Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-03-02


credit. The metal actually passes through
their hands, and is shipped by them to
London. To them the retinerS are Obliged
to look for advances of cash, OF which
they are always in more or less urgent
need. The refiners must pay promptly for
the ores furnished to them from the mines.
A single firm will sometimes carry as
! much as 1,50O,0O0 ounces of silver in the
requires a lot of money.
The refner must pay the mine owner not
only for the silver in the ores, but also for
whatever gold, copper or lead they may
contain. The silver Is made into large
bricks commercially known bars,
weighing ordinarily from 1000 to 1900
ounces. Each brick is stamped with fig
ures indicating its weight and fineness
These figures are absolutely reliable; not
the government itself could be more care
full to have them correct. The bars are
hands. without any further test for de-
ter!nining their value. If one of them
should prove to be not represented the
credit and standing of the refiner would
suffer serious damage.
Shipping Silver Bars.
The refiner forwards his bars by express
to the dealer in New York. They are de-
livered usually at the office of the dealer,
where several tons of them may be stacked
up at one time on the hoor with no other
protection than a wire fence. No special
guard is necessary, because the big chunks
of white metal are too heavy to be carried
away easily. Robbers would have to bring
truck with them. A brick weighing
eighty or one hundred pounds is pretty
good lift for strong man. Sometimes the
refiner, at the dealers order, sends the bars
direct to the ship, and they are put down
into the hold like any other merchandise.
Ordinarily the silver bars are not placed
in the specie vault, even though the ship
may have such convenience for safe de-
posit. No greater care is taken of them
than of other merchandise in the cargo be-
cause it is practically impossible for any
body to get away with them. On the
rival of the ship at Liverpool the bricks
are sent by rail to London, consigned to
brokers in that city. In due time they are
sold and forwarded to various parts of the
world. Some of them may go to the conti-
nent, while others are shipped to Egypt
Bombay. Madras. Penang. Manila. the
Brazils and New Zealand. Dealers in sill
yer everywhere look to London for their
supply.
been greatly diminished of late, owing to
the fact that the British government in
that country has stopped coming the metal.
1t is still coined to a considerable extent.
| however, by the mints of the native
princes. A great deal of silver goes to
China, where the bricks are cut up into
pieces which circulate and have value as
currency, according to their weight These
pieces are called "taels," and those en-
ployed in different parts of the empire vary
in weight so that the merchant in conclud-
ing bargain must be sure as to whether
he is to be paid in taels of Shanghai or of
Ha1kWan, or of Tien-Tsin, or of Chefoo
Coin In Foreign Countries.
Our silver bars are known on the Lon
don market as cake" silver. The latest
quotation for cake silver is 50 1-2 cents per
ounce. Fine bar silver is worth sc cents
an ounce. The quotation for fine bar silver
containing five grains of gold to the ounce
Is half cent more. This kind of silver is
W hu rlfn tn 1a
cesses of their business. Mexican dollars
are quoted at so cents an ounce. These
dollars are favorite circulating medium
in China and the Straits Settlements and
they are regularly quoted on change in
New York, as well as in London.
The silver dealer in New York buys for
eisn coins of all sorts. Suppose that
merchant in the City of Mexico owes a.
sum of money to a merchant in New York.
He pays the debt by shipment of Next
can dollars. The New York merchant finds
no use for Mexican dollars in his business,
and so sells them to the dealer in silver
The dealer forwards them to a broker in
London, and the latter ships them to China
and the Straits Settlements. The dealer in
New York also purchases coins from i'm
migrants. This seems like a petty BUSH
ness, but in the aggregate it amounts to
something. In the course Of time the met
al money finds its way by exchange back
medium.
1t seems rather odd to find on the adyer-
Using lists of the London brokers notes of
regular expectations of silver from Great
Britain to the United States. These how
ever, are in the shape of American coins
sent back to this country by a process
similar to that just described. The Bank
OF england never melts United States
coins, but holds them in it's vaults until a
balance of trade in our favor makes II CON
ventent to ship them across the Atlantic
We import quite good deal of silver from
Mexico, most of it in the ore, because it
ha rot no6
Some of the metal, too, we get from the
Central American republics, and not lit
tie OF their coin floats into the hands of
the silver dealers in New York.
The great chain of mountains which
forms the backbone of the new world ex
tending from Cape Horn northward through
Central America and continued by the wall
OF the mighty Rockies. is full Of silver. In
South America its wonderful deposits,
though wholly undeveloped, are be-
ing pecked at to some extent by
primitive methods of mining. and some
of the white metal thus obtained is i'm
ported into the United States. Though sue-
costing the idea of carrying Goals to New
castle, the product naturally seeks this
country for market. A minor fraction
OF our own silver goes direct to China
through brokers in San Francisco. One
fact suggestive of reflection is that in 1891
our exports of silver exceeded our imports
by only s9,5o00O0.
In the Market.
The United States government was then
buying, under the law Of July, 1890, $780,
600 ounces Of silver per month. In other
words it was purchasing almost the entire
output of the country save what was util-
lied in the arts. Think what a misfortune
it was to producers Of the white metal
when Uncle Sam declared that he wanted
no more of it and withdrew from the mar
ket! That was in November, 1898. Since
then the mine owners have been obliged to
find sale for their silver abroad, and thus,
as has been said, the expectation has al
ready risen to nearly s50,O0O,O00 per annum
Today the treasury has on hand $137, 600 600
worth of silver bricks the bulk of them
stored at the mint in Philadelphia.
The advertising lists Of the London brokers
which have brought about fluctuations in
the price of silver during the last twenty