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Updated: May 20, 2025
"Well, then, suppose we say we've been sent by the Queen of England to treat with them about the liberation of the niggers at a thousand pounds a head; one hundred paid down in gold, the rest in American shin-plasters?" "That would be a lie, you know, Jack." "Come, that's good!
The host then came to me, with a smile. "Why, Sir, we don't charge more to you than to others. Five dollars in `shin-plasters, or twenty-five cents in specie." All was thus explained, and the next morning I satisfied my bill of twenty-two dollars, with one dollar and twelve cents in silver.
Rawley looked at the ominous-looking bottles on the shelves above the old man's head; at the forceps, knives, and other surgical instruments on the walls they at least were bright and clean and, taking the cheroot slowly from his mouth, he said: "Shin-plasters are what I want. A friend of mine has caught his leg in a trap."
The English seem to think the perfection of civilization consists in preaching against slavery and then trying to perpetuate it, in order to get hold of some cotton; the French in suppressing family pamphlets, annulling the sacred contract of marriage, building iron-cast ships, cooking frogs, snails, and cats, making fancy coats, and topping off the human head with elegant hats and bonnets; the Austrians in the manufacture of shin-plasters for their soldiers, and the making and breaking of constitutions for ungovernable dependencies; the Prussians in the blasphemous necromancy of receiving crowns for their kings direct from God; and all in some shape or other professing devotion to human liberty, and doing every thing in their power to subvert it.
Accustomed as my eyes had been to bank-notes of five pounds in value, the table would have presented to me a rich appearance, had I not known that these showy parallelograms of copper-plate and banking-paper, were mere "shin-plasters," representing amounts that varied from the value of one dollar to that of six and a quarter cents! Notwithstanding, the bets were far from being low.
She remembers seeing buggies during slavery time, little light carriages, some with two wheels and some with four. She never heard of any money called "shin-plasters," and she became money-conscious during the war when Confederate currency was introduced. When the slaves were sick, they were given castor oil, turpentine and medicines made from various roots and herbs.
"Well, then, here's 25 cents on the five-spot, and 25 cents on the deuce," and he placed shin-plasters on the numbers. "Now, throw them dice straight, and no fingerin'. I'm watchin' you." "Watch and be durned," said the "banker" surlily. "Watch your own business, and I'll watch mine. I'm as honest as you are any day." The "banker" lifted the box, and showed two sixes and a tray up.
Most miserable year of my life! What ages of thought and experience have I not lived in it. Last Sunday I walked home from church with a young lady teacher in the public schools. The teachers have been paid recently in "shin-plasters." I don't understand the horrid name, but nobody seems to have any confidence in the scrip.
My mother was sold from me when I was small. I stayed in my uncle's shed at night. Do you remember the money called "shin-plasters"? No. What interesting historical events happened during your youth, such as Sherman's army passing through your section? Did you witness the happenings and what was the reaction of the other Negroes to them? I remember well when de war was on.
Again Chorley and I were winners, and the pork-man asked his partner if he would double again. The latter consented after a little hesitation, as though he thought the amount too high. Of course we, the winners, could not object, and once more we "swept the shin-plasters," as Chorley euphoniously expressed it.
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