18,234 91 $125,374 73 Collected by State's Attorneys, court fees, principal and interest on safety, school, and surplus funds, paid by Co. clerks, and peddlers' license money. Total.. The expenses exceed those of 1849 by $7,764 67; yet they embrace about $15,000 of extraordinary expenditures, to wit:-the debenture of the Constitutional Convention, about $9,000; paid uniform militia nearly $4,000; and repairs on State House about $2,000; so, in point of fact, the ordinary expenses show a handsome reduction. COLLECTION OF TAXES.-For the first time the Auditor gives an account of the taxes— and it is an account highly creditable to the State Treasurer, We give an abstract:— DEBT AND FINANCES OF SOUTH CAROLINA. The following summary statement of public debt and finances of the Bank of South Carolina, a State institution, is derived from the message of Whitmarsh B. Seabrook, the Governor of the State: Five Revolutionary debt, estimated at. Five per cents, 1839, Fire Loan, foreign debt, due in 1858. Total...... $46,714 34 1.250 00 72,810 60 3,726 84 175,426 55 471,111 12 482,222 21 482,222 23 325,808 92 $2,061,292 81 It will be perceived that the only debt to be provided for, at an early date, is the 6 per cents, amounting to $175,426 55, and payable on the 1st of January, 1852. Since your adjournment, $173,437 30 of the domestic, and $23,250 80 of the foreign debt, has been cancelled by the bank, besides $7,750 of the Randolph stock, paid by the treasury. The income of the State for the fiscal year terminating on the 30th of September, The balance in the treasury on the 1st of October last, was $69,428 45. The nett profits of the bank for the past year, including $95,000 as arrears derived from business of former years, was $364,825 59. From this amount there has been transferred to the Sinking fund $243,158 91, and been paid $73,453 11 for interest on the debt in Europe, and the balance that the Bank was in advance for interest and expenses; also the interest on the 6 per cents, (Fire Loan,) amounting to $48,179 99. The aggregate funds of the Bank, on the 1st of October, were...... $6,353,660 06 Leaving the sum of, as the surplus of funds in Bank....... REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES OF STATE PRISONS. $3,582,725 20 We give below an abstract of the annual revenues and expenses of fourteen prisons in the United States for 1848, including, as will be seen, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, and District of Columbia. The table is compiled from official documents, and can be relied upon as nearly correct. OF THE SCARCITY OF SILVER COIN. A correspondent of the Philadelphia North American, furnishes us with some interesting statements connected with the present scarcity of silver coins. The present scarcity of silver coin is very inconvenient, and shows the expediency, if not the necessity, of an alteration of the mint law. The act of 1847, like those it superseded, proceeds upon a false principle, inasmuch as it fixes a relative value between gold and silver coins, at which they are both, or either of them, legal tenders, giving the payer the option of selecting the least valuable coin to discharge his debt, thus forcing the circulation of one metal, and banishing the other from sight. Again-our coins are taken abroad at their intrinsic market value, and consequently the legally undervalued metal is always sought for at a premium for exportation and sale, and this is enough to prevent the banks from issuing a dollar of it more than they can avoid. The intrinsic value of coins constantly fluctuates with the supply of the metal composing them; and since, therefore, the true relative value of gold and silver is always changing, it is absurd to fix an arbitrary legal relative value, which has the effect of making gold coin money, and silver coin a commodity, or the reverse. The fluctuations in the relative value of gold and silver have been greater than is usually supposed. Judging from the English coinage, which, however, is value was, in only an approximation, this The fall in the value of silver from 1546 to 1717, is attributed to the supply from the American mines, and the discoveries in California promise to reverse the movement. By the act of Congress 1792, one oz. of gold was made worth 15 oz. of silver, and the practical result was that until 1834, gold coin was not a circulating currency, but was bought and sold at a premium. The act of 1834 made the proportion 1 to 1 to 16, and that of 1837 made it nearly the same. The relative values of gold and silver in the coinage of England is 1 to 14 28; France, 1 to 15 5 nearly; United States, 1 to 16 nearly. We now have an over valuation of the gold, and this has probably lately been increased by the produce of the Russian and Californian mines. The result is that silver coin is sought for exportation at a premium, and hoarded by the holders to an extent that is becoming very inconvenient to those having payments of wages, or small sums, to make; and as the tendency of the arrivals of California gold is to create a high exchange on Europe, we may expect that silver coin may be banished from circulation, or from the country. On The same results have occurred in other countries from the same causes. the continent of Europe the current coins are silver, gold generally bearing a premium. The British Mint Act of 1846 has remedied the evil for that country by a simple provision making gold coin only a legal tender for more than forty shillings, and silver coins for under that amount, the silver coin being at the same time reduced to weight, to ensure its not being exported. The extent of this reduction, compared to our standard, is shown by the fact that $100 in American gold coin, (containing 2,322 grains fine gold,) would be coined at the British Mint into £20 10s. 11 d., and $100 in our silver coin, containing 37,125 grains of fine silver, would be coined into £22 19s. 104d. of British silver. Gold, therefore, is the legal currency of Great Britain,-silver being plenty for change, and bearing the same relation to gold that copper does with us to gold and silver. It seems clear, that if we make both gold and silver legal tenders, we must make up our minds to do without one of them; but if gold alone is a legal tender, we can have both in convenient use. The alteration proposed would have no effect upon existing contracts, as the standard of gold coin would remain unchanged, and the debtor would not be permitted to pay in the reduced silver coin. DEBT AND FINANCES OF ARKANSAS. It appears from the message of the Governor of Arkansas, that the total value of property in the State, subject to taxation on the 1st day of October, 1848, was $28,904,596. In 1850 it was valued at $34,955,885. Revenue paid into the Treasury in 1848 was $75,174 17; in 1850 it was $93,540 21; showing an increase in wealth and revenue. The State debt, in round numbers, is put down in the message at $2,000,000. The ordinary expenses of the State require an assessment of twenty-five cents on the $100, and for county purposes an equal amount is levied, so that fifty cents on the $100 is the actual tax paid by the citizens of that State for the liquidation of the ordinary expenses of the State Government. To pay the interest on the State debt, and to provide for the payment of the principal, even in the course of twenty years, would call for a tax, which, with the taxes now levied, would amount to one dollar and fifteen cents on every $100 worth of property in the State. Such a tax, says the Governor, "would be a burthen too enormous to be borne by any community, and one to which the people of Arkansas are at this time unprepared to submit." The Governor further and very truly remarks, "this is a dark and gloomy picture of our pecuniary condition; an unenviable position to assign the State." And again he remarks: "We are in debt, we acknowledge the justness of the liability, and frankly say, we are unable to pay; and whatever steps may be taken upon the subject, must be left to future legislation." DEBT AND FINANCES OF TEXAS. By the report of the Controller, made on the 29th August, 1850, it appears that the ostensible, or face value of the whole amount of the public debt filed, and yet to be filed, principal and interest, is $12,322,443 04; the par value of which is $6,818,798 40. This will leave to the State, of the ten millions to be received from the United States, after paying the entire debt, upwards of three millions of dollars. That portion of the debt for which the revenue from customs was specially pledged, amounts to only $868,000, ostensible value, or $611,784 50 par value. JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES. "MANUFACTURE OF PORCELAIN BUTTONS." We published in the Merchants' Magazine for November, 1850, vol. xxiii., page 578, a brief extract from the Staffordshire Advertiser, touching the manufacture of " Porcelain Buttons" which our correspondent, Mr. Thomas Prosser, pronounces to be “altogether erroneous." Mr. Richard Prosser, a brother of the writer, is the inventor of the machinery for the manufacture of certain articles of Porcelain, a circumstance that would seem to give authority to the statements made in the subjoined communication: NEW YORK, December 18th, 1850. FREEMAN HUNT, Esq., Editor of the Merchants' Magazine, New York: SIR-In this November number of your able Magazine, there is an article copied from the Staffordshire Advertiser, on the manufacture of porcelain buttons, which is altogether erroneous, and it may answer a good purpose to have corrected, inasmuch as there is a lementable deficiency of knowledge on the subject of the economy of manufacturing manipulation, both here and in Staffordshire; and few are aware of the immense sums which have been expended foolishly in consequence thereof, in this one branch of a very simple manufacture. It is almost an universal error among those not intimately acquainted with such matters, to suppose, that it must necessarily be economical to make a large number of small articles at a blow; or to perform a great number of operations in one machine, and at one time: nothing can be more fallacious, as the article under consideration has furnished ample proof to those who have tried it on both sides of the Atlantic. Porcelain buttons are by no means new as an article of merchandise, for they were known as expensive curiosities more than eighty years ago; and it is more than sixty-five years since a patent was taken out for making |