od of years,
allusion to the general
ignorance of arithmetic, has
been a standing mode of
argument, and has always been
well received: whenever one
member describes others as
_knownothings_, those others
cry _Hear_ to the country in a
transport of delight. In the
meanwhile the country is
gradually arriving at the
conclusion that a true joke is
no joke.
"The main objection was, if Fine words, wrongly used. The
they went below 6d., that the new coins are commensurable
new scale of coins would not with, and in a finite ratio
be commensurate in any finite to, the old ones. The farthing
ratio with anything in this is to the mil as 25 to 24. The
new currency of mils." speaker has something here in
the bud, which we shall
presently meet with in the
flower; and fallacies are more
easily nipped in flower than
in bud. {176}
"No less than five of our This dreadful change of value
present coins must be called consists in sixpence farthing
in, or else--which would be going to the half-shilling
worse--new values must be instead of sixpence. Whether
given to them." the new farthings be called
mils or not is of no
consequence.
"If a poor man put a penny in Mr. Lowe, who cannot pass a
his pocket, it would come out half-crown for more than a
a coin of different value, florin, or get in a florin at
which he would not understand. less than half-a-crown, has
Suppose he owed another man a such a high faith in the
penny, how was he to pay him ? sterner stuff of his fellow
Was he to pay him in mils? countrymen, that he believes
Four mils would be too little, any two of them would go to
and five mils would be too fisty cuffs for the 25th part
much. The hon. gentlemen said of a farthing. He reasons
there would be only a mil