The police have detected and punished a very dangerous method
of debasing coin. James Clifford, formerly employed at Wool- wich, had learned how to take away gold from a sovereign by an electro process, and had employed his knowledge on a great scale. He could reduce a sovereign by two shillings, and yet leave it so perfect that the fraud could only be detected by weighing. The magistrate, as Clifford himself said in his defence, could not tell the difference between the whole and the sweated coin. Every sovereign thus treated was paid away for supplies, and the change then exchanged for more gold. The man made an extremely clever defence, which, however, betrayed the curious ignorance of econo- mics common in his class. He said light silver was tolerated, and he could not see why there should be a different rule for gold. The idea that a silver coin is really only a token, and not legal tender above twenty shillings, had clearly never reached him. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour, surely a light sentence, when Davies, the man accused of habitually steal- iug silk from Messrs. Leaf to support his mistress, received one of seven years' penal servitude. It is not well to teach the criminal class that robbing the State is a leas offence than robbing the individual.
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