We are, and always were, averse to change. We do not mean to say that we
have, or ever had, any objection to those coppers which long custom has
hallowed, and which have been consecrated to charity. But when
innovation would tamper with the coin of the realm, we, in common with
all HER MAJESTY'S loyal subjects, are necessitated to rally round the
SOVEREIGN, not only as such, but as represented by monetary
subordinates. And when we observe that one of the principal features in
the contemplated revolution is the abolition of the Half-Crown, we
cannot but consider the CROWN, and with the CROWN the THRONE, and of
course the CHURCH to be placed in jeopardy. In short, we must record our
emphatic protest against the proposed Decimal Currency. It was under the
old arrangement of pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings, that the
country attained to its present pitch of glory and prosperity. That the
Decimal system has been adopted by foreigners is the very reason why we
should persist in our own. What is it that makes them so eager to take
our money, if not its acknowledged superiority to theirs?
The democratic, indeed the levelling character of the decimal agitation
is obvious from one remarkable fact, which, may, perhaps, however, be
new to our readers. It is notorious that the lower classes are addicted
to the use of slang or flash language, especially in connection with
pugilism. Now we have already had introduced a coin of foreign
denomination, but domestic orthography. We allude to the piece of money
termed a florin, a word which, as spelt by the populace--as many of them
as can spell at all--signifies the act of knocking or being knocked
down. It is proposed that one of the new-fangled coins shall bear the
yet more vulgar appellation of a mil; which in the same vocabulary
signifies a fistic encounter.
From a Parliamentary Commission subservient to a Downing Street gang,
thus evidently deriving the nomenclature of their projected coinage on
the one hand from Continental Jews, Papists, and Infidels; and on the
other from the BRUMMAGEM CHICKEN and the TIPTON SLASHER, what can we
expect but the overthrow of all our ancient institutions, unless the
blow which they are about to aim at all that we hold tender, be parried
by a determined exertion of the art of self-defence?
* * * * *
A REGULAR PUMP.--An eminent teetotaller being requested by "a few of his
admirers" to sit for his portrait, consented, on condition that it
should be taken in water-colours.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A REMINISCENCE OF CHOBHAM--DELIGHTFUL EFFECTS OF A
CANNONADE.]
* * * * *
MR. PETERLOO BROWN'S EXAMINATION OF THE OXFORD STATUTES.
"DEAR MR. PUNCH,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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