decimally graduated scale, yet they always reckon by francs, and cents,
which are 100ths of francs; the intervening decime being ignored in
practice. So, likewise, the Americans have the dollar, the dime (its
tenth part), the cent (its hundredth), and the mill (its thousandth).
'It is now nearly thirty years,' says Mr John Quincy Adams, in his
report to Congress in 1821, 'since our new moneys of account have been
established. The dollar and the cent have become familiarised to the
tongue, but the dime and the mill are so utterly unknown, that now, when
the recent coinage of dimes is alluded to, it is always necessary to
inform the reader that they are ten-cent pieces. Ask a tradesman in any
of our cities what is a dime or a mill, and the chances are four in five
that he will not understand your question.' This, however, we cannot
help considering one of the greatest inconveniences of transatlantic and
continental reckonings. We are accustomed to talk of amounts in as small
numbers as possible; and one of the great advantages we see in decimal
gradations is, that we should never have a number above 9, except in
pounds. There is something not only troublesome but indefinite, in the
idea of ten and twenty in comparison with one and two; and a French
account in francs bewilders us when it amounts to thousands and
millions. Probably the half and quarter francs of France, and the half
and quarter dollars of America, have been the means of exploding the
decimals next below them; and on this ground we differ from those who
plead for the continuance of our present shillings and sixpences, as
half and quarter florins. The shilling is a coin so inseparably
connected with 12 and 20, that no decimal system will obtain while it
exists. It is useless to say, that it would be retained only as a
circulation coin, and not as a denomination in accounts; for so long as
we have it at all, we will certainly reckon from it and by it. For
purposes of common barter, there ought to be a two-cent piece, a
four-cent, and perhaps a seven-cent; and thus we shall be compelled to