298

SILVER GOODS.

CHAP, XXVI.

sail and its neighbourhood, chiefly for the saddlers’ironmongers, at about seven hundred and fiftythousand ounces annually. That which is forrolling in London , though of much better quality,being far less in quantity, may be safely estimatedat one hundred and fifty thousand ounces.

There is another application of silver to whichonly conjecture can be applied. Many articlesare fabricated of that metal below the weight whichis amenable to the assay and the duty. Silverthimbles are annually made by hundreds of thou-sands, all below the accountable weight. Silverchains, either for eye-glasses or for watches, or forany part of the dress, are formed of links, eachof which as a single object is below the taxableweight. Pencil cases, necks of smelling bottles,locks to pocket books, to instrument cases, to port-folios, and small portions to the handles of pen-knives and razors, and other personal and domesticornaments, when added together must form a largeannual amount of silver consumed, but not liableto the stamp tax. The gold-beaters use somelarge portions of that metal for making leaf silverfor gilding. According to the best account wehave been able to collect, silver in leaf can scarcelybe made thinner than two and a half times thesubstance of leaf gold ; as eight pennyweights ofgold will make a thousand books, whilst it requiresone ounce of silver to make that number. Theuse of leaf silver is certainly much less extensive