CHAP. xxvr.

SILVER GOODS.

295

duty. In fact, very few gold articles, except mostmourning and some wedding rings and snuffboxes, pay any duty; but spoons, forks, and othersilver goods exceeding five pennyweights, arecharged with the tax.

We shall class the consumption of silver in Eng-land under four several heads.

The first division is that on which the officialreturns give the quantity of silver with a degreeof exactness that entitles it to the fullest confidence.It appears that the consumption from 1810 to1829, both years included, amounted in London and in Scotland to twenty-three million fifty-fivethousand and eighty-two ounces 1 ; in the countryplaces in England, supposing the whole of theduty in them to have been paid on silver, to ninehundred and eleven thousand seven hundred andforty ounces; and in Ireland to one million fivehundred and thirty-nine thousand five hundredand seventeen ounces; thus showing the con-sumption of the united kingdom for the twentyyears to have been twenty-five million five hundredand six thousand three hundred and thirty-nineounces, or at the average annual rate of one milliontwo hundred and seventy-five thousand three hun-dred and sixteen ounces.

The next division of the use of silver is intothat for watches, the cases of which are stamped at

1 See Appendix, No. 13.