CHAP, xxvili. TO OTHER PRECIOUS METALS. 351 



If we estimate their coin at twenty pounds for 

 each family, it will then be exceeded by the value 

 of their plate, reduced to weight and disposed of 

 as bullion, in the proportion of three and a half 

 to one. 



At every step that we descend, in the classes of 

 society, it will appear that the coined money and 

 the gold and silver utensils and ornaments in the 

 possession of families gradually approach to each 

 other in their intrinsic value, till they come to 

 the class of the very lowest day labourers, whose 

 money, small as it is, usually exceeds the silver 

 or gold they can retain, although some of those 

 who subsist by their labour alone, may have some 

 small article they prize, such as a wedding ring or 

 silver spoon, and which are commonly the last 

 that necessity compels them to part with. 



There is one description of persons whose wealth 

 may not be great, but whose stock of plate must be 

 much 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 their 

 coin may be added that which is accumulated by 

 the several corporate bodies within the kingdom. 

 These include that of the corporation of London, 

 that of the several rich guilds or companies in the 

 city, some of whose stock of plate is large, that 

 of the inns of court, of the several colleges of Ox- 

 ford, Cambridge, Eton, and Winchester, and of the 



