Anna's remarks on the contrast between the present dearth and the
"good old times" of cheap bread, when the rupee went so much further
than it does now, are very characteristic. The complaint, too, is very
universal, and is to be heard in the household of public
functionaries, the highest as well as the lowest, in every grade of
native society, and more or less in all parts of India.
The Narrator's notion, that "The English fixed the rupee at sixteen
annas," is another specimen of a very widespread Indian popular
delusion. The rupee always consisted of sixteen annas, for the anna
means only the sixteenth part of anything, but to the poor the great
matter for consideration in all questions of currency is the quantity
of small change they can get for the coin in which their wages are
paid. Formerly this used to fluctuate with the price of copper, and
the quantity of copper change which a silver rupee would fetch varied
as copper was cheap or dear, and was always greatest when the copper
currency was most debased. The English introduced all over India a
uniform currency of copper as well as of silver, and none of course
were greater gainers in the long run by this uniformity than the very
poor.