Mysterious things happen to current coin. People often wonder why
there are not more shillings about. The Deputy- Master of the Mint (the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the Master, but he doesn't do much minting himself) in his annual report, issued this week, says people have been complaining about this for twenty years. Actually there are some 548,000,000 shillings in circulation (compared with 686,000,000 sixpences and 463,000,000 florins), but a lot of them are locked up in gas meters and a lot more stay in bank vaults because cashiers in business houses seem to prefer to make up pay and small-change packets without shillings. But the pennies are the most perplex- ing. It would appear, that there are well over 2,000,000,000 pennies at present in circulation—over 40 for every man, woman and child in the population. Where are they ? What are they doing ? Who possesses 40 bronze pennies, or wants to ? * * * *
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