American lawyer to be acquainted with the history and details of com merce, and, indeed, with all subjects of a mercantile character, as they are all more or less interwoven with the legal business of the country. Numerous facilities are afforded for remedying the difficulty where it exists, and no adequate excuse can be offered for the want of such knowledge. Elementary works exist upon every branch of the subject, which, in connection with the able publications which appear monthly, treating it more in detail, are fully adequate to supply any deficiency. The perusal of these works and publications, at the same time they qualify a lawyer for the better and more able discharge of his duties, would afford relaxation from the severer studies imposed upon him by his profession. The proverb, that the "lady common-law must lie alone," if it ever was, is now no longer true. The day has gone by when the advocate must be a mere lawyer. If he seeks to discharge, faithfully, ably, and discreetly his duties--to become able and distinguished, he must place no limit to his knowledge. "A lawyer professeth true philosophy, and therefore should not be ignorant of beasts, fowls, creeping things, nor of the trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall." Art. IX.-UNITED STATES' BRANCH MINT AT NEW ORLEANS. THE United States' Branch Mint, at New Orleans, is situated on what was once called Jackson Square, being nearly the former site of Fort St. Charles. It is an edifice of the Ionic order, of brick, plastered to imitate granite, having a centre building projecting, with two wings. It is strongly built, with very thick walls, and well finished. Its interior arrangements are spoken of by Norman,* as "such as not to discredit the distinguished engineer who planned them." The total length of the edifice, is 282 feet, and the depth about 108; the wings being 29 by 81, and the whole three stories in height. It was began in September, 1835, and the building was perfectly completed at a cost of $182,000. The square in which it is built, is surrounded by a neat iron railing, on a granite basement. The coinage of 1844, was, of gold, $31,010: silver, $1,198,500; making in all $4,208,500.† The following account of the process of coinage in the Branch Mint of the United States, at New Orleans, was prepared by Dr. D. L. Riddell, an officer therein. As it is drawn up by an intelligent gentleman, practically acquainted with the details of coinage, we have deemed it worthy of transfer to the pages of the Merchants' Magazine : ACCOUNT OF THE PROCESS OF COINAGE IN THE BRANCH MINT AT NEW ORLEANS. Silver and gold are coined at this mint into dollars, halves, quarters, dimes, halfdimes, eagles, half-eagles, and quarter-eagles. Gold is presented to us in the form of foreign coin, bars, dust, and old jewelry; the most abundant foreign gold coins being English sovereigns, French napoleons, patriot doubloons, and the coinage of different German states; while the unwrought gold is principally from the state of Alabama. Mexican dollars constitute the greatest bulk of the material for silver coinage. * Norman's New Orleans and Environs. + For statistics of coinage, at the Branch Mint at New Orleans, etc., for a series of years, see Merchants' Magazine for March, 1844, Vol. X., No. 3, page 248. Any person bringing good precious metal to this mint, for coinage, is entitled to receive back, in American coins, exactly the same amount of fine gold or fine silver which he brings, without deduction or expense; the United States government taking upon itself the expense of coinage. If the bullion, containing both gold and silver, require the operation of parting, or, if toughening be required, then the actual expense of these operations is deducted from the value of the bullion, in favor of the government. Bullion is received by the treasurer, weighed in presence of the owner by the weigher, who gives a receipt for the actual weight in troy ounces and decimals. If it consist of mixed coins, or various bars, it is sent into the melting department, placed in a red-hot, clean black-lead pot, melted, stirred up and mixed, and cast into a homogeneous bar. It is next given to the assayer, who cuts off a piece of the bar, rolls out the piece, clips it with shears, and weighs out exactly 1000 milligrammes thereof, which he wraps up in lead, and places upon a white hot dish of bone earth: the whole melts, and, oxidizing, everything present is usually absorbed by the bone earth but the silver or gold. If pure silver alone remain, its weight in milligrammes shows how many thousands fine the bullion is. The result is, however, corrected by what is called the humid assay, which depends on a definite precipitation of chloride of silver, from a solution of nitrate of silver, by definite measures of a solution of common salt of known strength. If the assay be one of gold, after the buttota of metal has been removed from the bone earth, it is melted with about three times its own weight of pure silver, the alloy is rolled out and repeatedly subjected to the action of hot nitric acid, which dissolves and removes the silver, but leaves the gold. The latter is carefully washed, dried, annealed at a red heat, and subsequently weighed in milligrammes, by which the proportion of gold in 1000 parts is made apparent. With these data, the assayer then estimates the value of the bullion, whereupon the treasurer, if called upon, promptly pays the amount to the owner. Parcels of bullion, of known value, are, from time to time, delivered and debited to the melter and refiner, who manufactures the same into ingots for the use of the coiner. Upon the receipt of bullion, the melter and refiner assorts the bars into the following classes: A ready to be made directly into ingots; B requiring to be toughened; and C requiring separation. A. A melt is made by arithmetical calculation, from bars of the class A ; some above, some below standard in title, so that the result of melting and mixing may produce ingots 900-1000ths fine. In case of silver, about 7,000 troy ounces, equal to 480 lbs. avoirdupois, are melted in a large cast-iron pot, or crucible, surrounded by a charcoal fire, in a wind, or draft furnace; and when the whole is in a state of fusion, the mass is diligently stirred, and then, by hand, laded out and poured into smooth iron moulds, making slim ingots about 16 inches long. Gold is in like manner melted and cast into ingots in black-lead pots, each holding about 1600 ounces, near 110 lbs. avoirdupois. The assayer next ascertains that the ingots cast are of the legal fineness required; if not, they are condemned, and have to be remelted. B. Bullion, containing anything but gold, silver, and copper, usually requires to be toughened, an operation commonly performed in the mint by repeatedly casting nitre upon the surface of the melted metal, stirring it about, and then skimming it off, with the dross from the base metal contained. C. The mint processes followed for the separation of alloyed gold and silver, are as follows: in the first place the mixed bullion, if required, is melted with additional silver, so that the alloy may contain about three times as much silver as gold; the melted metal is poured in a small stream from a height of a few feet into cold water, by which means it is obtained in a finely granulated condition; the granulated metal, placed in a glass mattress, supported upon a sand-bath, is boiled with nitric acid, which dissolves the silver, but leaves untouched the gold in the form of a dark power. The dissolved silver is poured into a tub of strong brine of common salt, by which it becomes converted into a white powder, the chloride of silver. After repeated washing, the chloride of silver is subjected to the joint action of metallic zink and hydrogen gas, by which means it becomes changed to pure, finely-divided, solid silver. After being washed and dried, it is melted with nitre and borax, and cast into bars. The dark powder of gold is also carefully washed in hot water, dried, and in like manner cast into bars. Consequent upon these operations, more or less gold and silver becomes mixed with ashes, dross, dirt, etc. All these matters are finely grounded and washed, smelted, etc., for the extraction of the precious metal. But there will still remain a valuable residue, for which reason the sweepings are ultimately treated like poor gold or silver ores, metallurgic operations, the performance of which have heretofore not been allowed in this mint. The sweepings are, in fact, sold abroad. The gold and silver ingots, cut and trimmed, and their fineness or quality approved by the assayer, are next transferred by weight, through the treasurer's office to the coiner. In the coining department, they are repeatedly passed lengthwise between smooth and powerful iron rollers, being annealed from time to time in a large annealing furnace, until, by the compression, the metal assumes the form of long, thin strips, the thickness of which approximates to that of the coin to be manufactured. The annealed strips, covered with a thin coating of wax or tallow, are then taken to a Burton's drawing machine, where, being drawn between polished steel surfaces, on the principle of wire-drawing, the thickness is reduced exactly to the extent required. To attain this nice result, the steel surfaces are adjustable, and trial pieces are punched out and weighed. The drawing machine, as here arranged, is an admirable piece of mechanism. If the strip be drawn a fraction too thin, which seldom happens, it is condemned and returned through the treasurer's office, with all the residual clippings, to the melter and refiner, who consigns the whole to the melting pot. The approved strips are next submitted to the action of a circular punch, which, at the rapid rate of one or two hundred per minute, cuts out the planchets or blank pieces of the required size for the coin intended. A most curious mechanical process is that next in order, raising milled edges upon the planchets. They are rolled with great velocity edgewise between approximating circular steel surfaces, so that raised edges are produced at a rate, depending upon the size of the pieces, from one to seven hundred per minute. All the form-changing operations are now completed, preparatory to the actual coinage.-Annealing and cleaning have next to be attended to. The planchets, with wax or tallow still adherent, are now heated to a dull redness, in iron recipients placed in the annealing furnace, and poured, hot as they are, into a tub of diluted sulphuric acid, by which means all impurities are removed from their surfaces, the alloyed copper superficially dissolved away, and the clear, beautiful, dead white appearance of pure unburnished silver is elicited. Adhering acid is washed away in water, and adhering water dried away by hot mahogany sawdust, in an ingenious rotating apparatus heated by steam, invented by the present coiner. COINING. The coining process consists essentially in compressing the prepared gold or silver blank, with very great force, between engraven dies of steel, of extreme hardness and high polish. The dies are prepared for this mint by impression from male dies at the mint in Philadelphia. The letter O, placed usually under the eagle, is intended to designate the coinage at New Orleans. In times of old very simple means were used in the process of stamping money, such as blows by a hammer, or compression by a plain, ordinary iron screw-press, the whole being performed by human labor. Coining in Mexico, South America, and many other parts of the world, is said to be still conducted according to the latter method; but here, as in England, France, and elsewhere, the machinery for rolling, drawing, punching out, milling and coining, is driven by steam, and the coining presses in use are models of the great excellence to which the mechanic arts have attained. There are four presses in the coining-room, forming a series, in respect to size and strength, adapted to the stamping of the various coins, from the half-dime to the dollar. The mechanical principle brought into play is the same as that in the ordinary printing-press-the genicular or elbow power, by which, with sustaining parts of sufficient strength, an almost incalculable degree of pressure may be commanded. Each operating press requires a man to watch it, to oil the joints occasionally, and to keep a vertical brass tube supplied with the blanks or planchets to be coined. The untiring press goes on, seizing with iron fingers from the tube, a planchet of its own accord, carefully adjusting it to the retracted dies, squeezing it with a degree of force sublime to contemplate, and then quietly and safely depositing it in the box placed to receive it. From eighty to one hundred and fifty pieces, dependent upon the size, are thus coined in one minute's time. The obverse, reverse, and indented work upon the edge, are all completed at a single effort of the press. Travel the world over, and you can scarcely meet with a more admirable piece of massive mechanism than the new press in the New Orleans mint, for the coinage of dollars. Though stamped and perfectly finished, gold or silver does not legally become money until the coiner has formally delivered it, by counting and weighing, over to the treasurer. It must be seen that the pieces possess the weight required by law. If any prove too light upon trial, a circumstance that rarely happens, such are defaced and condemned to be remelted. All nations that aim to preserve what is called public faith, are religiously scrupulous to maintain, as far as practicable, the weight and quality of their national coins, in correspondence with the legal standards which they fix upon. Acting with this view, our government has established an annual trial before special commissioners, to test and verify the standard value of the coins of the preceding year. This trial is held at the parent mint, in Philadelphia. Subservient thereto, is the assayer's duty to select assay coins indiscriminately from every parcel delivered by the coiner to the treasurer. The coins by him selected are properly labelled and formally placed in a tin box, secured by two locks, the key to one of which is kept by the assayer, the key to the other by the treasurer. The contents of this box are transmitted by the superintendent, through the Secretary of the Treasury, to the director of the mint at Philadelphia, for the annual trial. The coinage of this mint has thus far been approved, but it is worthy of remark that the average fineness of the gold coins issued is a trifle better than the mean standard contemplated by law-the average value of a New Orleans eagle being about three-fourths of a cent greater than similar coins from the mints at Charlotte, Dahlonega or Philadelphia* MERCANTILE LAW CASES. LIBEL FOR WAGES. IN DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, MAINE DISTRICT, NOVEMBER 4TH, 1845-wILLIAM SMITH, LIBELLANT, v8. HIRAM TREAT. THE arrest and imprisonment of a seaman in a foreign port, and the sending him home by a public authority as a prisoner charged with an indictable offence, does not necessarily constitute a bar to a claim for wages for the voyage. Such proceedings do not preclude the Court from inquiring into the merits of the case, and making such a decree as the justice of the case requires. The master is not ordinarily justified in dissolving the contract of a seaman, and discharging him for a single fault, unless it is of a high and aggravated character. The causes for which a seaman may be discharged are ordinarily such as amount to a disqualification, and show him to be an unsafe and unfit man to have on board the vessel, The libellant shipped as a seaman, April 25, 1845, on board the brig Benjamin, at Frankfort, for a voyage to some port in the West Indies and back, for wages at the rate of $15 per month. The brig returned August 17th, and the libellant claimed wages for the whole time; the balance due being $42 50, one month's wages having been advanced at the time of shipping. D. L. SWEAT for the libellant: A. HAINES for the respondent. WARE, District Judge. The libellant in this case went and returned in the brig, and it is not denied that full wages are due to the termination of the voyage, unless they were lost or forfeited by what took place at Point Petre, the port of discharge. The affair which is relied on as a forfeiture, or more properly as a bar * New Orleans Picayune, November 8th, 1845. to the claim for wages, took place on the 21st of May, while the crew were discharging the cargo. The captain being at that time on shore, the men, under the orders of the mate, were making up a raft of lumber to be floated on shore, when a difficulty arose between Tappan the mate, and Hadley one of the crew. While the mate was below making up his account of lumber discharged, he heard a noise on deck, and came up to put a stop to it. He found it was made by Hadley, who was on deck, passing off lumber, to make up the raft, Smith, the libellant, being at work with him. He ordered Hadley to stop his noise, or go below. Hadley, who had been drinking pretty freely, but not so as to render him incapable of work, replied that he would not go below for him nor for any other man. Tappan rejoined, that if he continued his noise he would put him below, and Hadley again replied, that neither he nor any other man could put him below. Tappan then called to the second mate, who was on the raft, to come on deck, and assist in putting Hadley below, whose noise then had attracted the attention of persons near the vessel. Smith, who was at work with Hadley, and to whom nothing had been said, then interposed, and said to the mate, "if you put one below you must put all hands below." The difficuly, however, subsided without any act of violence, and the men returned to their work, and continued quiet for an hour, or an hour and a half, when Hadley again became noisy. It is not easy, from the varying accounts of the witnesses, to determine the precise facts which took place after this time, or the exact order in which those occurred, in which the accounts of all the witnesses agree. The noise appears to have commenced between Hadley and Smith, who were at work together; Tappan, the mate, interposed to stop it, and an affray took place. Tappan knocked down Hadley with his fist; Smith interfered and gave a blow to Tappan, and they clenched. While they were clenched Hadley got up, and some of the witnesses say that he stood by and looked on, without taking a part. But Harrison, the second mate, who at this time came on deck, says, that both Smith and Hadley were upon the mate, and had got him upon a barrel; that, as he was going to his relief, Hadley leit Tappan and came towards him; that he avoided and passed him, and that he, Hadley, followed him as much as twenty-five feet, towards the pump; that he then took a pump-brake, and that Hadley then struck him with his fist, and he then gave him a blow on the head with the pump-brake, which brought him partly down, and then another that brought him to the deck; that he then went to Tappan, whom Smith had down and was beating. He told Smith to let Tappan alone, but he refused and told Harrison not to strike him. Harrison then gave him three blows with the pump-brake, before he brought him down, and then turned to Hadley, who had got up and fallen over the deck into the water. He then went on to the raft, and got Hadley out of the water, and when he came on deck, Tappan and Smith were again clinched. At this moment, the captain came on board, and put an end to the affray. The blows given to Hadley proved mortal, and he died the following night. Smith was arrested that night and confined in prison, and sent home in irons by order of the American Consul. He was indicted at the adjourned term of the Circuit Court, on a charge of stirring up the crew to resist the officers of the vessel, and was acquitted of the charge by the jury. Such are the most material facts, as nearly as I can recollect them from the testimony, which, though not in all respects quite contradictory, is not, in all its parts, exactly reconcilable. One month's wages, covering the whole period of his service, previous to his arrest and imprisonment, had been paid in advance, and the libellant now claims wages to the termination of the voyage. For the respondent, it is contended that the misconduct of Smith, followed by his arrest and imprisonment, and his being sent home by the public authority in chains as a criminal, is a conclusive bar to any claim for wages beyond what have been paid. This court, I hold, is not excluded by any of the proceedings at Point Petre, from inquiring into the merits of the case, and making such a decree as, on the whole, right and justice may require. The libellant was tried and acquitted on the criminal charge, and even if he had been convicted, this would not have been a bar to the present suit.* His claim stands entirely unprejudiced by any of the * Mason's Reports, 84: The Mentor. |