Newcastle, and a few other towns. About
the year 1773, the towns of Birmingham and
Sheffield, having become somewhat conspicuous
for their works in gold and silver, and
feeling the annoyance attending the sending
of their wares for assay and stamping to
distant towns, obtained powers to establish
companies under the title of 'Guardians of
the standard of wrought plate.' These bodies
were to choose wardens, assayers, and other
officers; and we now learn what is the meaning
of the diet of those towns. The assayer for
each town (Birmingham for instance), is
empowered to scrape eight grains from every troy
pound of the silver plate or other article sent
to the Company's office to be assayed and
stamped; this he equally divides into two
little parcels, one of which is immediately
locked up in the assayer's box, while the other
is operated upon. After the assay, the article
is broken in pieces if below the proper standard,
and the owner has to pay sixpence per
ounce for the assay; but, if it be standard as
above, the article is stamped, and a fee paid
according to a certain graduated scale. If the
four grains per pound be more than enough
for the assay, the overplus goes as a perquisite
to the Company. But now for the assayer's box
and its contents. If the standard of each piece
of plate be right and proper, the remaining
little parcel of four grains per pound is taken
out of the assayer's box, and with due formality
deposited in a more honored receptacle
called the diet-box. By the end of a year, this
box contains diets or samples of all the plate
found by assay during the year to be proper
in standard. Once a year, the officers of the
Company send up this box to the Mint in
London; where the Assay-master tries the
little bits or diets, in order to see that the
Birmingham assayer has not departed from the
true standard: if he has, his pocket is made
to suffer.

These Birmingham and Sheffield guilds,
like those of London, York, Exeter, Bristol,
Chester, Norwich, and Newcastle, were made
a kind of cat's-paw for the Government, in
respect to an increased duty of 8s. per ounce
on gold manufactures and 6d. per ounce on
those of silver, imposed in 1784. The
wardens, after assaying and stamping, were to
receive the duty before returning the articles;
the Excise demanded it of them whether they
had received it or not; so we may be pretty
sure that the wardens of the respective
Companies did not let the owners escape scot-free.
The owners paid the duty to the Companies;
the Companies handed it over to the Excise;
and the Excise gave them 6d. in the pound
for their trouble.

As there is no good reason why all the world
should agree about these standards of purity,
it is no wonder that manufacturers should have
occasionally tried to obtain some variation.
The legislature settled this question, in 1798,
by allowing two standards for manufactured
gold, one of "twenty-two carats," and the other
of "eighteen carats;" the same Companies were
to assay and stamp both kinds; and the same
stamps were to be employed all excepting the
"lion passant," which royal animal was to be
exclusively appropriated to the finer kind of
gold. So recently as 1844 these little peddlings
with industry (for such they are apt to appear
in these our free-trade days) were further
modified. It had been found that, by stamping
gold and silver with the same dies, a
little hocus-pocus might possibly enable a
dishonest person to pass off a silver gilt article
for gold; it was therefore enacted that all
the gold articles of "twenty-two carats fine"
should be stamped with the mark of a Crown
and the figures 22.

All these curious statutes, with a few
curious exceptions, are still in force; and
form a body of industrial law which is more
likely to diminish than increase in future. The
great City Companies have in many cases
outlived their duties, though by no means
outlived their wealth; but the Goldsmiths'
Company has still both duties and wealth.
The following is pretty nearly the relation, at
the present day, between the four parties
interested in gold and silver manufactures—
the Crown, the Goldsmiths' Company, and the
manufacturers, and the public.

Every article made in or near London of
gold or silver, except certain trinkets and
small wares, must be sent to the Goldsmiths'
Hall near Cheapside. The maker must
previously stamp his mark upon it, which mark
must be known and approved by the Company.
It is assayed at the Hall; it is broken up and
returned if below the proper standard, but
stamped and returned if of due quality. The
Company employ persons to scrape a few
fragments from every article, for the purpose
of assay; and these persons, to ensure their
thorough knowledge, must have served a
seven years' apprenticeship to a goldsmith.
There being many gold and silversmiths, and
manufacturers of watch-cases and chains,
living in and near Clerkenwell, the
Goldsmiths' Company, when they rebuilt their
Hall some years ago, determined to build it
on its present central site, rather than remove
it nearer to the Mint. There is a constant
running to and fro between the workshops and
the Hall; and many losses might occur if the
Hall were too far distant. Clerkenwell and
Foster Lane are the two poles of an electric
chain, having links of silver and gold—a
figure, by the way, which we fear is not quite
faultless; for these two metals, though electric
in a moral sense, are not much so according
to lecture-room philosophy.

When the wardens and assayers of the
Company are examining the articles sent to
them, they have power to reject any in which,
according to their judgment, there may have
been too much solder employed; because solder
being less valuable than the metal soldered,
the standard of the whole bulk may perchance
be reduced too much. The duties of the