Note 5 — Chapter VI · Gold, and How they Came to Use It.

When the people on the island first began to use gold as money, they carried it around with them in the form in which it was first found; the fine dust or scales inclosed in quills, and the nuggets in bags; or they melted and hammered it into large lumps and bars;5 and, as the purchasing power of the gold was always proportioned to its weight and purity, every body carried round with him small scales and tests with which he proved the gold before making exchanges with it (the same as is customary at the present day in China). But this method involved great inconveniences; and although the statement of a person of recognized honesty that he had proved the value of the gold he offered in payment was generally accepted, it was nevertheless recognized that there was no more unfairness or discourtesy in the claim of the grocer to test the quality of the money of his customer by scales and acids, than there was in the claim of the customer to test, by tasting, the salt and sugar of the grocer. As might be inferred, therefore, it often required a good deal of time to complete the most ordinary exchanges, and people everywhere complained about it and wrote letters to the newspapers. Merchants who were very cautious and particular, irritated their customers, and got the reputation of being very exacting and distrustful; while merchants who had but little capital and wanted to get business, advertised they would take gold on the simple word of their customers. But it was observed of the last, that, owing to being constantly cheated, they all, sooner or later, failed. At last the difficulty was remedied by a series of happy circumstances.