Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

have been since time immemorial. These things do more or less clumsily what metal money does so conveniently. The use of money arose out of gold and silver being in old times bartered by weight for goods, as may be seen in the pictures of the ancient Egyptians weighing in scales heaps of rings of gold and silver, which shows that these were not yet real money. It is thus still with much of the gold and silver traded with in the East, where the little ingots have to be weighed and reckoned for what each is worth. The invention of coin comes in when pieces of metal are made of a fixed weight and standard, and marked with a figure or inscription to certify them, so that they may be taken without weighing or testing. This looks a simple thing to do, but the old Egyptians and Babylonians are not known to have hit upon it. Perhaps the earliest money may have been the Chinese little marked cubes of gold, and the pieces of copper in the shapes of shirts and knives, as though intended to represent real shirts or knives. Coins appear in Lydia and Ægina, in their early form, as rude dumps of precious metal stamped on one side only with a symbol such as the tortoise, the other side showing the mark of the anvil or tool they were placed on to be struck, which accidental back-pattern came to be improved in later coins into the ornamental reverse. Art came on fast in coinage, so that among the most. beautiful coins in the world are the gold staters of Philip of Macedon, with the laurel-crowned head on one side and the two-horse chariot on the other. But one reason why coins are no longer struck in such high relief is because they would be rubbed down by wear. The Roman as was not stamped but cast; it seems to have been at first a pound of copper, its name meaning "one" (as ace at cards still does). From early ages the coinage has been a government

monopoly, and the practice soon began of lowering the standard and lessening the weight for the profit of the royal treasury. How this debasing the coinage was carried on in Europe by one king after another may be seen in the fact that the libra or pound of silver came down in value to the French livre or franc, worth tenpence, and to the “pound

Though changed in value, the

Scots," worth twenty pence. coinage of old times may be traced on to the present day, in our still keeping accounts in the £ s. d. (libræ, solidi, denarii) of the Romans.

For small trading and at home, metal money answers well. But there is great trouble and risk in sending coin hundreds of miles to pay for goods bought at a distance. An easily carried substitute for gold and silver is the banknote, a promise to pay so much, issued by the treasury or some banker, and passing as money from hand to hand. The Emperor of China appears to have issued such notes in exchange for treasure about the eighth century, and in the thirteenth century Marco Polo, the famous merchant-traveller in Tartary, describes the Great Khan's money of stamped picces of mulberry-bark. It is plain from this account that the notion of paper-money was still strange to the mind of aa Furopean trader, but since then bank-notes have become an important part of the world's currency. Even more useful to commerce was the invention of bills of exchange Suppose a merchant of Genoa to have sent silks to a merchant in London. He does not send for his money in wearn, but gives an order on a slip of paper that his correspondent in London, who owes him so much, is to pay te in so many days. This slip of paper is a bill of exchange, and is bought by another Genoese merchant who happens fo owe money in London, and pays it by sending over the but which claims the payment of the money there. Thus,

instead of gold being sent backwards and forwards to pay for shipments between London and Genoa, one debt is set off against another. This is describing in its simplest form the system which is so worked in the exchanges of mercantile cities all over the world, that the immense transactions of commerce are carried on by mutual credit, with only so much actual travelling of gold and silver as is necessary to adjust the balances between the different countries.

The main principle of modern commerce is still just what it was among the rude Indians of Brazil, where the tribes who make the deadly arrow-poison prepare more than they want for their own use, so as to exchange the rest for spears of the hard wood that grows in other districts, or the hammocks of palm-fibre netted by tribes elsewhere. Wealth is created by trade as well as by manufactures. The Canadian trapper wants for his own use but few of his plentiful furs, but all he can take are wealth to him, because the trader brings him in exchange the clothes and groceries and other things he wants. The general history of commerce in the world, which is the development of this simple principle, need not be dwelt on here by giving details of the ancient traffic of Egypt with Assyria and India, the Phoenician trading colonies on the Mediterranean, the old trade-routes across Asia and Europe, the rise of the merchant princes of Genoa and Venice, the first voyages round the Cape to the East Indies, the discovery of America, the rise of ocean steam-navigation. It is specially interesting to the student of civilization to notice that the travelling merchant had in early ages another business hardly less important than conveying ivory and incense and fine linen from where they were plentiful to where they were scarce. He was the bringer of foreign knowledge and the explorer of

distant regions in days when nations were more shut up than now within their own borders, or went across them only as enemies to ravage and destroy. The merchants did much to break down the everlasting jealousy and strife between nations into peaceful and profitable intercourse. Moreover it may be plainly proved that the old hostile system of nations is kept up by every kind of restriction on trade, every protective duty imposed to force the production of commodities in countries ill-suited to them, to prevent their coming in cheap and good from where they are raised with least labour. There is no agent of civilization more beneficial than the free trader, who gives the inhabitants of every region the advantages of all other regions, and whose business is to work out the law that what serves the general profit of mankind serves also the private profit of the individual man.

CHAPTER XII.

ARTS OF PLEASURE.

Poetry, 287-Verse and Metre, 288-Alliteration and Rhyme, 289— Poetic Metaphor, 289-Speech, Melody, Harmony, 290-Musical Instruments, 293-Dancing, 296-Drama, 298-Sculpture and Painting, 300-Ancient and Modern Art, 301-Games, 305.

To those who have not thought particularly about straightforward prose talk, and poetry which is set in metre and rhyme, and song which is chanted to a tune, it may seem that these are three clearly distinct things. But on careful examination it is found that they shade into one another, and it can be made out how human speech passed into all three states. Savage tribes have some set form in their chants, which shows they feel them different from common talk. Thus Australians, to work themselves into fury before a fight, will chant, "Spear his forehead!-Spear his breast! -Spear his liver!-Spear his heart!" and so on with the other parts of the enemy's body. Another Australian chant is sung at native funerals, the young women taking the first line, the old women the second, and all together the third and fourth.

"Kardang garrɔ
Mammul garro

Mela nadjo
Nunga broo."

"Young-brother again
Son again
Hereafter I-shall

See never."

« ÎnapoiContinuă »