Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-11-06
A TRAVELLERS TRIALS
What One Sees Who Goes Awa>
From Home.
EXCHANGING AMERICAN MONEY
The Reason Why People Spend More
Money In London than They Do on
the Continent.

eho Suhaluer hb Now Ork ne nDuS all
prices set down i'll pounds. shillings
and pence.
One of the first things for him to
do is to go to the purser and exchange
his American money for English
"quids' and boobs." Having parted
with his American currency and silver
it is probable that he will not handle
any again until the returning steamer
draws near Sandy Hook. and the oblig-
ing purser gathers up whatever small
change the traveller neglected to spend
in Europe and gives back the equi va
lent in So bills and nickels.
1t is always interesting to see the
embarked traveller get his first handful
of English money.
Suppose it be in the smoking room,
the traveller having taken bottle of Bel.
fast ginger ale in order to warm up and
reassure stomach that is none too
courageous.
He gives the waiter an English SOW
ereign. which, he has reason to believe,
is worth about IS.
The waiter returns, with number of
assorted coins. which the traveller rum
images about in the palm OF his hand
and attempts count.
The gold half-sovereign he computes
as being worth 80. 90.
The silver pieces are not 80 easy.
There are three about the size of half
dollars, but one of them is slightly
smaller than the others. There are
two one-shilling pieces and sixpenoe.
lie roughly estimates the total value
at $4.6O and believes the waiter has
taken advantage Of his ignorance The
waiter usually comes to the rescue.
You give me SOW v'reign." says he.
1.-The gold piece is ten shillings, the
two half-crowns are five more-that's 8
fifteen; the two.shilling piece makes
seventeen, the two one-shilling pieces
make nineteen. and the sixpenoe is
nineteen and SIX
The chances are that this lucid ex-
planation does not help the new trav-
eler.
He wants to reduce everything to
dollars and cents. He wants to count
the shillings as quarters, but this won't
do, because a sovereign last summer
was not IS. 1t was about $4.90.
The half-crown piece would be SO u
cents and any count would result in
broken fractions.
For the last few days he takes it for
granted that he is receiving the CO.. rect
change.
Then it dawns upon him that he. e..can
get along by simply remembering that
~ pence make shilling, shillings
make crown and 30 shillings make
sovereign.
But he still must learn to distinguish
at sight between form, a 2-shilling
piece and the half.crown, worth two
and-six.
He comes to learn that there is A..
shilling piece which he is liable to
mistake for crown or 5 shillings.
The guinea. or 81 shillings, although
used in calculations is not represented
by any coin, and he may never come to
learn its exact usefulness in the world.
There were some men coming home
on board the Luoania who had been in
England for weeks without learning
the coins.
When one of these men paid for a
cigar he would ask the waiter "Is
this a 2-shilling piece or a half.
CROWN"
The English money is a puzzle to
any one who has become accustomed to
the decimal system. An American
learning to use the coins finds himself
constantly trying to reduce them to
their equivalents in cents and dollars.
II he asks the price of something and
learns that it is 1877 and 8" he may
need pencil before he has figured it
out that "37 and 8" amounts to about
"$9.43."
An old traveller ON the returning
steamer advanced the original theory
that people spent more money in Lon
don than they did on the continent be-
cause the English money, ON lis face,
does not appear to represent high
value. He said that man would pay
"a for an article but would hesitate to
pay 100 francs because the latter
sounded" large. A sixpence never
seems to be so large as 90 centimes.
"When mans in London said
the traveller, she breaks G5 note and
spends it the same as he would So
bill at home" .,
In Holland it is only necessary to re-
member that guilder is equal to 40
cents in United States money and the
home value of all the small coins can
readily be estimated.
In Germany the mark is worth an
American quarter and pfennig is,
therefore, one-fourth of a cent. In
France, Switzerland, Belgium or Italy
where the franc is the standard, it il
equally easy to know at glance what
; coin is worth.
Any one who is attempting to gauge