THE LIFE OF A THREEPENNY PIECE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 700, 17 September 1875, Page 4

THE LIFE OF A THREEPENNY PIECE.

— o— “ I was born on the Ist of April, 1871, and issued from the Mint,with a goodly number of brethren, bearing the image of our noble Queen on one side and the figure three on the other. I was sent with them to a bank, and handed over with other coins in exchange for a piece of paper. I next found myself in a sound box underneath the bar counter of a public bouse. I had hardly been there five minutes when a voice said, “Are you going to shout 1” and after a jingling of glasses, [ was rudely pulled out, and thrown on a wet zinc plate, and crammed into the pocket of a greasy butcher. During an hour I passed to and fro between this pocket and the round box many times, until I was carried away in another pocket, in company with other images of our Queen, a pocket knife, and a bit of cobbler’s wax, Four days I was handled about in like manner, until my master spoke to a blackfellow in these words “ You cut’ em up waddyl” He replied, “ Ui; what give it 1” My master pulling me out, said, “This fellow,” “ Baal,” said the blackfellow, him no “ nobbier,” on which I went to my dark abode. The next time I saw the light was one morning, when I heard the sound of bells, and ray master put me on a table in a drawing room, where was a beautiful creature dressed in silk, and with a delicate hand on which was a glove labelled “Jouvin— The lady picked me up and put me between the glove and the palm of her hand, and I went with her to church. 1 felt so comfortable on my soft bed, where I remained one hour—during which my mistress kept kneeling down and standing up—and I heard beautiful music, and sweet singing, and some good words about giving to the poor and lending to the Lord, and cheerful givers, which 1 did not understand. At last I saw a man come around with a little round dish to my mistress’s seat, and with her delicate right hand, she took me from my soft bed and dropped me in the dish. I was carried away and put in a larger dish, wlmre to my surprise, I met sixty-five of my brethren who came with me first to the bunk. I asked of my fellows why the blackfellow refused me, I was offered as a loan to the Lord ; I then found out the r-eason why I was despised as being less than a nobbier— I was CoKOUEQATION MONEY.