and Company and the Canada Company
afford facilities to emigrants, by receiving deposits and granting
letters of credit on their agents in Canada, by which the emigrants
obtain the benefit of the current premium of exchange. It is unsafe and
injudicious to carry out a larger amount of specie than what will defray
the necessary expenses of the voyage, because a double risk is
incurred,--the danger of losing, and the temptation of squandering. The
emigrant, therefore, who does not choose to remit his money through
either of the before-mentioned companies, should procure a letter of
credit from some respectable bank in the United Kingdom on the Montreal
bank.

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V. CANADIAN CURRENCY.

In all the British North American colonies accounts are kept and prices
are quoted in pounds, shillings, and pence, as in England. The accounts
are contra-distinguished by calling the former currency, or Halifax
currency, and the latter sterling or British sterling.

The one pound Halifax currency, or currency, as it is more commonly
called, consists of four Spanish dollars. The dollar is divided into
five parts--called in Spanish pistoreens--each of which is termed a
shilling. Each of these shillings or pistoreens is again subdivided into
twelve parts, called pence, but improperly, for there is no coin
answering to any such subdivision. To meet the want a great variety of
copper coins are used, comprising the old English halfpenny, the
halfpenny of later coinage, the penny, the farthing, the American cent.;
all and each pass as the twenty-fourth part of the pistoreen or colonial
shilling. Pence in fact are not known, though almost anything of the
copper kind will be taken as the twenty-fourth part of the pistoreen.*

[* The Americans also have their 1 shilling, which is the eighth part of
a dollar, or 12-1/2 cents. It is no uncommon thing to hear the emigrant
boast that he can get 10 shillings per day in New York. He knows not
that a dollar, which is equal to eight of these shillings, is in England
equivalent but to 4 shillings 2 pence, and that the American shilling
is, therefore, when compared with the English shilling in value, only
6-1/4 pence, and consequently, that 10 shillings a day is, in fact, but
ten 6-1/4 pence or 5 shillings 2-1/2 pence. This rate of payment it may
be said is still great; so it is, but it is not often obtained by the
labourer; when it is, it is for excessive labour, u