Intemperance was still terribly common; worst in the newer sections of the country. There is extant a message of William Henry Harrison, while Governor of Indiana Territory, to his legislature, against this evil, urging better surveillance of public-houses. "The progress of intemperance among us," it runs, "outstrips all calculation, and the consequences of its becoming general I shudder to unfold. Poverty and domestic embarrassment and distress are the present effects, and prostration of morals and change of government must inevitably follow. The virtue of the citizens is the only support of a Republican Government. Destroy this and the country will become a prey to the first daring and ambitious chief which it shall produce." [Illustration: Large paper bill.] New Hampshire Bill of Forty Shillings in 1742. To counteract this and other vices, which were justly viewed as largely the results of ignorance, philanthropic people were at this period establishing Sunday-schools, following the example of Robert Raikes, who began the movement at Gloucester, England, in 1781. They had been already introduced in New England, but were now making their way in Philadelphia and elsewhere. The first Methodist bishop, Asbury, zealously furthered them. They had, to begin with, no distinctive religious character, and churches even looked upon them with disfavor; but their numbers increased and their value became more apparent until the institution was adopted by all denominations. Before 1800 the new United States coinage, with nearly the same pieces as now, had begun to circulate, but had had little success at that date in driving out the old foreign coins of colonial times. Especially were there still seen Spanish dollars, halves, quarters, fifths or pistareens, and eighths--the last being the Spanish "real," "ryall," or "royall," worth twelve and a half cents--and sixteenths or half-reals, worth six and one-quarter cents each. Many of these pieces were sadly worn, passing at their face value only when the legend could be made out. Sometimes they were heated to aid in this. Many were so worn that a pistareen would bring only a Yankee shilling, sixteen and two-thirds cents; the half-pistareen, only eight cents; the real, ten; the half-real, five. [Illustration: Square coin.] Massachusetts Twopence of 1722. The denominations of the colonial money of account were also still in daily use, and, indeed, might be heard so late as the Civil War. The "real," twelve and one-half cents, was in New York a shilling, being one-twentieth of the pound once prevalent in the New York colony. In New England it was a "nine-pence," constituting nearly nine-twelfths, or nine of the twelve pence of an old New England shilling of sixteen and two-thirds cents. Twenty such shillings had been required for the New England pound, which was so much more valuable than the pound of the New York colony. But neither one or any colonial pound was the equivalent of the pound sterling.