When I was a young "clark" in a steamship office circa 1950 one of my duties was to peruse the cargo manifests from London & Liverpool and convert the British sterling into U.S. dollars. Their monetary system was based on twelfths before they went to decimal. It went something like this:
12 pence = 1 shilling........20 shillings = 1 pound. The key words that stand out are PENCE SHILLING. In circus parlance every carnival barker needs a shill. And I fear the poor Hoosier has made a deal with the devil and his life may never be the same again.
tjs
No comments:
Post a Comment