CHAP. XXVIII. TO OTHER X’RECIOUS METALS.

351

If we estimate their coin at twenty pounds foreach family, it will then be exceeded by the valueof their plate, reduced to weight and disposed ofas bullion, in the proportion of three and a halfto one.

At every step that we descend in the classes ofsociety, it will appear that the coined money andthe gold and silver utensils and ornaments in thepossession of families gradually approach to eachother in their intrinsic value, till they come tothe class of the very lowest day labourers, whosemoney, small as it is, usually exceeds the silveror gold they can retain, although some of thosewho subsist by their labour alone, may have somesmall article they prize, such as a wedding ring orsilver spoon, and which are commonly the lastthat necessity compels them to part with.

There is one description of persons whose wealthmay not be great, but whose stock of plate must bemuch larger even by weight than their coined money.These are the keepers of taverns, hotels, coffee-houses, inns, and down to the smallest public-houses in the ten thousand villages of England.To their excess of gold and silver above theircoin may be added that which is accumulated bythe several corporate bodies within the kingdom.These include that of the corporation of London,that of the several rich guilds or companies in thecity, some of whose stock of plate is large, thatof the inns of court, of the several colleges of Ox-ford, Cambridge, Eton , and Winchester, and of the