350

PROPORTION OF COIN CHAP. XXVIII.

may allow for such families, in gold and silvercoin, fifty pounds, and considering that the heads ofsuch families generally keep more bank notesthan money, and discharge most demands onthem by orders on a banker, and that the childrenand domestics have seldom more than a fewshillings, this estimate will be judged sufficientlyhigh. With this class then the value of theirmanufactured gold and silver may be ten times asmuch as that of their coin of those metals.

A number of families of inferior wealth maybe classed together. This class, comprehendingsuch as would average an annual income of onethousand pounds, may be in number about onehundred and fifty thousand, and include onemillion five hundred thousand individuals. Ifthese, taken together, possess as much of plate,and of gold and silver in jewellery, as have costone hundred pounds for each family, the value ofit in weight will be greater in proportion to thecost, because it will consist chiefly in silver spoonsand forks, and in gold and silver watch-cases.The workmanship of these is much less, andthe profit of the manufacturer and retailer is alsoless than that of the highly ornamented andelaborately worked plate of the superior classes.With persons in such circumstances the amountof coined gold and silver will commonly be foundto be less than that possessed by those of higherexpenditure.