ns, till
the subject was brought before the House of Commons by Dr John Bowring,
in 1847. The consequence of his appeal was, that a coin denominated a
florin, and representing the tenth of a pound, was struck, and put in
circulation. It was, however, considered 'an unfortunate specimen of
Royal Mint art,' and the issue was discontinued, though a few specimens
still linger unforbidden among us. The matter is thus at a stand-still,
and may probably not be agitated again till the people generally are
more impressed with its importance, and disposed to urge it on the
legislature.

The first thing wanted is obviously an abundant issue of acceptable
florins. No matter though the coin be recognised by the ignorant as a
two-shilling piece, rather than as the tenth of a pound; it is a decimal
coin with which they may become familiar without disturbing their old
ideas and modes of reckoning. The single step that would then remain to
be taken is the decisive one--the introduction of the coin equivalent to
one-tenth of a florin, accompanied by the withdrawal of the
representatives of duodecimal division, and a legislative enactment that
all accounts kept in public offices, or rendered in private
transactions, should be in the decimal denominations.

The only difficulty which has appalled the advocates of the decimal
system, is with respect to the cent-piece. It is said to be too small
for a silver coin, too large for a copper, and mixed metals find no
favour at the Mint. But if it is to be a denomination in accounts, it
must have a representative coin, and a silver cent could be very little
smaller than our present 3d.-piece. 'The great mass of the people,' says
Mr Norton (a correspondent of the _Athenaeum_ on this subject), 'will not
adopt an abstraction; you must give them something which they can see,
handle, and call by name, if you wish them to take notice of it in their
reckonings.' Mr Taylor, and some other writers, have proposed to evade
this difficulty by passing over the cents altogether, and counting only
by pounds, florins, and millets. The French, say they, have in theory a
decimally graduated scale, yet they always reckon by francs, and cents,
which are 100ths of francs; the intervening decime being ignored in
practice. So, likewise, the Americans have the dollar, the dime (its
tenth part), the cent (its hundredth), and the mill (its thousandth).
'It is now nearly thirty years,' says Mr John Quincy Adams, in his
rep