£0 
MONEY 
“DEI GRA: BRITT: OMN: REX FID: DEF: IND: 
IMP : ” round .the King’s head on our coins. Pro- 
vided the paper will be taken for the amount printed 
conspicuously on its face, wherever we are likely to 
offer it, we do not trouble ourselves whether, like a 
bank-note, it carries the promise of some person or 
institution to pay that sum at a particular place on 
demand (scl. in business hours), or, like a currency 
note, says that it is legal tender (i.e. that we can 
compel any one to whom we owe the sum to choose 
between accepting the paper in discharge of the debt 
and going without payment altogether). 
How such “ notes ” first got into circulation along 
with coins in various countries and at different 
times is an interesting historical question well worth 
studying. But the answer is lengthy and not material 
to our present purpose. It will suffice to suggest a 
few of the reasons why a demand arose for such a 
currency. Sometimes the demand arose from the 
bad state of the coinage. When base coin was 
common and originally good coins were liable to be 
much clipped without immediately being rejected by 
the next person to whom they were offered, and when 
all sorts of good and bad foreign coins found their way 
into each country, the inexpert person never knew 
what he would actually get if he accepted say £50 or 
£100 tendered to him by a buyer or a debtor, and 
even an expert would take some time examining, 
weighing, and perhaps assaying some of the coins. 
What more natural in such circumstances than that 
a person, having once got a quantity of coin, should 
hand it over to some expert man or institution with 
a reputation for honesty to be examined and certified 
as amounting to a certain sum? And then what 
more natural than that having got the certificate 
he should use it instead of the coin itself to make his 
next big payment with? Instead of offering a