. * * j^jj. J Napier on Copper Smelting. "^ ] 57 



The origin of this mode of sale was lately given in thei 

 Morning Herald, from which we extract the following notice. 



of it :— . , , - 



" Origin of the Ticketing for Copper Ores.— About the year ; 

 1700, some merchants at Bristol bought the Cornish ores atj 

 prices varying from £2 10s. to £4 per ton. About twenty years ■ 

 afterwards, other parties, at the same place, covenanted with: 

 some of the principal mines to buy all their copper ores for a 

 term of years at a stated price. About the years 1725-37, great 

 quantities of copper ore were raised from three mines— Huel 

 Fortune (in Ludgvan), Roskear (in Camborne), and Pool Audit 

 (in lUogan) — the produce of which mines were to be sold to the 

 few buyers at then- own price. The four copper companies then 

 existing were the Brass Wire Company, the English Copper 

 Company, Wayn and Co., and Chambers and Co., who bemg 

 united and confederated, had it then, as their successors have at 

 present, their own way. They were interrupted by a gentleman 

 from Wales, who visited the country in order to improve his 

 business. At that time, 1400 tons of copper ore, which had 

 been lying unsold at Roskear and Huel Kitty, were offered to 

 him, for which the associated monopolists would give only £4 5s. 

 per ton. So contracted were the principles of the miners m 

 those days, that they obliged the purchaser to deposit a sum of 

 money equivalent to the supposed amount of their ores, before 

 they would consent to weigh them off at the advanced price they 

 agreed to take. 1400 tons of ore were purchased at the ad- 

 vanced price of £6 5s. per ton, which was paid for in cash ; the 

 returns on this were over 30 per cent. What must have been the 

 profits of the companies confederated to serve their own interests 

 without limitation or control ? This new comer then purchased 

 900 tons more at Roskear, at £7 per ton ; and in less than six 

 months before he left Cornwall, he purchased 3000 tons, on 

 which it is supposed he made a profit of 40 per cent. Soon after 

 this the buyers and sellers mutually agreed to ticket for all cop- 

 per ores which should be ready for sale at stated periods, and 

 the highest bidder or ticket should be the purchaser. On the 

 very outset of this compact, 300 tons of ore, belonging to the 

 same mine, were to be ticketed for in Redruth, when the agent of 

 the mine having absented himself beyond the limited hour of 

 sale, a certain gentleman, of great address, power and fortune, 

 declared himself the purchaser, by private contract, at £8 17s. 

 per ton, when one of the ticketcrs produced his ticket before all 

 the company, whose offer was £9 17s., to the shame and confu- 

 sion of all the adventurers. To this nefarious system is to be 

 ascribed the jjrescnt mode of ticketing. The proprietors found 

 themselves in a distressing and ridiculous predicament, possessing 

 a commodity whose value they could not ascertain; and the 



