feit paper money.

In these times, when so much attention is given to what I may call the
prehistoric history of mankind, it would ill become me, a mere
adventurer in anthropology, to discuss the origin of money or to
attempt an explanation of the curious fact that the art of coining
money was invented and perfected a thousand years before the art of
printing. The coins struck by the best cities of ancient Greece are a
model and a reproach to our modern mints; and being for the most part
of good silver, they fulfilled the two main functions of currency--as a
measure of value and a medium of exchange.

Silver was well adapted for the purposes of currency by its ductility,
durability, divisibility, portability, and value. Its value depended on
three things. In the first place, it was scarce; in the second, it was
much in demand for the arts and manufactures; and in the third place,
its intrinsic value was increased and stabilized by the needs and
demands of the mints.

Gold had similar qualifications, but it was too scarce and too precious
until the nineteenth century, in the course of which (for reasons which
I need not enter upon here), most of the great commercial nations
adopted a gold standard. Copper possessed in a less degree the
qualifications of gold and silver, but it was the first metal to be
coined into money in ancient Rome. The Roman _as_ or _pondo_ weighed a
Roman pound of _good_ copper, therefore possessed the two principal
attributes of good money, a definite weight and a definite fineness. It
was divided like our troy pound into twelve ounces of good copper.

The English Troyes or Troy pound was first used in the English mint in
the time of Henry the Eighth. Edward the First's pound sterling was a
Tower pound of silver of a definite fineness. Charlemagne's livre was a
Troyes[1] pound of silver of definite fineness. The old English Scotch
pence or pennies contained originally a real pennyweight of silver, one
twentieth of an ounce and one two hundred and fortieth of a pound. The
famous pre-war English sovereign, now demonetized and misrepresented by
the depreciated paper pound, was itself also a weight; but the twenty
shillings and two hundred and forty pence which exchanged for it were
token coins depending for their value upon the gold sovereign.

[1] "The Fair of Troyes in Champaign was at that time frequented
by all the nations of Europe, and the weights and measures of so
famou