INTEREST TABLES,

BEING A CONDENSED FORM OF TABLE

FOR THE

CALCULATION OF SIMPLE INTEREST,

EACH PAGE CONTAINING RESULTS AT ONE RATE,

From 1 up to 900,000,

For Periods most usual in Computation,

AND RANGING

From 1/16th per cent. to 12 per cent.

IN compiling the Tables of Interest now tendered to the mercantile public, the Author had in view the condensing of information, which has hitherto been only obtainable from a volume of such ponderous dimensions as the generality of Interest Books now in use. The condensing process, however, cannot be conveniently done in English currency; but, by the adoption of the decimal, the compilation becomes of easy adaptation to all currencies. In those currencies where the subsidiary coins. are expressed in decimals-now that of most countries in the world, except our own-the results in the Tables will be as given; while, in the case of our own currency, the decimal can be readily valued, either by reference to the Table for that purpose in the Example, which will very soon, from its simplicity, be impressed on the mind, or by multiplying the decimal into shillings and pence, as by the following example :

Say that the result arrived at by the Table is 2'93

20

18.60

I 2

7.20

or £2. 18s. 7d.

In the same way the same result can be converted into say the subsidiary currency of India :—

Each of the calculations in the Tables represents the Interest on Hundreds of Thousands, and to arrive at the result for Tens of Thousands, and so on downwards to Units, the decimal point must be moved towards the left as may be required; and the same process must be adopted in regard to days, when the Interest is required on the units of days, say for Six days instead of Sixty days. The following are examples :—

To find the Interest at 12 per cent. for 96 days' on 200,000 downwards to 2

V

The decimal will be readily convertible by reference to the Table in the Example; but the following is the valuation of say the last result of '06 :

The tendency in this country seems to be towards the decimal mode of calculation, and it is impossible to understand why the dreary, cumbersome, fractional, system has been tolerated for such a length of time. Not only is it, in the Author's opinion, one of the main causes at the present time of the general ignorance of arithmetic amongst the ordinarily educated youth of the day, but, were the fractional system to be put aside for the decimal, even in bookkeeping only, it would at once be an immense saving in clerks' work throughout the kingdom.

We look too much to the Legislature to assist us out of the difficulty, whereas, were the authorities of-say-the principal markets to arrange among themselves to quote prices of Stocks, produce, &c., in the decimal of a £, the change would practically have been accomplished. The prices, thus quoted also, could much more easily be compared, and assimilated to the foreign quotations, and this in itself, would, more than anything else, commend the use of the system to merchants who require to watch fluctuations abroad. Add to this, that, under