But all this is not New York, which I am bound to finish in this chapter. Before we go further I had better, for the benefit of those who know it not, state the American currency and its equivalent value in English money, for it will save repetition. The "almighty dollar" is the unit of currency in the States. Why the coin is thus lauded in American phraseology is a puzzle, for it certainly procures less as regards its nominal value than any coin I know. The dollar is divided into 100 cents, and is worth itself 4_s._ 2_d._ Thus each cent represents one halfpenny; twenty-five cents, roughly one shilling; and the English sovereign is generally worth $4.85, generally written $4^85, and read four dollars eighty-five cents. This decimal system is most convenient for all calculations. I may give one example. Suppose the exchange to be as above, £1 = $4.85, and I want to send the equivalent of £210 to America; I simply multiply 485 by 210 and divide the product by 100; practically cut off the two last figures in the said product. Thus-- 485 × 210=101850. The two last figures, the five and the cypher, are cut off, and they indicate the cents, the figures reading $1018^50, which is the true amount I shall get at the above rate of exchange. Again, in casting up columns of English money figures, we have to divide the total of the pence by 12, the total of the shillings by 20, and only set down the remainder, carrying over the quotient. With the American currency the dollars are set down in one column, the cents in another, but the whole are added up together, then the two right-hand figures of the product struck off. These are the cents, all the rest are dollars. There are other ways in which this decimal system is convenient, but I have exemplified it sufficiently. Shall _we_ ever have as good a system?