it is 80; in the third, 800; and in the fourth, 8000.  Yet we do not require to grasp these large numbers in our thought, but deal with each figure as a simple unit, and subject it to every arithmetical process without even adverting to its real value.  To some, it may seem superfluous to explain a matter so familiar; but we have met with many who know pretty well how to use our system of notation mechanically, yet do not know, or rather have not thought of the beautifully simple principle on which it proceeds—­that of decimal ascension.

Now, we want to see the same principle applied to the gradations of our money, weights, and measures.  Instead of our complicated denominations of money—­namely, pounds, each containing twenty shillings, these each divisible into twelve pence, and these again into four farthings—­we want a scale in which ten of each denomination would amount to one of that immediately above it, as in our notation.  And instead of our complicated system of weights and measures, we want one similarly graduated system—­each measure and weight rising ten times above the former.  All calculations of prices would then be made by simple multiplication.  What a gala-day for school-boys when the pence and shilling table would be abolished by act of parliament, and there would no longer be the table of avoirdupois-weight to learn, nor troy-weight, nor apothecaries’, nor long-measure, nor square-measure, nor cloth-measure, nor liquid-measure, nor dry-measure, but one decimal scale of weights and measures would suffice for every commodity, and there would only be their names to get by heart in order!  Every one sees that there would be an astonishing simplification in this system of reckoning by tens—­that the study of arithmetic would be immensely facilitated, and the business of the counting-house divested of puzzling calculations.  Let us see whereabouts we are in the way towards its attainment.

About ten years ago, a parliamentary commission on the subject of weights and measures, advised the adoption of a decimal scale, but recommended as a preliminary step, the decimation of the Coinage.  Regarding it as important, however, that great deference should be paid to existing circumstances, and that the present relative notions of value, so deeply rooted in the public mind, should be disturbed as little as possible, they pointed out the facilities existing in our present coinage for a re-arrangement on the decimal plan.  They said that the pound might be preserved precisely on the present footing, and thus would be maintained in name the price of everything above twenty shillings in value.  They remarked that the farthing, which is the 960th part of L.1, might be set down as the 1000th, which would be a variation of 4 per cent. only—­somewhat less than that to which copper is liable from fluctuation of price.  We have thus the units at the one end of the scale, and the thousands at the other; it remains only to interpose the tens and hundreds between them, by introducing a florin as the tenth of a pound, and a cent—­equal to 2-1/2d. nearly—­as the tenth of the florin.  Adopting these views, the following would be the new and simple scale of money-reckoning:—­ten millets, 1 cent; ten cents, 1 florin; ten florins, L.1.