass
from hand to hand as freely as beaver
skins. do at the trading posts of Hudson
Bay or the Saskatchewan. Among the
Mala9asans the only currency entirely
equal to the requirements of trade con-
sists of rough hardware, such as hoes,
shovels, and the like. Prices of cotton
cloth of a fixed length, called Guinea
cloth, for long time constituted the
unit of value in Senegal, Abyssinia,
Mexico, Peru, Siberia: and some OF the
islands of the Pacific ocean. In .Su-
matra, cubes of bees-wax of fixed
weight; in Scotland, handmade nails; in
Switzerland, eggs; in Newfoundland,
dried Goldfish; in Virginia, tobacco; in
Yucatan, cacao nuts; in the Greek
islands and the Levant, olive-oil; in the
regions of the Upper Nile, salt, have
all, at one time or another, served the
purposes of commercial interchange. In
agricultural countries it is not strange
that corn should have early been adopted
as measure of value. The leases OF
the great school foundations of Britian,
Cambridge, Oxford, and Eaton, with
probably many others, were "corn
leases" that is, specifying that the
rental should consist Of so many quar-.
ters of corn. Compared with gold, that
product has steadily advanced in value
for centuries, so that the schools have
been the gamer by the wisdom of their
founders. In Norway, corn is deposited
in banks and lent and borrowed on
time or call loans, as money is with us.
In Central America and Mexico maize
was long employed to serve the use of
currency.
Lycurgus established an iron coinage
for Lacedemon, not only making the
coins of such weight and bulk as to for.
bid their export, but deprive them of
their metallic value by causing them,