Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1877 — Five Kinds of Paper Currency. [ARTICLE]

Five Kinds of Paper Currency.

Our paper currency at the present time is exceedingly mixed and diverse in its character, consisting of no less than five different kinds authorized by law. These kinds are as follows: 1. The gold certificates issued by the secretary of treasury, representing individual deposits of gold in the treasury and payable on demand. 2. The gold notes issued by tnree banks in California, payable on demand in gold. 3. The legal tender notes of the-United Stales, now irredeemable, yet payable when the government shall choose to pay them 4. National bank notes, redeemable in legal-tender notes. 6. Fractional currency, exchangeable tor legaltender notes, , All these forms of currency circulate as money andlpractically perform its functions. This ia ndtia normal Condition of the curreiioy. With the exception of the first two forms, comparatively small'in amount, the whole of it is irredeemable in the standard money of the world, and, hence, circulates at a discount, as compared with gold. The only aiffeienoabetween naiional bank-notes and legal-ten-ders is the one that law makes Practically they are the equivalents of each other, being equally guaranteed by the government Two things are needed to,restore our currency to the normal state. The first is its redeemability by gold at the option of the holder, to be gained only by the resumption of specie payment. The second is the payment and withdrawal of legal-tender notes, and the substitution therefor ot national banknotes, payable on demand in specie. This and this only will bring the conntry hack to a settled and stable standard of value. We should then have one. legal-tendev, and not two, in which to compute and express the value of connnadities.—A'ew York Independent.