'Pin-Moneys Last Meaning.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 38, 18 September 1902, Page 29

' Pin-Moneys Last Meaning.

'Pin-money ' now means tha allowance of rLoney for. a woman's own personal expenditure, bub originally it meant literally the actual suui spent on pi> s. It is almost impossible to think of any stage in the history of womankind when the p!n was not one of the mainstays of her existence, bat until about the end (f the S-ivonEn century an article more refembling ft wooden skewer than anything cisc was all thit could be obtained. After that time the modern pin was invented, but the maker was allowed to sell them openly only en January 1 and 2, so that Ot'Urb ladies and fashionable damea alike were obliged to buy large stores on the»e days (says the Gentlewoman '). So extremely, important waß this yearly purhase that, apparently, a special Bum of money was obtained from all indulgent husbands for it, and at a later time, when „the pici 8 became cheap and common, womenkind gradually came to spend their allowance on other vanities, but the old name ' pin-money ' remained in use.