currency

n.

1) Name given especially to earlypaper-money in the Colonies, issued by private traders and ofvarious values, and in general to the various coins of foreigncountries, which were current and in circulation. Barrington,in his `History of New South Wales `(1802), gives a table ofsuch specie.

1824. Edward Curr, `Account of the Colony of Van Diemen's Land,'p.5:

«Much of this paper-money is of the most trifling description.To this is often added `payable in dollars at 5s. each.' Some. . . make them payable in Colonial currency.»

[p. 69, note]: «25s. currency is about equal to a sovereign.»

1826. Act of Geo. IV., No. 3 (Van Diemen's Land):

«All Bills of Exchange, Promissory Notes . . . as also allContracts and Agreements whatsoever which shall be drawn andcirculated or issued, or made and entered into, and shall betherein expressed . . . to be payable in Currency, CurrentMoney, Spanish Dollars . . . shall be . . . Null and Void.»

1862. Geo. Thos. Lloyd, `Thirty-three years in Tasmania andVictoria,' p. 9:

«Every man in business . . . issued promissory notes, varyingin value from the sum of fourpence to twenty shillings, payableon demand. These notes received the appellation of papercurrency. . . . The pound sterling represented twenty-fiveshillings of the paper-money.»

2) Obsolete name for those colonially-born.

1827. P. Cunningham, `Two Years in New South Wales,' vol. ii.(Table of Contents):

«Letter XXI. – – Currency or Colonial-bornpopulation.»

Ibid. p. 33:

«Our colonial-born brethren are best known here by the name of Currency, in contradistinction to Sterling, orthose born in the mother-country. The name was originallygiven by a facetious paymaster of the 73rd Regiment quarteredhere – – the pound currency being at that time inferior to thepound sterling.»

1833. H. W. Parker, `Rise, Progress, and Present State of VanDiemen's Land,' p. 18:

«The Currency lads, as the country born colonists in thefacetious nomenclature of the colony are called, incontradistinction to those born in the mother country.»

1840. Martin's `Colonial Magazine,' vol. iii. p. 35:

«Currency lady.»

1849. J. P. Townsend, `Rambles in New South Wales,' p. 68:

«Whites born in the colony, who are also called `the currency';and thus the `Currency Lass' is a favourite name for colonialvessels.» [And, it may be added, also of Hotels.]

1852. Mrs. Meredith, `My Home in Tasmania,' vol. i. p. 6:

«A singular disinclination to finish any work completely, is astriking characteristic of colonial craftsmen, at least of the`currency' or native-born portion. Many of them who areclever, ingenious and industrious, will begin a new work,be it ship, house, or other erection, and labour at it mostassiduously until it be about two-thirds completed, and thentheir energy seems spent, or they grow weary of the oldoccupation, and some new affair is set about as busily as theformer one.»

1890. Rolf Boldrewood, `A Colonial Reformer,' p. 35:

«English girls have such lovely complexions and cut out us poorcurrency lasses altogether.»

Ibid. p. 342:

«You're a regular Currency lass . . . always thinking abouthorses.»