HOW THE BANK OF ENGLAND IS GUARDED.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 209, 2 September 1911, Page 16

HOW THE BANK OF ENGLAND IS GUARDED.

(By GEOFFF.EX OWEN.). The announcement that the guard for the Bank of England is to be provided till further orders by a detachment of the 3rd Coldstream Guards from the Tower of London, instead of by the Guards at Chelsea or Wellington Barracks, recalls the fact that only once in her .history, cow extending over 200 years, lias " the Old Lady of Threadneedle-street" been in danger of being raided. That was during the time of the Gordon riots in 17S0. Since then the Bank of England has been carefully guarded by day and night. During the day the entrance to the Bank is watched by beadles wearing cocked hats and red gown*, and the greatest care is exercised to see that only those on business are admitted within •the precincts of the establishment. Every Eight there are a hundred people on duty in the Bank, and a detachment of armed Guards is posted every evening to keep watch while London sleeps. The soldiers number in nil thirty-four, of whom two are sergeants, two corporals. twenty-nine privates, and one drummer-boy, under the command of a subaltern. The sentries are posted chiefly in the rooms Inside the Bank. One of thern. however, paces up a::d down one of the courts, and another is posted in a circular hall called the "rotunda." These sentries are increased in the middle of the night, and remain on duty till the departure of tie picket. The officer goes his "rounds" at sea in summer and even in winter. For the convenience of those on duty at the Bank during the night there is a small canteen. The caterer who runs it exposes his materials for supper in a cellar-like recess in the wall of a dark passage, which leads to regions unexplored. He invariably has a good stock of eatables, together with a cask of porter, and does a brisk business till near midnight, when he departs. The regulations provide that no more than two pints of stout shall be drunk by one man. Of course there have been numerous attempts of one kind and another to rob the Bank of some of Its rich stores of gold, and many tales are told of lives spent in planning a successful entry. The most curious on record, however. Is that of a man who for months had secret entry to the vaults and never touched a penny. Ills secret was disclosed in a curious way. The directors were startled one day to receive an invitation to meet an unknown man In the strongroom of the Bank at midniirht. "You think you is all safe hand you bank his scaf. but 1 knows better," he wrote. "I bin hinside the Bank thee last 2 nite hand yon nose nuffin about it. But I am nott a theaf so hif yer will xnett mee in the great squer room with all the monelys. at twelf -2 nite, lie explain orl to yon, let only than 2 cum down, and say nuffin to nobody." The strong room was guarded next night by police, in spite of a disposition to regard the letter as a hoax, and—nothing happened.

The next phase of the mystery was more astonishing than ever. A heavy chest of papers and securities taken from the strongroom arrived at the Bank, with a letter complaining that the directors had set the police upon the writer, and that he had therefore, not appeared as he promised; but to prove that he was neither a thief nor a fool he sent a chest of papers he had taken from the Batik. Let a few gentlemen be alone in the room, and he would jotn them at midnight, said the writer, and to cut 6hort a long and strange chapter of Bank history, a man with a dark lantern burst into the strong-room of the Bant at midnight after calling from behind the stone walls for the directors to pot out the lights. He was one of a strange class of men who gained a living by searching the sewers at night, and through an opening from- a sewer he nad found his waj Into th e richest room in the worldl