The plain halfpence are generally made at Birmingham; and from their thickness, afford a wonderful deception. They are sold, however, by the coiners to the large dealers at about a farthing each, or 100 per cent. profit in the tale or aggregate number. These dealers are not the _utterers_; but sell them again by retail in _pieces_, or _five-shilling papers_, at the rate of from 28_s._ to 31_s._ for a guinea; not only to the Smashers, but also to persons in different trades, as well in the Metropolis as in the Country Towns, who pass them in the course of their business at the full import value. Farthings are also made in considerable quantities, chiefly in London, but so very thin that the profit upon this species of coinage is much greater than on the halfpence, though these counterfeits are not now, as formerly, made of base metal. The copper of which they are made is generally pure. The advantage lies in the weight alone, where the _coiners_, _sellers_, and _utterers_, do not obtain less than 200 per cent. A well known coiner has been said to finish from sixty to eighty pounds sterling a week. Of halfpence, two or three persons can stamp and finish to the nominal amount of at least two hundred pounds in six days. When it is considered that there are seldom less than between forty and fifty coinages or private mints, almost constantly employed in London and in different country towns; in stamping and fabricating base silver and copper money, the evil may justly be said to have arrived at an enormous height. It is indeed true that these people have been a good deal interrupted and embarrassed from time to time, by detections and convictions; but while the laws are so inapplicable to the new tricks and devices they have resorted to, these convictions are only _a drop in the bucket_: while such encouragements are held out the execution of one rogue only makes room for another to take up his customers; and indeed as the offence of selling is only a misdemeanor it is no unusual thing for the wife and family of a culprit, or convicted _seller_ of _base money_ to carry on the business, and to support him luxuriously in Newgate, until the expiration of the _year_ and _day's_ imprisonment, which is generally the punishment inflicted for this species of offence. It has been already stated [_page_ 16, &c.] that trading in base money has now become as regular and systematic as any fair branch of trade.-- Certain it is, that immense quantities have been regularly sent from London to the Camps during the summer season; and to persons at the sea-ports and manufacturing towns, who again sell in retail to the different tradesmen and others who pass them at the full _import_ value. In this nefarious traffic a number of the lower order of the German Jews in London assist the dealers in an eminent degree, particularly in the circulation of bad halfpence.